The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 77

By EDWARD WESTERMARCK History of Marriage 7 ViisjM I ii In modern Greece the young man's mother In Japan the young couple drtnk makes the couple tat honey from the same vessel, exchanging cups nine timet. This that their marriage shall be sweet But when the entire marriage ceremony. After wine together, In rural parts of Durham, England, the tidal "Dancing the coronet off the bride" In Sweden. In the north of Kngland one of the oldest in. constitutes the party Is escorted to church by men armed with With her eyes bandaged, the bride takes the habitants of the neighborhood throws a plateful It is over the guns, which they fire close to the ears of the bride crown off her head and places It on the head of of shortbread over the bride's head.

Then there the belief in evil spirits one of the girls dancing around her. Ibis girl Is a grand scramble for the pieces, which are sup- bridal procession starts for church, It is for the bride to burst into tears. friends at a solemn and bridegroom a relic that must be driven away. of etiquet young couple art Introduced to wedding dihner. to marry.

posed to brlng good luck, ill be the next In parts of Germany the couple must not look, around on the way to church or they are "looking for another partner." (Copyright.) Next Week Polygamy. In tinmany they sny that If tha newlywedt will cnt the "morning soup" with the same spoon, they will have a peaceful married life. Eating from the same dish suggests betrothal. The Joining of hands has been from early days the accepted sign of a plighted troth. In Roman times It was a symbol that the bride had formally been "handed over" to her husband.

The hands of the bridal pair are not only joined, but tied together, In some European countries Poland, Bulgaria and Portugal for instance to symbolize the lasting union. Superstitions conneoted with the wedding ring Indicate that it hat been regarded as a mystical tie. In northeast Scotland they say that "if a woman loses her marriage ring the will lose her man." Mateo Falcone A World Famous Story by Leonid Andreyev (Leonid Andreyev, famous Russian writer, was born in IHTI and died in 1919. A note of tragedy and impending fate runs through all his work, and in the present story, which is typically Hussion in the manner in which a single mood or effect dominates the story.) A World Famous Story by Prosper Merimee (Prosper Merimee, tSOJ-ISHO, was a fairly well known French writer of stories. Be was a Parisian by birth.

He earned his living at a lawyer. Writing was more of hobby than on occupation. He was chiefly honored during his lifetime with varU tus political offices. His fame rests principally on One story, "Carmen," but that fame has made his other tales incidentally famous a veil.) fHEN you come out of Corsica, and turn toward the center of the island, the ground rises very rapidly, with huge masses of rock and deep gorges, to an open plateau. Here live the Corsican shepherds, and here is the resort of those fleeing from the law.

and asked merely that a comfortable litter be prepared for him, as he was badly wounded. At this moment Mateo Falcone and bis wife appeared. Camba became uneasy, hardly knowing what Mateo would think. He approached him alone and told what had happened. "I should never have got the bandit," he tald, "but for Fortunato." "Fortunato?" cried Mateo.

"Fortunato?" repeated his wife. "Curse you tald Mateo, and came, before the house. The bandit spat toward the door when he saw Mateo, and said: "The house of a traitor!" Forutnato saw that he had not done right. Ha offered the bandit tome cool milk. "Keep off me," tald the outlaw, and then, to a soldier, "Comrade, give me a drink of water." The wounded man wat given a drink, then wat adjusted on the litter and taken away.

Mateo did not speak for fully ten minutes. He leaned on his gun and looked at Fortunato In concentrated anger. "Well, you have made a pretty beginning," ha said. Then the boy's mother noticed the watch. "Where did you get it?" she asked.

"From the officer," said Fortunato, whereupon Mateo seised the watch and flung It against a ttone, where It broke apart. "This boy It first traitor of his race," said Mateo, then, and Fortunato sobbed aloud He shouldered his gun and called to hit ton to follow him into the maqult. The boy't mother, In a fright, kissed her ton and went Into the bouse to prty. "Father." tald Fortunato, "forgive me, I'll never do It again. I will beg that the bandit be pardoned." Mateo loaded his rifle and took aim.

