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Deceptions

Deceptions image
Parent Issue
Day
27
Month
March
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

When, before the altar, the priest asked her, "Are you content?" it was with all her soul Gemina had responded "Yes!" Oh, yes; she was content indeed. Throngh the cloud of costly lace which enwrapped her in ita snowy transparence she saw the vast church all dotted with lights, resplendent in the dark gleam of mosaics upon golden backgronnds, animated by the slight movement of the very elegant crowd that filled it, lightei by oblique rays descending from the nave, all a glitter of gold, silks and brilliants, and it was her own future that she 8eemed to see thus - the years of luxnry and wealth which her rich marriage was preparing for her. And ha -1 t not been the dream for which shi sighed? She, the ideal blonde, of IJ years, with the tall and proud figure; the pure, disdainful profile under heavy cnrls like those of an archangel, with haughty eyea 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, tb at 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 remorleled every year; the insolence of creditors; humiliations; continual and "torinenting thoughts of inoney - 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 bom for it; she was rich now. That "yes," which she had just pronounoed, had, by its three magie 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 nam - ing 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 mustache, and a still f resh 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 liere 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 feit 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 G-emma. 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 47 years one evening, present from motives of curiosity at a ball to which the employés 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, ilvery 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 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 18, that beautifnl 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 eign 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, f orever 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 effori and difficulty. wearied by emo tiou, they go down f rom the altar arm in arm. Now they pass through the church amid the murmura of compliments which arise amid the ehadows of the aisles, among the dnll scraping of Eeet and the rustleof gowns; thereon the peristyle, among the white columns, is a living wave of sun and air which comes to meet them, like a recall to real h'fe outside of the mystic dreain of the ohurch, 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 filis 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 prond 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 Ups return the kisses through the veil, the question arises whether it is the bridegroom that 8he kisses or the Mechlin lace, at five hundred the meter. ♦ Ah! there were adorers around that beautiful Signora Marchis, so lovely and so young, married to an old man! It was expected that this f ortress would be an easy one to conquer. Precisely on her wedding day Vico Molise, the most elegant and skepticü of the journalists of Upper ltaly, had propounded to his ! friends this theorem: "Given a beautiful girl, very poor; j given that she marries a rich old man; ' divide the number of his years by that J of the hundreds of thousands of lire of j which she becomes mistress, and you ! will have the number of months neces sary for her to take a lover." And as soon as he could he began, with many others, to attempt the demon - stration of that theorem. Well, this time the impeccable pyschological diagnosis of Vico Molise had been fonnd to fail. Not only, after sorae 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 G-emma 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 provided by hei' beauty, coquetting a little with her adorers, fluttering about the fire in order to make them sparklo. her'wingwof a gol dea butterfly, but never letting herself be burned. In the very murnent of a declaration, in the raidst of one of those waltzes whose notes seetn made on purpose to stifle expiring virtue in their serpentine spirals, she cut short her adoi'er by turuing her angelic head and saying serenely : "I don't see my husband. Look a little where iny husband is, if yon 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 blossomsd 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 rogish phrases: "You laiow, 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 kiü Mmself for my sake within a month; weshallsee. Ah! Ah!" And sittingoppositeto him, in a rnstle of satín and jet, making shine like two stars the brilliants, large as hazelnuts . which adornpd her small ears, she continued to laugh, with her elastic laughter, full of mischief and full of tenderness. Ah, indeed, old Marchis could cali himself a fortúnate man! Fortúnate? Yes, he ought to have considered himself so. When he seí himself to reason about it, to describe men tally his conjugal situation, he hr.l to conclude that he would have done wrong to complain of his destiny. Aud yet What of the terribly nnexpected had he now discovered in the depths of the pure sapphire of Gemma's eyes? Was there arisen in his soul the doubt that that faithfulness against every trial, that coldness toward her admirers, was nothing but the wiah to preserve intact a position acquired with difficulty, and that precisely to that position was directed all the tenderness shown toward himself! I do not know, but the vr 'i and impetuous joy of the wedding v' ia no longer in him, although his love remained the same, and a painful doubt thrilled in his voice when he replied to the playful confidence of Gemina, forcing himself to laugh, too. "Take care, now, take care - the vengeance of the tyrant hangsover you" Ah, the poor tyrant, how he lovedher! How she had known how to bind him with her little hands, white and perfumed as ty. o lilies! For nothing in the world wonld he have discovered the truth, changed into certainty his fomenting doubt; so she had only to askin order to obtain; for now for him that love of which he doubted had beoome his life, and he feit a painful stricture at his heart at the mere thought that a day might come when he would be obliged to ref use her something. Yet that day came. Suddenly, by one of those mysterious comphcations of business, his bank, which until then had gone from triniuph to Criomph, underwent a j lent shock. Kot a noiny downfall, one l of those open, public ruins wbich prodace great failures, but one of those i deep, intímate, secret crises that innst be borne without a word, a lanient, under i penalty of death; that can bé overeóme ] only by force of small privations, little hidden savings; it is then that strict i economy in the family becomes necessary. The luxury of Gemma m those ; moments became absolutely ruinous for 1 her husband; he onght to have warned her, sought to check her; he dared not, ' and continued to content her, but very i soon came the time when he conld do so i no more. It was on the occasion of a great ball i to which she was to she had ordered i f rom Paris a marvelous gown that . came her to perfection; still she was not satisfied. Sovne days before, in the case of the most fashionable jeweler of the city, a diadem had set in revolution all the feminine imaginations; a snperb jewel, of antique style, set in silver gilt, i of a starry pallor, where the brilliants '. seemed drops of ñame. Gemma wished to have it, and indeed it would be difficult to find a face adapted to the almost religious richness of that jewel, more than her suowy profile of an angel in ecstacy. Ten thousand francs was the price of that jewel, and Marchis did not have them. State, immovable, his heart oppressed, he listened to Gemma's words as she described it to him. How could he teil her, how could he even teil her that he had not the 10,000 francs! It was terrible. To another woman who should have had tat caprice one might have proposed to have her own diamonds reset af ter that model, or perhaps even to have an imitation diadem made. No one would have suspected it. But he feit that the danger lay in confessing his powerlessness. Yet it must be done. And he mada an effort at courage. Gemma h?.d seated herself beside him, throwing back and bending a little to one side her blonde head with that irresistible feminine movement which displays the white throat, the pure line descending froin the slender neck to the full bloomed bust down to the round and flexible waist. "I would like to have it; it seems to me that I should look well. Don't you think so? I have a great wish to be beautiful. If you knew why?" She laughed now deliciously, with the air of her ro"uish hours. He was silent for a moment; then fixing a vague look upon the delicate designs of the oriental carpet, palng as if from an inward wonnd, he murmured: "The fact is that I do not know - I do not really know whether - whether I shall be able to bny it for you" "Why"' She had quickly raised her head,much surprised, uneasy, looking at him. Such a thing had riever happened to her. Marchis wiped his forehead and resumed his c.iácourse. "The fact is - you see, inabank like ours there are moments that - certain moments in which one cannot - in which it is iinpossible." What was impossible for him, in that moment, was to finish the phrase. He stopped and lifted his eyes timidly to her, desolately, as if to beg her to help him. She wvs very palé, with a sudden hardness in all her features, in her compressed mouth, in her knit brows, in hei' sparkling eyes. "Have you not 10,000 francs? Is it possible?" And her voice was hard as her look - a profound hardness that. startled him. Bit all at once her face changed expression, she recovered her fresh, tuneful langh, the sweet and limpid ray was rekindled in her blue eyes. "Come, you want to teil me stories, so as not to buy me anything. Deceiver! I that wished to be beautiful in order to drive Vico Molise a little crazy; he has declared to ine that he is tired of my perfidy. See, you deserve - do you know that I am becoming angry with you?" She really believed that she had hit the truth with her words. Indeed, he had so well kept up the illusion with her, he had hidden so jealously his embarrassment that she did not know how to explain ttüs sudden restriction. But meanwhüe every word of hers was a blow to the heart of Marcáis; he saw her already at the ball, passing from arm to arm, with her step like a flying angel; listening to the insidióos compliments of Vico Molise and his kind, and keeping meantiine i.i her heart that leaven of rancor against him because of his refusal; and he saw himself again, as he had seen himself a little while before in the mirror, old, weary, worn, beside her so fresh, young, with eyes sparkling from the cruel scorn of one who bas made an unequal bargain. Suddenly he rose, like one who has taken a decisión, passed his hand across his brow, and without replying went away to go out of the house. She believed that she had conquered. and Jt him go without moving herself, or r with a flash of cunning in her eyes, but when he was on the stairs the door opened, a blonde head appeared between the folding uoors: "We are atrreed, then?" He did not reply, and she heard his step down the stairway, slow, heavy, weary. - # The evening of the ball Marchis kuocked at the door of his wife's dressing room. "Come in," and he entered. In the little dressing room so illumined as to seem on flre, with the air filled with fragrance trom the little unstoppered bottle of perfume, all gleaming white with the disorder of feminine apparel scattered about, Gemma stood erect before the mirror, between two kneeling maids, ready dressed for the ball. She was truly radiant in her gown of white satin with almond blossoms, with fresh sprays of almond flowers aroand the neck of the dress, at the waist, among the waving folds of the train, issuing from that covering of delicate, pale, dawn tinted flowers, she, too, was fresh as they, with her faintly roey complexión, as if she were one of those fiowera becóme a person. Bat ander hpr íashee gleamed anón the flash of cold ■ad crael raacor. Her hnsband had not giren her the üaderu. But hearing binx ínter, she turned. ind seeing that he hold a casket in his tiands she comprehended everything. With a bouiid she was beside him, her irms twined around his neck. "Oh, how good you are! How good yon are! How I love yon!"' He trembled all over and was very palé. G-einma did not even perceive it. All at once, with one of her irresistible inovements, she loosened her arms f rom his neck, took with one hand the casket and with the other holding her husband's hand. she led him after her to the mirror. She seated herself and opened the casket. Ajmong poffs of red plush, under the burning light, the diadem sent fortb sparks like a ñame. She had a new ontbarst of joy, took the hnsband's head between her hands, drew it down and kissed his forehead - oh! the forehead of a corpse, icy and livid. Then without looking at his features, his wandering gaze, she offered him the diadem and bent before him her blonde head, which was so well suited to that mr sti cal jewel. 'Come, sir, crown me!" And whüu he songht to rmite with trembling hands the clasp of the geins among those marveloas blonde curls, waving and breaking into ripples of gold at every movement, she, still with her lnt head, lifted her smiling eyes to i : ;r his look. And he answered with a resignad gentleness to the smile of those perilous blue eyes; he, the poor man who deceived for the sake of desire to be deceived, and who bought for himself a.little mock love with - mock diamonds. - Translated for "Short Stories" froin the Italian of Haydee by E. Cavazza.