Add files from /home/DONE/43005.zip

11 files changed, 31791 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/43005-8.txt b/43005-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..744e8bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10648 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Inevitable
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2013 [EBook #43005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             THE INEVITABLE
+
+                                   BY
+                             LOUIS COUPERUS
+
+
+
+                             Translated by
+
+                      ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+
+                                New York
+                         Dodd, Mead and Company
+                                  1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE INEVITABLE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Marchesa Belloni's boarding-house was situated in one of the
+healthiest, if not one of the most romantic quarters of Rome. One
+half of the house had formed part of a villino of the old Ludovisi
+Gardens, those beautiful old gardens regretted by everybody who knew
+them before the new barrack-quarters were built on the site of the old
+Roman park, with its border of villas. The entrance to the pension
+was in the Via Lombardia. The older or villino portion of the house
+retained a certain antique charm for the marchesa's boarders, while
+the new premises built on to it offered the advantages of spacious
+rooms, modern sanitation and electric light. The pension boasted a
+certain reputation for comfort, cheapness and a pleasant situation:
+it stood at a few minutes' walk from the Pincio, on high ground, and
+there was no need to fear malaria; and the price charged for a long
+stay, amounting to hardly more than eight lire, was exceptionally
+low for Rome, which was known to be more expensive than any other
+town in Italy. The boarding-house therefore was generally full. The
+visitors began to arrive as soon as October: those who came earliest
+in the season paid least; and, with the exception of a few hurrying
+tourists, they nearly all remained until Easter, going southward to
+Naples after the great church festivals.
+
+Some English travelling-acquaintances had strongly recommended the
+pension to Cornélie de Retz van Loo, who was travelling in Italy by
+herself; and she had written to the Marchesa Belloni from Florence. It
+was her first visit to Italy; it was the first time that she had
+alighted at the great cavernous station near the Baths of Diocletian;
+and, standing in the square, in the golden Roman sunlight, while
+the great fountain of the Acqua Marcia gushed and rippled and the
+cab-drivers clicked with their whips and their tongues to attract
+her attention, she was conscious of her "nice Italian sensation,"
+as she called it, and felt glad to be in Rome.
+
+She saw a little old man limping towards her with the instinct of
+a veteran porter who recognizes his travellers at once; and she read
+"Hotel Belloni" on his cap and beckoned to him with a smile. He saluted
+her with respectful familiarity, as though she were an old acquaintance
+and he glad to see her; asked if she had had a pleasant journey,
+if she was not over-tired; led her to the victoria; put in her rug
+and her hand-bag; asked for the tickets of her trunks; and said that
+she had better go on ahead: he would follow in ten minutes with the
+luggage. She received an impression of cosiness, of being well cared
+for by the little old lame man; and she gave him a friendly nod as
+the coachman drove away. She felt happy and careless, though she had
+just the faintest foreboding of something unhappy and unknown that
+was going to happen to her; and she looked to right and left to take
+in the streets of Rome. But she saw only houses upon houses, like so
+many barracks; then a great white palace, the new Palazzo Piombino,
+which she knew to contain the Juno Ludovisi; and then the vettura
+stopped and a boy in buttons came out to meet her. He showed her into
+the drawing-room, a gloomy apartment, in the middle of which was a
+table covered with periodicals, arranged in a regular and unbroken
+circle. Two ladies, obviously English and of the æsthetic type, with
+loose-fitting blouses and grimy hair, sat in a corner studying their
+Baedekers before going out. Cornélie bowed slightly, but received
+no bow in return; she did not take offence, being familiar with the
+manners of the travelling Briton. She sat down at the table and took
+up the Roman Herald, the paper which appears once a fortnight and
+tells you what there is to do in Rome during the next two weeks.
+
+Thereupon one of the ladies asked her, from the corner, in an
+aggressive tone:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but would you please not take the Herald to
+your room?"
+
+Cornélie raised her head very haughtily and languidly in the direction
+where the ladies were sitting, looked vaguely above their grimy heads,
+said nothing and glanced down at the Herald again; and she thought
+herself a very experienced traveller and smiled inwardly because she
+knew how to deal with that type of Englishwoman.
+
+The marchesa entered and welcomed Cornélie in Italian and in
+French. She was a large, fat matron, vulgarly fat; her ample bosom
+was contained in a silk cuirass or spencer, shiny at the seams
+and bursting under the arms; her grey frizzled hair gave her a
+somewhat leonine appearance; her great yellow and blue eyes, with
+bistre shadows beneath them, wore a strained expression, the pupils
+unnaturally dilated by belladonna; a pair of immense crystals sparkled
+in her ears; and her fat, greasy fingers were covered with nameless
+jewels. She talked very fast; and Cornélie thought her sentences as
+pleasant and homely as the welcome of the lame porter in the square
+outside the station. The marchesa led her to the lift and stepped in
+with her; the hydraulic lift, a railed-in cage, running up the well
+of the staircase, rose solemnly and suddenly stopped, motionless,
+between the second and the third floor.
+
+"Third floor!" cried the marchesa to some one below.
+
+"Non c'e acqua!" the boy in buttons calmly called back, meaning thereby
+to convey that--as seemed natural--there was not enough water to move
+the lift.
+
+The marchesa screamed out some orders in a shrill voice; two facchini
+came running up and hung on to the cable of the lift, together with the
+ostensibly zealous boy in buttons; and by fits and starts the cage rose
+higher and higher, until at last it almost reached the third storey.
+
+"A little higher!" ordered the marchesa.
+
+But the facchini strained their muscles in vain: the lift refused
+to stir.
+
+"We can manage!" said the marchesa. "Wait a bit."
+
+Taking a great stride, which revealed the enormous white-stockinged
+calf of her leg, she stepped on to the floor, smiled and gave her
+hand to Cornélie, who imitated her gymnastics.
+
+"Here we are!" sighed the marchesa, with a smile of satisfaction. "This
+is your room."
+
+She opened a door and showed Cornélie a room. Though the sun was
+shining brightly out of doors, the room was as damp and chilly as
+a cellar.
+
+"Marchesa," Cornélie said, without hesitation, "I wrote to you for
+two rooms facing south."
+
+"Did you?" asked the marchesa, plausibly and ingenuously. "I really
+didn't remember. Yes, that is one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms
+facing south.... This is really a beautiful room."
+
+"I'm sorry, but I can't accept this room, marchesa."
+
+La Belloni grumbled a bit, went down the corridor and opened the door
+of another room:
+
+"And this one, signora?... How do you like this?"
+
+"Is it south?"
+
+"Almost"
+
+"I want it full south."
+
+"This looks west: you see the most splendid sunsets from your window."
+
+"I absolutely must have a south room, marchesa."
+
+"I also have the most charming little apartments looking east: you
+get the most picturesque sunrises there."
+
+"No, marchesa."
+
+"Don't you appreciate the beauties of nature?"
+
+"Just a little, but I put my health first."
+
+"I sleep in a north room myself."
+
+"You are an Italian, marchesa, and you're used to it."
+
+"I'm very sorry, but I have no rooms facing south."
+
+"Then I'm sorry too, marchesa, but I must look out somewhere else."
+
+Cornélie turned as though to go away. The choice of a room sometimes
+means the choice of a life.
+
+The marchesa caught hold of her hand and smiled. She had abandoned
+her cool tone and her voice was all honey:
+
+"Davvero, that's one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms facing
+south! But I have two little kennels left. Here...."
+
+And she quickly opened two doors, two snug little cupboards of rooms,
+which showed through the open windows a lofty and spacious view of
+the sky, outspread above the streets and roofs below, with the blue
+dome of St. Peter's in the distance.
+
+"These are the only rooms I have left facing south," said the marchesa,
+plaintively.
+
+"I shall be glad to have these, marchesa."
+
+"Sixteen lire," smiled la Belloni.
+
+"Ten, as you wrote."
+
+"I could put two persons in here."
+
+"I shall stay all the winter, if I am satisfied."
+
+"You must have your way!" the marchesa exclaimed, suddenly, in her
+sweetest voice, a voice of graceful surrender. "You shall have the
+rooms for twelve lire. Don't let us discuss it any more. The rooms
+are yours. You are Dutch, are you not? We have a Dutch family staying
+here: a mother with two daughters and a son. Would you like to sit
+next to them at table?"
+
+"No, I'd rather you put me somewhere else; I don't care for my
+fellow-countrymen when travelling."
+
+The marchesa left Cornélie to herself. She looked out of the window,
+absent-mindedly, glad to be in Rome, yet faintly conscious of the
+something unhappy and unknown that was going to happen. There was a tap
+at her door; the men carried in her luggage. She saw that it was eleven
+o'clock and began to unpack. One of her rooms was a small sitting-room,
+like a bird-cage in the air, looking out over Rome. She altered the
+position of the furniture, draped the faded sofa with a shawl from the
+Abruzzi and fixed a few portraits and photographs with drawing-pins to
+the wall, whose white-washed surface was broken up by rudely-painted
+arabesques. And she smiled at the border of purple hearts transfixed
+by arrows, which surrounded the decorated panels of the wall.