"May God forgive you!" he said. He pulled the trigger; hi son fell dead. To fertilize his land a shepherd will burn a Ctretch of forest. Then, after his crop is harvested, the straw is left, and the next spring thick shoots will sprout until there is a thick growth, in a few years, often as high as seven or eight feet tbove the ground. This underbrush is called maquis.

It is a very jangle only with a hatchet can a man make his way through. So it you have killed a man, the maquis, if you have a good gun and Ammunition with you, is a safe place to live. Take a brown cloak, With a hood, for blanket and mattress. The shepherds will feed you, and you will need fear only when you go to town to replenish your ammunition. Silence his daughter that Ignatius thought, but of his dignity, as he held his head erect at the funeral.

When he returned home he relaxed as he entered his wife's chamber, but perhaps this was because the door was a little low for him. Vera's mother was paralysed hand and foot, and alio could not speak. Even her eyes were dumb. Ignatius spoke to her, but of course there was "no answer. Only her two deeply gray eyes gated silently at him.

From the day of Vera's funeral silence was sovereign In that house. There It a difference between silence and stillness. Stillness is the absence of sound; silence Is that quietness In which It seems at though someone should speak but will not. This was the feeling that Ignatius had every time he went in to see his paralyzed wife. 80 he felt, too, when be examined anything that had belonged lo Vera, his daughter, who had never spoken.

He caught himself listening to the silence of the house it was absurd. His wife's silence was insistent, and terrible. Like the grave was hit daughter's silence, and as mysterious at death. Ignatius fancied that the silence struggled as did he, and tried to resolve Itself Into sound or speech. Ignatius often spoke to other people, of course.

Hut even after a day of much talking, It seemed to him that he had remained silent for he had never mentioned that of which he wished most to speak. Ha brooded over It, and could mention It to no one who could answer him: Why did Vera kill herself? Sancho PanSA ran IS fottt as his horse could carry him to help his master, whom he found lying very still. "Mercy on me!" cried Sancho. "Did I not give your worship fair warning?" "Peace, friend Sancho," sold Don Qnlxote. "There It nothing so subject to the Inconstancy of fortune as war.

I believe tome great necromancy transformed these giants Into windmills to deprive me of the honor of tho victory. There is one who has great malice against me. Rut In the end all his wiles will be In vtin aeainst tho prevailing edge of my sword." "Amen, lay 1," quoth Fancho Panza. He heaved Don Quixote upon his legs and the knight mounted poor Rozlnante once more. They went on, with this adventure making the lubjoct of their new discourse.

The loss ot his lance was a great affliction to Don Quixote, until he remembered that ho had read ot knights who uprooted whole trees when they had lost their lancet In home unfortunate encounter. He told Sancho Panza that ho would do the sama when be had a good opportunity. "With such a lance," said Don Quixote, "I hope to perform such wondrous deeds that thou will esteem thyself particularly happy In having had the honor to behold them, and to have been the eye-witness of achievements which posterity will scarce be able to believe." "Heaven grant you may!" cried Sancho. "1 believe it all because your worship says It. Rut, if it please you, sir.

sit a little more upright In your saddle, for you ride sidelong methinks, but that, I suppose, proceeds from your being bruised by the fall." "It does so," replied Don Quixote, "and If I do not complain It is because a knight-errant must never complain of his wounds, though his life's blood were dripping out through them." So they went on seeking further Quixote's Windmills It seemed that there could be an answer to this question, although Ignatius know perfectly well that there was none. He would picture thu night that, with his wife, he stood before Vera's bed and begged her to tell them what troubled hor. Ha Imagined her speaking, and tried to dlvlno what she might have said. Sometimes ho imagined that Vera tried to speak, and something withheld her story. Once, after many weeks, went to his wife, and told her he wat going to talk about Vera.

