Summary
In the cobalt hush above the Adriatic, Alba Moretti—aviatrix whose name once crackled like static through every wireless set from Marseille to Trieste—discovers that the sky, for all its vastness, is a cramped prison when the heart has been bolted to earth by a single glance. Romero Fanelli, ink-stained reporter dispatched to chronicle her latest altitude record, steps onto the tarmac clutching a notebook he will never fill; instead, the page is overwritten by the after-image of her goggles lifted, the sudden dark moons of her eyes. Their collision is not a kiss but a mid-air fuel spill: one spark and the world ignites. Romero’s wedding ring becomes a circlet of cooling iron; Alba’s fame, a tinny echo. When conscience finally splits him open, he dispatches a letter of renunciation—paper trembling like a kite in downdraft—and Alba, stung, marries platinum-splashed Baron D’Oro, a man whose fortune is measured in flood-lit casinos and Murano chandeliers. Yet every ballroom turns into a holding pattern above Venice: gondola lanterns replicate the runway lights she first saw in Romero’s pupils, and the Baron’s champagne tastes of aviation fuel. Reunion is inevitable, illicit, incandescent. It ends in a rented room off the Rio Terà where Romero’s lungs flood with sepia fluid; Alba hocks her flight medals, pirouettes half-naked for sailors, and still arrives too late, clutching banknotes already cooling like spent shell-casings. She folds his death-photo into her palm so tightly that rigor mortis sculpts her fingers around his image—an unspoken reliquary. By the time the sisters of the Ospedale find her, the body has become a chalk outline of a biplane, grounded at last.
Synopsis
Alba was one of those rare passionate women who love but once in their lives, and, being thwarted in love, die. Alba's daring and her craving for excitement sought the sports of the air, and it was not long before she was acknowledged as the foremost aviatrix of the world. Baron D'Oro had long since fallen a victim to her charms, but she only laughed blithely at his ardent wooing. One day as she returned from a record flight her eyes fell upon Romero Fanelli. who had been sent to the aviation field to report the news. Romero's own heart was set afire by the sparkle of Alba's eye. In a moment fate enchained them both, and thereafter love blotted out the world for them. Manfully did Romero struggle against the stress of passion because he was married, but it was all in vain. Romero wrote a letter to Alba begging her to forget. When Alba received this message her heart was aflame with resentment and, to spite Romero, she yielded to the entreaties of Baron D'Oro and became his wife. She plunged into the gaieties of high society, she visited the glorious beauty spots of Italy, all to forget the memory of Romero Fanelli. In the midst of social pleasure, in the whirl of the dance, on the Grand Canal of Venice, in the theater, wherever she went, the face of Romero followed her. She saw him in Venice and, casting aside all womanly reserve, obedient only to the call of passion, she sought him out and, exercising all her siren arts, she conquered his strong heart, and the chains were forged again, this time never to break. One day haunting remorse struck down Romero. He was taken ill and the doctor pronounced his life in danger. Alba went forth into the streets pawning her few belongings and even danced in the haunts of the underworld to get money with which to buy the means to restore her lover's health. When one day she returned with a handful of money she found that the soul had fled from the body of the man she had enthralled. With Romero gone she loathed life, and she knew her prayer for deliverance would be heard. She was taken to the hospital and the day after she was brought there the good sisters found her lifeless form upon the floor. The fingers of her right hand had closed in the stiffening grip of death about a small picture. Gently they loosened the dead woman's hold and found the portrait of Romero Fanelli.