+
+After an hour's work her sitting-room was settled: she had a home
+of her own, with a few of her own shawls and rugs, a screen here,
+a little table there, cushions on the sofa, books within easy
+reach. When she had finished and had sat down and looked around her,
+she suddenly felt very lonely. She began to think of the Hague and
+of what she had left behind her. But she did not want to think and
+picked up her Baedeker and read about the Vatican. She was unable to
+concentrate her thoughts and turned to Hare's Walks in Rome. A bell
+sounded. She was tired and her nerves were on edge. She looked in the
+glass, saw that her hair was out of curl, her blouse soiled with coal
+and dust, unlocked a second trunk and changed her things. She cried
+and sobbed while she was curling her hair. The second bell rang; and,
+after powdering her face, she went downstairs.
+
+She expected to be late, but there was no one in the dining-room and
+she had to wait before she was served. She resolved not to come down
+so very punctually in future. A few boarders looked in through the
+open door, saw that there was no one sitting at table yet, except a
+new lady, and disappeared again.
+
+Cornélie looked around her and waited.
+
+The dining-room was the original dining-room of the old villa, with a
+ceiling by Guercina. The waiters loitered about. An old grey major-domo
+cast a distant glance over the table, to see if everything was in
+order. He grew impatient when nobody came and told them to serve the
+macaroni to Cornélie. It struck Cornélie that he too limped with one
+leg, like the porter. But the waiters were very young, hardly more than
+sixteen to eighteen, and lacked the waiter's usual self-possession.
+
+A stout gentleman, vivacious, consequential, pock-marked, ill-shaven,
+in a shabby black coat which showed but little linen, entered,
+rubbing his hands, and took his seat, opposite Cornélie.
+
+He bowed politely and began to eat his macaroni.
+
+And this seemed to be the signal for the others to begin eating,
+for a number of boarders, mostly ladies, now came in, sat down
+and helped themselves to the macaroni, which was handed round
+by the youthful waiters under the watchful eye of the grey-haired
+major-domo. Cornélie smiled at the oddity of these travelling types;
+and, when she involuntarily glanced at the pock-marked gentleman
+opposite, she saw that he too was smiling.
+
+He hurriedly mopped up his tomato-sauce with his bread, bent a little
+way across the table and almost whispered, in French:
+
+"It's amusing, isn't it?"
+
+Cornélie raised her eyebrows:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A cosmopolitan company like this."
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"You are Dutch?"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I saw your name in the visitors' book, with 'la Haye' after it."
+
+"I am Dutch, yes."
+
+"There are some more Dutch ladies here, sitting over there: they
+are charming."
+
+Cornélie asked the major-domo for some vin ordinaire.
+
+"That wine is no good," said the stout gentleman, vivaciously. "This
+is Genzano," pointing to his fiasco. "I pay a small corkage and drink
+my own wine."
+
+The major-domo put a pint bottle in front of Cornélie: it was included
+in her pension without extra charge.
+
+"If you like, I will give you the address where I get my wine. Via
+della Croce, 61."
+
+Cornélie thanked him. The pock-marked gentleman's uncommon ease and
+vivacity diverted her.
+
+"You're looking at the major-domo?" he asked.
+
+"You are a keen observer," she smiled in reply.
+
+"He's a type, our major-domo, Giuseppe. He used to be major-domo in
+the palace of an Austrian archduke. He did I don't know what. Stole
+something, perhaps. Or was impertinent. Or dropped a spoon on the
+floor. He has come down in the world. Now you behold him in the
+Pension Belloni. But the dignity of the man!"
+
+He leant forward:
+
+"The marchesa is economical. All the servants here are either old or
+very young. It's cheaper."
+
+He bowed to two German ladies, a mother and daughter, who had come
+in and sat down beside him:
+
+"I have the permit which I promised you, to see the Palazzo Rospigliosi
+and Guido Reni's Aurora" he said, speaking in German.
+
+"Is the prince back then?"
+
+"No, the prince is in Paris. The palace is not open to visitors,
+except yourselves."
+
+This was said with a gallant bow.
+
+The German ladies exclaimed how kind he was, how he was able to do
+anything, to find a way out of every difficulty. They had taken endless
+trouble to bribe the Rospigliosi porter and they had not succeeded.
+
+A little thin Englishwoman had taken her seat beside Cornélie.
+
+"And for you, Miss Taylor, I have a card for a low mass in His
+Holiness' private chapel."
+
+Miss Taylor was radiant with delight.
+
+"Have you been sight-seeing again?" the pock-marked gentleman
+continued.
+
+"Yes, Museo Kircheriano," said Miss Taylor. "But I am tired out. It
+was most exquisite."
+
+"My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this afternoon
+and rest."
+
+"I have an engagement to go to the Aventino...."
+
+"You mustn't. You're tired. You look worse every day and you're losing
+flesh. You must rest, or you sha'n't have the card for the low mass."
+
+The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of
+delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman
+as though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from
+his lips.
+
+Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornélie
+rose:
+
+"May I give you a glass out of my bottle?" asked the stout
+gentleman. "Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so,
+I'll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce."
+
+Cornélie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was
+deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink
+a pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed
+to read her quick thought:
+
+"It is a good thing," he said, "to drink a strengthening wine while
+you are in Rome, where life is so tiring."
+
+Cornélie agreed.
+
+"This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the fiasco. It will last
+you a long time: the wine keeps. So I'll order you a fiasco."
+
+He bowed to the ladies around and left the room.
+
+The German ladies bowed to Cornélie.
+
+"Such an amiable man, that Mr. Rudyard."
+
+"What can he be?" Cornélie wondered. "French, German, English,
+American?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+She had hired a victoria after lunch and had driven through Rome, to
+make her first acquaintance with the city for which she had longed
+so eagerly. This first impression was a great disappointment. Her
+unspoiled imagination, her reading, even the photographs which she had
+bought in Florence and studied with the affection of an inexperienced
+tourist had given her the illusion of a city of an ideal antiquity,
+an ideal Renascence; and she had forgotten that, especially in Rome,
+life has progressed pitilessly and that the ages are not visible,
+in buildings and ruins, as distinct periods, but that each period is
+closely connected with the next by the passing days and years.
+
+Thus she had thought the dome of St. Peter's small, the Corso narrow
+and Trajan's Column a column like any other; she had not noticed the
+Forum as she drove past it; and she had been unable to think of a
+single emperor when she was at the Palatine.
+
+Now she was home again, tired, and was resting a little and meditating;
+she felt depressed, yet she enjoyed her vague reflections and the
+silence about her in the big house, to which most of the boarders had
+not yet returned. She thought of the Hague, of her big family, her
+father, mother, brothers and sisters, to whom she had said good-bye
+for a long time to go abroad. Her father, a retired colonel of hussars
+living on his pension, with no great private means, had been unable to
+contribute anything to the fulfilment of her caprice, as he called it;
+and she would not have been able to satisfy that caprice, of beginning
+a new life, but for a small legacy which she had inherited some years
+ago from a godmother. She was glad to be more or less independent,
+though she felt the selfishness of her independence.
+
+But what could she have done for her family-circle, after the scandal
+of her divorce? She was weak and selfish, she knew it; but she had
+received a blow under which she had at first expected to succumb. And,
+when she found herself surviving it, she had mustered such energy as
+she possessed and said to herself that she could not go on existing in
+that same narrow circle of her sisters and her girl friends; and she
+had forced her life into a different path. She had always had the knack
+of creating an apparently new frock out of an old dress, transforming
+a last year's hat into one of the latest fashion. Even so she had
+now done with her distraught and wretched life, all battered and
+broken as it was: she had gathered together, as in a fit of economy,
+all that was left, all that was still serviceable; and out of those
+remnants she had made herself a new existence. But this new life was
+unable to breathe in the old atmosphere: it felt aimless in it and
+estranged; and she had managed to force it into a different path,
+in spite of all the opposition of her family and friends. Perhaps she
+would not have succeeded so readily if she had not been so completely
+shattered. Perhaps she would not have felt this energy if she had
+suffered only a little. She had her strength and she had her weakness;
+she was very simple and yet she was very various; and it was perhaps
+just this complexity that had been the saving of her youth.
+
+Besides, she was actually very young, only twenty-three; and in youth
+one possesses an unconscious vitality, notwithstanding any apparent
+weakness. And her contradictory qualities gave her equilibrium and
+saved her from falling over into the abyss....
+
+All this passed vaguely through her mind as clouds pass before
+the eyes, not with the conciseness of words but with the misty
+indefiniteness of a dreamy fatigue. As she lay there, she did not
+look as if she had ever exerted the strength to give a new path to
+her life: a pale, delicate woman, slender, with drooping movements,
+lying on a sofa in her not very fresh dressing-gown, with its faded
+pink and its rumpled lace. And yet there was a certain poetical
+fragrance about her personality, despite her weary eyes and the
+limp outlines of her attire, despite the boarding-house room, with
+its air of quickly improvised comfort, a comfort which was a matter
+of tact rather than reality and could be packed away in a single
+trunk. Her frail figure, her pale and delicate rather than beautiful
+features were surrounded, as by an aura, by that atmosphere of personal
+poetry which she unconsciously radiated, which she shed from her eyes
+upon the things which she beheld, from her fingers upon the things
+which she touched. To those who did not like her, this peculiar
+atmosphere, this unusualness, this eccentricity, this unlikeness to
+the typical young woman of the Hague, was the very thing with which
+they reproached her. To those who liked her, it was partly talent,
+partly soul; something peculiar to her which seemed almost genius;
+yet it was perturbing. It invested her with a great charm; it gave
+pause for thought and it promised much: more, perhaps, than could
+be realized. And this woman was the child of her time but especially
+of her environment and therefore so unfinished, revealing disparity
+against disparity, in an equilibrium of opposing forces, which might
+be her undoing or her salvation, but were in either case her fate.
