title: Wanted--a wife (Io cerco moglie)
text: <y V* 'O • » ,1 - *<L c°. 0* “' *»• ^ V « ay o <** °* *•>■> * v 0 a. 4 aV sK o ; avA o >* <y * °. <b'/\ * «.S , ^ * ,*y Xt* <\ 'o . » * Jy < .§> * u • e iP. r^ * h a y ,-:w. -t '° * V **••- > V^ 5^ °°^> * 9 ' ^ ° ~ «,»*’% %> V f * * 0* O - «„ .veste**. ■%. > .v^*- ^ v^ v C* a0 » J V/ O • * c^o - ♦ 47. 4 ,V ^ " O <V^ av °o ,** f • ’ - * • 0 V c°JL 0 ^ o. *K TV** A & K * 0 *+M - "oV 1 ° ^ r£» <l^’ O ^tv * » „ 0 <0r © * lP V*. * l 0 » o«o" .r • # 1 *- ',> v’ * , • ’• ^ a* .V ■ ; v a • « * V* r*. %> V o • * * ' u 0> «> * -V ^ * \ w ' ° <i?X • \ ■Or c°l% *^o *o , » * -6 1 a < V- 0 11 ^ ^ k &MZ>S. '*P> <t \° ^ - f /L^ O 'o V *° •% k ^°w. Cfr A? V ♦•«o* & C> .<) V - S * • , <> v . „ * I 1 ° ^ <? ’• ^ A^ <* <C' A #• - *0 • A * .0 C> * 4 / '{a • 4 v V - 0*0 *P> o . ^ ^ h C\. . X 0 ^ -', ■ yjf^y ^c> «. v >:k‘J:’ y v^ik% a • ■“a v - a a W > O 1/A <* '» . V * *e )0 o » O • *. * <L» o °X. That’s me! ... In this vale of sorrow and of tears it is my privilege to enjoy good health. Even when I was still traveling with the com- mon herd of salesmen, my customers used to tell me: “Signor Sconer, you do great credit to your firm.” In point of fact I have always had a most distinguished presence. ... I keep my weight down to 175 pounds. And now let us pass on to the moral balance sheet. This is equally in my favor. I have a well-balanced and serene disposition, and I am glad of it, because fortune favors those who are thus endowed. Still it is not true that I am so lacking in sensibility that if I should receive a kick in the latter end of the alphabet — to employ 9 10 WANTED— A WIFE one of Lionello’s vulgar witticisms — my face would betray no signs of emotion. At all events I am not excitable. Excitable people do not live long. Achilles , an excitable person, died young. This sentence is contained in the advertising booklet issued by our house, entitled, What I Must Do to Prolong My Life. The scientific part of the booklet was in- trusted to Dr. Pertusius; but the moral part is my own creation. “It’s a fact,” Dr. Pertusius observed to me, “that excitable and sensitive individuals are as short-lived as they are unhappy, because they expend too much vital energy. “In that case let us recommend Yitaline/’ said I. “But there’s no such thing as Yitaline !” said the doctor. “That makes no difference, we will create it: Yitaline , elixir of life, a product of our House.” “That’s just bluff,” said the doctor. “What of it? Bluff has a right to exist so long as anybody exists who will let himself be bluffed.” The doctor had written: “Avoid all mental troubles!” and I added, “When trouble ap- proaches you along the right hand path, there is no plausible reason why you should not choose to follow the path to the left.” WANTED— A WIFE 11 “But you,” said the doctor,” are thinking only of your own precious carcass!” I was amazed at his ironic tone. “One owes oneself that duty, my dear doctor.” One of my lady customers used to tell me that the price of my Ideal Violet was rather high. “My dear lady,” I replied, “if I sold it cheaper perhaps I might make more money; but ladies of fashion, like yourself, would desert my shop ; and if I confessed that it is called Ideal because it is not made of real violets, but of coal-tar, I wonder if you would understand?” “You are not very honest!” said the lady. “Is it any more honest for an aged hen to try and masquerade as a spring chicken?” That was the answer I should have made her if I had not been a gentleman. Ah, yes! I am almost too scrupulous ; and when I think of cer- tain financial giants, I cannot resist telling my- self: “It’s true, Ginetto, you are not quite at the top notch, but you are a perfect gentleman,” and that is always something to be proud of. And when I think that twenty years ago I started in business without a centime to my name, and that to-day I am the head of the firm of X ... & Co., Ltd., and one of the Board of Directors of the Y. Manufacturing Co., and in such capacity exert considerable personal influence in financial matters, I cannot resist 12 WANTED— A WIFE telling myself, “Ginetto, you are a great man !” Thanks to a lucky bargain, I recently be- came owner of a dwelling in rococo style situ- ated in one of the most modern quarters of the city. The two upper floors are rented to quiet and select tenants. The ground floor and ad- joining garden are reserved for myself. I have polished floors, a dining-room Renaissance style, a parlor Louis Quinze style, a bed-room Em- pire style, with a mahogany bed, and an adjoin- ing dressing-room Liberty style. Above the bed hangs a tapestry with a Holy Family designed by a distinguished painter. My