Part 7

“See here!” Biagio Speranza cut short the discussion, becoming fervent. “Be quiet, Carolinona, I will marry you myself.” All burst out laughing.

“What is there to laugh at?” cried Speranza, in earnest. “I am speaking seriously. Are we, or are we not, gentlemen? A hawk, gentlemen, threatens this dove; I will defend her. I shall marry her, I tell you. Who wishes to wager on it?”

“I do; a thousand francs!” suddenly proposed Cariolin. And Biagio Speranza cried as promptly: “Out with your thousand francs!” Then Cedebonis too rose from the table, rubbing his hands with delight: “Excellent! Excellent! Do you wish me to hold the stakes, gentlemen?”

“Out with the thousand francs!” repeated Biagio Speranza more emphatically.

“I have not got them with me,” said Cariolin, feeling in his pockets. “But I give my word. Here is my hand on it. A thousand francs and the wedding breakfast.”

“You will lose!” affirmed Speranza, clasping Cariolin’s hand. “All of you gentlemen are witnesses of the wager: I shall marry Carolinona. Come, come, hush, my betrothed. Dry your tears, smile, look at me! Do you not like me?”

With affectionate violence he drew her fat, puffy hands from her face. Pentoni smiled amid her tears. Applause and cries of “Bravo!” broke forth. Biagio Speranza, growing more and more ardent, embraced his betrothed, who struggled: “In Heaven’s name, let me go! let me go!”

“Let the engaged couple sit side by side!” some of them proposed. “Here, here! at the head of the table!” And Biagio Speranza and Carolinona were escorted in triumph, and made to sit side by side.

Good Martinelli was confounded. His nose seemed to grow visibly. Trunfo continued to sneer. “Rubbish! Rubbish!”

“Are you jealous perhaps?” Biagio cried to him, rising to his feet, and striking his fist on the table. “Will you do me the great favor of stopping that? If you gentlemen believe that at this moment I am jesting, you are mistaken. If you think that I am committing a mad act in marrying Carolinona, I have the honor of telling you that you are crazy yourselves. I, who know my poor clay, am aware that at this moment I am wiser than I have ever been before in my life. I am a poor man, gentlemen, who, as a punishment from God, must fall in love with every beautiful woman I see. In love I at once become capable of the greatest follies. Quite different from Cariolin’s lies. Twice, gentlemen, twice I have been at the point--I shudder to think of it--at the point of really marrying. I must escape as soon as possible, at any cost, from this terrible catastrophe which continually threatens me. I profit by this moment, in which, fortunately, I am not in love, and shall marry Carolinona. A flash of genius, gentlemen. A true inspiration from heaven!”

“It is necessary to see,” objected Scossi, “whether Carolinona consents.”

Biagio Speranza turned toward his betrothed.

“Would you do me such a wrong? To such a good-looking young fellow as me? No, no; you see? My bride laughs, and the world laughs. It is settled, gentlemen!”

At this point Trunfo leaped to his feet, furiously tearing the napkin from his neck.

“Let us make an end to it once for all! This senseless, stupid jest gets on my nerves; this jest on a subject which you do not understand, and which I will tell you about, by Heaven!”

At thought of Trunfo’s matrimonial disaster there was a moment of embarrassment. All the faces became fixed in the act of laughing, then the laughter suddenly ceased.

“Pardon me,” said Biagio Speranza pacifically. “Why do you persist in believing that this is a joke of mine? I know better than you what an enormous folly it is to marry, and repeat that it is to prevent myself from committing such an act that I am marrying Carolinona.”

“The reasoning could not be more logical,” remarked Dario Scossi, again provoking all to mirth. “And I appeal to Cedebonis, professor of logic.”

“Most logical, most logical!” the latter affirmed. “Signor Speranza is, in fact, marrying so to escape the temptation of marrying.”

“Exactly!” replied Biagio Speranza. “And this is no joke. For Carolinona is seriously afraid of the poet Cocco Bertolli, and I am seriously afraid of losing my liberty some day or other. By marrying, we are both saving ourselves; she from that kind of a husband, I from a feared reality of a future wife. Married, we are both of us absolutely free to do whatever we please. She here, and I in my own home. In the eyes of the law, we have but the name in common, which is not properly a name at all, I beg you to observe, gentlemen. Speranza[1], just a common noun; I do not know what to do with it, and I cede it voluntarily. What do you say, Carolinona?”