He told how he had forbidden her to go to the city, and how his wife hod begged her to remain. He would not beg her he would not humble himself, as his wife had done, by weeping and carrying on. Not he. Vera did not love them, that was it. She hoeded them not.

And her death that ahowed she had no love In her. It made him feel ashamed, that death he said hit daughter was accursed In her grave. Hit wife lost consciousness; when she came to, her eyes did not reveal whether she had heard or remembered what her husband had said. That night Ignatius went alono to his daughter's empty room, and for a long time lay across her white bed. At last his long suppressed love for Vera broke forth, and he spoke to the empty pillow as he should have spoken on that night when, with his wife by his side, he had harshly commanded the girl to toll him.

Now hn fancied, so great was his emotion, that the would speak. "Tell me!" he moaned, and again In a broken wlspcr, "Tell me!" Hut he was answered only by silence. The next day he sought Vera's grave In the cemetery. It was his first visit there. Hit beard was now as white at If a hard frost had hit It.

And tho graveyard, too, was filled with the silence ot the dead who cannot apeak. That Vera should bo lying hut a little way under tho soli confused Ignatius, llera was his daughter, close by; It was hard to realize that she was goiio and never would be again. It seemed that If only ho could think of the right word ho might speak it, and Vera, underground though sho was, would answer. Ho took off his hat, and whispered, "Vera!" Ho repeated It loudly. Ho fancied, from fur beneath that thero came an Incoherent answer.

Ho pushed back the hair from his car, and put It to the soil: "Vera," he said, "tell me!" And Into his ear, to his great, terror, there poured only a great and Inexhaustible silence. The air Itself vibrated with a heavy silence. This silence would choke him; he groaned under lis at though In a hurricane. In the confusion of his thoughts he lost his way. The silence pursued him, it seemed.

Ho fled, and ran across Hie gruves, tearing hands and clothes on the metallic wreaths. I.Ike tho madman ho was, Ignatius sought only to escape the oppressive silence which pursued him. He ran the streets. At last he reached his home, and he went Into his wife's chamber, where ho fell on his knees, humble at lust. "Mother." he moaned, "havo pity on me, or I shall go mad." Hn bent his head on the table, and then looked up, as though he expected a miracle to happen.

love!" he said. He drew ills whole body toward his wife and then he met the silent gaze of her gray eyes. Thero was no emotion In them, no companion and no anger. If his wife had forgiven hlro. her eyes did not show It.

They wer dumb. They were silent. Throughout the whole dark and deserted boui? tbie was only tilence. NEXT WEEK ISD18CRETIUS," by Guy de Maupassant; "A Visit to the Asylum," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and "The Knight and the Sage," from the fiesta Homanorum, are next tl'orjij famous Stortes. i'ou will find thes stories in the tied Arrow) Section next week.

Kit A had gone to St. Petersburg against her father's wishes, and when she returned she was trou bled. At the mother's instigation, the parents sought Vera in her chamber one moonlight night, and begged her to tell them what It wat Unit troubled her. The father wat a stern taskmaster, and although he tried to soften his hard voice, he failed lamentably. Vera wat silent.

Ignatius, the father, felt a great hatred for St. Petersburg rise within him, for doing some mysterious thing to his (laughter, and he was angered against Vera for remaining so obstinately silent. Even the motbor't entreaties had no effect. Vera remained tllent. Until at last, she said: "St.

Petersburg has nothing to do with It. Nothing is the matter with me. It It late and you had better go to bed." They pleaded with her, but In vain. She was silent, promising only that sometime they would have a chat. Ignatius, angry, told hit wife to depart with him, and almost forcibly led her from the room.

From that night Ignatius never again spoke to his daughter, but she Ignored It. She lay In her room, and remained silent. Or she walked about, rubbing her eyes, and still remained silent. One evening, on a walk, Vera threw herself In front of a train, and was killed. The news of Vera'a violent death prostrated her mother, who had a atroke.

