The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1926-02-19
THE DOOM
THAT WAS
HERS
By r. E. MARSHALL
20 by Short Story Pub. Coz


dream of but seldom see. A night
i when glamor and romance and
subtle mystery are in the air. A
night for music, for love legends, and
tales of chivalry, when the nameless
charm that lies in ancient ballads, in
the sight of armor, or of castles
scared with the wars of kings long
dead, when the power that arises like
perfume from these things is strong
and harsh and commonplace realities
fade away. A night so beautiful it
should have been haHowed and moth
abroad.
Under it's charm the high-railed gar
den and quiet streets of St Louis
square in Old New Orleans were a
fit stage for a medieval drama or
poets dream come true.
So great is the transforming power
of moonlight that the buildings on
either side of the square, once palaces
for French and Spanish nobility, now
Italian tenements, took on something
of their former dignity and beauty.
1t wrapped them in veil of silver and
cast softly rounded shadows and
quivering half-lights on their stained
and crumbling door posts; made even
the dish cloths and old shirts, hung
about, suggest banners and tapestries
flung out to welcome some new prince
or stately embassy from affair." 1t
picked out the exquisite tracery of the
iron ratings, and cleaned a glory
around the head of jackson on his
plunging iron horse, rising dark and
still out of the fragrant tangle of
pomegranate and oleander and starred
jasmine.
There should have come, perhaps,
out of their graves in the cathedral
facing the square, tonsured monk,
or proud Spanish dame, or a pale
Hght-haired woman in whose veins
there ran q drop of that blood which
Is a curse, forever setting her apart,
too high for her mothers people, too
low for her fathers, forever debarred
by natures memorable law that pun
ishes through reversion to type.
But there came none Of these; there
came woman, bent, unevenly shrunk-
en- dressed in black and heavily yelled.
Slowly and painfully she moved down
the cathedral steps, across the empty
street, between the Venetian lamps,
burning yellowly, into the silver ST.
lence of the square.
She paused peering about, but see
Ing no one threw back her veil with Il
strangely broken indrawing of the
breath. Behind her, hame-colored
pOmegranate blossoms swayed and
cleaning banana fronds clapped softly
and bird sang exultingly back in the
dim mysterious reaches of the garden,
pierced in Pickering spots and curved
spaces by the moonlight that, as the
woman lifted her veil, fell startlingly
: clear and strong across her face
1t was white, not with the even pal
: i iof Of -deattfh, but -chalky, like paper
twisted and ravaged and worn away
In places as an image is worn away
by storms and long exposure.
Out Of it's mask-like hideousness her
eyes, liquid, creole eyes, looked out at
the beauty of the night with the pas
sionate longing of the exile, across
the garden to the lights cleaning In
the house with an utter and agonized
loneliness.
A magnolia petal detached itself and
fell with ever so slight sound, but
she started and clutched at her veil.
She knew that If seen she would be
followed and the shelter of the near
by little house behind the tall green
fence, inside of which no one ever
saw, would be taken away and she
be sent to the island with other lepers.
But no one came, and she went
slowly down the curving walk arched
over with oleanders that dropped their
waxy blossoms on her head and cast
long, narrow, black shadows of leaves
that formed themselves into innumer
able crosses so that her way was paved
with them.
Presently the walk came out in a
flood of light and there on a bench a
man lay asleep, face upwards.
The woman, quite close, suddenly
perceived him and with q shuddering
cry covered back into the dark, peer
ing out as though fascinated by the
sleeping face. A handsome face it was,
though weak, older than its years and
lined by hard living.
With wide eyes in which pain and a