Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 01
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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 01
Literature -- Collections
From 'The Three-Cornered Hat'
The last and perhaps the most powerful reason which the quality of the
city--clergy as well as laymen, beginning with the bishop and the
corregidor--had for visiting the mill so often in the afternoon, was to
admire there at leisure one of the most beautiful, graceful, and
admirable works that ever left the hands of the Creator: called Seña
[Mrs.] Frasquita. Let us begin by assuring you that Seña Frasquita was
the lawful spouse of Uncle Luke, and an honest woman; of which fact all
the illustrious visitors of the mill were well aware. Indeed, none of
them ever seemed to gaze on her with sinful eyes or doubtful purpose.
They all admired her, indeed, and sometimes paid her compliments,--the
friars as well as the cavaliers, the prebendaries as well as the
magistrate,--as a prodigy of beauty, an honor to her Creator, and as a
coquettish and mischievous sprite, who innocently enlivened the most
melancholy of spirits. "She is a handsome creature," the most virtuous
prelate used to say. "She looks like an ancient Greek statue," remarked
a learned advocate, who was an Academician and corresponding member on
history. "She is the very image of Eve," broke forth the prior of the
Franciscans. "She is a fine woman," exclaimed the colonel of militia.
"She is a serpent, a witch, a siren, an imp," added the corregidor. "But
she is a good woman, an angel, a lovely creature, and as innocent as a
child four years old," all agreed in saying on leaving the mill, crammed
with grapes or nuts, on their way to their dull and methodical homes.
This four-year-old child, that is to say, Frasquita, was nearly thirty
years old, and almost six feet high, strongly built in proportion, and
even a little stouter than exactly corresponded to her majestic figure.
She looked like a gigantic Niobe, though she never had any children; she
seemed like a female Hercules, or like a Roman matron, the sort of whom
there are still copies to be seen in the Rioni Trastevere. But the most
striking feature was her mobility, her agility, her animation, and the
grace of her rather large person.
For resemblance to a statue, to which the Academician compared her, she
lacked statuesque repose. She bent her body like a reed, or spun around
like a weather-vane, or danced like a top. Her features possessed even
greater mobility, and in consequence were even less statuesque. They
were lighted up beautifully by five dimples: two on one cheek, one on
the other, another very small one near the left side of her roguish
lips, and the last--and a very big one--in the cleft of her rounded
chin. Add to these charms her sly or roguish glances, her pretty pouts,
and the various attitudes of her head, with which she emphasized her
talk, and you will have some idea of that face full of vivacity and
beauty, and always radiant with health and happiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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