Matilde

“ Then, at last, other feet were on the threshold, stumbling, shuffling, ill-shod feet of men bearing a burden. In that city, one may not lie in his home more than one day after he is dead. They set down what they bore, beside the couch, and waited, and the woman saw their questioning faces and heard them whispering. Then one of them, with some reverence and gentleness, thrust his arm under the low pillow, and with his eyes bade another lift the feet. But Matilde rose then and came between them and the dead. ”

“ The cardinal was deeply engaged in other matters, and was, moreover, not at all a man of business. He believed Gregorio to be honest, and now and then, when he talked with Veronica, he applauded her wisdom in leaving the management of her affairs in such experienced hands.
Matilde unlocked her door when she felt that she was once more mistress of herself and able to face the world. A woman does not lead the life she had led for years without at least knowing herself well and understanding exactly how far she can rely upon her face and voice. ”

“ Did you say four thousand or five thousand?"
"Only three," answered the young girl, rapidly pacified. "Three thousand, if you please. Thank you very much, Aunt Matilde! A woman always understands a woman in questions of charity. One wishes to act at once. Thank you."
And in order to end an unpleasant situation, she nodded and left the room. Husband and wife waited a moment after the door was closed. Then Matilde, before Gregorio could speak, went and opened it suddenly and looked out, but there was no one there. ”

“ The waters smiled; in the park the silver, smooth leaves of the magnolias, the silky-whiteness of the roses, the tops of the cannas and laurels glittered in luminous points of light. The darkness fled away into the depths of the thickets, forming dense, impenetrable masses. Soon the moonlight began penetrating these also, as the moon rose higher in the azure vault, scattering golden rays.
Matilde, who was reminded by everything in heaven or on earth of Sabas, thought that it was now time to get his bed ready for him, and asked us to come into the house. Isabelita did not wish to go so soon. ”

“ For the present he can only speak with you through Giuditta Astarita, who is now asleep."
"Is she asleep?" asked Matilde.
"She is in a trance," the voice replied. "I speak through her, but when she awakes, she will not know what I have said. The spirits come to her directly sometimes, when she is awake, and they torment her. Bosio has been coming to her often, and has made her suffer, until she wrote to you. The spirits themselves suffer when they wish to communicate with the living, and cannot."
"What are you?" inquired Matilda. ”

“ Whatever Bosio's true relations with Matilde had been in the course of the last ten years, he had at least loved her faithfully, with the complete devotion of a man who not only loves a woman, but is morally dominated by her in all the circumstances of life. ”

“ Was it really Matilde? I was not long in finding out.
I reached Valencia before dark. After leaving my things at the inn, I hired a conveyance to take me out to Cabañal, where I knew that Martí was now installed. I was anxious to consult with him about my plans. As I drew near the country house I felt my heart beating violently. This roused anew my sentiment of honor. "Are we like this?" I said to myself scornfully. "While thinking of binding yourself by a sacred fetter, of offering yourself to an innocent young girl, you cannot control your impulses! ”

“ When Matilde came down after getting her children to bed, in order to get out of this scarcely decent situation, and also to rid myself a little of the sadness that overpowered me, I proposed that we take a turn in the park. The proposition met with favor, and Cristina was the first to accept it, rising from the sofa where she had been sitting. But Castell said, with his usual decision:
"I don't feel equal to it. It is much too damp in the park at this hour."
Cristina turned and sat down again beside him.
"We are not so much in fear of dying, are we, Matilde?" I said smiling. ”

“ The winds fell, the waves became tranquil, and he said to me affably:
"You are going to dine on a paella to-day. I know it already from Cristina. My sister has a cook who stews like an angel."
Matilde finished sewing on the button. When she lifted her head I saw tears in her eyes.
Sabas gave the signal for starting, but first he sent his good lady to find his gloves, to bring his stick, and then his handkerchief. He drenched it with scent from a perfume bottle, gave the last polish to his shoes, and a few touches of the comb to his whiskers. ”