+
+She felt lonely in Italy. She had stayed for weeks at Florence, where
+she tried to lead a full life, enriched by art and history. There,
+it was true, she forgot herself to a great extent, but she still felt
+lonely. She had spent a fortnight at Siena, but Siena had depressed
+her, with its sombre streets, its dead palaces; and she had yearned
+for Rome. But she had not found Rome yet that afternoon. And, though
+she felt tired, she felt above all things lonely, terribly lonely
+and useless in a great world, in a great town, a town in which one
+feels the greatness, uselessness and vast antiquity of things more
+perhaps than anywhere else. She felt like a little atom of suffering,
+like an insect, an ant, half-trodden, half-crushed, among the immense
+domes of Rome, of whose presence out of doors she was subtly conscious.
+
+And her hand wandered vacantly over her books, which she had stacked
+punctiliously and conscientiously on a little table: some translations
+of the classics, Ovid, Tacitus, together with Dante, Petrach, Tasso. It
+was growing dusk in her room, there was no light to read by, she
+was too much enervated to ring for a lamp; a chilliness hovered in
+her little room, now that the sun had quite gone down, and she had
+forgotten to ask for a fire on that first day. Loneliness was all
+about her, her suffering pained her; her soul craved for a fellow-soul,
+but her mouth craved for a kiss, her arms for him, once her husband;
+and, turning on her cushions and wringing her hands, she prayed deep
+down in herself:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+At dinner there was a buzz of voices; the three or four long tables
+were all full; the marchesa sat at the head of the centre table. Now
+and then she beckoned impatiently to Giuseppe, the old major-domo,
+who had dropped a spoon at an archducal court; and the unfledged
+little waiters rushed about breathlessly. Cornélie found the obliging
+stout gentleman, whom the German ladies called Mr. Rudyard, sitting
+opposite her and her fiasco of Genzano beside her plate. She thanked
+Mr. Rudyard with a smile and made the usual remarks: how she had been
+for a drive that afternoon and had made her first acquaintance with
+Rome, the Forum, the Pincio. She talked to the German ladies and
+to the English one, who was always so tired with her sight-seeing;
+and the Germans, a Baronin and the Baronesse her daughter, laughed
+with her at the two æsthetes whom Cornélie had come upon that morning
+in the drawing-room. The two were sitting some distance away, lank
+and angular, grimy-haired, in curiously cut evening-dress, which
+showed the breast and arms warmly covered with a Jaeger undervest,
+on which, in their turn, lay strings of large blue beads. Their eyes
+browsed over the long table, as though they were pitying everybody
+who had come to Rome to learn about art, because they two alone knew
+what art was. While eating, which they did unpleasantly, almost with
+their fingers, they read æsthetic books, wrinkling their brows and
+now and then looking up angrily, because the people about them were
+talking. With their self-conceit, their impossible manners, their
+worse than tasteless dress and their great air of superiority, they
+represented types of travelling Englishwomen that are never met except
+in Italy. They were unanimously criticized at the table. They came to
+the Pension Belloni every winter and made drawings in water-colours
+in the Forum or the Via Appia. And they were so remarkable in
+their unprecedented originality, in their grimy angularity, with
+their evening-dresses, their Jaegers, their strings of blue beads,
+their æsthetic books and their meat-picking fingers, that all eyes
+were constantly wandering in their direction, as though under the
+influence of a Medusa spell.
+
+The young baroness, a type out of the Fliegende Blätter, witty and
+quick, with her little round, German face and arched, pencilled
+eyebrows, was laughing with Cornélie and showing her a thumb-nail
+caricature which she had made of the two æsthetic ladies in her
+sketch-book, when Giuseppe conducted a young lady to the end of the
+table where Cornélie and Rudyard sat opposite each other. She had
+evidently just arrived, said "Evening" to everybody near her and sat
+down with a great rustling. It was at once apparent that she was an
+American, almost too good-looking, too young, to be travelling alone
+like that, with a smiling self-possession, as if she were at home:
+a very white complexion, very fine dark eyes, teeth like a dentist's
+advertisement, her full breast moulded in mauve cloth plentifully
+decorated with silver braid, on her heavily-waved hair a large mauve
+hat with a cascade of black ostrich-feathers, fastened by an over-large
+paste buckle. At every movement the silk of her petticoat rustled,
+the feathers nodded, the paste buckle gleamed. And, notwithstanding all
+this showiness, she was child-like: she was perhaps just twenty, with
+an ingenuous expression in her eyes. She at once spoke to Cornélie,
+to Rudyard; said that she was tired, that she had come from Naples,
+that she had been dancing last night at Prince Cibo's, that her name
+was Miss Urania Hope, that her father lived in Chicago, that she had
+two brothers who, in spite of her father's money, were working on a
+farm in the Far West, but that she had been brought up as a spoilt
+child by her father, who, however, wanted her to be able to stand on
+her own feet and was therefore making her travel by herself in the
+Old World, in dear old Italy. She was delighted to hear that Cornélie
+was also travelling alone; and Rudyard chaffed the ladies about their
+modern views, but the Baronin and the Baronesse applauded them. Miss
+Hope at once took a liking to her Dutch fellow-traveller and wanted
+to arrange joint excursions; but Cornélie, withdrawing into herself,
+made a tactful excuse, said that her time was fully engaged, that
+she wanted to study in the museums.
+
+"So serious?" asked Miss Hope, respectfully.
+
+And the petticoat rustled, the plumes nodded, the paste buckle gleamed.
+
+She made on Cornélie the impression of a gaudy butterfly, which,
+sportive and unthinking, might easily one day dash itself to pieces
+against the hot-house windows of our cabined existence. She felt no
+attraction towards this strange, pretty little creature, who looked
+like a child and a cocotte in one; but she felt sorry for her, she
+did not know why.
+
+After dinner, Rudyard proposed to take the two German ladies for
+a little walk. The younger baroness came to Cornélie and asked if
+she would come too, to see Rome by moonlight, quite close, from the
+Villa Medici. She felt grateful for the kindly suggestion and was
+just going to put on her hat, when Miss Hope ran after her:
+
+"Stay and sit with me in the drawing-room."
+
+"I am going for a walk with the Baronin," Cornélie replied.
+
+"That German lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is she a noblewoman?"
+
+"I presume so."
+
+"Are there many titled people in the house?" asked Miss Hope, eagerly.
+
+Cornélie laughed:
+
+"I don't know. I only arrived this morning."
+
+"I believe there are. I heard that there were many titled people
+here. Are you one?"
+
+"I was!" Cornélie laughed. "But I had to give up my title."
+
+"What a shame!" Miss Hope exclaimed. "I love titles. Do you know what
+I've got? An album with the coats of arms of all sorts of families
+and another album with patterns of silk and brocade from each of the
+Queen of Italy's ball-dresses. Would you care to see it?"
+
+"Very much indeed!" Cornélie laughed. "But I must put on my hat now."
+
+She went and returned in a hat and cloak; the German ladies and
+Rudyard were waiting in the hall and asked what she was laughing
+at. She caused great merriment by telling them about the album with
+the patterns of the queen's ball-dresses.
+
+"Who is he?" she asked the Baronin, as she walked in front with her,
+along the Via Sistina, while the Baronesse and Rudyard followed.
+
+She thought the Baronin a charming person, but she was surprised to
+find, in this German woman, who belonged to the titled military-class,
+a coldly cynical view of life which was not exactly that of her
+Berlin environment.
+
+"I don't know," the Baronin answered, with an air of indifference. "We
+travel a great deal. We have no house in Berlin at present. We want
+to make the most of our stay abroad. Mr. Rudyard is very pleasant. He
+helps us in all sorts of ways: tickets for a papal mass, introductions
+here, invitations there. He seems to have plenty of influence. What
+do I care who or what he is! Else agrees with me. I accept what he
+gives us and for the rest I don't try to fathom him."
+
+They walked on. The Baronin took Cornélie's arm:
+
+"My dear child, don't think us more cynical than we are. I hardly know
+you, but I've felt somehow drawn towards you. Strange, isn't it, when
+one's abroad like this and has one's first talk at a table-d'hôte,
+over a skinny chicken? Don't think us shabby or cynical. Oh, dear,
+perhaps we are! Our cosmopolitan, irresponsible, unsettled life makes
+us ungenerous, cynical and selfish. Very selfish. Rudyard shows us
+many kindnesses. Why should I not accept them? I don't care who or
+what he is. I am not committing myself in any way."