housekeeper is named Desdemona. She was for many years in the service of a princely house, and her aspect is somewhat forbidding. Although very re- served, she nevertheless allowed herself to make this observation : -“There is many a young lady, Cavaliere, whom you might make very happy!” “Do you really think so?” “I really do, Signore.” Regularity is one of my most notable quali- ties. I leave home at ten o’clock in the morn- ing, scrupulously shaven, and with collar and necktie in perfect order, because this is not only a duty that every distinguished individual owes himself, but it is also a necessity where one has a large personnel under one’s direction. I WANTED— A WIFE 13 transact my business and at night return home to dine in my own house. When I look around and touch my possessions, I enjoy to the full the sensation of really living. I often enter- tain my friends, Lionello among others, a hand- some fellow, blond like myself, and the author of books that are quite popular. “Like me,” said Lionello. “Precisely; and it takes refuge with other people favored by fate.” “Like you,” said Lionello. “Precisely,” said I. “Let us change places,” said Lionello. “It can’t be done, because that would mean that you would have to pass into my skin and I into yours. You were born to spend and I to save. But you are much luckier than your poor Ginetto, because when you are dead you 14 WANTED— A WIFE will leave your name inscribed upon the im- mortal tablets of glory ; but as for me, to whom shall I leave my capital?” “Leave it to me,” said Lionello. “Well, why not, my friend? I am sure that no one could spend it more agreeably than you. But it is impossible, because you, Lionello, will die first, since you consume too much vital energy. I, on the contrary, am destined to live at least to the age of ninety-nine; and to save, save, save continually, in accordance with the will of the Lord.” CHAPTER II TWO CONFLICTING PROBLEMS ES, in all probability I shall hang on to the X age of ninety-nine years, the limit set by Dr. Pertusius for men who are well balanced and serene, and also the limit prescribed by Moses for the men who are just. After that it may happen that I shall die, although there are certain things which I must see before I believe them. But granting this, they will give me a splendid funeral. But afterwards? Afterwards, nobody knows what happens next; and that is precisely why I keep my moral bal- ance sheet in perfect order. But it is certain that if I, Ginetto Sconer, had an heir who took after me, with a nose like mine, with eyes like mine, with a heart like mine, that is, well balanced and serene, I should come back to live for a second time in my heir; and from my tomb I should hear the consoling words: “What an excellent man my father was, for he has enabled me to live as comfortably as a bug in a rug!” But in order to have an heir, I must have a son, and to that end I must acquire a wife. Yes, 15 16 WANTED— A WIFE I know, my brilliant qualities have made me much sought after, and not a few people have repeated what my housekeeper said : "You could have, you still could, you still can make many a young lady happy.” All the same, I never altogether liked the sound of that word matrimony. I remember that Lionello has fre- quently assured me that the cases of conjugal fidelity definitely proven, as he himself had cause to deplore (his own word, "deplore”), were very few. That is disquieting, not because of tragic consequences, which I should avoid at any cost, but because it might throw doubt upon the authenticity of my heir. But now, since Lionello has acquired more advanced ideas, he scornfully heaps abuse upon me because I am thinking of marrying at all. "But, my dear fellow,” I answered, "you, being the artist that you are, find it profitable to lead, so to speak, a disorderly life. But I, if only for the sake of my business, am a man of order ; and matrimony is as much a social convention as, on certain occasions a frock coat and a top hat. Besides, I want a son.” "Sons belong to humanity at large,” said Lion- ello. "That is all right for you,” I rejoined, who count yourself a part of humanity at large. But I want a son of my own.” WANTED— A WIFE 17 I might also have remarked that he showed no little ingratitude towards matrimony, be- cause it had given him some fine triangular sit- uations for his plots, but out of delicacy I re- frained from mentioning this. For some time past, the problem of an heir has been further complicated by the impres- sive phenomenon of a renascence of my youth. I, who up to a few years ago, could come and go tranquilly, am now seriously perturbed. I stop to look at the pretty girls! How