DOI Artikel:
Harland, Henry: Cousin Rosalys
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0045
By Henry Harland 41
local magistrate to give an account of his presence in the parish ;
putting on the best face I could, I pleaded superior orders. I had
taken my baccalaureat in the summer \ and my father desired me
to pass some months in Italy, for the purpose of “patching
up my Italian, which had suffered from the ravages of time,”
before I returned to Paris, and settled down to the study of a
profession.
“ H’m,” said she, manifesting no emotion at what (in my
simplicity) I deemed rather a felicitous metaphor ; and then, as it
were, she let me off with a warning. “ Look out that you don’t
fall into bad company. Rome is full of dangerous people—painters,
Bohemians, republicans, atheists. You must be careful. I shall
keep my eye upon you.”
By-and-by, to my relief, my aunt’s director arrived, Monsignor
Parlaghi, a tall, fat, cheerful, bustling man, who wore a silk
cassock edged with purple, and a purple netted sash. When he
sat down and crossed his legs, one saw a square-toed shoe with a
silver buckle, and an inch or two of purple silk stocking. He
began at once to talk with his penitent, about some matter to
which I (happily) was a stranger; and that gave me my chance
to break the ice with Rosalys.
She had risen to greet the Monsignore, and now stood by the
balustrade of the terrace, half turned towards the garden, a
slender, fragile figure, all in white. Her dark hair swept away
from her forehead in lovely, long undulations, and her white face,
beneath it, seemed almost spirit-like in its delicacy, almost
immaterial.
“ I am richer than I thought. I did not know I had a Cousin
Rosalys,” said I.
It looks like a sufficiently easy thing to say, doesn’t it ? And
besides, hadn’t I carefully composed and corrected and conned it
The Yellow Book—Vol. IX. c beforehand,
local magistrate to give an account of his presence in the parish ;
putting on the best face I could, I pleaded superior orders. I had
taken my baccalaureat in the summer \ and my father desired me
to pass some months in Italy, for the purpose of “patching
up my Italian, which had suffered from the ravages of time,”
before I returned to Paris, and settled down to the study of a
profession.
“ H’m,” said she, manifesting no emotion at what (in my
simplicity) I deemed rather a felicitous metaphor ; and then, as it
were, she let me off with a warning. “ Look out that you don’t
fall into bad company. Rome is full of dangerous people—painters,
Bohemians, republicans, atheists. You must be careful. I shall
keep my eye upon you.”
By-and-by, to my relief, my aunt’s director arrived, Monsignor
Parlaghi, a tall, fat, cheerful, bustling man, who wore a silk
cassock edged with purple, and a purple netted sash. When he
sat down and crossed his legs, one saw a square-toed shoe with a
silver buckle, and an inch or two of purple silk stocking. He
began at once to talk with his penitent, about some matter to
which I (happily) was a stranger; and that gave me my chance
to break the ice with Rosalys.
She had risen to greet the Monsignore, and now stood by the
balustrade of the terrace, half turned towards the garden, a
slender, fragile figure, all in white. Her dark hair swept away
from her forehead in lovely, long undulations, and her white face,
beneath it, seemed almost spirit-like in its delicacy, almost
immaterial.
“ I am richer than I thought. I did not know I had a Cousin
Rosalys,” said I.
It looks like a sufficiently easy thing to say, doesn’t it ? And
besides, hadn’t I carefully composed and corrected and conned it
The Yellow Book—Vol. IX. c beforehand,