+
+Cornélie looked round involuntarily. In the nearly dark street she saw
+Rudyard and the young Baronesse, almost whispering and mysteriously
+intimate.
+
+"And does your daughter think so too?"
+
+"Oh, yes! We are not committing ourselves in any way. We do not
+even particularly like him, with his pock-marked face and his dirty
+finger-nails. We merely accept his introductions. Do as we do. Or
+... don't. Perhaps it will be better form if you don't. I ... I have
+become a great egoist, through travelling. What do I care?..."
+
+The dark street seemed to invite confidences; and Cornélie to some
+extent understood this cynical indifference, particularly in a woman
+reared in narrow principles of duty and morality. It was certainly
+not good form; but was it not weariness brought about by the wear
+and tear of life? In any case she vaguely understood it: that tone
+of indifference, that careless shrugging of the shoulders....
+
+They turned the corner of the Hotel Massier and approached the Villa
+Medici. The full moon was pouring down its flood of white radiance
+and Rome lay in the flawless blue glamour of the night. Overflowing
+the brimming basin of the fountain, beneath the black ilexes, whose
+leafage held the picture of Rome in an ebony frame, the waste water
+splashed and clattered.
+
+"Rome must be very beautiful," said Cornélie, softly.
+
+Rudyard and the Baronesse had come nearer and heard what she said:
+
+"Rome is beautiful," he said, earnestly. "And Rome is more. Rome is
+a great consolation to many people."
+
+His words, spoken in the blue moonlit night, impressed her. The city
+seemed to lie in mystical billows at her feet. She looked at him,
+as he stood before her in his black coat, showing but little linen,
+the same stout, civil gentleman. His voice was very penetrating, with
+a rich note of conviction in it. She looked at him long, uncertain
+of herself and vaguely conscious of an approaching intimation, but
+still antipathetic.
+
+Then he added, as though he did not wish her to meditate too deeply
+the words which he had uttered:
+
+"A great consolation to many ... because beauty consoles."
+
+And she thought his last words an æsthetic commonplace; but he had
+meant her to think so.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Those first days in Rome tired Cornélie greatly. She did too much, as
+every one does who has just arrived in Rome; she wanted to take in the
+whole city at once; and the distances, although covered in a carriage,
+and the endless galleries in the museums resulted in producing physical
+exhaustion. Moreover she was constantly experiencing disappointments,
+in respect of pictures, statues or buildings. At first she dared not
+own to these disappointments; but one afternoon, feeling dead-tired,
+after she had been painfully disappointed in the Sistine Chapel, she
+owned up to herself. Everything that she saw that was already known
+to her from her previous studies disappointed her. Then she resolved
+to give sight-seeing a rest. And, after those fatiguing days, when
+every morning and every afternoon was spent out of doors, it was
+a luxury to surrender herself to the unconscious current of daily
+life. She remained at home in the mornings, wrapped in a tea-gown,
+in her cosy little bird-cage of a sitting-room, writing letters,
+dreaming a little, with her arms folded behind her head; she read
+Ovid and Petrarch, or listened to a couple of street-musicians, who,
+with their quavering tenors, to the shrill whining of their guitars,
+filled the silent street with a sobbing passion of music. At lunch
+she considered that she had been lucky in her pension, in her little
+corner at the table. She was interested in Baronin von Rothkirch, with
+her indifferent, aristocratic condescension towards Rudyard, because
+she saw how residence abroad can draw a person out of the narrow ring
+of caste principles. The young Baronesse, who cared nothing about
+life and merely sketched and painted, interested her because of her
+whispering intimacy with Rudyard, which she failed to understand. Miss
+Hope was so ingenious, so childishly irrational, that Cornélie could
+not imagine how old Hope, the rich stockinet-manufacturer over in
+Chicago, allowed this child to travel about alone, with her far too
+generous monthly allowance and her total ignorance of the world and
+people; and Rudyard himself, though she sometimes felt an aversion
+for him, attracted her in spite of that aversion. Although she had
+so far formed no deeper friendship with any of her fellow-boarders,
+at any rate they were people to whom she was able to talk; and the
+conversation at table was a diversion amid the solitude of the rest
+of the day.
+
+For in the afternoons, during this period of fatigue and
+disappointment, she would merely go for a short walk by herself down
+the Corso or on the Pincio and then return home, make her own tea in
+her little silver tea-pot and sit dreaming by the log fire, in the
+dusk, until it was time to dress for dinner.
+
+And the brightly-lit dining-room with the Guercino ceiling was gay
+and cheerful. The pension was crammed: the marchesa had given up
+her own room and was sleeping in the bath-room. A hum of voices
+buzzed around the tables; the waiters rushed to and fro; spoons
+and forks clattered. There was none of the melancholy spirit of so
+many tables-d'hôte. The people knew one another; and the excitement
+of Roman life, the oxygen in the Roman air seemed to lend an added
+vivacity to the gestures and conversation. Amidst this vivacity the
+two grimy æsthetic ladies attracted attention by their unvarying pose,
+with their eternal evening-dress, their Jaegers, their beads, the fat
+books which they read, their angry looks because people were talking.
+
+After dinner they sat in the drawing-room or in the hall, made
+friends here and there and talked about Rome, Rome, Rome. There
+was always a great fuss about the music in the different churches:
+they consulted the Herald; they asked Rudyard, who knew everything,
+and gathered round him; and he, fat and polite as ever, smiled and
+distributed tickets and named the day and hour at which an important
+service would be held in this church or in that. To English ladies,
+who were not fully informed, he would now and then, as it were
+casually, impart details about the complexities of Catholic ritual
+and the Catholic hierarchy; he explained the nationalities denoted
+by the various colours of the seminarists whom you met in shoals of
+an afternoon on the Pincio, staring at St. Peter's, in ecstasy over
+St. Peter's, the mighty symbol of their mighty religion; he set forth
+the distinction between a church and a basilica; he related anecdotes
+of the private life of Leo XIII. His manner of speaking of all these
+things possessed an insinuating charm: the English ladies, greedy
+for information, hung on his lips, thought him too awfully nice,
+asked him for a thousand particulars.
+
+These days were a great rest for Cornélie. She recovered from her
+fatigue and felt indifferent towards Rome. But she did not think of
+leaving any the sooner. Whether she was here or elsewhere was all
+the same to her: she had to be somewhere. Besides, the pension was
+good, her fellow-boarders pleasant and cheerful. She no longer read
+Hare's Walks in Rome or Ovid's Metamorphoses, but she read Ouida's
+Ariadne over again. She did not care for the book as much as she
+had done three years before, at the Hague; and after that she read
+nothing. But she amused herself with the von Rothkirch ladies for a
+whole evening, looking over Miss Hope's album of seals and collection
+of patterns. How mad those Americans were on titles and royalties! The
+Baronin good-naturedly contributed an impression of her own arms to
+the album. And the patterns were greatly admired: gold brocades; silks
+heavily interwoven with silver; spangled tulles. Miss Hope related how
+she had come by them: she knew one of the queen's waiting-women, who
+had formerly been in service with an American; and this waiting-woman
+was now able to procure the patterns for her at a high price: a
+precious bit of material picked up while the queen was trying on,
+or sometimes even cut out of a broad seam. The child was prouder of
+her collection of patterns than an Italian prince of his paintings,
+said Baronin von Rothkirch. But, notwithstanding this absurdity, this
+vanity, Cornélie came to like the pretty American girl because of her
+candid and unsophisticated nature. She looked most attractive in the
+evening, in a black low-cut dress, or in a rose chiffon blouse. For
+that matter, it was a different frock every night. She possessed a
+kaleidoscopic collection of dresses, blouses and jewels. She would walk
+through the ruins of the Forum in a tailor-made suit of cream cloth,
+lined with orange silk; and her white lace petticoat flitted airily
+over the foundations of the Basilica Julia or the Temple of Vesta. Her
+gaily-trimmed hats introduced patches of colour from Regent Street or
+the Avenue de l'Opéra into the tragic seriousness of the Colosseum or
+the ruined palace of the Palatine. The young Baronesse teased her about
+her orange silk lining, so in harmony with the Forum, about her hats,
+so in keeping with the seriousness of a place of Christian martyrdom,
+but she was never angry:
+
+"It's a nice hat anyway!" she would say, in her Yankee drawl, which
+always afforded a good view of her pretty teeth but made her strain
+her mouth as though she were cracking filberts.
+
+And the child enjoyed everything, enjoyed the Baronin and the
+Baronesse, enjoyed being at a pension kept by a decayed Italian
+marchioness. And, as soon as she caught sight of the Marchesa
+Belloni's grey, leonine head, she would make a rush for her--because a
+marchioness is higher than a baroness, said Madame von Rothkirch--drag
+her into a corner and if possible monopolize her throughout the
+evening. Rudyard would then join them; and Cornélie, seeing this,
+wondered what Rudyard was, who he was and what he was about. But this
+did not interest the Baronin, who had just received a card for a mass
+in the papal chapel; and the young Baronesse merely said that he told
+legends of the saints so nicely, when explaining the pictures to her
+in the Doria and the Corsini.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+One evening Cornélie made the acquaintance of the Dutch family beside
+whom the Marchesa had first wished to place her at table: Mrs. van der
+Staal and her two daughters. They too were spending the whole winter in
+Rome: they had friends there and went out visiting. The conversation
+flowed smoothly; and mevrouw invited Cornélie to come and have a chat
+in her sitting-room. Next day she accompanied her new acquaintances
+to the Vatican and heard that mevrouw was expecting her son, who was
+coming to Rome from Florence to continue his archæological studies.