many there are of them ! I never used to realize there were so many! Even the girls of the people, who walk the streets with a tango step, swing- ing a shopping-bag, with its contents of a little mirror, a powder puff, a little parcel of sau- sage — I like even them! It is very strange! These dear girls translate themselves into sensations of dessert: cream of swirling skirts, apricot ices with strawberry lips, rum punches with dancing slippers that set my head to whirl- ing. Oh, bewitching little guttersnipes, why will you peck at my poor tender heart? There are certain little heads so daintily poised that it would be a delight to wring them off and use them for wall decorations for my sitting-room. But alas, although in business affairs I am mag- nificently venturesome, when I find myself a 18 WANTED— A WIFE guest at the feast of beauty, I become shame- fully prudent. Elementary common sense makes me exclude shop-girls, stenographers, telephone operators and other young women of that class from my list of matrimonial possibilities; but I confess that they have given me many anxious hours. . . . Even the homely ones, by the time I have seen them twice, begin to look pretty. Since I have a Bechstein piano in my sitting room, I decided to take some piano lessons. At the first lesson my music teacher struck me as uninteresting, at the second she became notice- able, at the third, alluring, at the fourth posi- tively dangerous. In view of the fact that the lady had a most evil looking husband, I said to myself, “Grinetto, safety first!” and I handed the lady an envelope containing payment in full for her services. But every time that I play upon my Bechstein, presto! I see the music teacher, and a whole bevy of pretty girls flit- ting across my ceiling, and gazing down at me with their big, china-blue eyes. Disturbed by this excessive sensibility I con- sulted Dr. Pertusius about it. All he said about it was: “That is a symptom of the dangerous age.” “Deuce take you, Doctor! Do men have a dangerous age?” WANTED— A WIFE 19 “Of course they do,” said the doctor. There was something that I didn’t know. Now that I think of it, my ship of life crossed the latitude of my thirtieth year some time ago, and has been steering toward the fortieth, but has not yet reached that parallel. “Tell me, Doctor, is the dangerous age really dangerous?” “Decidedly so, since it shifts the burden from the automatic portions of the human machinery to the noble organ of the brain.” Taking advantage of my friendly relations with Dr. Pertusius, I confided to him that the sight of certain sentimental little heads sup- ported on slender throats left bare by the pre- vailing low-necked fashion, filled me with a desire to chop them off. “A symptom for which we doctors have a special name,” said Pertusius. “Is it a serious symptom?” I asked. “No, not so long as you don’t chop their heads off, but there have been cases where they did chop them off!” “Why is it, Doctor,” I asked, “that the sight of rosy shoulders tinged with pale olive, re- vealed by a low-cut gown, gives me strange little thrills?” “Make believe,” advised the doctor, “that you are looking at the under side of a lizard . r ” 20 WANTED— A WIFE “I get you,” said I, “But it can’t be done !” “Very true,” he said gravely. “And at your age, Doctor, does it never hap- pen to you?” “We needn’t go into that,” said he. I regard doctors with a sort of indulgent mis- trust, because their everlasting study of mal- adies has ended by making them regard even health itself as just another form of disease. At all events, it is quite clear that even as a matter of physical well-being I must get mar- ried, I must find a wife, both for my own sake and for the sake of an heir. Here is a list of eligible young women — of good social standing, naturally — that I have jotted down in my pocket note-book as matrimo- nial possibilities. CHAPTER III MATRIMONIAL LIST S IGNORINA A. : Satisfactory dowry, fine presence, distinguished family, conjectural weight, 150 pounds. Very attractive to-day but her father is enormously stout; her mother, ditto. Hereditary tendency to obesity. Re- jected for aesthetic reasons. Signorina B. : Too many school diplomas. She knows all the dates by heart. Her prom- inent forehead betrays her intelligence. She is all the time saying : “I was born to be a writer.” After marriage, she is quite capable of writing me up for the papers ! Ah, no ! Too much fore- head, and not nearly enough hair. Signorina C. : She is forever asking, “Do I look all right? And the moment you look at her, she says: “Why are you staring at me? It isn’t nice to stare!” She laughs at nothing at all. Another woman asked her