The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-22


Soon he saw her, coming with swift feet, and
flying skirts, and bare head through the boles of
| the expresses. She was livid her unbound hair
was streaming behind her.
| She had passed feverish night, locking her
| door against her husband, and spending the
whole weary hours at the easement where she
| could see the old grey villa where her lover
dwelt, standing out against the moonlight
amongst its lick and olive trees. She had no
sense of the beauty of the night; she had been
only concerned by the fret and fever of first
love and of guilty passion.
She was not callous at heart, though wholly
unframed and undisciplined in character and
her conscience told her that she gave bad re-
turn to a man who had honestly and generously
adored her, who had been lavish to her poverty
out Of his riches, and had never been unkind
until a natural and justified jealousy had embit-
tered the whole current of his life She held the
offense of infideity lightly, yet her candor com
PEELED her to feel that she returning evil for
good, and repaying in a base manner an old
mans unwise but generous affection. She would
have hesitated at nothing that could have united
her lie to her lover; yet, in corner of her SOUL
she was vaguely conscious that there was degree
of unfairness and baseness in setting their
youth and their ardor to hoodwink and betray
feeble and aged creature like Tasso Tassilo. She
hated him fercely; he was her jailor her tyranr,
her keeper. She detested the sound of his slow
step, of his croaking voice. of his harsh calls to
his men and his horses and mules; the sight of
his withered features flushed and hot with rest
less jealous pains, was at once absurd and loath
some to her Youth has no pity for such woes
OF age, and she often Knocked him openly and
cruelty to his face. Still, she knew that she did
him wrong, and her conscience had been more
stirred by the reproof of Gesualdo than
she had acknowledged. She was in that
wavering mood when a woman may be saved
from an unwise course, by change, travel, move
ment, and the distractions of the world; but
there none of these for the millers young
wife. So long as her husband lived. long
would she be doomed to live here, with the roar
of the mill wheels and the foamlng of the weir
water on her ear and before her eyes the same
thickets of cane, the same fields with their
naples and vines, the same white, dusty road
winding away beyond the poplars, and with
nothing to distract her thoughts or lull her
mind away from its idoatry of her fair haired
lover at the old gray palace on the hill above her
home.
She had spent the whole night gazing at the
place where he lived. He was not even there at
that moments he had gone away for two days to
a grain fair in the town of Vendramino, but she
recalled with ecstasy their meetings by the side
of the low, green river, their hours in the wild,
Towering gardens OF the palace, the lovely even
ings when she had stolen out to see him come
through the maize and canes, the frefiies all
alight about his footsteps. Sleepless but langud,
weary and yet restless she had thrown herself
on her bed without taking off her clothes, and in
the dark. as the bells for the first mass have
rung over the shadowy fields She had for the
first time fallen into heavy sleep, haunted by
dreams Of her lover, which made her stretch her
arms to him in the empty air, and murmur,
sleeping wild and tender words
She had been still on her bed, when the men
of the mill had reused her beating at the cham
Der door and crying to her
"Generosa, Geuerosa, Paerona! get up! The
master is murdered and lying dead at the
church."
feeling in memory his kisses on her mouth, when
those screams had come through the stiffness of
the early day breaking through the music of the
blackbifds piping in the cherry boughs outside
her windows.
She had sprung from off her bed.
She had huddled on some decenter clothing
and bursting through the detain ing hands of the
henchmen and neighbors. had fed as fast as her
trembling limbs could bear her to the church.
SIS it true? Is it truea" she cried, with white
lips. 10 Gesualdo.
He looked at her with long inquirng regard
then, without word. he drew tho linen off the
dead face of her husband, and pointed to it.
She. strong as a colt and full of life as young
swoon.
The people gathered about the doorway and
watched her suspiciously and without compass
sion. There was no one there who cid not be-
leve her 20 be the murderess. No one except
Gesualdo. In that one moment when he had
| looked into her eyes he had felt that she was
| guiltless He called Candida to her and left her.
and closed the door on the curious, cruel, star
| ing eyes of the throng without
The people murmured, what title had he more
| than they to command and direct in this matter
| The murder was precious feast to them; why
| should he defraud them of their rightsl
'He knows she is guilty" they muttered land
he wants to screen her and give her time to re-
cover herself and to arrange what story she shall
tell"
Soon there came the sound of horses feet on
the road, and the jingling of chains and scab-
bards stirred the morning air. the carbneers
a.
officers of the larger village Of SAINT Arturo,
where the communal municipality in which
Marca enrolled had its seat of Justice, it's
tax Offices and its schools There was great
noise and stir, grinding of wheels and shouting
of orders, vast clouds of dust and ceaseless din
of voices, loud chickering's of conflicting author-
ties at war with one another, and rabid inquisi-
tiveness and greedy excitement on all sides.
In a later time they remembered against him
all this which he did now.
The Feast of SIS. Peter and Paul had been
day of disaster and disorder, but to the good peo
pie of Marca both these sweet. They had
something to talk of from dawn till dark, and
the blacker the tragedy the merrier wagged the
tongues The soul of their vicar alone was sick
within him. Since he had seen the astonished
Mortified eyes of the woman Generosa he had
never once doubted her, but he felt that her
guilt must seem clear as the MONDAY to all
others. Her disputes with her husband and her
passion for Falko Melegari were facts known to
all the village, and who else had any interest in
his death? The whole of Marca pronounced as
with one voice against her; the women had al
ways hated her for her superior beauty, and the
men had always borne her a grudge for her
saucy disdain Of them and that way of bearing
herself as though beggar from Bocca d'Arno
were a queen.
'Neighbors put up with her pride while she
was on the sunny side of the street" said Candi
da, with grim satisfaction, ''but row she is in
the shade they'll fling the stones fast enough"
and she was ready to fling her own stone Gene
rosa had always seemed an impudent jade to her,
coming aud talking with Don Gesuado, as she
did. at all hours, and as though the church and
the sacrsty were open bazaars
How that day passed, and how he bore him
self through all its functions he never knew.
1t was the dead of night, when he still dressed
and unable even to think calmly, clasping his
crucifx in his hands, aud pacing to and fro his
narrow chamber with restless and uneven steps,
heard his name called by the voice of a man in
aa:t at;ar, aaad loal. e