+
+Cornélie was glad to meet at the hotel a Dutch element that was
+not antipathetic. She thought it pleasant to talk Dutch again and
+she confessed as much. In a day or two she had become intimate with
+Mrs. van der Staal and the two girls; and on the evening when young
+Van der Staal arrived she opened her heart more than she had ever
+thought that she could do to strangers whom she had known for barely
+a few days.
+
+They were sitting in the Van der Staal's sitting-room, Cornélie in a
+low chair by the blazing log-fire, for the evening was chilly. They
+had been talking about the Hague, about her divorce; and she was now
+speaking of Italy, of herself:
+
+"I no longer see anything," she confessed. "Rome has quite bewildered
+me. I can't distinguish a colour, an outline. I don't recognize
+people. They all seem to whirl round me. Sometimes I feel a need to sit
+alone for hours in my bird-cage upstairs, to recollect myself. This
+morning, in the Vatican, I don't know: I remember nothing. It is all
+grey and fuzzy around me. Then the people in the boarding-house:
+the same faces every day. I see them and yet I don't see them. I
+see ... I see Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair
+Urania ... and Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor,
+who is always so tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything
+most exquisite. But my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have
+to think to myself: Madame von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with
+the smile of the German Empress--she is rather like her--talking fast
+and yet with indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently
+from her lips...."
+
+"You're a good observer," said Van der Staal.
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" said Cornélie, almost vexed. "I see nothing and
+I can't remember. I receive no impressions. Everything around me is
+colourless. I really don't know why I have come abroad.... When I am
+alone, I think of the people whom I meet. I know Madame von Rothkirch
+now and I know Else. Such a round, merry face, with arched eyebrows,
+and always a joke or a witticism: I find it tiring sometimes, she makes
+me laugh so. Still they are very nice. And the fair Urania. She tells
+me everything. She is as communicative ... as I am at this moment. And
+Rudyard: I see him before me too."
+
+"Rudyard!" smiled mevrouw and the girls.
+
+"What is he?" Cornélie asked, inquisitively. "He is so civil, he
+ordered my wine for me, he can always get one all sorts of cards."
+
+"Don't you know what Rudyard is?" asked Mrs. van der Staal.
+
+"No; and Mrs. von Rothkirch doesn't know either."
+
+"Then you had better be careful," laughed the girls.
+
+"Are you a Catholic?" asked mevrouw.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor the fair Urania either? Nor Mrs. von Rothkirch?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that is why la Belloni put Rudyard at your table. Rudyard is
+a Jesuit. Every pension in Rome has a Jesuit who lives there free
+of charge, if the proprietor is a good friend of the Church, and who
+tries to win souls by making himself especially agreeable."
+
+Cornélie refused to believe it.
+
+"You can take my word for it," mevrouw continued, "that in a pension
+like this, a first-class pension, a pension with a reputation,
+a great deal of intrigue goes on."
+
+"La Belloni?" Cornélie enquired.
+
+"Our marchesa is a thorough-paced intrigante. Last winter, three
+English sisters were converted here."
+
+"By Rudyard?"
+
+"No, by another priest. Rudyard is here for the first time this
+winter."
+
+"Rudyard walked quite a long way with me in the street this morning,"
+said young Van der Staal. "I let him talk, I heard all he had to say."
+
+Cornélie fell back in her chair:
+
+"I am tired of people," she said, with the strange sincerity which
+was hers. "I should like to sleep for a month, without seeing anybody."
+
+And, after a short pause, she got up, said goodnight and went to bed,
+while everything swam before her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+She remained indoors for a day or two and had her meals served in her
+room. One morning, however, she was going for a stroll in the Villa
+Borghese, when she met young Van der Staal, on his bicycle.
+
+"Don't you ride?" he asked, jumping off.
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It is an exercise which doesn't suit my style," Cornélie replied,
+vexed at meeting any one who disturbed the solitude of her stroll.
+
+"May I walk with you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He gave his machine into the charge of the porter at the gate and
+walked on with her, quite naturally, without saying very much:
+
+"It's beautiful here," he remarked.
+
+His words seemed to convey a simple meaning. She looked at him,
+for the first time, attentively.
+
+"You're an archæologist?" she asked.
+
+"No," he said, deprecatingly.
+
+"What are you, then?"
+
+"Nothing. Mamma says that, just to excuse me. I am nothing and a very
+useless member of society at that. And I am not even well off."
+
+"But you are studying, aren't you?"
+
+"No. I do a little casual reading. My sisters call it studying."
+
+"Do you like going about, as your sisters do?"
+
+"No, I hate it. I never go with them."
+
+"Don't you like meeting and studying people?"
+
+"No. I like pictures, statues and trees."
+
+"A poet?"
+
+"No. Nothing. I am nothing, really."
+
+She looked at him, with increased attention. He was walking very simply
+by her side, a tall, thin fellow of perhaps twenty-six, more of a boy
+than a man in face and figure, but endowed with a certain assurance
+and restfulness that made him seem older than his years. He was pale;
+he had dark, cool, almost reproachful eyes; and his long, lean figure,
+in his badly-kept cycling-suit, betrayed a slight indifference,
+as though he did not care what his arms and legs looked like.
+
+He said nothing but walked on pleasantly, unembarrassed, without
+finding it necessary to talk. Cornélie, however, grew fidgety and
+sought for words:
+
+"It is beautiful here," she stammered.
+
+"Oh, it's very beautiful!" he replied, calmly, without seeing that
+she was constrained. "So green, so spacious, so peaceful: those
+long avenues, those vistas of avenues, like an antique arch, over
+yonder; and, far away in the distance, look, St. Peter's, always
+St. Peter's. It's a pity about those queer things lower down: that
+restaurant, that milk-tent. People spoil everything nowadays.... Let
+us sit down here: it is so lovely here."
+
+They sat down on a bench.
+
+"It is such a joy when a thing is beautiful," he continued. "People
+are never beautiful. Things are beautiful: statues and paintings. And
+then trees and clouds!"
+
+"Do you paint?"
+
+"Sometimes," he confessed, grudgingly. "A little. But really everything
+has been painted already; and I can't really say that I paint."
+
+"Perhaps you write too?"
+
+"There has been even more written than painted, much more. Perhaps
+everything has not yet been painted, but everything has certainly been
+written. Every new book that is not of absolute scientific importance
+is superfluous. All the poetry has been written and every novel too."
+
+"Do you read much?"
+
+"Hardly at all. I sometimes dip into an old author."
+
+"But what do you do then?" she asked, suddenly, querulously.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, calmly, with a glance of humility. "I do
+nothing, I exist."
+
+"Do you think that a good mode of existence?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why don't you adopt another?"
+
+"As I might buy a new coat or a new bicycle?"
+
+"You're not speaking seriously," she said, crossly.
+
+"Why are you so vexed with me?"
+
+"Because you annoy me," she said, irritably.
+
+He rose, bowed civilly and said:
+
+"Then I had better go for a turn on my bicycle."
+
+And he walked slowly away.
+
+"What a stupid fellow!" she thought, peevishly.
+
+But she thought it tiresome that she had wrangled with him, because
+of his mother and his sisters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+At the hotel, however, he spoke to Cornélie politely, as though
+there had been no embarrassment, no wrangling interchange of words
+between them, and he even asked her quite simply--because his mother
+and sisters had some calls to pay that afternoon--whether they should
+go to the Palatine together.
+
+"I passed it the other day," she said, indifferently.
+
+"And don't you intend to see the ruins?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They don't interest me. I can't see the past in them. I merely
+see ruins."
+
+"But then why did you come to Rome?" he asked, irritably.
+
+She looked at him and could have burst into sobs:
+
+"I don't know," she said, meekly. "I could just as well have gone
+somewhere else. But I had formed a great idea of Rome; and Rome
+disappoints me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I find it hard and inexorable and devoid of feeling. I don't know
+why, but that's the impression it makes upon me. And I am in a mood
+at present which somehow makes me want something less insensible
+and imperturbable."
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Come along," he said. "Come with me to the Palatine. I must show
+you Rome. It is so beautiful."
+
+She felt too much depressed to remain alone; and so she put on
+her things and left the hotel with him. The cabmen outside cracked
+their whips:
+
+"Vole? Vole?" they shouted.
+
+He picked out one:
+
+"This is Gaetano," he said. "I always take him. He knows me, don't
+you, Gaetano?"
+
+"Si, signorino. Cavallo di sangue, signorina!" said Gaetano, pointing
+to his horse.
+
+They drove away.
+
+"I am always frightened of these cabmen," said Cornélie.
+
+"You don't know them," he answered, smiling. "I like them. I like
+the people. They're nice people."
+
+"You approve of everything in Rome."
