A story from Edgecumb Stanley that magi might intervene in at any point. It may sound familiar…
The love-story of Gerardo Guoro and Elena Candiano is as touching as any in the gentle annals of romance. She was the daughter of Doge Pietro Candiano IIL,—a girl in whose veins coursed the bluest of noble Venetian blood, whilst her lover was base-born, though of a respectable family. He was probably as the Venetian proverb has it ” Erser in Candia,”—”Without a farthing in his pocket!” Such unequal affairs of the heart, as the world has always called them, are just where the romance of love runs riot!
It was so when Gerardo and Elena, plighted their troth secredy, and told nobody but Elena’s doting old nurse Marta, who contrived the interviews, bore the messages, and shielded the secret from the Doge and Dogaressa…With the very first bud of their rosetree of happiness, alas, gallant Gerardo was summoned to join his company and to embark for the Orient. Elena’s mother, noting the girl’s tearful pallor, decided that matrimony was the only remedy.
“A maiden fretting
Is cured by wedding.”
A very eligible partner appeared duly on the scene, one Messir Vettor Belegno, a patrician of ripe age and wealthy, whose widowed home looked for a new mistress. Broken-hearted Elena refused her rich paramour, but a daughter of the Doge has no will of her own, and the marriage contract was duly signed, and she, more dead than alive, ever fretting for her absent Gerardo, was led to her nuptials in San Pietro di Castello.
The fatal knot was tied, but it had nearly compassed a fatality, for, no sooner had the ring of the wedded wife been slipped upon her finger, than poor Elena, clad in her bridal garb of purity, swooned in Belegno’s arms. A speechless awe pervaded the brilliant wedding party, for when the beauteous bride came not back again to consciousness, the Bishop pronounced her dead!
The joyous notes of the nuptial ceremony were abruptly changed to the dirge of burial, and, there, wrapped in her bridal dress, she lay crowned with fresh spring flowers until a place was prepared for her cold body in the crypt. As fate would have it the morrow of her funeral, when the fair alabaster-like form of the lovely girl lay alone in that dark place, saw brave Gerardo’s troop of gallant warriors landed at the Lido. News of the tragedy was swiftly conveyed to the fleet, and the disconsolate young husband hastened fearfully to the old church on Olivolo. Slipping aside the heavy marble cover of Elena’s tomb, he kneeled upon his knees imploring Heaven’s pardon and Heaven’s favour.
Then, in a paroxysm of grief he stretched his body along the silent form of his beloved one, and, looking into her eyes, he pressed his breast to hers, and there they lay. Presently he is conscious of a pulse and a movement in the bridal shrouded corpse, and, joy of joys, her eyes open, and she knows that her Gerardo has come home to claim her!
Beside himself with transports of love and sorrow he carries the unresisting girl to his mother, by whose care and Gerardo’s kisses, she is nursed back to life and happiness. But who shall break the news to the Doge and Dogaressa? Gerardo answers the query manfully. He has gained laurels in the East, and his grateful city has honours to bestow. Kneeling before the Doge to receive his guerdon he bravely recounts the story he has to tell.
The Doge is incredulous, but confirmation is ready to hand, when his daughter, running to Gerardo, takes his hand in hers, and craves her father’s benediction. The bridegroom of the tragedy gracefully stepping aside renounces, quite nobly, the marriage dowry, and joins the Doge and Dogaressa in sanctioning Elena’s secret wedding with Gerardo. As story-books relate—they lived ever after in perfect happiness and great content.
Games From Folktales 