Vendetta: A Story of One Forgotten

The words fell strangely on my ears. Was I dreaming, or was I actually standing on the smooth green lawn of my own garden, mechanically saluting my own wife, who, smiling sweetl...

More than ten days had passed since Stella’s death. Her mother had asked me to see to the arrangements for the child’s funeral, declaring herself too ill to attend to anything....

The ball opened brilliantly. The rooms were magnificently decorated, and the soft luster of a thousand lamps shone on a scene of splendor almost befitting the court of a king. S...

It came at last, the blessed, the longed-for evening. A soft breeze sprung up, cooling the burning air after the heat of the day, and bringing with it the odors of a thousand fl...

I rose very early the next morning—I was more than ever strengthened in my resolutions of the past night—my projects were entirely formed, and nothing remained now but for me to...

All the next day the wind was in our favor, and we arrived at Palermo an hour before sunset. We had scarcely run into harbor when a small party of officers and gendarmes, heavil...

The moon had retreated behind a dense wall of cloud, and the landscape was enveloped in semi-darkness. Reaching the door of the vault, I unlocked it; it opened instantly, and fe...

“So good of you to come!” she began, holding out her two hands as though she invited an embrace; “and on Christmas morning too!” She paused, and seeing that I did not move or sp...

How dazzlingly lovely she was! I gazed at her with the same bewildered fascination that had stupefied my reason and judgment when I beheld her for the first time. The black robe...

At these words she rose from her knees and stood upright. Making an effort to fasten her cloak with her trembling hands, she moved hesitatingly toward the brigand’s coffin and l...

“Yes, _eccellenza_”—and Vincenzo proceeded to give me a graphic account of his adventures. On leaving the banqueting-room, Ferrari had taken a carriage and driven straight to th...

At this announcement my guests looked furtively at each other, and I could see they were counting up the fatal number for themselves. They were undeniably clever, cultivated men...

Time flew swiftly on—a month, six weeks, passed, and during that short space I had established myself in Naples as a great personage—great, because of my wealth and the style in...

There followed a long drowsy time of stillness and shadow. I seemed to have fallen in some deep well of delicious oblivion and obscurity. Dream-like images still flitted before...

Entering the fiacre, I drove in it a very little way toward the city. I bade the driver stop at the corner of the winding road that led to the Villa Romani, and there I alighted...

“_Tout le monde vient à celui qui sait attendre_.” So wrote the great Napoleon. The virtue of the aphorism consists in the little words ‘_qui sait_’. All the world comes to him...

Christmas Eve! The day had been extra chilly, with frequent showers of stinging rain, but toward five o’clock in the afternoon the weather cleared. The clouds, which had been of...

I sighed heavily as I resumed my walk. I realized all that I had lost. This lovely child with her simple fresh nature, why had I not met such a one and wedded _her_ instead of t...

Winter, or what the Neapolitans accept as winter, came on apace. For some time past the air had been full of that mild chill and vaporous murkiness, which, not cold enough to be...

Looking back on the incidents of those strange feverish weeks that preceded my wedding-day, they seemed to me like the dreams of a dying man. Shifting colors, confused images, m...

“Ah! _povero diavolo_! Well do I remember him! A bold fellow and brave, with a heart in him, too, if one did but know where to find it. And now he drags the chain! Well, well, n...

I, who write this, am a dead man. Dead legally—dead by absolute proofs—dead and buried! Ask for me in my native city and they will tell you I was one of the victims of the chole...

That day seemed very long to me I wandered aimlessly about the city, seeing few faces that I knew, for the wealthier inhabitants, afraid of the cholera, had either left the plac...

Every one knows what kind of summer we had in Naples in 1884. The newspapers of all lands teemed with the story of its horrors. The cholera walked abroad like a destroying demon...

The first thing I did was to repack all the treasures I had discovered. This work was easily accomplished. For the present I contented myself with taking two of the leathern bag...

Avellino is one of those dreamy, quiet and picturesque towns which have not as yet been desecrated by the Vandal tourist. Persons holding “through tickets” from Messrs. Cook or...

“Everything!” he announced, with an air of triumph. “All is smooth sailing. At six o’clock on Friday morning the ‘_Rondinella_,’ that is the brig I told you of, _eccellenza_, wi...

FOR a moment I lost my self-possession. I scarcely remember now what I did. I know I clasped her almost roughly in my arms—I know that I kissed her passionately on lips, throat...

The third week of September was drawing to its close when I returned to Naples. The weather had grown cooler, and favorable reports of the gradual decrease of the cholera began...

He flushed slightly. “Yes—that is—for a few minutes only. I gave her your message. She thanks you, and desires me to tell you that she cannot think of receiving the jewels unles...

demurely—she seemed absorbed in holy meditations. The priest having performed the ceremony of sprinkling it with holy water, I took it back, and set it for the second time on my...

At about a quarter to eight my guests began to arrive, and one by one they all came in save two—the brothers Respetti. While we were awaiting them, Ferrari entered in evening-dr...

I listened to his narrative with a pained feeling at my heart, and a shuddering sensation as of icy cold ran through my veins. Why, I had fancied that all who beheld Nina must,...

“Monsieur, permit me to persuade you to come away. Poor little child! she is free from pain now. Her fancy that you were her father was a fortunate delusion for her. It made her...

The sheltering darkness of the spectacles I wore prevented him from noticing the searching scrutiny of my fixed gaze. His face was shadowed by a faint tinge of melancholy; his e...

Numbers of lizards glided away from my feet as I descended the steps, and when the flare of my torch penetrated the darkness I heard a scurrying of wings mingled with various hi...

Next morning I kept my appointment and met Ferrari at the railway station. He looked pale and haggard, though he brightened a little on seeing me. He was curiously irritable and...

My marriage morning dawned bright and clear, though the high wind of the past night still prevailed and sent the white clouds scudding rapidly, like ships running a race, across...

Lest those who read the following pages should deem this story at all improbable, it is perhaps necessary to say that its chief incidents are founded on an actual occurrence whi...