“As far as I am concerned,” said Pentoni, smiling and shrugging her shoulders, “if you do not regret it--”

New applause, new congratulations, amid bursts of laughter.

The following day the whole city was filled with the amazing news. Biagio Speranza, stroking his fine blond beard with his fat, white hand, laughed with his limpid blue eyes, and from time to time his hand passed quickly, with a gesture habitual with him, from his beard upward and beneath his bold nose. He was most content with the great folly he was about to commit. Folly in the opinion of stupid people, be it understood. He was conscious of acting well. He had thought it over all night long, and had almost died of laughing. “Carolinona, my wife!”

Friends and acquaintances stopped him on the streets. “You are joking, then?”--“No; I mean to marry, really to marry. But as a precaution, you understand? To protect myself from taking a wife, that is all.”--“What! But you _are_ marrying!”--“Why, yes! I shall stay in my own home; I shall do as I please. I shall only go to her home as I do now, to dine. I shall not give her anything except the price of my meals, as usual. Well?”--“And your name?”--“But if she is willing, why not? It does not seem to me such a serious thing.”

And he left his questioner planted there in the middle of the street.

He had an appointment with Dario Scossi at the pension, to go over Carolinona’s papers together. At the pension besides Scossi, a witness for the groom, he found the timorous Martinelli, a witness for the bride, who had come purposely first of all to dissuade Signora Pentoni from lending herself to this highly scandalous proceeding.

“But do you think so?” she had replied, with a sad smile. “They are merry young fellows, let them alone. They were joking, and by this time think no more of it. I, on the other hand, have not been able to close my eyes all last night, thinking of that other in the hospital.”

But at the arrival of Scossi she had been amazed.

“What is this all about? Really? Again?”

Biagio Speranza found her obstinate in her refusal.

“Oh, do not let us have any nonsense,” said he to her. “Do you wish to make me lose the thousand francs of the wager?”

“What thousand francs? Nonsense, say no more about it, Signor Biagio.”

“What?” said the latter. “Did we not come to an agreement yesterday evening? Have you repented? You are then no longer afraid of Cocco Bertolli? You will see that he will seriously wish to marry you then.”

And once more he began to discuss the terms of the bargain, and dilate upon the reciprocal advantages of this marriage, at once serious and burlesque. “We, Carolinona, should not ascribe any importance to this our marriage, is it not so? and therefore for us it is not a serious affair.”

“Now, perhaps not,” remarked Signora Pentoni. “But what if later you repent it?”

“But undoubtedly I shall repent it!” admitted Biagio. “And just when I repent it I shall feel the advantage of it. Do you understand? That is why I am taking this step.”

“You understand then?” said Pentoni in conclusion. “If I offer opposition it certainly is not for myself. What have I to lose by it? I have everything to gain and nothing to lose. While you--”

“Do not think of me,” said Biagio Speranza, cutting short the discussion. “I know what I am doing. Come, let us get on, Scossi, it is getting late. But come then, answer, Carolinona: Name (I know that), paternity--age--place of birth--state; maid, widow, nothing; it is not necessary to tell the truth on this point. But the age, yes, be accurate; I beg of you.”

“Thirty-five,” replied Carolinona.

“There now!” exclaimed Biagio, shrugging his shoulders. “Do not begin at once!”

“Thirty-five, I assure you; I was born in 1865 at Caserta.”

“Good gracious! So you are still young and tender? Oh, my dear! One would never have thought it. And--well, shall we say a maid?”

“Most assuredly, yes, sir!”

“I believe you. Let us then write to Caserta for the birth certificate. Come, Scossi, let us hasten to the City Hall for the announcement.”

III

There were two reasons for hastening this memorable marriage: first, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli was leaving the hospital, cured; secondly, Biagio Speranza had as usual fallen in love in the mean time with a seductive woman. During these days, in order to escape temptation, he walked the streets with his eyes on the ground and his nose in the air.

