Musings from the Heart: "A Little Story in Outpourings"

In what authentic "Manfaluti-like" phrasing does our woman of letters trace her feelings! And with what pulsing literary art does her pen shine?! We shall publish this "little story in outpourings" in installments...

Was it in vain that her two dreaming eyes slumbered, through her laughing years,
leaping with the rapture of play,
to the lulling of fond calls,
as though she were in the depth of infinity,
brimming with what she did not understand, and sensing in it what she could not express?!...

Was it in vain, or futile, that she tumbled through the wildernesses of a barren life,
never dipping her eyes in a leaping light,
never allowing her lips to glow with the sweet smile, like her agemates among the lovely young girls
of green dreams and the haughty step!?

Was it folly, or a kind of goodness,
not to live easy of mind,
upon a leap of the beautiful reality with its bounded horizon,
trailing in silks, and idling upon the carpets, between the flutter of an eyelid and the quiver of a dream?!......

Was it a destiny decreed —
that her tense, expectant life should be attended
by the warm heart of motherhood

which she does not know what to call... nor how:
Is it honeyed? or intoxicating?
Riotous? or singing?
Or has it a fragrance all its own, of heavenly definition?!
It is not of that calm, sad beauty, if her guess does not err,
and it is, besides,
the pride of conquering knowledge,
in something of the sanctity of definition, which its possessor called now history, and now philosophy,
and now religion, or the homeland, or love, or art...
expressing through it the stirrings of a soul of delicate sense,
in which inspiration has swiftness, freshness, and a trailing elegance,
and breath has warmth, sincerity, and supplication, in something overflowing with that deep-rooted humanity
which, he says, is not so idealistic as he would wish it to be...

★

— Her Mother —

And the village was throbbing with life on those winter evenings, though the servants pressed round her to do her bidding, in the care of a father proud of character,
who loved nothing in the world as he loved her.
Her disdainful selfhood pays no heed to all this that attends her,
nor does she care for it, nor can it charm her out of her withdrawn, indifferent nature?!!
She is that shy young girl who roams the reaches of wide, far-off horizons
in a generous silence and a virgin absorption
that has no beginning and no end,
and which, in the world of girls, is nothing that carries a meaning or an interpretation.

★

— Impressions —

The gas lights with their dazzled breaths,
with the warm smell,
and the long shadows stretching upward in awesome loftiness —
those lights which still today, and forever,
shine before her and sway, and sink to rest,
now stretching tall, and now crawling —
and her simple thoughts stretched tall with them,
pale of color, and settled down, pampered, to the cadence of those brimming passages

She amuses herself by the stoves, enjoying the fall of the rains upon the mud,
and the retelling of tales sweet of flavor, that have a beginning and have an end...
but in a manner of style holding the newness of the village and the freshness of its smile.
And there, in the house of (the high official) of purely romantic character,
was his young, intelligent wife — her mother —
with the dark velvet sleeves and the curling blond braids
and the silver smile of everlasting radiance;
her mother... with the shawl folded at its edges, rippling like her two blue eyes,
that gifted woman, in whom God had lodged a captivating loveliness
and everything akin to loveliness, nearly or distantly,
until everything in her became captivating, enchanting,
and everything she asked for or longed for
was like a kiss upon the mouth of a chaste young girl,
or a song whose like no talents have ever yielded as virgin melody.....
Her mother, who loved, among all she loved, beautiful poetry, its old and its new,
in its many branches and purposes,
with a pressing passion, until it seemed part of her original nature, something she could not do without.
So her devoted husband sought out its treasures, presenting her from them gem after gem,
and opening before her door after door.
And among those treasures, splendid and unique of bearing,
was a nephew of hers, whose poetic gift she esteemed,
and he would delight her from time to time with his living masterpieces,
which would never have been effaced, vanishing behind the curtains of the cherished past,
had not fortune stumbled with their author, cutting for him a twisting, despairing path among the sands of this desert.