+
+"And you submit without reserve to a mistaken impression."
+
+"Why mistaken?"
+
+"Because that first impression of Rome, as hard and unfeeling, is
+always the same and always mistaken."
+
+"Yes, it's that. Look, we are driving by the Forum. Whenever I see
+the Forum, I think of Miss Hope and her orange lining."
+
+He felt annoyed and did not answer.
+
+"This is the Palatine."
+
+They alighted and passed through the entrance.
+
+"This wooden staircase takes us to the Palace of Tiberius. Above the
+palace, on the top of the arches, is a garden from which we look down
+on the Forum."
+
+"Tell me about Tiberius. I know that there were good and bad
+emperors. We were taught that at school. Tiberius was a bad emperor,
+wasn't he?"
+
+"He was a dismal brute. But why do you want me to tell you about him?"
+
+"Because otherwise I can take no interest in those arches and
+chambers."
+
+"Then let us go up to the top and sit in the garden."
+
+They did so.
+
+"Don't you feel Rome here?" he asked.
+
+"I feel the same everywhere," she replied.
+
+But he seemed not to hear her:
+
+"It's the atmosphere around you," he continued. "You should try to
+forget our hotel, to forget Belloni and all our fellow-visitors and
+yourself. When anybody first arrives here, he has all the usual trouble
+about the hotel, his rooms, the table-d'hôte, the vaguely likable or
+dislikable people. You've got over that now. Clear your mind of it. And
+try to feel only the atmosphere of Rome. It's as if the atmosphere had
+remained the same, notwithstanding that the centuries lie piled up
+one above the other. First the middle ages covered the antiquity of
+the Forum and now it is hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century
+craze for travel. There you have Miss Hope's orange lining. But the
+atmosphere has always remained the same. Unless I imagine it...."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Perhaps I do," he continued. "But what does that matter to me? Our
+whole life is imagination; and imagination is a beautiful thing. The
+beauty of our imagination is the consolation of our lives, to those of
+us who are not men of action. The past is beauty. The present is not,
+does not exist. And the future does not interest me."
+
+"Do you never think about modern problems?" she asked.
+
+"The woman question? Socialism? Peace?"
+
+"Well, yes, for instance."
+
+"No," he smiled. "I think of them sometimes, but not about them."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I get no further. That is my nature. I am a dreamer by nature;
+and my dream is the past."
+
+"Don't you dream of yourself?"
+
+"No. Of my soul, my inner self? No. It interests me very little."
+
+"Have you ever suffered?"
+
+"Suffered? Yes, no. I don't know. I feel sorry for my utter uselessness
+as a human being, as a son, as a man; but, when I dream, I am happy."
+
+"How do you come to speak to me so openly?"
+
+He looked at her in surprise:
+
+"Why should I be reticent about myself?" he asked. "I either don't
+talk or I talk as I am doing now. Perhaps it is a little odd."
+
+"Do you talk to every one so intimately?"
+
+"No, hardly to anybody. I once had a friend ... but he's dead. Tell
+me, I suppose you consider me morbid?"
+
+"No, I don't think so."
+
+"I shouldn't mind if you did. Oh, how beautiful it is here! Are you
+drinking Rome in with your very breath?"
+
+"Which Rome?"
+
+"The Rome of antiquity. Under where we are sitting is the Palace of
+Tiberius. I see him walking about there, with his tall, strong figure,
+with his large, searching eyes: he was very strong, he was very dismal
+and he was a brute. He had no ideals. Farther down, over there, is the
+Palace of Caligula, a madman of genius. He built a bridge across the
+Forum to speak to Jupiter in the Capitol. That's a thing one couldn't
+do nowadays. He was a genius and a madman. When a man's like that,
+there's a good deal about him to admire."
+
+"How can you admire an age of emperors who were brutes and mad?"
+
+"Because I see their age before my eyes, in the past, like a dream."
+
+"How is it possible that you don't see the present before you, with the
+problems of our own time, especially the eternal problem of poverty?"
+
+He looked at her:
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know. That is my sin, my wickedness. The eternal
+problem of poverty doesn't affect me."
+
+She looked at him contemptuously:
+
+"You don't belong to your period," she said, coldly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you ever felt hungry?"
+
+He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Have you ever pictured yourself leading the life of a labourer, of
+a factory-girl who works until she's worn out and old and half-dead
+for a bare crust of bread?"
+
+"Oh, those things are so horrible and so ugly: don't talk about
+them!" he entreated.
+
+The expression of her eyes was cold; the corners of her lips were
+depressed as though by a feeling of distaste; and she rose from
+her seat.
+
+"Are you angry?" he asked, humbly.
+
+"No," she said, gently, "I am not angry."
+
+"But you despise me, because you consider me a useless creature,
+an æsthete and a dreamer?"
+
+"No. What am I myself, that I should reproach you with your
+uselessness?"
+
+"Oh, if we could only find something!" he exclaimed, almost in ecstasy.
+
+"What?"
+
+"An aim. But mine would always remain beauty. And the past."
+
+"And, if I had the strength of mind to devote myself to an aim,
+it would above all be this: bread for the future."
+
+"How abominable that sounds!" he said, rudely but sincerely. "Why
+didn't you go to London, or Manchester, or one of those black
+manufacturing towns?"
+
+"Because I hadn't the strength of mind and because I think too much
+of myself and of a sorrow that I have had lately. And I expected to
+find distraction in Italy."
+
+"And that is where your disappointment lies. But perhaps you will
+gradually acquire greater strength and then devote yourself to your
+aim: bread for the future. I sha'n't envy you, however: bread for
+the Future!..."
+
+She was silent.
+
+Then she said, coldly:
+
+"It is getting late. Let us go home...."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Duco van der Staal had taken a large, vault-like studio, with a chilly
+north light, up three flights of stairs in the Via del Babuino. Here he
+painted, modelled and studied and here he dragged all the beautiful and
+antique objects that he succeeded in picking up in the little shops
+along the Tiber or in the Mercato dei Fiori. That was his passion:
+to hunt through Rome for a panel of an old triptych or a fragment of
+ancient sculpture. In this way his studio had not remained the large,
+chilly, vault-like workroom bearing witness to zealous and serious
+study, but had become a refuge for dim-coloured remnants of antiquity
+and ancient art, a museum for his dreaming spirit. Already as a child,
+as a boy, he had felt that passion for antiquity developing; he learnt
+how to rummage through the stocks of old Jewish dealers; he taught
+himself to haggle when his purse was not full; and he collected
+first rubbish and afterwards, gradually, objects of artistic and
+financial value. And it was his great hobby, his one vice: he spent
+all his pocket-money on it and, later, without reserve, the little
+that he was able to earn. For sometimes, very seldom, he would finish
+something and sell it. But generally he was too ill-satisfied with
+himself to finish anything; and his modest notion was that everything
+had already been created and that his art was useless.
+
+This idea sometimes paralysed him for months together, without making
+him unhappy. When he had the money to keep himself going--and his
+personal needs were very small--he felt rich and was content in his
+studio or would wander, perfectly content, through the streets of
+Rome. His long, careless, lean, slender body was at such times clad
+in his oldest suit, which afforded an unostentatious glimpse of an
+untidy shirt with a soft collar and a bit of string instead of a tie;
+and his favourite headgear was a faded hat, battered out of shape by
+the rain. His mother and sisters as a rule found him unpresentable,
+but had given up trying to transform him into the well-groomed son
+and brother whom they would have liked to take to the drawing-rooms
+of their Roman friends. Happy to breathe the atmosphere of Rome, he
+would wander for hours through the ruins and see, in a dazzling vision
+of phantom columns, ethereal temples and translucent marble palaces
+looming up in a shimmering sunlit twilight; and the tourists going
+by with their Baedekers, who passed this long lean young man seated
+carelessly on the foundations of the Temple of Saturn, would never
+have believed in his architectural illusions of harmonious ascending
+lines, crowned by an array of statues in noble and god-like attitudes,
+high in the blue sky.
+
+But he saw them before him. He raised the shafts of the pillars,
+he fluted the severe Doric columns, he bent and curved the cushioned
+Ionic capitals and unfurled the leaves of the Corinthian acanthuses;
+the temples rose in the twinkling of an eye, the basilicas shot up as
+by magic, the graven images stood white against the elusive depths
+of the sky and the Via Sacra became alive. He, in his admiration,
+lived his dream, his past. It was as though he had known preexistence
+in ancient Rome; and the modern houses, the modern Capitol and all
+that stood around the tomb of his Forum were invisible to his eyes.