But the Pentoni had wished for time at least to have a new gown made for the ceremony. White? Oh, no indeed. Modest, suitable to her age, but new. Could she go to the City Hall otherwise? “And what do you care about it?” Biagio had asked her.

“Nothing for my own sake, of course. But for you, Signor Speranza. What would people say?”

“Let them talk. What does it matter to me? Dress as you like. I do not want you to throw away money needlessly.”

And what pains the choice of the gown cost her! Although so long subdued and resigned to her lot, she felt her heart oppressed that day by a strange anguish, which brought to her lips an unusual desire to laugh, to her eyes a longing to weep.

Though without wishing to ascribe importance to this buffoonery, yet the mere idea, the word “marriage,” instinctively awoke in her weary frame a certain sense of her real womanhood; not enough to cause her self-love to rebel against the part she was to play, yet enough to make her feel the bitterness, almost scorn, of it: and so she was to be married as a joke! And she laughed at it with the others, and still more than the others. Bah!

When the wedding day arrived, before the little procession started for the City Hall, for they would not perpetrate the joke in church, Biagio Speranza declared that he did not wish to take the thousand francs of the wager: he did not wish it to be said that this marriage had put money in his pocket; Cariolin should, therefore, buy with it a gift for the bride according to the bride’s own taste.

The bride objected to this. She did not wish anything either. But they all protested, Cariolin more loudly than any, for he had lost the thousand francs, and being at a ball, as the saying goes, wished to dance. “No, no, I will attend to it! I have already thought of something; you will see, Signora Speranza, a fine present, and very useful. Let me attend to it!”

He was in full dress, as he had promised, this tiny Cariolin, and wore an elegant black velvet vest. Scossi, too, was in evening dress. Cedebonis remembering at the last moment that he was professor of philosophy and pedagogy, came in a frock coat. The most dismal of all was good Martinelli, with his shiny coat, his light trousers, and his time-yellowed white cravat. Trunfo was the only one absent from the festive group.

Although the dining-room was all decked with flowers, a present from the boarders, and the long table in the middle was splendidly arranged by two hotel waiters hired for the occasion by Cariolin, who was to pay for the wedding repast, the merriment that each one had promised himself for this great day was lacking. Laughter was forced. How could that Carolinona have chosen material of such an incredible shade for her wedding gown! And why was not Biagio Speranza in evening dress? Good gracious! Was he or was he not going to be married? Biagio Speranza felt a sinking in his stomach, listening to Cariolin’s silly jests, who wished--so Biagio fancied--to avenge himself for the money he had lost, by calling Carolinona “Signora Speranza.” He now wished to get through with the ceremony as soon as possible, that he might think no more of it, that he might think of other things.

“Come, come! Let us get through with it all!”

“Wait a moment,” said Carolinona, her hat already on her head; “I want to take a look at the kitchen--”

There was a general exclamation of horror at so commonplace a thought thus ingenuously expressed at such a moment. Cariolin rushed forward ahead of them all, and, with the gracious bow befitting the conqueror of an Austrian archduchess, offered his arm to the bride.

The ceremony over, Cariolin rushed away to purchase the gift, begging then to wait a little for him before sitting down to the table. He wished to keep the secret absolutely dark.

At table they at last began to be merry. Biagio Speranza, who could now see the end of this carnival, was most gallant to his bride. The dinner was choice, delicious, abundant. With the champagne, toasts began. Toasts of all shades and to every one. Among others, one of Dario Scossi’s to Martinelli’s absent wife was so positively unfortunate that it made Martino, who, contrary to custom, had buried his nose somewhat too deeply in his glass, weep. While they were at table Cariolin’s long-expected gift arrived.

“There’s a couple of porters outside,” one of the hotel waiters announced.--Everybody became interested.--“Porters? So the gift had come in a cart?”--“And what then is the gift?”

They all rose and rushed out into the hall. There stood a magnificent double bed of inlaid wood, with complete furnishings. Biagio Speranza was annoyed.

“What a pity!” cried Carolinona, wringing her hands, sorry that a thousand francs should be so wasted.

But all the others applauded Cariolin’s magnificent idea. Cariolin himself was radiant. “Gentlemen, help me to set up this bed.”

