The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich

Author:Ethel Voynich
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Revolutionaries -- Fiction, Italy -- History -- Revolution of 1848 -- Fiction, Italy -- History -- 1815-1870 -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2017-03-26T04:39:04+00:00

At the first words the Gad­fly tore his hand from Gemma’s and shrank away with a stifled groan. She clasped both hands round his arm and pressed it firmly, as she might have pressed that of a per­son un­der­go­ing a sur­gical op­er­a­tion. When the song broke off and a chorus of laughter and ap­plause came from the garden, he looked up with the eyes of a tor­tured an­imal.

“Yes, it is Zita,” he said slowly; “with her of­ficer friends. She tried to come in here the other night, be­fore Ric­cardo came. I should have gone mad if she had touched me!”

“But she does not know,” Gemma pro­tested softly. “She can­not guess that she is hurt­ing you.”

“She is like a Creole,” he answered, shud­der­ing. “Do you re­mem­ber her face that night when we brought in the beg­gar-child? That is how the half-castes look when they laugh.”

Another burst of laughter came from the garden. Gemma rose and opened the win­dow. Zita, with a gold-em­broidered scarf wound coquet­tishly round her head, was stand­ing in the garden path, hold­ing up a bunch of vi­ol­ets, for the pos­ses­sion of which three young cav­alry of­ficers ap­peared to be com­pet­ing.

“Mme. Reni!” said Gemma.

Zita’s face darkened like a thun­der­cloud. “Ma­dame?” she said, turn­ing and rais­ing her eyes with a de­fi­ant look.

“Would your friends mind speak­ing a little more softly? Signor Rivarez is very un­well.”

The gipsy flung down her vi­ol­ets. “Allez-vous en!” she said, turn­ing sharply on the as­ton­ished of­ficers. “Vous m’em­betez, messieurs!”

She went slowly out into the road. Gemma closed the win­dow.

“They have gone away,” she said, turn­ing to him.

“Thank you. I—I am sorry to have troubled you.”

“It was no trouble.” He at once de­tec­ted the hes­it­a­tion in her voice.

“ ‘But?’ ” he said. “That sen­tence was not fin­ished, si­gnora; there was an un­spoken ‘but’ in the back of your mind.”

“If you look into the backs of people’s minds, you mustn’t be of­fen­ded at what you read there. It is not my af­fair, of course, but I can­not un­der­stand—”

“My aver­sion to Mme. Reni? It is only when—”

“No, your caring to live with her when you feel that aver­sion. It seems to me an in­sult to her as a wo­man and as—”

“A wo­man!” He burst out laugh­ing harshly. “Is that what you call a wo­man? ‘Ma­dame, ce n’est que pour rire!’ ”

“That is not fair!” she said. “You have no right to speak of her in that way to any­one—es­pe­cially to an­other wo­man!”

He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes, look­ing out of the win­dow at the sink­ing sun. She lowered the blind and closed the shut­ters, that he might not see it set; then sat down at the table by the other win­dow and took up her knit­ting again.

“Would you like the lamp?” she asked after a mo­ment.

He shook his head.

When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up her knit­ting and laid it in the bas­ket. For some time she sat with fol­ded hands, si­lently watch­ing the Gad­fly’s mo­tion­less fig­ure. The dim even­ing light, fall­ing on his face, seemed to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.