where she could get such well-fitting corsets *as hers. “I don’t wear corsets,” she answered, “I am pretty 21 22 WANTED — A WIFE enough just as I am.” At a lecture, she did nothing but ridicule another woman who wore yellow shoes. “Making such a show of her feet, when they are big as flower-pots, and with rub- ber heels besides!” When she is out walking, she casts side- glances into every window. “Mamma, does my dress hang all right? Does it hang wrong? Is it straight? Is it crooked? “Yes, darling!” But what mamma doesn’t ^ee and I do, is that daughter is a silly little fool. And my heir has got to be intelligent. Signorina D. : A charming girl; but too gen- erous hearted toward all men who flock about her. Her excessive kindliness is responsible for her having been sent away from one school after another. A dear girl, but she offers the disad- vantage that while the heir would be legally my son, he would hot necessarily resemble Ginetto Sconer. Signorina E. : Curly headed, slender, almost too thin, nicknamed “Peach Blossom.” Signor- ina B., the one “born to be a writer/’ sent word to her that “Pumpkin Blossom would be a more appropriate name. Peach Blossom retorted, “walking dictionary !” The young woman born WANTED— A WIFE 23 to be a writer rejoined, “Broomstick in skirts!” To which Peach Blossom replied, “Broomstick in skirts, if yOu like, but a female broomstick, which is more than you will ever be! And, what is more, a full bust measure has gone out of fashion.” Signorina E. possessed an exces- sive readiness of tongue that gives me food for thought. What is more, she wants to know if I snore. “All husbands snore. Mamma says so.” Signorina F. : As beautiful as a head by Murillo; but what advantage is that when she can never say anything but, “Oh yes! ... Wait a minute ! . . . Why, the idea !” I don’t know that painter Murillo, but he must have painted heavenly pictures, for she is al- ways up in the clouds. “Signorina, what do you like best? Reading, working, cooking?” “I just love housework!” But her own room would horrify my housekeeper Desdemona. The only housework she does is to polish her nails, and when no one is looking wave her hand in the air to make the blood run out of it. “Signorina, what are you reading? The lat- est news of the war?” Not at all; she was reading the personal column. 24 WANTED— A WIFE Signorina G. : “Soars upward in a slender, flawless shaft,” as Lionello says, but she makes the mistake of going around accompanied by her mother, who perhaps once on a time was an- other Slender, flawless shaft, but to-day is bent into an arch. A clever girl ought to avoid being seen with a mother who offers a prophetic picture of what she herself is destined to become. Besides, the son of Ginetto Sooner must be a rugged oak, and not a slender shaft. Signorina H. : Daughter of an architectural engineer, and a very graceful specimen of her father’s structural work, done in my favorite style, Louis- Quinzei. She looks like a big doll, and her name is Noemi. She wears corkscrew curls like those you see in old prints. She af- fects great languidness and a ^oft, drawling voice. But appearances are deceitful. I over- heard her one day, in her father’s office, rais- ing the rents of all his tenants. That young woman, I said to myself, has some good quali- ties! But another day I heard a strident voice loud enough to raise the roof: “Get a move on ! Get a move on ! Patience isn’t my middle name, you know ! You’re a fool, an idiot ! Here goes my slipper straight in your mummy face!” “Bing!” “Ouch!” It was Noemi, soft gentle WANTED— A WIFE 25 name, talking to her maid. That young woman impresses me as dangerous. Signorina J. : Daughter of a friend of mine, a wealthy manufacturer. We stayed at the same hotel in Viareggio for something more than a week. I don’t know what she would be like in winter ; but she is fine in summer time. She is so cool and breezy that she makes you feel as if you were sitting next to a water-ice. She is rather absent-minded. “Signorina, does this belong to you?” The chamber maid, the porter, the bell-boy, were constantly asking her, “Signorina, does this belong to you?” Whenever she arose, she left something behind her, gloves, parasol, picture postcards. I rescued a lace handkerchief every time we went out walk- ing together. “Clara, can’t you be a little more careful?” her mother would say. “It doesn’t matter, Mamma,” she would an- swer. It doesn’t matter Signor Sconer, does it? It is so nice not to bother about remembering things. What if things do get lost? It’s up to papa !” “Yes, she is a little thoughtless,” mamma confided to me, “but she is so good-hearted, that little girl of mine, and