The San Francisco call., 1905-04-09
CHAPTER xxvI.
A Woman of Fire and Dreams


A Woman of Fire and Dreams.
From the moment those lips touched
her hand in that meeting at the wood
shrine Teresa Gambia felt her life un-
fold to rose-veined visions.
Her unmothered childhood and the
placid convent school years at Bag
nacavallo, near Ravenna, had known
no mystery other than her day-dreams
had fashioned. She had dreamed much:
of the time when she should marry and
redeem the fortunes OF her house.
which, despite, untainted blood and
ancient provincial name, was impOver-
ished; of the freedom of Italy, the sole
topic, aside from his endless chemical
experiments, of which her father, now
growing feeble, never tired; of her elder
brother. away in Wallachia, secretary
to the Greek Prince Mavrocordato; Of
the few books she read. and the fewer
people she met. But these dreams had
not possessed the charm of novelty.
Even when, at eighteen, through fam
lily friendship, she became member
of the Albrizzi household and ex-
changed the dull convent walls for the
garlanded La Mira-even with those
rare days when she saw the gay splen-
dor of Venice from curtained gondola
even then her mental life suffered
small change.
The marriage arranged for her with
Count Guiccioli, the oldest and richest
noblenan of Ravenna, a miser and
twice a widower. had aroused an inter
est in her mind scarce greater than
had the tales of the Englishman of
the Palazzo MOcenigO- Such marriages
were of common occurrence in the life
she knew: the wicked milord' was a
stranger thing-one to speculate more
endlessly upon.
But that meeting in the wood had
turned the course of her imaginings.
A swanderer-lik him.; the words had
bridged the chasm between the dream
ing and the real The secret thought
given to the wicked MILFORD" found
itslf absorbed by a nearer object. THE
palazzo on the Grand Canal grew more
remote, and the stranger she had seen
stepped at a single stride into a place
her mind had already prepared.
The blush with which she had taken
the book from Gordon's hand was one
of mere elf-consciousness; the vivid,
burning color which overspread her
face as she ran back through the trees
was something very different 1t was
part of her throbbing heart, of the
tremulous confusion that overran her
whole body, called into life by the
touch of those palely carved lips upon
n6E HnSeTS. his COlOTleSS. laced lace
with the outline of the Apollo Belye-
dcre-the gray magnetic eyes, the
words he had said and their accent of
sadness. all were full of suggestive
misery. Why was he a wanderer-like
that other? Not for kindred reason.
surely! He could not be evil also,
Rather, 1t must have been because OF
some loss, some hurt of love which
time might remedy.
koI
than one hypothesis, spun more than
one romance, all of like ending. A new
love would heal his heart. Some time
he would look into a woman's eyes
not as he had looked into hers; some
one would feel his lips-not as he had
kissed her hand. She in the meantime
would be no longer. girl; she would
be the Contessa Guiccioli. with a
palazzo of her own in Ravenna, and
a husband.
But, somehow, this reflection brought
no satisfaction. The old Count she
had seen more than once driving by
in state when she played as a child in
the convent woods; and that he with
his riches shoul1 desire her, had given
her father great pride, which was re-
f1ected in her. Her suitor had brought
his age and ailments to La Mira on the
very day she had met the stranger at
the shrine-the day her heart had beat
so oddly-and with his arrival, her
marriage had projected itself out of
the hazy future and become dire
thing of the present. She felt a fresh
distaste of his sharp yellow eyes. his
cracked laugh. His eighty wiry years
seemed as many centuries. She be-
came moody, put her father off and
took refuge in whims. The ContesSa
advised the city, and the weeks end
saw the Albrizzi palazzo thrown open.
In Venice, Teresa's spirits rose. She
loved to watch the bright little shops
opening like morning -glories, the sky
faring pigeons a silver CULVER of wings:
to lie in the gondola waiting while her
father drank his brandy at the piaz-
zeta cafe; to buy figs from little lame
Pasquale, who watched for her at a
Shop-CoOr in a narrow calle near at
hand; to see the gaudy flotillas of the
carnival, and the wedding professions,
fresh from the church. crossing the Ia
goon to leave their gifts at the various
island converts; or, propelled by Tita's
swinging oar, to glide slowly in the
San Marco, around red-towered San
Giorgio, and so home again on color
soaked canals in the cleaning ruby of
the afterglow, through a city bub-
bling with ivory domes and glistening
like an opars heart under its tiara of
towers.
She scarcely told the secret to her
own heart-that it was one face she
looked to see, one mysterious stranger
whose image haunted every campo,
every balcony and every bridge She
flushed whenever she thought of that
kiss on her fingers; in the daytime she
felt 1T there like sentient thing; at
night when she woke. her hand burned
her cheek.
Who was he? Why had he asked her
for the prayer? What had he done
with It? Was he still in Venice? Should
she see him again? She wondered. as,
parting the gondola tenda. she watched
her father cross the pave for his cog
nae.
Are there many English in Venice.
Tita?'
The gondolier, lounging like a bril-
| liant-hued lizard. shrugged his shoul-
ders. "Bellissima. there are hundreds
| in the season. They come and go. They
are all lasagnoni, these Englishmen.''
Teresa's sigh checked itself. Tita
suddenly turned his head. Across the
piazetta a crowd was gatherir 1t
centered before the shop at whose front