Ignatius, the father, remained cold. People tried to see In the harsh old man some sign of sorrow, but there was none. They knew be bad sinned, and It hit daughter had it wat not of tested race of beings have armt of such immense size that sometimes they reach two leagues In length." "Pray, look better, air," quoth Sancho. "Those things are no giants, but windmills, and the arms you fancy are their sails, which, being whirled about by the wind, make the mill go." "That shows you are little acquainted with adventures," said Don Quixote. "I tell thee they are giants.

If thou art afraid, go aside and say thy prayers, for I am resolved to engage In a dreadful unequal combat with them all." Ho saying, he clapped spurs to hit horse Rozlnante, without giving ear to his tqulre, Sancho, who bawled out to htm and assured him that the giants were really wlndwills. But Don Quixote wat so fully possessed by the strong conceit of his that he could not see what they really were, although he wis already very near them. "Stand, cowards!" Tie cried aloud. "Stand your ground, mighty creatures, and fly not basely from a single knlgbt, who dares to encounter you all." Just then, the wind rising, the mill sails began to move, which caused Don Quixote to cry: "Base miscreants! Though you move more arms than any giant ever did before, yon shall pay for yonr boldness." Then he devoutly recommended himself to hit lady Dulclnea, and, covering hlinsilf with hit shield, and couching bit lance, be rushed with Rozinante't utmost speed upon the first windmill be could come at. Running his lance Into the sail, the wind whirled about with tuch ewlftnesi that the rapidity of the motion presently broke the lance Into splinters, and hurled away both isnleht and horse along with it.

Down fell Don Quixote, rolling a good way off the field. of Porto Vecchio, on the Island a whole chicken. The boy wanted to know for a certainty that the watch would be his. He was finally convinced, as be eyed Oamba, that the man meant what he said. Then came the inner conflict between greed and hospitality, between a visible gain and an abstract principle.

If he gave up the bandit he'd get the watch; If he protected the bandit and" lived up to his name he would get nothing. He erahbed' it and Jerked a thumb over his shoulder to Indicate the haystack. The bandit cursed Fortunato, and the boy guiltily tossed him the coin he had received. The bandit spurned it. 1 Spain long ago there lived a country gentleman who became absorbed in reading romantic account! ot knights-errant who went out into the world doing good deeds, righting wrongs, and fighting valorously tor the weak and oppressed.

He read so much, even selling bit lands to secure more oookt ot this character, that he finally came to believe every word ot it true, and even lost hit tenset altogether, becoming quite mad in the notion that he, too, should become a knight and go forth in quest of chivalrous adventure and exploit. He dubbed himself Don Quixote de la Mancba, or simply Don ndfatneV moYnTed a he. which he named Roxinante. and T.athA Am .1.1 I.MA. First be chose for himself a beautiful lady for whom be might tight and to whom he might tend, enslaved, any giants that he perchance might have conquered.

She wat a country lass, pretty enough, but all unaware ot the honor thus thrutt upon her. Don Quixote named her and thought of her as Dulclnea del Toboso thenceforth. His first stop was at a tavern which be took for a mighty castle for all things appeared to blm in romantic guise. Here he proposed to the landlord that he earn the title of knight by guarding his armor all of one night in the chapel of the castle. The landlord, perceiving him insane, humored him and agreed, except that, there being no chapel, Don Quixote bad to put bit armor in the horse trough and guard it there during the night.

Some hostlers, seeking to water their stock, disturbed the would-be knight and there ensued a brawl, which the landlord finally quieted, and, to be well rid of Don Quixote, dubbed him a knight then and there, saying that two bourt watching wat tufflcient and he bad already nobly stood tfuard for four. Satisfied, and in order to take the landlord's advice to stock np on clean shirts and money for expenses in his Don A World Famous Story by Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Haavedra, usually known simply as Cervantes, was a famous Spanish novelist, born died IStO. He wrote "Don Quixote" to show the absurdity of the many chivalrous exploits of knights in various romances. The first part appeared in KiOS, and the second part in lQtj.) Mateo Falcone's house was about a Bile from this maquis. For that Ountry and time it was in the early aineteenth century Mateo Falcone Wat regarded as a rich man.