she is always going to be so happy! For she will never remember 26 WANTED — A WIFE to-morrow what happened to-day.” At all events she was a sufficiently charming companion to make a man forget everything else, aside from herself. She went so far as to promise solemnly that she would remember me. But one day, when I was talking of my acquaintances, I happened to mention that I knew Lionello, after which she never left me in peace. “Really? You know Lionello, the one who writes those delightfully sentimental novels? How delightful ! What is he like? Is it true that he is quite young, and that he wears his hair cut Russian style, like Gorki? Is it true that he is very romantic? Write to him ! Yes, yes, write and tell him that he must come to Yiareggio. I promise that I will be ever so nice to you if you do.” To think of her calling those novels of Lion- ello’ s “sentimental!” My housekeeper, Desde- mona, read just one of them, and has been scandalized ever since. Signorina K. : I met her under most favor- able conditions, just recovering from a disap- pointment in love. Her father was still debat- ing harsh measures : “In England or America a man is made to pay heavily for a breach of promise.” Accordingly I tried as tactfully as possible to console the young lady, when she pulled me up short : “What are you driving at? WANTED— A WIFE 27 Are you all afraid that I shall commit suicide in my despair or go into a convent? Not a bit of it! When I get ready IT1 find another man, so that’s that. One nail drives out another.” “You really think so, my dear girl?” “Why, of course! A pretty woman can al- ways find plenty of new nails. You yourself, Sconer, for example. If I chose I would have you down on all fours at my feet.” She very nearly used to sit in my lap, be- cause that is what the actress, Clara de los Dol- ores, often does on the stage. A fascinating young woman, but much too exigent in the conditions she lays down for conjugal liberty, and expects me to agree to. Preposterous! Signorina L. : Acquaintance formed at the Bristol Hotel. It was at the time of the earth- quake in the Abbruzzi. Every one was sighing : “How horrible! What fearful loss of life! Little children crushed to death!” Signorina L., seated on a sofa, sighed like the rest; “How horrible ! What fearful loss of life ! Little children crushed to death!” But even while she was speaking I could see her looking at her- self in the mirror, and giving surreptitious little touches to her dress to make the drapery hang right. It reminded me of my housekeeper, Desdemona, when she is getting ready to turn 28 WANTED — A WIFE over a pan of hash. She kept watching herself out of the tail of her eye in the mirror, and trying new effects with the draping, to the accompaniment of: “How horrible! Is it possible? Little children crushed to death !” She keeps on posing even when she is alone. I asked her why and she replied: “When the stars and the moon look down upon us from the firmament, it is proper that we should assume a dignified attitude.” “I get your idea, but don’t they see rather more than they are entitled to?” “What if they do? Don’t you think I am worth looking at?” This young lady is altogether to aesthetic. Signorina M. : English by birth, very lady- like, very much admired in the parlors of the hotel at the watering place where she was tak- ing the waters. But who could be making the earthquake that was taking place in a room near my own? And who could be singing those much too merry songs, even if they were in the Eng- lish language? It turned out to be Miss M. What is more, she used to drink brandy, and danced the latest tango steps with another girl friend. England can’t be trusted, even if she is one of the Allies. WANTED— A WIFE 29 This note concerns the young woman who caused me the most suffering of all. I call her Signorina N. Y. , standing for New York, be- cause she is the American type. None the less, she is Italian, and belongs to the same distin- guished class as I; before the war her father was an exporter of Italian medicines made in Germany, with his main office in New York. Miss N. Y. is wealthy, and thinks that she rules the universe. She is twenty years old, slightly under medium stature, but physically strong. She is the picture of health, and the incarnation of high spirits. She is just the type to give my heir the best chance. Her voice, tinged with Parisian rolling r, seems to be perpetually sing- ing the hymn of youth. Cheep-cheep! she sings from the branches of the tree of life. Her parents have given her a degree of liberty al- most too American. Cheep-cheep! I met her once at a fair for the benefit of the Red Cross, where she wheedled