+
+He would sit like this for hours, or wander about and sit down again
+and be happy. In the intensity of his imagination, he conjured
+up history from the clouds of the past, first of all as a mist,
+a miraculous haze, whence the figures stepped out against the
+marble background of ancient Rome. The gigantic dramas were enacted
+before his dreaming eyes as on an ideal stage which stretched from
+the Forum to the hazy, sun-shot azure of the Campagna, with slips
+that lost themselves in the depths of the sky. Roman life came into
+being, with a toga'd gesture, a line of Horace, a sudden vision of
+an emperor's murder or a contest of gladiators in the arena. And
+suddenly also the vision paled and he saw the ruins, the ruins only,
+as the tangible shadow of his unreal illusion: he saw the ruins as
+they were, brown and grey, eaten up with age, crumbled, martyred,
+mutilated with hammers, till only a few occasional pillars lifted
+and bore a trembling architrave, that threatened to come crashing to
+the ground. And the browns and greys were so richly and nobly gilded
+by splashes of sunlight, the ruins were so exquisitely beautiful in
+decay, so melancholy in their unwitting fortuitousness of broken lines,
+of shattered arches and mutilated sculpture, that it was as though
+he himself, after his airy vision of radiant dream-architecture, had
+tortured and mutilated them with an artist's hand and caused them to
+burst asunder and shake and tremble, for the sake of their wistful
+aftermath of beauty. Then his eyes grew moist, his heart became more
+full than he could bear and he went away, through the Arch of Titus
+by the Colosseum, through the Arch of Constantine, on and on, and
+hurried past the Lateran to the Via Appia and the Campagna, where
+his smarting eyes drank in the blue of the distant Alban Hills, as
+though that would cure them of their excessive gazing and dreaming....
+
+Neither in his mother nor in his sisters did he find a strain that
+sympathized with his eccentric tendencies; and, since that one friend
+who died, he had never found another and had always been lonely within
+and without, as though the victim of a predestination which would not
+allow him to meet with sympathy. But he had peopled his loneliness so
+densely with his dreams that he had never felt unhappy because of it;
+and, even as he loved roaming alone among the ruins and along the
+country-roads, so he cherished the privacy of his lonely studio,
+with the many silent figures on an old panel of some triptych, on
+a tapestry, or on the many closely hung sketches, all around him,
+all with the charm of their lines and colours, all with the silent
+gesture of their movement and emotion and all blending together
+in twilit corners or a shadowy antique cabinet. And in between all
+this lived his china and bronze and old silver, while the faded gold
+embroidery of an ecclesiastical vestment gleamed faintly and the
+old leather bindings of his books stood in comfortable brown rows,
+ready to give forth, when his hands opened them, images which mistily
+drifted upwards, living their loves and their sorrows in the tempered
+browns and reds and golds of the soundless atmosphere of the studio.
+
+Such was his simple life, without much inward doubting, because he
+made no great demands upon himself, and without the modern artist's
+melancholy, because he was happy in his dreams. He had never, despite
+his hotel life with his mother and sisters--he slept and took his meals
+at Belloni's--met many people or concerned himself with strangers,
+being by nature a little shy of Baedekered tourists, of short-skirted
+English ladies, with their persistent little exclamations of uniform
+admiration, and feeling entirely impossible in the half-Italian,
+half-cosmopolitan set of his rather worldly mother and smart little
+sisters, who spent their time dancing and cycling with young Italian
+princes and dukes.
+
+And, now that he had met Cornélie de Retz, he had to confess to himself
+that he possessed but little knowledge of human nature and that he
+had never learnt to believe in the reality of such a woman, who might
+have existed in books, but not in actual life. Her very appearance--her
+pallor, her drooping charm, her weariness--had astonished him; and her
+conversation astonished him even more: her positiveness mingled with
+hesitation; her artistic feeling modified by the endeavour to take part
+in her period, a period which he failed to appreciate as artistic,
+enamoured as he was of Rome and of the past. And her conversation
+astonished him, attractive though the sound of it was and offended
+as he often was by a recurrent bitterness and irony, followed again
+by depression and discouragement, until he thought it over again and
+again, until in his musing he seemed to hear it once more on her own
+lips, until she joined the busts and torsos in his studio and appeared
+before him in the lily-like frailness of her visible actuality,
+against the preraphaelite stiffness of line and the Byzantine gold
+and colour of the angels and madonnas on canvas and tapestry.
+
+His soul had never known love; and he had always looked on love as
+imagination and poetry. His life had never known more than the natural
+virile impulse and the ordinary little love-affair with a model. And
+his ideas on love swayed in a too wide and unreal balance between
+a woman who showed herself in the nude for a few lire and Petrarch's
+Laura; between the desire roused by a beautiful body and the exaltation
+inspired by Dante's Beatrice; between the flesh and the dream. He had
+never contemplated an encounter of kindred souls, never longed for
+sympathy, for love in the full and pregnant sense of the word. And,
+when he began to think and to think long and often of Cornélie de Retz,
+he could not understand it. He had pondered and dreamed for days,
+for a week about a woman in a poem; on a woman in real life never.
+
+And that he, irritated by some of her sayings, had nevertheless seen
+her stand with her lily-like outline against his Byzantine triptych,
+like a wraith in his lonely dreams, almost frightened him, because
+it had made him lose his peace of mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It was Christmas Day, on which occasion the Marchesa Belloni
+entertained her boarders with a Christmas-tree in the drawing-room,
+followed by a dance in the old Guercino dining-room. To give a ball and
+a Christmas-tree was a custom with many hotel-keepers; and the pensions
+that gave no dance or Christmas-tree were known and numbered and were
+greatly blamed by the foreigners for this breach of tradition. There
+were instances of very excellent pensions to which many travellers,
+especially ladies, never went, because there was neither a dance nor
+a Christmas-tree at Christmas.
+
+The marchesa realized that her tree was expensive and that her
+dance cost money too and she would gladly have found an excuse for
+avoiding both, but she dared not: the reputation of her pension,
+as it happened, depended on its worldliness and smartness, on the
+table-d'hôte in the handsome dining-room, where people dressed for
+dinner, and also on the brilliant party given at Christmas. And it
+was amusing to see how keen all the ladies were to receive gratis in
+their bill for a whole winter's stay a trashy Christmas present and the
+opportunity of dancing without having to pay for a glass of orgeade
+and a bit of pastry, a sandwich and a cup of soup. Giuseppe, the old
+nodding major-domo, looked down contemptuously on this festivity:
+he remembered the gala pomp of his archducal evenings and considered
+the dance inferior and the tree paltry. Antonio, the limping porter,
+accustomed to his comparatively quiet life--fetching a visitor or
+taking him to the station; sorting the post twice a day at his ease;
+and for the rest pottering around his lodge and the lift--hated the
+dance, because of all the guests of the boarders, each of whom was
+entitled to invite two or three friends, and because of all that tiring
+fuss about carriages, when a good many of the visitors skipped into
+their vettura without tipping him. Round about Christmas, therefore,
+relations between the marchesa and her two principal dignitaries
+became far from harmonious; and a hail of orders and abuse would
+patter down on the backs of the old cameriere, crawling wearily up
+and downstairs with their hot-water-cans in their trembling hands,
+and of the young greenhorns of waiters, colliding with one another
+in their undisciplined zeal and smashing the plates. And it was only
+now, when the whole staff was put to work that people saw how old the
+cameriere were and how young the waiters and qualified as disgraceful
+and shocking the thrifty method of the marchesa in employing none but
+wrecks and infants in her service. The one muscular facchino, who was
+essential for hauling the luggage, cut an unexpected figure of virile
+maturity and robustness. But above everything the visitors detested the
+marchesa because of the great number of her servants, reflecting that
+now, at Christmas-time, they would have to tip every one of them. No,
+they never imagined that the staff was so large! Quite unnecessarily
+large too! Why couldn't the marchesa engage a couple of strong young
+maids and waiters instead of all those old women and little boys? And
+there was much hushed plotting and confabulating in the corners of the
+passages and at meals, to decide on the tips to be given: they didn't
+want to spoil the servants, but still they were staying all the winter;
+and therefore one lira was hardly enough and they hesitated between
+one lira twenty-five and one lira fifty. But, when they counted on
+their fingers that there were fully five-and-twenty servants and
+that therefore they were close on forty lire out of pocket, they
+thought it an awful lot and they got up subscription-lists. Two
+lists went round, one of one lira and one of twelve lire a visitor,
+the latter subscription covering the whole staff. On this second list
+some, who had arrived a month before and who had arranged to leave,
+entered their names for ten lire and some for six lire. Five lire
+was by general consent considered too little; and, when it became
+known that the grimy æsthetic ladies intended to give five lire,
+they were regarded with the greatest contempt.
+
+It all meant a lot of trouble and excitement. As Christmas drew nearer,
+people streamed to the presepii set up by painters in the Palazzo
+Borghese: a panorama of Jerusalem and the shepherds, the angels,
+the Magi and Mary and the Child in the manger with the ox and the
+ass. They listened in the Ara Coeli to the preaching of little boys
+and girls, who by turns climbed the platform and told the story of the
+Nativity, some shyly reciting a little poem, prompted by an anxious
+mother; others, girls especially, declaiming and rolling their eyes
+with the dramatic fervour of little Italian actresses and ending up
+with a religious moral. The people and countless tourists stood and
+listened to the preaching; a pleasant spirit prevailed in the church,
+where the shrill young children's voices were lifted up in oratory;
+there was laughter at a gesture or a point driven home; and the
+priests strolling round the church wore an unctuous smile because it
+was all so pretty and so satisfactory. And in the chapel of the Santo
+Bambino the miraculous wooden doll was bright with gold and jewels;
+and the close-packed multitude thronged to gaze at it.
