All the boarders were at table when Biagio Speranza entered the
dining-room, announcing gaily:
“Safe! Sound! I come from the hospital. In about three weeks we shall
once more have at our table the magnificent poet. Gentlemen, I invite
you to cry: Long live Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli!”
No one echoed this cry. Signor Martinelli bent his long nose over his
plate. Trunfo cast a side glance, and went on eating. Signora Pentoni
wept.
Cedebonis was the only one who rejoiced at sight of Biagio Speranza,
who made him laugh quite as much as hygiene required, and exclaimed:
“Oh, bravo! Now you must tell us all about it.”
But Biagio Speranza did not assent. He looked at the mistress of the
house.
“In Heaven’s name!” implored Signora Pentoni, “leave me in peace this
evening!”
Biagio Speranza glanced round at his friends, and with a gesture asked
what had happened.
“Martinelli,” explained Cariolin, “has been to the hospital before you
to get news, and Carolinona has learned--”
“And regrets it?” cried Biagio Speranza, feigning surprise. “Ah, excuse
me, Carolinona; what ingratitude! I have seen your poet, and by a
miracle restrained myself from kissing his brow. What a hero of love!
He spoke to me only of you. He asked me--”
Signora Pentoni rose to her feet, convulsed; she pressed her
handkerchief to her eyes, tried to say “Excuse me,” but a burst of sobs
smothered the words in her throat, and she rushed toward the door of
her room.
Cariolin, Scossi, ran forward and stopped her; all except Cedebonis and
Trunfo rose to their feet and surrounded the weeping woman.
“Rubbish! Absurd!” sneered Trunfo from the table.
But the others, all in chorus, exhorted Carolinona to be of good
courage. Was she really afraid that Cocco Bertolli would compel her
to marry him? Preposterous, if she did not wish to! Disturbances? But
were there not the police to keep him in order? Her promise as he lay
at the point of death? What promise? Oh, nonsense! He should be made to
understand, willy-nilly, that she had but uttered a pious lie. No? How
was that?
“See here!” Biagio Speranza cut short the discussion, becoming
fervent. “Be quiet, Carolinona, I will marry you myself.” All burst out
laughing.
“What is there to laugh at?” cried Speranza, in earnest. “I am speaking
seriously. Are we, or are we not, gentlemen? A hawk, gentlemen,
threatens this dove; I will defend her. I shall marry her, I tell you.
Who wishes to wager on it?”
“I do; a thousand francs!” suddenly proposed Cariolin. And Biagio
Speranza cried as promptly: “Out with your thousand francs!” Then
Cedebonis too rose from the table, rubbing his hands with delight:
“Excellent! Excellent! Do you wish me to hold the stakes, gentlemen?”
“Out with the thousand francs!” repeated Biagio Speranza more
emphatically.
“I have not got them with me,” said Cariolin, feeling in his pockets.
“But I give my word. Here is my hand on it. A thousand francs and the
wedding breakfast.”
“You will lose!” affirmed Speranza, clasping Cariolin’s hand. “All of
you gentlemen are witnesses of the wager: I shall marry Carolinona.
Come, come, hush, my betrothed. Dry your tears, smile, look at me! Do
you not like me?”
With affectionate violence he drew her fat, puffy hands from her face.
Pentoni smiled amid her tears. Applause and cries of “Bravo!” broke
forth. Biagio Speranza, growing more and more ardent, embraced his
betrothed, who struggled: “In Heaven’s name, let me go! let me go!”
“Let the engaged couple sit side by side!” some of them proposed.
“Here, here! at the head of the table!” And Biagio Speranza and
Carolinona were escorted in triumph, and made to sit side by side.
Good Martinelli was confounded. His nose seemed to grow visibly. Trunfo
continued to sneer. “Rubbish! Rubbish!”
“Are you jealous perhaps?” Biagio cried to him, rising to his feet,
and striking his fist on the table. “Will you do me the great favor
of stopping that? If you gentlemen believe that at this moment I am
jesting, you are mistaken. If you think that I am committing a mad
act in marrying Carolinona, I have the honor of telling you that you
are crazy yourselves. I, who know my poor clay, am aware that at this
moment I am wiser than I have ever been before in my life. I am a
poor man, gentlemen, who, as a punishment from God, must fall in love
with every beautiful woman I see. In love I at once become capable of
the greatest follies. Quite different from Cariolin’s lies. Twice,
gentlemen, twice I have been at the point--I shudder to think of it--at
the point of really marrying. I must escape as soon as possible, at
any cost, from this terrible catastrophe which continually threatens
me. I profit by this moment, in which, fortunately, I am not in love,
and shall marry Carolinona. A flash of genius, gentlemen. A true
inspiration from heaven!”
“It is necessary to see,” objected Scossi, “whether Carolinona
consents.”
Biagio Speranza turned toward his betrothed.
“Would you do me such a wrong? To such a good-looking young fellow
as me? No, no; you see? My bride laughs, and the world laughs. It is
settled, gentlemen!”
At this point Trunfo leaped to his feet, furiously tearing the napkin
from his neck.