a hundred francs even from me. Cheep-cheep! I saw her another evening at a futurist lecture. She understood the whole of it, and was enthusiastic. Cheep-cheep! I have seen her skating, and cutting patterns like a hieroglyphist. Cheep-cheep! I have seen her at the wheel driving an automobile. Cheep- cheep! I saw her at the funeral of the banker, Rodh. She sat in front with her mother, and 30 WANTED— A WIFE I behind with her father, and we talked busi- ness. Except in unavoidable cases like that of the banker, Rodh, I avoid funerals, because it seems to me that in the presence of the bier everybody turns pallid, and it must be bad for the health. But Miss N. Y. even dressed in black, was resplendent. Cheep-cheep ! The ex- uberant creature! Life for her is just a tree on which all she has to do is to change branches — in other words, change her clothes — and sing her hymn: Cheep-cheep! She speaks Italian well, but when she talks to her dog, a highly educated dog, she speaks French. I once had the honor of entertaining her in my home, because her father and mother wanted to look at the second floor of the house, which was then vacant. On that occasion we were left alone. “How magnificent,” she said, referring to my dwelling. “Ah, yes,” I replied. “Formerly the palace of the Counts of Tornamali, but to-day it is my property, Miss N. !” But she saw an English divan, sprang fore- ward and seated herself on it, bounded up then curled herself up in one corner: “This is so comfortable!” It was the month of May, and she wore a sport hat of white tulle dotted over with big black beads, under the brim of which WANTED — A WIFE 31 one glimpsed her profile with its dainty little nose. Her white frock was partly covered by a sort of embroidered blouse with dragons and serpents in gold and silver. Her pretty arms were covered with long white kid gloves, and her stockings were also white, and were daringly displayed with the little low white slippers. She made me think of some species of oriental squirrel. Bless my soul, to think of possessing a pre- cious little animal like this for one’s very own! If I should stretch out my arms to her, she would leap into them and nestle right down. As a matter of fact, she suddenly sprang up from her seat and began to cheep-cheep again: “There is one thing you haven’t got, Sconer.” “One thing I haven’t got?” “Yes, you have no library.” “So I haven’t.” “Make a note of it!” “I am making a note of it.” She rattled off a list of books in off and eff. “Russian writers?” I asked. “Yes, the Russians are so interesting!” she said. Then she gave me another name which I wasn’t able to take down. “Rabindranath Tagore! A poet without a peer. He makes a little child talk to its mother in a most delicious way.” 32 WANTED— A WIFE “And yon, Miss N.,” I asked meaningly, “would you be willing to think about making a little child talk in the same delicious way?” “Think of marrying you mean? Of course. But in Italy marriage offers one serious disad- vantage.” “What it that, Miss N ” “When a girl marries she settles down.” “You mean?” “I mean that she is no longer free, she can no longer run about, no longer flirt or dance or dictate or do as she pleases. I want my liberty ! I want to marry in America where one can get a divorce later on and remarry if one chooses to. In Italy matrimony is an institution founded on infidelity. In America it is founded on liberty !” At that moment, if my business had permit- ted it, I would have agreed to go to America. Signorina O. : A terrible young woman, but quite wealthy. Where did she ever learn to roll her eyes like that? The tone of her com- plexion was prodigious, but not in the least nat- ural ; it was transparent ! It seemed as though she could not have been born like other women, but must have been sculptured by some magic artist from the pulp of one of those yellow, yellow quinces. She dressed with the most ex- WANTED— A WIFE 33 traordinary taste; she always wore dresses of delicate hues, pale, dubious tints, harmonizing with the tone of her skin. I do not know whether she was really beautiful, for I was more than half bewitched. “Keep that tongue hidden !” I used to tell her, because every few minutes she would stick out the tip of her tongue between her lips; and that at least was not pale, but bright red. “At all events hide those ankles !” Because she had a habit of amply displaying her ankles, as diaphanous as all the rest of her in their al- most colorless silk stockings and slippers. “Do my ankles disturb you?” “They give me sleepless nights!” She retorted bluntly : “If you want to marry me, Signor Sconer, seize your opportunity while I am still free.” I would have liked