Carolinona interposed, mortified, unhappy: “Where do you wish to put it, Signor Cariolin?”--“Where? In your room?”--“But it would not go in, pardon me. And besides, what do you think I could do with it?”--“Do you ask me?” cried Momo Cariolin.

These last words caused a fresh burst of applause and confused outcries. The pieces of the bed were taken by assault, and carried into Carolinona’s room. Her own bed was quickly pulled apart, and the new one, the nuptial couch, set up in its place.

She laughed, poor thing, at sight of these inexpert men laboring so hard, first at placing the mattress, then the first sheet, the second embroidered one, then putting the pillows in their slips, and finally covering the bed with a splendid silk cover. They were all perspiring. But where was Biagio Speranza? Oh, rascal! He had quietly stolen away.

IV

It was already evening. Carolinona, although tired after the tumultuous day, must spend several hours in putting the house in order. Finally, having dismissed the waiters and cook and sent her own servant to bed, she retired to her room. And the bed? Certainly she was not going to sleep in that new bed. She went and examined it closely, and first passed her hand gently over the pink silk coverlet; but against the soft, delicate, rose-colored material she suddenly noticed how dark her fat hand looked, disfigured by hard work, with short, rough nails, and instinctively she drew it back, murmuring anew: “What a pity!” She stooped down to examine the embroidery of the sheet, but no longer noticed the beauty of the bed; she was thinking of herself, thinking that if she had been pretty this ridiculous marriage would not have occurred; if she had been pretty she would have been married long ago. And yet, how many of her former friends, certainly not prettier than she, had married, and now had homes of their own, position, while she--as a joke--married, and no wife! “Fate!”

She started, looked around; saw in a corner, rolled up, the mattress of her bed, the iron framework leaning against the wall. She stood for a moment perplexed whether or not to call the servant to help her. What should she do? She moved toward the corner where stood the mattress, but passing before the mirror of her wardrobe, she caught sight of herself and paused. From the attentive examination of herself in the mirror there arose in her a lively dislike for the task of making up her bed. No, she would not do it! She would sleep in the armchair. So much the worse for her that at her age, to amuse others, she had lent herself to such folly, ridicule, mockery.

But immediately the instinctive need for excusing herself called up the reasons that had led her to be persuaded; namely, her fear of being bound to that other crazy man, who wished to become her husband by force; the pitying promise which she had allowed her lips to utter that day in the hospital because of having listened to that fool Martinelli. “Bah!” she thought. “And when that crazy man comes out of the hospital furious, he, my husband, will defend me, recognizing the reason for which I consented to play the buffoon.”

She began to unfasten her gown. Suddenly she stopped; it was useless, since she was to sleep sitting in the chair. Another lie this, unearthed to prevent herself from acknowledging a foolish hope which she knew could not be realized even in a dream. She extinguished the lamp, she seated herself in the armchair. Through the silence that reigned in the street below she listened intently, unconsciously. Where was he at this hour? Perhaps in some café with his friends. And she imagined the room of a café, illuminated, and saw them all, her boarders, seated there at little tables, and he was laughing, laughing, and answering witticisms. Certainly her name was in every one’s mouth, and derided. What did it matter to her? She waited for the noisy reunion to come to an end that she might see him alone. Where would he go? Home? Or would he perhaps--perhaps go elsewhere? At this thought she paused, as before an unexpected abyss, taken aback. Why, yes, yes! Was he not absolutely free?

And she was seated there in the armchair. Oh, fool, oh, madwoman! And she found sleep impossible.

V

No, Biagio Speranza had not gone to the café, as Carolinona had imagined.

Annoyed by the jokes of his friends, he had gone home, with the firm determination of setting out for Barcelona the next day, and making an end of it.

He had begun preparing what he needed for the journey, when he thought that he had not enough money for this hastened departure. And then, confronted with this material obstacle, he agreed that, on the whole, flight was not worthy of him. Yes, yes; he had really done wrong to be annoyed, to sneak away thus. And he must not abandon to the wrath of Cocco Bertolli that poor woman who had nothing to do with these pranks, who would keep to her agreement, and would never annoy or molest him; of that he was sure.