“ If Bosio has been in love with me so long as you say, he will remain in love long enough for me to think over the matter, will he not? If he has been in a state of anxiety for weeks, it will not hurt him to be anxious for one day more—or a week more—or even a month. After all, it is for all my life, you know, Aunt Matilde. I must see how the idea looks when I am used to it. I am not a child, and I am not foolishly frightened at the idea of being married, nor out of my mind with joy at it, either, like a girl of the people. ”

“ The naturalism of Matilde Serao deserves to be distinguished from that of the French contemporaries with whom she is commonly classed. She has a fiercer passion, more of the true ardour of the South, than Zola or Maupassant, but her temperament is distinctly related to that of Daudet. She is an idealist working in the school of realism; she climbs, on scaffolding of minute prosaic observation, to heights which' are emotional and often lyrical. ”

“ From this we went on to talk of his life and his tragic end in the flower of his youth, for he was not yet twenty-eight years of age when he voluntarily quitted this world.
"And why did he kill himself?" asked Matilde.
"For that which men usually kill themselves, for—a woman!" answered Martí, laughing.
"I believe you! When they don't kill themselves on account of money," exclaimed the young wife, showing herself a trifle annoyed. ”

“ You are going to press the hand of a friend, to make him your confidant, your kinsman, while still your spirit is not cleansed of traitorous thoughts!"
The family was assembled in the dining-room. I observed at once a certain sadness and unusual gravity on their faces. They all wore long faces, filled with a consternation that alarmed me excessively. Martí embraced me, however, with his accustomed cordiality, showing sincere delight at my arrival. I gave my hand to the others and, coming to Matilde, I said to her, without stopping to think:
"So you are a widow? I saw your husband in a station. ”

“ Assured of Silvain’s safety, she relapsed into her ordinary cold manner, and infused some slight touch of the most irritating compassion for the man who had sought to avenge a woman’s wrongs without being able to do so effectively. She alluded to Adair as one who was so evidently Silvain’s superior, both in intellect and physical prowess, that the latter must avoid annoying him for the future, and must leave Mary (or Matilde, as she would still be to Silvain) to protect herself in the best way a helpless girl might. ”

“ At sight of her husband she groaned wrathfully, and started towards another door to try to get away again. Cristina tried to detain her.
"Let me go!" she cried madly; "I don't wish to see him."
"Matilde, for heaven's sake!" cried Cristina, embracing her.
"Let me go, let me go! Everything is over between us two!"
Then the fugitive, standing in the middle of the room, showed that his strength was leaving him. He put his hand feebly to his forehead, his legs doubled under him, and, taking just enough steps towards a sofa to reach it, he fell across it in a swoon. ”

“ From the beginning of our talk I had felt the eyes of Cristina resting upon me. Now I saw her rise hastily and go to the piano to conceal her emotion. Doña Clara, Matilde, and Isabelita applauded. Emilio, laughing, threw his arms about my neck.
"What warmth, what enthusiasm, Captain! I am a man essentially practical, and not in the least able to argue with Enrique; but you have answered him, and said things very agreeable, and very fine, and, what is rarer, you know how to say them very well." ”

“ He still longed for her presence, but with a gentler longing. He drummed a march on the window-pane, recalling the moment when she had entreated him not to embrace her “for her love’s sake,” and he, obedient as a child, had desisted. Lucia, his Lucia, should be loved in so many ways; with passion, but with the utmost tenderness; with youthful ardour, but with reverence. ”

“ Does this Andrea love you?”
“I think so.”
“Do you love him?”
“I think I do.”
“Love is sorrow; marriage is an abomination, Caterina.”
“I hope not,” replied the other, with clasped hands and bowed head.
“I shall never marry, no, never,” added Lucia, drawing herself up and raising her eyes to heaven, in the pride of her mysticism.
The violet twilight deepened. ”

