# Bella — Short Fiction character guide

> Bella in Short Fiction by Voltairine de Cleyre.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-a-rocket-of-iron

## Snapshot

A child left behind after her father's leap, Bella sits on the step with sullen eyes and a doll, sealed inside a narrowing circle of decay.

## Who they are

Bella remains after the man who measured the window and set the geranium on the sill plunged to the stone below — the kind, hard stone that was merciful. She sits in summer on the step, her seeing blindness fixed on what she cannot understand, sometimes kissed by a skull-like face that loves only the Doll, the one thing that does not shun her. Stranger hands, professional and sterilized, do their kindly duty, but no living breast enfolds her; her soul freezes while her body rots, the sin of the father visited upon the child.

## Relationships

### [Bernard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters/bernard)

_romantic_

Bernard and Bella's reciprocal listing confirms a romantic relationship, possibly with mutual dependency.

### [The Old Shoemaker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters/the_old_shoemaker)

_professional_

Bella interacts with the Old Shoemaker in a transactional or service-based capacity, likely as a customer or neighbor.

### [Bernard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters/bernard)

_romantic_

Bernard and Bella's reciprocal listing confirms a romantic relationship, possibly with mutual dependency.

### [Bernard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters/bernard)

_romantic_

Bella and Bernard's second listing reinforces a romantic entanglement, possibly with jealousy or secrecy.

## In the story

### [The Triumph of Youth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/chapters/the-triumph-of-youth)

Timid, radiant young woman who becomes Bernard's new companion three years later.

### [Between the Living and the Dead](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/chapters/between-the-living-and-the-dead)

The child with a congenital disease, isolated and dying, who nurses a wax doll and sits on the doorstep.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters/bella
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_55_se/characters