Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I am sorry that I like you." "You always talk in that way!" said Gianluca, with a wearily sad intonation. "I suppose that life is different in Sicily." "Life is life, everywhere," returned the Sicilian. "If I love a woman, it is not for the pleasure of loving her, nor for the glory of having it written on my tombstone that I have died for her.
On the afternoon of the day before her departure Gianluca came, walking with difficulty and excusing himself for bringing his stick with him into the drawing-room. He was very pale, and looked more ill than for a long time past. But he spoke calmly enough, though saying little more than was required, while Bianca and Veronica kept up the conversation.
"He came because he chose to come," answered Bosio, still looking at the title page of the book. "Gianluca did not send him. He wished to know whether it were true that I was to marry Veronica." "I thought so. And what did you answer? Of course you told him that it was quite settled." "We had a long conversation I do not remember all that we said "
Even there, it had been hinted that the girl had caught a bad cold which had fastened upon her delicate lungs. It was doubtless a romantic story, and if anything appealed to her for Gianluca, it was the romance in his case. Her reading had been very limited as yet, and the book she was reading so eagerly was a French translation of the Bride of Lammermoor.
It began to rain, and the big drops beat against the windows, melancholy as the muffled drum of a funeral march, and the grey morning light grew still more dim. "I will not go into the other room just yet," said Gianluca, quietly. "I would rather be alone for a little while." Their eyes met once more, and Taquisara went away without a word.
Even Taquisara thought substantially as they did, and he was a man singularly regardless of conventions. It was true that he was almost as ignorant of the state of affairs as Gianluca's father and mother. After the first exchange of letters Gianluca had grown suddenly reticent.
What women hate most, next to cowardice, is, perhaps, the caution of the very experienced brave man and they hate it all the more because they cannot despise it with any show of reason. Gianluca was silently happy, perfectly satisfied to hear Veronica's voice, to watch the face he loved, and to feel that between her and him there was something which no one knew.
It was a very long landau, and in it Gianluca was almost lying down, his pale face and golden beard in strong relief against a dark brown silk cushion. To Veronica's amazement, Taquisara sat beside him, calmly smoking one of those long black cigars which he preferred to all others. He threw it away, when he saw her. She shook hands frankly with Gianluca.
It was beyond his strength to bear. "She is not my wife," said Gianluca. "You have told me so she is not my wife. She has done what no other living woman could have done, to be my wife and to love me. But she is not my wife, and what I say is true, and right as well, your right and hers. "No not that not hers."
If the little phrases were broken, it was not by hesitation; it seemed rather as though what they meant must find each memory to have meaning, one by one, and word by word and finding, wondered at what had once been true. And Gianluca smiled, as he lay still, and the lids of his eyes closed peacefully and naturally, opening again with another look.
Word Of The Day