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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Short Stories, Vol. V., No. 2, Mar. 1891, by Various
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Title: Short Stories, Vol. V., No. 2, Mar. 1891
A Magazine of Select Fiction
Author: Various
Release Date: June 24, 2019 [EBook #59805]
Language: English
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SHORT STORIES
A MAGAZINE OF FACT AND FICTION
Vol V. No. 2
This magazine is planned to cover the story-telling field of the world. Its selections will be of the best procurable in all the languages.
MAR. 1891
(Italian of Haydée: Translated for Short Stories by E. Cavazza.)
When, before the altar, the priest asked her, “are you content?” it was with all her soul Gemma had responded, “Yes!”
Oh, yes; she was content indeed. Through the cloud of costly lace which enwrapped her in its snowy transparence, she saw the vast church all dotted with lights, resplendent in the dark gleam of mosaics upon golden backgrounds, animated by the slight movement of the very elegant crowd that filled it; lighted by oblique rays descending from the nave, all a glitter of gold, silks and brilliants; and it was her own future that she seemed to see thus—the years of luxury and wealth which her rich marriage was preparing for her. And had it not been the dream for which she sighed? She, the ideal blonde, of eighteen years, with the tall and proud figure; the pure, disdainful profile under heavy curls like those of an archangel; with haughty eyes sparkling like blue gems under the golden fringes of her long eyelashes.
She had been for a long time a poor girl, the daughter of citizens who had seen better days, that marvelous human lily. She had experienced all the petty troubles, all the cruel daily sufferings of misery that conceals itself. The poor and inelegant gowns, painfully remodeled every year; the insolence of creditors; humiliations; continual and tormenting thoughts of money—she had experienced them all, and in her little heart, eager for pleasure and enjoyment, swollen with unsatisfied longings, a dream was arisen little by little, occupying all the room, rendering her insensible to all the rest: the dream of at last becoming rich.
She wanted it, absolutely; she was born for it; she was rich, now. That “yes,” which she had just pronounced, had, by its three magic letters, changed her destiny; and she was so content, so happy, that it appeared to her it was all a dream, that her Mechlin veil was a cloud that transported her into the realms of the impossible, across a sidereal heaven, of which the diamond pins thrust among her laces formed the flaming stars; and, in order to return to reality, she must cast her eyes toward her husband, Luigo Marchis, kneeling beside her, in the mystic, velvety shade of the altar, lit by the tremulous brightness of the candles.
Ah, there was nothing ideal about him, poor fellow! In vain he straightened his correct person of an elegant man, with his accurately shaven face, with slender brown moustaches, and a still fresh color that gave him something the look of an actor; he remained none the less old, with his powerful shoulders a little bent, with his eyelids grown heavy, and crow’s feet toward his temples, with the gray locks that appeared here and there among his brown hair, with his forty-seven years, of which the weariness was more conspicuous beside that radiant and blonde Spring.
Forty-seven years! How was it possible? He felt his heart so palpitating, full of tears as in youth! And he could not comprehend how so much time had passed, he could not persuade himself of the incredible fact—forty-seven years passed without knowing Gemma.
For they had been acquainted with each other only two months. Marchis, however much he had frequented society, drawn there by his banking connections, had never let himself be talked to of marriage. What! A wife, children, troubles, cares, disappointments ... not even by idea!
And at forty-seven years, one evening, present from motives of curiosity at a ball to which the employees of his bank had invited him, he must needs be smitten by the exquisite, vaporous grace of that blonde girl, dressed simply in white, entering on the arm of a funny little man with a baby-face and a big, silvery beard, her father, a modest clerk in the bank, a rather ridiculous little old man who, beside that divine apparition, slender in her robes of snow, made one think of the gnomes of folk-tales, always crouching at the feet of the fairies.
