III
There were two reasons for hastening this memorable marriage: first, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli was leaving the hospital, cured; secondly, Biagio Speranza had as usual fallen in love in the mean time with a seductive woman. During these days, in order to escape temptation, he walked the streets with his eyes on the ground and his nose in the air.
But the Pentoni had wished for time at least to have a new gown made for the ceremony. White? Oh, no indeed. Modest, suitable to her age, but new. Could she go to the City Hall otherwise? “And what do you care about it?” Biagio had asked her.
“Nothing for my own sake, of course. But for you, Signor Speranza. What would people say?”
“Let them talk. What does it matter to me? Dress as you like. I do not want you to throw away money needlessly.”
And what pains the choice of the gown cost her! Although so long subdued and resigned to her lot, she felt her heart oppressed that day by a strange anguish, which brought to her lips an unusual desire to laugh, to her eyes a longing to weep.
Though without wishing to ascribe importance to this buffoonery, yet the mere idea, the word “marriage,” instinctively awoke in her weary frame a certain sense of her real womanhood; not enough to cause her self-love to rebel against the part she was to play, yet enough to make her feel the bitterness, almost scorn, of it: and so she was to be married as a joke! And she laughed at it with the others, and still more than the others. Bah!
When the wedding day arrived, before the little procession started for the City Hall, for they would not perpetrate the joke in church, Biagio Speranza declared that he did not wish to take the thousand francs of the wager: he did not wish it to be said that this marriage had put money in his pocket; Cariolin should, therefore, buy with it a gift for the bride according to the bride’s own taste.
The bride objected to this. She did not wish anything either. But they all protested, Cariolin more loudly than any, for he had lost the thousand francs, and being at a ball, as the saying goes, wished to dance. “No, no, I will attend to it! I have already thought of something; you will see, Signora Speranza, a fine present, and very useful. Let me attend to it!”
He was in full dress, as he had promised, this tiny Cariolin, and wore an elegant black velvet vest. Scossi, too, was in evening dress. Cedebonis remembering at the last moment that he was professor of philosophy and pedagogy, came in a frock coat. The most dismal of all was good Martinelli, with his shiny coat, his light trousers, and his time-yellowed white cravat. Trunfo was the only one absent from the festive group.
Although the dining-room was all decked with flowers, a present from the boarders, and the long table in the middle was splendidly arranged by two hotel waiters hired for the occasion by Cariolin, who was to pay for the wedding repast, the merriment that each one had promised himself for this great day was lacking. Laughter was forced. How could that Carolinona have chosen material of such an incredible shade for her wedding gown! And why was not Biagio Speranza in evening dress? Good gracious! Was he or was he not going to be married? Biagio Speranza felt a sinking in his stomach, listening to Cariolin’s silly jests, who wished—so Biagio fancied—to avenge himself for the money he had lost, by calling Carolinona “Signora Speranza.” He now wished to get through with the ceremony as soon as possible, that he might think no more of it, that he might think of other things.
“Come, come! Let us get through with it all!”
“Wait a moment,” said Carolinona, her hat already on her head; “I want to take a look at the kitchen—”
There was a general exclamation of horror at so commonplace a thought thus ingenuously expressed at such a moment. Cariolin rushed forward ahead of them all, and, with the gracious bow befitting the conqueror of an Austrian archduchess, offered his arm to the bride.
The ceremony over, Cariolin rushed away to purchase the gift, begging then to wait a little for him before sitting down to the table. He wished to keep the secret absolutely dark.
At table they at last began to be merry. Biagio Speranza, who could now see the end of this carnival, was most gallant to his bride. The dinner was choice, delicious, abundant. With the champagne, toasts began. Toasts of all shades and to every one. Among others, one of Dario Scossi’s to Martinelli’s absent wife was so positively unfortunate that it made Martino, who, contrary to custom, had buried his nose somewhat too deeply in his glass, weep. While they were at table Cariolin’s long-expected gift arrived.
“There’s a couple of porters outside,” one of the hotel waiters announced.—Everybody became interested.—“Porters? So the gift had come in a cart?”—“And what then is the gift?”
They all rose and rushed out into the hall. There stood a magnificent double bed of inlaid wood, with complete furnishings. Biagio Speranza was annoyed.
“What a pity!” cried Carolinona, wringing her hands, sorry that a thousand francs should be so wasted.
But all the others applauded Cariolin’s magnificent idea. Cariolin himself was radiant. “Gentlemen, help me to set up this bed.”
Carolinona interposed, mortified, unhappy: “Where do you wish to put it, Signor Cariolin?”—“Where? In your room?”—“But it would not go in, pardon me. And besides, what do you think I could do with it?”—“Do you ask me?” cried Momo Cariolin.
These last words caused a fresh burst of applause and confused outcries. The pieces of the bed were taken by assault, and carried into Carolinona’s room. Her own bed was quickly pulled apart, and the new one, the nuptial couch, set up in its place.
She laughed, poor thing, at sight of these inexpert men laboring so hard, first at placing the mattress, then the first sheet, the second embroidered one, then putting the pillows in their slips, and finally covering the bed with a splendid silk cover. They were all perspiring. But where was Biagio Speranza? Oh, rascal! He had quietly stolen away.