He was approaching fifty years of age, and a crack shot. His skill with a gun was really extraordinary. When Mateo Falcone married, his flrtt three children were girls, which enraged him. Next came a son, the hope of the family and the heir of its me, whom Mateo named Fortunato. One day Mateo and his wife had to leave the house to see some distant flocks.

Fortunato was left in charge vt the place. The boy idled away tho Hay, and was thinking of a forthcoming holiday, when he heard a gunshot, and then more shots. Finally a man appeared on the path from the plain he dragged himself painfully along, wounded in the thigh. He was a bandit, an outlaw; he had gone to town for ammunition and had fallen Into an ambush of soldiers on the way back. Hit wound made his escape to the maquis impossible without help.

He appealed to the boy, as the son of Mateo Falcone, to help him. Fortunato objected that he could not 4o It without his father's permission. The bandit offered a coin. Fortunato grasped it eagerly and said: "Don't be afraid." Quickly he ecooped out a hole in the haystack near by. The bandit crouched down in It and the boy covered him up, leaving a little breathing tpace and yet making the tack appear at usual.

He acted with VhrkKt'on'tTot the Sitae? ni Lf.n.t.?..0tib.h.tCn atood untouched for a long time. Then he carefully lifted dust over the bloodstains along the path by the house. Six men in uniform arrived a few minutes later. An adjutant, a distant relative ot Mateo Falcone't, commanded them. Hit name wat Gamba; he wat energetic and renowned tor bunting down many an outlaw.

He was greatly feared by the bandits. Seeing Fortunato, he asked him whether any man had passed. The boy merely repeated the officer's questions In a foolish manner. Gamba grew exasperated, but be persisted. He was sure the boy had seen the bandit, and yet Fortunato kept Implying that he had Hot.

Gamba had the house searched, ut to no avail. And all this while fortunato petted the cat and ber kittens. Gamba even threatened the boy, but the only reply was: "My father It Mateo Falcone." It wat enough; they knew whose ton he was and they dared got barm him. Then Gamba decided to try bribery. First he told Fortunato that bit father would whip him for bit conduct toward the officers, and then: "Here la a fine watch.

Tell me where the bandit went, or where yon have hidden bim ana 1 11 give 11 10 you -wd the watch ttealthilv. He told bit landt or mortgaged them to get fundi for bit great enterprise. Meanwhile be sought a squire In the person of a neighboring farmer, who was pot-bellied and credulous, named Sancho Pania. Don Quixote filled the peasant's ears with the marvelous adventures that might befall them, and to lured him away from hit wife and children to accompany blm on his Jour-neytngs. The better to satisfy bis squire, who was mounted on his own horse.

Don Quixote promised him the governorship of an Island as toon at he bad conquered one and brought Its people under submission. Sancho Panza and bit matter discoursed freely on thlt at they rode into the world, and Sancho imagined all the wonderful thing be could do It his master was at gloriously successful as he hoped. As they were thus discoursing they discovered some thirty or forty windmills that were in that plain which they were then traversing. As soon as Don Quixote spied these windmills he congratulated Sancho Panza on thlt sudden opportunity. "Fortune," cried the knight, "directs our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished.

Look yonder, friend Sancho, and see those giants. There are at least thirty of the outrageous monsters, whom I Intend to meet In combat. Having deprived them of life, we will enrich ourselves with their spoils, for they are lawful prize under the lawt of chivalry. The extermination of that cursed race will be a service highly acceptable to providence." "What giants?" quoth Sancho Panxa. "Those whom thou seest yonder," answered Don Quixote, "with their long extended arms.

Some of that de Just as a cat does when one gives her quest, Don Quixote returned borne. Sunday. April 29, 1928 Red Arrow Section.