After the Pardon. Matilde Serao

Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti, gracefully stretched on the sofa and immersed in the many soft cushions of all kinds of fabrics and colours, was reading alone. A steady light, opalised by the clear transparent silk of a large shade, was diffused from the tall pedestal at her side, on which was placed a quaint lamp of chased silver, so that the reader’s head, with her thick mass of chestnut hair, attired almost in harmony with its natural lines in broad waves and rich braids, received exactly the clearness of the light.

The pale face, slightly rosy beneath the fineness of its complexion, the large eyes bent over the reading, the little composed mouth, without smile but without bitterness, were delicately illuminated. The soft, opaque silk, of a sheenless silver, of her dress of exquisite style, blended itself with the colour of the cushions, while the soft fleecy lace which adorned the dress seemed a sort of superfluity of the large sofa. Amidst stuff and lace the feet peeped out in shoes of gold cloth, slightly peculiar and bright, the caprice of a lady in her own home.

She was reading alone, and the slow rustling of the pages, which she turned with a gentle movement, alone broke the silence of the room.

The tiny clock on a small table at her side tinkled clearly, striking half-past nine. Donna Maria started slightly, gave a rapid glance at the clock, and, from a long habit of solitude, said to herself almost aloud—

“Always later, always a little later.”

Suppressing a sigh of impatience, and shrugging her beautiful shoulders, she resumed her reading. Her fine sense of hearing told her that outside in the hall the lock of the front door was rattling, and a slight blush rose to her cheeks and forehead.

A servant knocked at the door, entered without waiting for a reply, and silently offered the evening papers on a tray. She took them and placed them on the small table, scarcely bestowing a glance on him as he withdrew discreetly. Then, all of a sudden, a kind of spasm of grief, of anger and of annoyance, contracted her pure countenance, and with a half-angry, and yet suppressed cry, she exclaimed—

“How annoying! How annoying!”

The book fell down. Donna Maria arose, exposing her tall, lithe figure, full of noble grace. The harmony of a body not slender but comfortably covered, added to the pleasing maturity of thirty years, undulated in the silk dress with a slight rustling as she went to the balcony, and lifting the heavy lace curtains looked through the clear glass into the street.

The majestic piazza of Santa Maria Maggiore stretched before her eyes as far as the steps of the great basilica with its lofty closed doors, while the vastness of the piazza and the architectural grandeur of the temple were bathed on that June night by the soft brightness of the moon. The passers-by were few and scattered, little black shadows cast on the roads and footpaths of the square. Then an electric tram, coming from the via Cavour, crossed the square, desecrating for a moment the Roman scene, where faith and the Church had placed one of their most enduring and ancient manifestations,

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