The Dance Dress

Asma leans at the window, her face between two cold bars, thinking as she looks out at the garden. The day is nearly over. The sky is gray in color and the room is dark. Why does one feel one's heart tighten at the end of the day, and why does everything look sad? The only light that reaches her comes from the window of the neighbors' house, through the leaves of the trees, faint and dancing. Asma tries to forget her thoughts and busy herself with some task, but she cannot stop thinking about her cousin Jacqueline and measuring herself against her.

Jacqueline left her only a short while ago, after a brief, hurried visit. Jacqueline was coming back from a tea dance and going on to a dancing party as well. She recounted to her what had happened last night at the soirée, and told her of the great attention she had won and of the admiration earned by her beautiful dress, which had cost her three hundred lira.

Asma and her cousin are the same age, but Jacqueline is beautiful in the extreme, and her parents, as the saying goes, are of the "modern" sort: they allow her to go out whenever she wishes, to dance and amuse herself as she pleases. As for Asma, she must be content to dream of all that.

How circumstances change: only two years ago Jacqueline and Asma were together in the same class, and Asma far outshone her cousin. Jacqueline's mother was always telling her daughter:

- Look at Asma — she is always among the leading girls of the class, and you are always either last or next to last; you think of nothing but your finery and your adornment.

They used to congratulate Asma on her excellent results, and she would secretly write Jacqueline's assignments whenever the latter was invited to a dance she did not want to miss.

Asma's father never allows her to dance, and for that matter she herself feels no great inclination toward dancing. She preferred reading above everything else. But how is one to mix with people if one does not dance, does not go to soirées, does not follow the world into its amusements? Her mother's friends would say of her: "Asma is a well-behaved girl and very sensible. Where is her like to be found in these days of ours?" But they would soon forget her, to talk of other things more delicious and more entertaining, and would pay her attention only rarely — while Jacqueline attracted great notice wherever she went. If the two were found together in someone's house, everyone gathered around Jacqueline: she is merry, all movement; she knows how to relate to them, in an amusing, comical way, every little adventure of her restless life. Asma speaks little — only when they ask her a question. And what should she say, she who, beside these people, lives in solitude? Yes, her circumstances have changed greatly since school days. Now she feels her heart brimming over and the tears rising to her eyes. Is it envy? No — what nonsense is this? But a tear slides down her cheek, and she wipes it away quickly with the tips of her fingers, then goes out into the garden to stroll

a little along the dark walks.

The trees at the back of the garden were one huge mass of shadow, or vague phantoms. The weather is cold, but the water pouring into the basin has a sweet murmur, pleasant to the ear; between two dark clouds a few stars sparkle, and the cold seemed to add to their gleam. There — the horn of a distant automobile. Asma felt her spirit grow a little calmer. She turned up the collar of her coat and began to stroll at her leisure. Here she is, back to thinking about Jacqueline: and then again, if she does not mix much with people and does not amuse herself like Jacqueline, does she not obtain pleasures loftier than those? Could Jacqueline read a fine literary book! She casts a glance over the newspapers and magazines she buys, and all that interests her in them are the fashion pages and the pictures of the movie actresses. She can savor material pleasures only. Asma feels quite clearly this superiority of hers over Jacqueline, yet she still feels the tightening of her heart in spite of all these enticements. It is as though she were squandering her youth far from the world: who sees her? who knows her? who is aware that she exists?

They call her from the house:

- Asma, Asma, where are you?

She knows her little brother's voice; no doubt he needs her to explain his arithmetic assignment to him.

- I'm coming.

This is her life: she looks after her two small brothers, does a little work about the house, goes sometimes with her mother on tedious visits. She has no amusement but the cinema, reading, and the radio.

The window opens. It is her brother; she can hardly make him out in the darkness, but he shouts a second time, insistently:

- Come on... I'm waiting for you.

She goes in weary, her heart heavy.

It is now eleven o'clock. Here is Asma putting on her nightclothes and going over in her mind what happened at the soirée that has just ended: a dull evening like all the previous soirées. The neighbors came — a company of the old and the middle-aged. First they argued over the vast subject of politics. Then her father played chess with one of the ladies, while the other knitted with her needles as she recounted the news of the quarter. Asma wanted to listen to some music, but she was obliged to shut it off at once, because "jazz" hurts the old gentleman's head.

Asma says her prayers in a hurry because she is sleepy, then throws herself into her bed and wraps herself up well in the quilt; but she stares at the door of her room, standing slightly open, and glimpses through it one of the green curtains in the dining room, where her father is still sitting up. The air coming in through the window plays with the green curtain: it spreads out and trails, then swells into the shape of a circle. It is a magnificent green dance dress, and it has been handed to her to wear. Here she is dancing the waltz, turning and gliding with a young man elegantly dressed. How beautiful she is tonight beneath the lights of the glittering chandeliers. The ballroom is very large and filled with people. How lovely this dance is. Asma's flowing dress flies about her; she is very happy.

The next day Asma wakes to the clatter of her brother's iron-shod shoes as he jumps about her room, shouting:

- It's half past seven now — my God! — and I haven't gone over my geography lesson yet.

He puts an open book into her hands and begins reciting his lesson, staring at the ceiling with knitted brow. Asma raises herself a little and leans on her elbow to follow in the book what her brother is reciting.

Here is her second brother, coming in with his jacket on inside out.

- Fix this jacket for me — I can't manage to button it. And for the ten-o'clock recess make me a cheese sandwich. I don't want the kind that sticks to the fingers and bothers me when I'm playing marbles...

Asma rises from her bed with a single bound. And while she prepares the sandwiches, she remembers, with much bitterness and regret, her impossible dream of the night before.