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 her elastic laughter, full of mischief and full of tenderness.
Ah, indeed, old Marchis could call himself a fortunate man!
Fortunate? Yes, he ought to have considered himself so. When he set himself to reason about it, to describe mentally his conjugal situation, he had to conclude that he would have done wrong to complain of his destiny. And yet....
What of the terribly unexpected 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 wish 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 vivid and impetuous joy of the wedding was 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 Gemma, forcing himself to laugh too:
“Take care, now, take care.... The vengeance of the tyrant hangs over you....”
Ah, the poor tyrant, how he loved her! How she had known how to bind him with her little hands, white and perfumed as two lilies. For nothing in the world would he have discovered the truth, changed into certainty his fomenting doubt; so, she had only to ask in order to obtain; for now for him that love of which he doubted, had become his life; and he felt a painful stricture at his heart at the mere thought that a day might come when he would be obliged to refuse her something. Yet that day came. Suddenly, by one of those mysterious complications of business his bank, which until then had gone from triumph to triumph, underwent a violent shock. Not a noisy downfall, one of those open, public ruins, which produce great failures; but one of those deep, intimate secret crises, that must be borne without a word, a lament, under penalty of death; that can be overcome only by force of small privations, little hidden savings; it is then that strict economy in the family becomes necessary. The luxury of Gemma, in those moments, became absolutely ruinous for her husband; he ought to have warned her, sought to check her; he dared not; and continued to content her, but very soon came the time when he could do so no more.
It was on the occasion of a great ball to which she was to go; she had ordered from Paris a marvelous gown that became her to perfection; still she was not satisfied. Some days before, in the showcase of the most fashionable jeweler of the city, a diadem had set in revolution all the feminine imaginations; a superb jewel, of antique style, set in silver gilt, of a starry pallor, where the brilliants seemed drops of flame. 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 snowy profile of an angel in ecstacy.
Ten thousand francs was the price of that jewel; and Marchis did not have them. Mute, immovable, his heart oppressed, he listened to Gemma’s words as she described it to him. How could he tell her, how could he even tell her that he had not the ten thousand francs. It was terrible. To another woman who should have had that caprice, one might have proposed to have her own diamonds reset after that model or perhaps even to have an imitation diadem made; no one would have suspected it; but he felt that the danger lay in confessing his powerlessness. Yet, it must be done.... And he made an effort at courage.
Gemma had 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 from 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 roguish hours. He was silent for a moment; then, fixing a vague look upon the delicate designs of the oriental carpet, paling as if from an inward wound, he murmured:
“The fact is that I do not know.... I do not really know whether ... whether I shall be able to buy it for you....”
“Why?”
She had quickly raised her head, much surprised, uneasy, looking at him. Such a thing had never happened to her.
Marchis wiped his forehead and resumed his discourse.
“The fact is ... you see, in a bank like ours, there are moments that ... certain moments in which one cannot ... in which it is impossible.”
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 was very pale, with a sudden hardness in all her features, in her compressed mouth, in her knit brows, in her sparkling eyes.
“Have you not ten thousand francs? Is it possible?”
And her voice was hard as her look ... a profound hardness that startled him. But all at once her face changed expression, she recovered her fresh, tuneful laugh, the sweet and limpid ray was rekindled in her blue eyes.
“Come you want to tell 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 me 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 this sudden restriction. But meanwhile, every word of hers was a blow to the heart of Marchis; he saw her already at the ball, passing from arm to arm with her step like a flying angel; listening to the insidious compliments of Vico Molise and his kind, and keeping meantime in 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 has made an unequal bargain.
Suddenly he rose, like one who has taken a decision, passed his hand across his brow, and without replying, went away to go out of the house. She believed that she had conquered, and let him go without moving herself, only 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-doors
“We are agreed, then?”
He did not reply; and she heard his step down the stairway, slow, heavy, weary.
* * * *
The evening of the ball, Marchis knocked 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 fire, with the air filled with fragrance from 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 around 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 rosy complexion, as if she were one of those flowers become a person. But under her lashes gleamed anon the flash of cold and cruel rancor.
Her husband had not given her the diadem!
But hearing him enter, she turned, and seeing that he held a casket in his hands, she comprehended everything. With a bound, she was beside him, her arms twined around his neck.
“Oh, how good you are! How good you are! How I love you!” He trembled all over, and was very pale. Gemma did not even perceive it. All at once, with one of her irresistible movements, she loosened her arms from 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. Among puffs of red plush, under the burning light, the diadem sent forth sparks like a flame. She had a new outburst of joy, took the husband’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 mystical jewel.
“Come sir, crown me!”
And while he sought to unite with trembling hands the clasp of the gems among those marvelous blonde curls, waving and breaking into ripples of gold at every movement, she, still with bent head, lifted her smiling eyes to meet his look. And he answered with a resigned 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.
