Short Stories: A Selection of Fiction

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 thusthe 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 moneyshe 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 factforty-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.

Dettagli