Ah, weakness of hearts growing old! That apparition was enough to shake all the ideas of Luigo Marchis concerning matrimony, and as the old gnome, despite his absolute nullity, was an honest citizen, incapable of resisting the assiduities of the Director to his pretty daughter, the suitor had been greatly pleased with the consent of that little maiden of eighteen, that beautiful creature, that blonde being, to become his wife. Now he trembled with joy; his eyes were misty with vivid emotion—not perceiving that that too was a sign of old age—and it was a voice choked with joy that to the question of the priest, “Are you content?” replied: “Oh, yes.”
Now, it is done. United, forever united. Having arisen to their feet, she with an elegant and light impulse, like a lily, wind-lifted on its stem; he with a little effort and difficulty, wearied by emotion, they go down from the altar arm-in-arm. Now they pass through the church amid the murmurs of compliments which arise amid the shadows of the aisles, among the dull scraping of feet and the rustle of gowns; there on the peristyle, among the white columns, is a living wave of sun and air which comes to meet them, like a recall to real life, outside of the mystic dream of the church, the creaking of the line of carriages that advanced, the slow descent of the steps, with the white train of the bride spreading and dragging upon the stairs, in folds like snow, soft and light; then the carriages depart; they are alone for the first time, in the narrow space of the carriage, which the bridal dress fills with its whiteness, and the bouquet of orange-blossoms with its acute perfume of intoxicating virginity; and it is then that, conquered by the charm of that face, so delicate and proud amid its large pallid curls, by the splendor of those blue eyes, the elderly bridegroom bends over her to kiss her—
“Dear me, dear me....”
And to see the tranquility with which those finely cut, rose-colored lips return the kisses, through the veil, the question arises whether it is the bridegroom that she kisses, or the Mechlin lace, at five hundred the metre.
Ah! there were adorers around that beautiful signora Marchis, so lovely and so young, married to an old man! It was expected that this fortress would be an easy one to conquer. Precisely on her wedding day, Vico Molise, the most elegant and skeptical of the journalists of Upper Italy, had propounded to his friends this theorem:
“Given a beautiful girl, very poor; given that she marries a rich old man; divide the number of his years by that of the hundreds of thousands of lire of which she becomes mistress, and you will have the number of months necessary for her to take a lover.”
And as soon as he could, he began, with many others, to attempt the demonstration of that theorem.
Well, this time the impeccable psychological diagnosis of Vico Molise had been found to fail. Not only, after some months, the beautiful signora Marchis had no lover, but it appeared also that she never was to have one.
Always dressed with an adorable elegance, with a luxury full of good taste, the beautiful Gemma loved to amuse herself, moving freely in that society new for her, finding herself in her right place as a marvelous plant in a vase of valuable porcelain, developing itself in all its splendor. She went to dances, to the theatre, enjoying the plebiscite of admiration provoked by her beauty, coquetting a little with her adorers, fluttering about the fire in order to make them sparkle, her wings of a golden butterfly; but never letting herself be burned.
In the very moment of a declaration, in the midst of one of those waltzes whose notes seem made on purpose to stifle expiring virtue in their serpentine spirals, she cut short her adorer by turning her angelic head, and saying serenely:
“I don’t see my husband.... Look a little where my husband is, if you will be so kind.”
And it was known that her greatest delight was to relate, precisely to her husband, the declarations which she had received. When she came home with him from a ball, all wrapped in the white silken folds of her sortie du bal, with her pure throat, her snowy shoulders that blossomed still more fair from her swansdown boa; when in the evening she met him in the dining-room, still in visiting costume, with her slim waist tightly compressed by an exquisitely elegant gown, with her face animated by the slight excitement which elegant conversation always produces in a young woman, she amused herself immensely in addressing to her husband some of these provoking and roguish phrases:
“You know, I was at Countess Foschis’.... Molise was there, you know.... Always faithful and always in despair.... And also Comelli, he that has such lugubrious gallantry.... He has promised to kill himself for my sake, within a month, we shall see.... Ah! Ah!”
And sitting opposite to him, in a rustle of satin and jet, making shine like two stars the brilliants, large as hazelnuts, which adorned her small ears, she continued to laugh, with
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