He
remembered a bright summer's morning a few years earlier, when he
had walked back from the church in Aquila with Felice Baldi by his
side. Poor Felice! She had worn a very pretty black silk frock
with a fine gold chain around her neck, and a veil upon her head,
for she was not of the class "that wear hats," as they say in
Rome. But she had forced her stout hands into gloves, and Giovanni
the innkeeper had been somewhat proud of her ladylike appearance.
Her face was very red and there were tears of pleasure and
timidity in her eyes, which he remembered very well. It was
strange that she, too, should have been proud of her husband's
size and strength. Perhaps all women were very much alike. How
well he remembered the wedding collation, the little yellow cakes
with a drop of hard pink sugar in the middle of each, the bottles
of sweet cordial of various flavours, cinnamon, clove, aniseseed
and the like, the bright red japanned tray, and the cheaply gaudy
plates whereon were painted all manner of impossible flowers.
Felice was dead, buried in the campo santo of Aquila, with its
whitewashed walls of enclosure and its appalling monuments and
mortuary emblems. Poor Felice! She had been a good wife, and he
had been a good husband to her.
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