to marry her; but she her- self blocked one of the two objects that induced me to consider marriage at all. She refused to have children, “Because it was apt to spoil the complexion.” I wanted the lady, but I also wanted an heir. She said, “yes” for her own part but emphatically “no” for the heir. “It is only the peasantry,” she declared “who marry to have children.” Furthermore, she exacted as a further con- dition of marriage, that her husband should ex- ercise for twenty minutes every morning with 34 WANTED— A WIFE forty-pound chest-weights. She is another of the young women who have caused me much suf- fering. Signorina P. : Beautiful # or homely accord- ing to how she strikes you. I met her during a vacation. She goes everywhere on a bicycle. When she walks she has a rather ungainly gait. None the less she is very charming! She can stick her father’s felt hat on her head, she can throw a nun’s cloak over her shoulders — as she often does — and still have an air of elegance. She has the sharp little teeth of a lynx, a pointed nose, a pointed chin, and her eyes are like two black dots: And all these various points are so mobile they make one’s head swim. She is as pale as wax, but she is never ill. She has long, wavy, riotous hair, which she has to twist like serpents, around and around her head. When unbound it reaches below her knee. The most puzzling thing of all is how she could ever have taken her university degree if she had to sit still in order to study; it is evident that one can get a doctorate without studying. But when I hear her called “Doctor,” it gives me something of a shock. She has a fresh, high- pitched, lilting voice, and one never knows what she means to say, because she never finishes a WANTED— A WIFE 35 sentence. She never loses her temper; at the most, she utters a little cry like a gazelle. What is she going to do? Where is she headed? How will she end up? There is no telling! Yet the girl has brains. She is not after the men; they are after her. She is more than indifferent, and often auda- ciously outspoken. But she never forgets that she is a lady! She is officially betrothed to a young man with money back of him. He follows her around dutifully on a bicycle. She calls him, “Stupid !” “Big Boob !” “Poor Fish !” “Papa’s darling !” And it makes him quite happy. She does not strike me as a girl adapted to domes- ticity, and I told her so in polite terms, in the presence of her betrothed. She replied: “What’s the odds? He’ll do the housekeep- ing.” “I will be her lady’s maid,” he said in con- firmation. Another day when I met her again, in com- pany with the young man, in a lonely path in the woods, I asked her: “Speaking frankly, aren’t you running a risk spending whole days in the woods alone with this young man?” “He is as harmless as a glass of water,” she 36 WANTED— A WIFE replied. “I have promised to give him a kiss some day next week. Isn’t it true, Stupid, that I promised you a kiss for next week?” Her fiance replied, “How angry the God of Love must be at seeing how much you make me suffer !” “You deserve even more than you get,” she said. Her fiance replied, “It is really quite true, as Cavaliere Sconer says, that you never were in- tended for marriage !” “It’s you rather than I who aren’t meant for it,” she answered. And she said to me pri- vately : “How can I ever bring myself to marry such a timid man? The fact is, that the young men of the present day are impossible! They are all so painfully reformed. Tell me, Sconer, how long must I be faithful to a man like that? But what’s the use? I am naturally a decent sort of girl, and I never could go wrong with my eyes open.” I could have taken that fiance’s place with- out risk of unpleasant complications. And yet I too turned out to be the timid sort. Why? Perhaps it was that title of “Doctor” that made me hesitate. Signorina Q. : A queer type, and so is her mother. WANTED— A WIFE 37 “Signor Sconer,” the mother said, “look!” “At what?” “Oh, I can’t tell you! But can’t you see for yourself?” “No !” “Don’t you see my little girl’s eyes? How they shine ! I don’t know — it is very strange — but as soon as we come to a new place, within a fortnight my little girl is proclaimed the pret- tiest girl there.” Beyond question she is very charming. A dashing personality, with lots of style. But why does the mother call her, “my beautiful odalisque.” Where did she find that word? And whatever does she think it means? “Sig- nor Sconer,” the mother says, “did you see?” “See what?” “A war aeroplane.” “That’s nothing unusual!” “Yes, I know — but — ” very mysteriously and with half-closed eyes : “There is one thing that you haven’t noticed!” “What is