“Poor Carolinona!” he thought with a smile. “With what a look she pronounced that ‘yes’ with a glance at the official, as much as to say: ‘You see what value that can have! For my part, I do not think that one should jest thus, but these young fellows thought that there was no harm in it, and here I am to satisfy them. What else could I do? I must write too? Sign my name?’”

He went to bed, and was not long in falling asleep. He had bad dreams! Carolinona would not listen to reason; was she or was she not his wife? And she wished to enjoy all her rights--ready, oh, most ready, to take upon herself all her duties. She seized him by the arm and did not intend to let him go. But how about their agreement? It was all a joke! Joke? She had really signed the contract. And therefore he must stay here with her. Infamy, treachery! All the doors closed? Kicks, pinches, blows at each door. In vain! Oh, what grief, what rage, what agony! Behind those closed, bolted doors the friends laughed as though they would split their sides: Cariolin, Scossi, Cedebonis, and even Martinelli. Trunfo sneered. An infamous conspiracy! Did they then wish his death? No, no, even if it cost him his life, no; he would not be made to sleep in that bed. Ah, they would take him by force? They were binding him? Cowards! So many against one! Softly, softly! There at the throat, no--Ah, they were suffocating him--

He rose late, and in the worst of humors. He would go to the pension as usual that day, and by his manner would make his friends understand that it was time to be done with the whole affair.

That evening all the other boarders, including Trunfo, arrived at the house. Then Biagio Speranza arrived, and was at once assailed with questions.

“Why, of course! Naturally!” he answered with a gay face. “When did I return? Exactly at midnight. The hour of fantasy. The door was closed, and she, the very one who has been denying it, threw me down the key from her window. Why deny it, my wife? We owe this satisfaction to our friends who are so interested in our conjugal felicity. And this evening you will see me remain here at my post, as master of the house; and I hope that this will satisfy you, and that from now on you will allow me to enjoy the pleasures of married life in peace. Is it agreed?”

He seated himself beside Carolinona; during the meal he ostentatiously displayed, amid general merriment, all the attentions, the manners of an enamored monkey which a newly married man should show to his bride, and Carolinona let him have his way, and laughed too.

At a certain point Trunfo gruffly asked Biagio Speranza: “Will you permit me to continue correcting my papers here?”

“No, no!” Biagio hastened to reassure him. “You, dear _maestro_, are free to suit your own convenience here by day or night. Am I not right, Carolinona?”

“The _maestro_,” said she, somewhat quietly, “has never caused me the least annoyance.”

“Very well then!” concluded Trunfo, rising.

He made a quick, slight bow, with his hands resting on the back of his chair, and left the room, suffocated with bile.

“My friends,” remarked Biagio Speranza, a little later, “in the interest of my wife, I advise you to stop, if you do not wish to make her lose a client. A joke is all very well, but it should not be allowed to injure the pocket--”

“Oh, as for you, joking aside,” declared Cariolin, rising from the table with the others, “keep your promise, and do not take this excuse. We are going, and wish you a pleasant evening.”

“I,” added Scossi, “shall remain with Cedebonis outside the door on guard; and you may be sure that I will not let you escape.”

“You may all be sure that I shall not escape,” replied Biagio Speranza, accompanying his fellow boarders to the door.

Carolinona began to feel uneasy, not knowing what this crazy fellow would do next.

“What fools, eh?” said Biagio, once more entering the dining-room. “And they are really capable of waiting outside in the street, do you know it?”

Carolinona tried to smile and look at him, but she lowered her eyes promptly.

“Do you know that our position is actually ridiculous?” resumed Biagio, breaking out into his sonorous laughter. “But we must do this in order to have peace. Otherwise they will never have done. I will wait a half hour before I go; you must have patience.”

“Oh, as for me, of course,” said she, without raising her eyes, and faintly.

Biagio Speranza looked at her. He was very calm himself, and thought that she ought to be so, too. But noting Carolinona’s embarrassment he laughed again. Wounded by this laugh, she raised her eyes, and, trying as best she could to hide the bitterness with a smile, said:

“You are a man, and they all know that you are only doing this to make them laugh. Although, if I am to tell the truth, I do not see that it is a joke any longer, now that it has arrived at this point--They are all laughing at you and me--”

“Let us laugh too!” concluded Biagio. “Why not?”