“Let us make an end to it once for all! This senseless, stupid jest
gets on my nerves; this jest on a subject which you do not understand,
and which I will tell you about, by Heaven!”
At thought of Trunfo’s matrimonial disaster there was a moment of
embarrassment. All the faces became fixed in the act of laughing, then
the laughter suddenly ceased.
“Pardon me,” said Biagio Speranza pacifically. “Why do you persist in
believing that this is a joke of mine? I know better than you what an
enormous folly it is to marry, and repeat that it is to prevent myself
from committing such an act that I am marrying Carolinona.”
“The reasoning could not be more logical,” remarked Dario Scossi, again
provoking all to mirth. “And I appeal to Cedebonis, professor of logic.”
“Most logical, most logical!” the latter affirmed. “Signor Speranza is,
in fact, marrying so to escape the temptation of marrying.”
“Exactly!” replied Biagio Speranza. “And this is no joke. For
Carolinona is seriously afraid of the poet Cocco Bertolli, and I am
seriously afraid of losing my liberty some day or other. By marrying,
we are both saving ourselves; she from that kind of a husband, I from a
feared reality of a future wife. Married, we are both of us absolutely
free to do whatever we please. She here, and I in my own home. In
the eyes of the law, we have but the name in common, which is not
properly a name at all, I beg you to observe, gentlemen. Speranza[1],
just a common noun; I do not know what to do with it, and I cede it
voluntarily. What do you say, Carolinona?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Pentoni, smiling and shrugging her
shoulders, “if you do not regret it--”
New applause, new congratulations, amid bursts of laughter.
The following day the whole city was filled with the amazing news.
Biagio Speranza, stroking his fine blond beard with his fat, white
hand, laughed with his limpid blue eyes, and from time to time his hand
passed quickly, with a gesture habitual with him, from his beard upward
and beneath his bold nose. He was most content with the great folly
he was about to commit. Folly in the opinion of stupid people, be it
understood. He was conscious of acting well. He had thought it over all
night long, and had almost died of laughing. “Carolinona, my wife!”
Friends and acquaintances stopped him on the streets. “You are joking,
then?”--“No; I mean to marry, really to marry. But as a precaution, you
understand? To protect myself from taking a wife, that is all.”--“What!
But you _are_ marrying!”--“Why, yes! I shall stay in my own home; I
shall do as I please. I shall only go to her home as I do now, to
dine. I shall not give her anything except the price of my meals, as
usual. Well?”--“And your name?”--“But if she is willing, why not? It
does not seem to me such a serious thing.”
And he left his questioner planted there in the middle of the street.
He had an appointment with Dario Scossi at the pension, to go over
Carolinona’s papers together. At the pension besides Scossi, a witness
for the groom, he found the timorous Martinelli, a witness for the
bride, who had come purposely first of all to dissuade Signora Pentoni
from lending herself to this highly scandalous proceeding.
“But do you think so?” she had replied, with a sad smile. “They are
merry young fellows, let them alone. They were joking, and by this time
think no more of it. I, on the other hand, have not been able to close
my eyes all last night, thinking of that other in the hospital.”
But at the arrival of Scossi she had been amazed.
“What is this all about? Really? Again?”
Biagio Speranza found her obstinate in her refusal.
“Oh, do not let us have any nonsense,” said he to her. “Do you wish to
make me lose the thousand francs of the wager?”
“What thousand francs? Nonsense, say no more about it, Signor Biagio.”
“What?” said the latter. “Did we not come to an agreement yesterday
evening? Have you repented? You are then no longer afraid of Cocco
Bertolli? You will see that he will seriously wish to marry you then.”
And once more he began to discuss the terms of the bargain, and dilate
upon the reciprocal advantages of this marriage, at once serious and
burlesque. “We, Carolinona, should not ascribe any importance to this
our marriage, is it not so? and therefore for us it is not a serious
affair.”
“Now, perhaps not,” remarked Signora Pentoni. “But what if later you
repent it?”
“But undoubtedly I shall repent it!” admitted Biagio. “And just when I
repent it I shall feel the advantage of it. Do you understand? That is
why I am taking this step.”
“You understand then?” said Pentoni in conclusion. “If I offer
opposition it certainly is not for myself. What have I to lose by it? I
have everything to gain and nothing to lose. While you--”
“Do not think of me,” said Biagio Speranza, cutting short the
discussion. “I know what I am doing. Come, let us get on, Scossi, it is
getting late. But come then, answer, Carolinona: Name (I know that),
paternity--age--place of birth--state; maid, widow, nothing; it is
not necessary to tell the truth on this point. But the age, yes, be
accurate; I beg of you.”
“Thirty-five,” replied Carolinona.
“There now!” exclaimed Biagio, shrugging his shoulders. “Do not begin
at once!”
“Thirty-five, I assure you; I was born in 1865 at Caserta.”
“Good gracious! So you are still young and tender? Oh, my dear! One
would never have thought it. And--well, shall we say a maid?”
“Most assuredly, yes, sir!”
“I believe you. Let us then write to Caserta for the birth certificate.
Come, Scossi, let us hasten to the City Hall for the announcement.”