DOI article:
Harland, Henry: Cousin Rosalys
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0054
50 Cousin Rosalys
with her soft glowing eyes, with her exquisite fragrance of girl-
hood ; she was so near to me, so alone with me, despite the crowd
about us, and I loved her so ! Oh, why couldn’t I tell her ?
Why couldn’t she divine it ? People said that women always
knew by intuition when men were in love with them. Why
couldn’t Rosalys divine that I loved her, how I loved her, and
make me a sign, and so enable me to speak ?
Presently—and all too soon—she would return to the carriage,
and drive away with Aunt Elizabeth ; and I, in the lugubrious
twilight, would descend the great marble Spanish staircase (a
perilous path, amongst models and beggars and other things) to
the Piazza, and seek out Jack Everett at the Caffe Greco.
Thence he and I would go off to dine together somewhere, con-
doling with each other upon our ill-starred passions. After
dinner, pulling our hats over our eyes, two desperately tragic forms,
we would set ourselves upon the traces of d’Avignac and Konig
and Father Flynn, determined to forget our sorrows in an evening
of dissipation, saying regretfully, “ These are the evil courses to
which the love of woman has reduced us—a couple of the best-
meaning fellows in Christendom, and surely born for better ends.”
When we were children (hasn’t Kenneth Grahame written it for
us in a golden book?) we played at conspirators and pirates.
When we were a little older, and Byron or Musset had superseded
Fenimore Cooper, some of us found there was an unique excite-
ment to be got from the game of Blighted Beings.
Oh, why couldn’t I tell her ? Why couldn’t she divine it, and
make me an encouraging sign ?
*
* #
But of course, in the end, I did tell her. It was on the night
of my birthday. I had dined at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and with
the
with her soft glowing eyes, with her exquisite fragrance of girl-
hood ; she was so near to me, so alone with me, despite the crowd
about us, and I loved her so ! Oh, why couldn’t I tell her ?
Why couldn’t she divine it ? People said that women always
knew by intuition when men were in love with them. Why
couldn’t Rosalys divine that I loved her, how I loved her, and
make me a sign, and so enable me to speak ?
Presently—and all too soon—she would return to the carriage,
and drive away with Aunt Elizabeth ; and I, in the lugubrious
twilight, would descend the great marble Spanish staircase (a
perilous path, amongst models and beggars and other things) to
the Piazza, and seek out Jack Everett at the Caffe Greco.
Thence he and I would go off to dine together somewhere, con-
doling with each other upon our ill-starred passions. After
dinner, pulling our hats over our eyes, two desperately tragic forms,
we would set ourselves upon the traces of d’Avignac and Konig
and Father Flynn, determined to forget our sorrows in an evening
of dissipation, saying regretfully, “ These are the evil courses to
which the love of woman has reduced us—a couple of the best-
meaning fellows in Christendom, and surely born for better ends.”
When we were children (hasn’t Kenneth Grahame written it for
us in a golden book?) we played at conspirators and pirates.
When we were a little older, and Byron or Musset had superseded
Fenimore Cooper, some of us found there was an unique excite-
ment to be got from the game of Blighted Beings.
Oh, why couldn’t I tell her ? Why couldn’t she divine it, and
make me an encouraging sign ?
*
* #
But of course, in the end, I did tell her. It was on the night
of my birthday. I had dined at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and with
the