“ Lucia reigned, beautiful and cruel, not bending her eyes on those who wrung their hands, nor hearing their groans, her eyes half closed so that she might not see, her ears unheeding; contemplating herself, adoring herself, making an idol of herself. ”

“ There isn't a man in the Peninsula who has lost more buttons than you! Yet I could not mention one of having gone to your house and not finding Matilde sewing on some."
Sabas muttered some unintelligible words.
"What does she say?" asked Martí.
"Yes, he loses enough!" said the plump lady, laughing.
But her husband, coloring, gave Martí a severe glance.
"If he loses as many as there are in the world," interrupted Doña Amparo, from her little red-satin elbow-chair, "buttons are not everlasting, and I believe that my son would rather go like Adam than trouble others to sew on his buttons!" ”

“ He grew pale with love, as their row towards Sils Maria, where the two old maids were waiting for them, ended in a gentle movement, that almost seemed a gliding upon the waters. Both more moved than at any other time, more touched in the deepest essence of their souls, by that beautiful hour, by the landscape of peace and grandeur, by the words they had pronounced, by those they had not said, they experienced in every glance they exchanged, in every rare accent and gesture, an emotion they strove in vain to calm. ”

“ The seal of Richard Earl of Arundel, 1330-76, from the engraving in Herald and Genealogist, vol. ii, p. 54, is an example of such beautiful design and execution. [3]
[28]
The small seal of Matilde Fraunceys, relict of Simon Fraunceys, citizen of London, attached to a deed 33 Edward III. [1359] , is a characteristic example of ordinary small well-executed seals prevailing in this century. The engraving is from the Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries, 11th Dec., 1856.
Some families seem to have taken a special pride in their seals. ”

“ Love was over, the lover was dead, and Maria Guasco felt every glory of the senses extinguished within her. If her soul and fibres at Venice and Rome had proved the immeasurable and inconsolable sorrow of her own sentimental and sensual impotence for her delightful lover, never more could she have love and a lover—not even her husband, Emilio Guasco. ”

“ Madonna, who hast not known human love, mercy on her who has learnt to know it, ardent, immense, devouring. O! Madonna, Thou who knowest not desire, mercy on her who has it within her, long, savage, insatiable. O! Madonna, do Thou tell me, shall I give myself to Andrea?”
But Lucia’s passionate eyes were turned in vain on the Madonna: the Virgin continued to consider Lucia who was praying earnestly, and a little woman who was reciting her rosary and beating her bosom, with the same compassionate gaze. Then Lucia recited half the rosary, on that lapis-lazuli fragment of hers. ”

“ Sabas meditated several minutes. And while he meditated, sucking his pipe, his cheeks sunk in a supernatural manner. The energy that he expended upon that tobacco smoke was such that I was persuaded he must be swallowing it.
At the same time the intensity of his reflections influenced in like manner the secretion of his salivary glands.
"Why should you not marry my cousin Isabelita?" he said to me suddenly, with that brusque and peremptory accent which characterizes men who rule their kind by their power of thought.
Isabelita was walking on with Matilde in front of us. ”

“ Caterina mia! For what you have done to me, may happiness be yours! May God’s hand be over your house! May love and joy abide within it! May Andrea ever love you more and more; may he adore thee as the Madonna is adored....”
Caterina signed to her to be silent, for the strain was getting too much for her; they kissed each other over and over again. When they entered the drawing-room, Lucia’s eyes were swollen. ”

“ Caterina, who had listened spell-bound by her sentimental talk, replied: “Cheer up, Lucia; September will soon be here. We shall leave then.”
“What does that matter?” said the other, shrugging her shoulders. “I shall but exchange one sorrow for another. Do you see a little tower yonder, under the Vomero hill? I was christened in that church. In that little church there is a Madonna, all robed in black; her gown is embroidered with gold. She holds a little white handkerchief in her hand; she can turn her eyes in anguish, and in her divine heart of woman and mother, are seven swords of pain. ”