that?” “That whenever an aviator passes by, he al- ways flies low down. Do you know why? In order to see my beautiful odalisque!” The daughter talks the same way. She says: “I don’t understand — Isn’t it strange! I no sooner come to a place than every one says I 38 WANTED— A WIFE am the prettiest girl there. They say that I look like Lyda Borelli — that’s what they say!” She describes her trousseau, the length and width of the lingerie, the lace trimmings of real Valenciennes; she describes the gowns made by the famous Abeille, the leading dress-maker of Turin, who has so many high-class mannequins, who also give French lessons. She had all her dresses made in Egyptian style! “Everything Egyptian is the height of style just now,” she says. And after all, she can’t wear them, be- cause she has joined the Red Cross. “If you could only see, Signor Sconer,” her mother says, “how becoming the Red Cross uni- form is to* her! When she goes through a hos- pital ward, the wounded all sit straight up!” But the other Red Cross nurses treated her out- rageously. She had to be sent to one of the receiving stations. At the station she carried water to a whole trainful of Austrian prisoners. Her mother says that she did this because she is so tender-hearted. But the other women say that it was because she didn’t know they were Austrians. Her fiance was killed in the war, and she wears a locket with his portrait on her breast. Furthermore, she is very patriotic. “One day,” her mother narrates, “When we were at five o’clock tea, with a number of dis- tinguished people, a procession of socialists WANTED— A WIFE 39 marched by. My little girl went to the window and waved a red, white and green handkerchief, crying, ‘Long live Italy !’ It was a crucial mo- ment for us all, and almost precipitated a revolu- tion !” The other ladies, on the contrary, in- sist that she mistook the socialist procession for a patriotic celebration. Now that her fiance of record, so to speak, is dead, she has a host of others. “How about this one? Or that one? Or the other? Does he come of a distinguished family? Do you think, Signor Sconer,” mother and daughter both asked me in one breath, “that he really and truly comes of a distin- guished family?” I myself passed for twenty- four hours as her fiance of record. A very se- rious matter, let me tell you! Because, even if she does entertain you by describing her lin- gerie with the Valenciennes laces, it ceases to be a joke when she goes on to tell you that she has a brother that can “act like a gentleman or a tramp, according to circumstances, and looks like Maciste, the moving-picture star.” “Where is this brother of yours?” I asked with some concern. “At the front.” A clever lad! No sooner had the war broken out than his commercial instinct had prompted him to go to the front and buy up — what they probably gave him for nothing — the hides of all 40 WANTED— A WIFE the cattle that died in the fields or were slaugh- tered for the soldiers. His father was a shoe- maker — so it is easy to understand how they now have one of the largest boot and shoe es- tablishments in Italy. The history of this brother who looks like the movie star has greatly cooled my ardor. Signorina R. : She is not a patriot, but a pianist. “I am super-sensitive/’ she says ; and her mother also says, “Mary, poor child, is super- sensitive !” “We artists,” says Mary, “are a race apart. What is the war to me? What is it to me who commands and who is commanded? What have I in common with Salandra, who declared war? What have I in common with the Kaiser? Then why try to draw me into their quarrels? The Kaiser and the King of the Hottentots are one and the same to me.” She plays Moskowski, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel. Did I say “plays”? She would like to play but she can’t. She extends over the key- board (to borrow her own words), her long slim hands with nails of polished onyx , and then strange things happen, as I myself Saw one day when they came to try my Bechstein. She began, and suddenly, almost at once, she turned pale. “See how white she has grown,” the WANTED— A WIFE 41 mother said, “it is always like that ! Oh, it is terrible ! She is going into a trance.” “A little brandy !” I suggested. She partly recovered and said : “When I play my veins empty, dreams overpower me, my hair slips unbound over my shoulders like the serpents of the fabled Medusa. Ravel’s music, which I adore, exas- perates my sensibility like a piercing auger ; the instant that I touch the keys I feel the magne- tism.” Here again, as regards my heir, there is simply nothing doing. And besides such ex- aggerated sensibility is not without its dangers. 