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'I never play games of chance, observed Sanin. 'Really? Why, you're a paragon. Though I don't either. It's stupid throwing away one's money when one's no chance. But go into the gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are there. There's one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache, simply delicious! Our prince there's another, a good one too.
All of a sudden, an organ-grinder in the street began playing an air from the Freischuetz: 'Durch die Felder, durch die Auen ... The dance tune fell shrill and quivering on the motionless air. Gemma started ... 'He will wake mamma! Sanin promptly darted out into the street, thrust a few kreutzers into the organ-grinder's hand, and made him cease playing and move away.
'What did he say, the wretched creature? asked Sanin, and would have rushed after Klueber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him, not taking away the arm she had slipped into his. The Rosellis' shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
That's out of order. 'I decline my shot, said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the ground. 'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel, cried Doenhof, and he too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared to own that I was in the wrong the day before yesterday. He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went rapidly up to him and shook it.
Sanin found the retired major von Doenhof at home, and in the grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his adversary of bygone days. Doenhof knew him too, and was positively delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades of his youth.
'Luise will run fast, and I can't run, the old man went on in Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water. In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck. 'But meanwhile Emil will die! cried the girl, and holding out her hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O mein Herr! can't you do something for him?
At some of the little tables, groups of visitors were already sitting. While Herr Klueber, yielding condescendingly to 'the caprice of his betrothed, went off to interview the head waiter, Gemma stood immovable, biting her lips and looking on the ground; she was conscious that Sanin was persistently and, as it were, inquiringly looking at her it seemed to enrage her.
And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and his second, Herr von Doenhof and Herr von Richter!
Sanin understood his companion's disposition of mind, and so he did not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most essential. On his side too, Sanin did not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to the principal point that is, he began talking of his intention of selling his estate.
That is rational, declares Sanin; that is the way men and women should live, without principles, without plans, and without regrets. Drunkenness and adultery are nothing to be ashamed of, nor in any sense to be called degrading. Nothing that gives pleasure can ever be degrading. The love of strong drink and the lust for woman are not sins; in fact, there is no such thing as sin.
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