+
+All the visitors at Belloni's bought bunches of holly in the Piazza
+di Spagna to adorn their rooms with; and some, such as the Baronin
+van Rothkirch, set up a private Christmas-tree in their own rooms. On
+the evening before the great party one and all went to admire these
+private trees, going in and out of one another's rooms; and all the
+boarders wore a kind, festive smile and welcomed everybody, however
+much at other times they might quarrel and intrigue against one
+another. It was universally agreed that the Baronin had taken great
+pains and that her tree was magnificent. Her bedroom had been cleverly
+metamorphosed into a boudoir, the beds draped to look like divans,
+the wash-hand-stands concealed; and the tree was radiant with candles
+and tinsel. And the Baronin, a little sentimentally inclined, for the
+season reminded her of Berlin and her lost domesticity, opened her
+doors wide to everybody and was even offering the two æsthetic ladies
+sweets, when the marchesa, also smiling, appeared at the door, with
+her bosom moulded in sky-blue satin and with even larger crystals than
+usual in her ears. The room was full: there were the Van der Staals,
+Cornélie, Rudyard, Urania Hope and other guests going in and out,
+so that it became impossible to move and they stood packed together
+or sat on the draped beds of the mother and daughter. The marchesa
+led in beside her an unknown young man, short, slender, with a pale
+olive complexion and with dark, bright, witty, lively eyes. He wore
+dress-clothes and displayed the vague good manners of a beloved and
+careless viveur, distinguished and yet conceited. And she proudly
+went up to the Baronin, who kept prettily wiping her moist eyes,
+and with a certain arrogance presented:
+
+"My nephew, Duca di San Stefano, Principe di Forte-Braccio...."
+
+The well-known Italian name sounded from her lips in the small,
+crowded room with deliberate distinctness; and all eyes went to the
+young man, who bowed low before the Baronin and then looked round
+the room with a vague, ironical glance. The marchesa's nephew had not
+yet been seen at the hotel that winter, but everybody knew that the
+young Duke of San Stefano, Prince of Forte-Braccio, was a nephew of
+the marchesa's and one of the advertisements for her pension. And,
+while the prince talked to the Baronin and her daughter, Urania Hope
+stared at him as a miraculous being from another world. She clung
+tight to Cornélie's arm, as though she were in danger of fainting at
+the sight of so much Italian nobility and greatness. She thought him
+very good-looking, very imposing, short and slender and pale, with
+his carbuncle eyes and his weary distinction and the white orchid
+in his button-hole. She would have loved to ask the marchioness to
+introduce her to her chic nephew, but she dared not, for she thought
+of her father's stockinet-factory at Chicago.
+
+The Christmas-tree party and the dance took place the following
+night. It became known that the marchesa's nephew was coming that
+evening too; and a great excitement reigned throughout the day. The
+prince arrived after the presents had been taken down from the tree
+and distributed and made a sort of state entry by the side of his
+aunt, the marchesa, into the drawing-room, where the dancing had not
+yet begun, though the guests were sitting about the room, all fixing
+their eyes on the ducal and princely apparition.
+
+Cornélie was strolling with Duco van der Staal, who to his mother's
+and sisters' great surprise had fished out his dress-clothes and
+appeared in the big hall; and they both observed the triumphant entry
+of la Belloni and her nephew and laughed at the fanatically upturned
+eyes of the English and American ladies. They, Cornélie and Duco,
+sat down in the hall on two chairs, in front of a clump of palms,
+which concealed one of the doors of the drawing-room, while the dance
+began inside. They were talking about the statues in the Vatican,
+which they had been to see two days before, when they heard, as though
+close to their ears, a voice which they recognized as the marchesa's
+commanding organ, vainly striving to sink into a whisper. They looked
+round in surprise and perceived the hidden door, which was partly open,
+and through the open space they faintly distinguished the slim hand and
+black sleeve of the prince and a piece of the blue bosom of la Belloni,
+both seated on a sofa in the drawing-room. They were therefore back to
+back, separated by the half-open door. They listened for fun to the
+marchesa's Italian; the prince's answers were lisped so softly that
+they could scarcely catch them. And of what the marchesa said they
+heard only a few words and scraps of sentences. They were listening
+quite involuntarily, when they heard Rudyard's name clearly pronounced
+by the marchesa.
+
+"And who besides?" asked the prince, softly.
+
+"An English miss," said the marchesa. "Miss Taylor: she's sitting
+over there, by herself in the corner. A simple little soul.... The
+Baronin and her daughter.... The Dutchwoman: a divorcée.... And the
+pretty American."
+
+"And those two very attractive Dutch girls?" asked the prince.
+
+The music boom-boomed louder; and Cornélie and Duco did not catch
+the reply.
+
+"And the divorced Dutchwoman?" the prince asked next.
+
+"No money," the marchesa answered, curtly.
+
+"And the young baroness?"
+
+"No money," la Belloni repeated.
+
+"So there's no one except the stocking-merchant?" asked the prince,
+wearily.
+
+La Belloni became cross, but Cornélie and Duco could not understand the
+sentences which she rattled out through the boom-booming music. Then,
+during a lull, they heard the marchesa say:
+
+"She is very pretty. She has tons and tons of money. She could have
+gone to a first-class hotel but preferred to come here because, as a
+young girl travelling by herself, she was recommended to me and finds
+it pleasanter here. She has the big sitting-room to herself and pays
+fifty lire a day for her two rooms. She does not care about money. She
+pays three times as much as the others for her wood; and I also charge
+her for the wine."
+
+"She sells stockings," muttered the prince, obstinately.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the marchesa. "Remember that there's nobody at
+the moment. Last winter we had rich English titled people, with a
+daughter, but you thought her too tall. You're always discovering
+some objection. You mustn't be so difficult."
+
+"I think those two little Dutch dolls attractive."
+
+"They have no money. You're always thinking what you have no business
+to think."
+
+"How much did Papa promise you if you...."
+
+The music boomed louder.
+
+" ... makes no difference.... If Rudyard talks to her.... Miss Taylor
+is easy.... Miss Hope...."
+
+"I don't want so many stockings as all that."
+
+" ... very witty, I dare say.... If you don't care to...."
+
+"No."
+
+" ... then I retire.... I'll tell Rudyard so.... How much?"
+
+"Sixty or seventy thousand: I don't know exactly."
+
+"Are they urgent?"
+
+"Debts are never urgent!"
+
+"Do you agree?"
+
+"Very well. But mind, I won't sell myself for less than ten
+millions.... And then you get...."
+
+They both laughed; and again the names of Rudyard and Urania were
+pronounced.
+
+"Urania?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, Urania," replied la Belloni. "Those little Americans are
+very tactful. Look at the Comtesse de Castellane and the Duchess of
+Marlborough: how well they bear their husbands' honours! They cut
+an excellent figure. They are mentioned in every society column and
+always with respect."
+
+" ... All right then. I am tired of these wasted winters. But not
+less than ten millions."
+
+"Five."
+
+"No, ten."
+
+The prince and the marchesa had stood up to go. Cornélie looked at
+Duco. He laughed:
+
+"I don't quite understand them," he said. "It's a joke, of course."
+
+Cornélie was startled:
+
+"A joke, you think, Mr. van der Staal?"
+
+"Yes, they're humbugging."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Have you any knowledge of human nature?"
+
+"Oh, no, none at all!"
+
+"I'm getting it, gradually. I believe that Rome can be dangerous and
+that an hotel-keeping marchesa, a prince and a Jesuit...."
+
+"What about them?"
+
+"Can be dangerous, if not to your sisters, because they have no money,
+but at any rate to Urania Hope."
+
+"I don't believe it for a moment. It was all chaff. And it doesn't
+interest me. What do you think of Praxiteles' Eros? I think it the most
+divine statue that I ever saw. Oh, the Eros, the Eros! That is love,
+the real love, the predestined, fatal love, begging forgiveness for
+the suffering which it causes."
+
+"Have you ever been in love?"
+
+"No. I have no knowledge of human nature and I have never been in
+love. You are always so definite. Dreams are beautiful, statues
+are delightful and poetry is everything. The Eros expresses love
+completely. The love of the Eros is so beautiful! I could never love
+so beautifully as that.... No, it does not interest me to understand
+human nature; and a dream of Praxiteles, lingering in a mutilated
+marble torso, is nobler than anything that the world calls love."
+
+She knitted her brows; her eyes were sombre.
+
+"Let us go to the dancers," she said. "We are so out of it all here."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The day after the dance, at table, Cornélie received a strange
+impression: suddenly, as she sipped her delicious Genzano, ordered
+for her by Rudyard, she became aware that it was not by accident that
+she was sitting with the Baronin and her daughter, with Urania and
+Miss Taylor; she saw that the marchesa had an intention behind this
+arrangement. Rudyard, always civil, polite, thoughtful, always full
+of attentions, his pockets always filled with cards of introduction
+very difficult to obtain--or so at least he contended--talked
+without ceasing, lately more particularly to Miss Taylor, who went
+faithfully to hear all the best church music and always returned
+home in ecstasy. The pale, simple, thin little Englishwoman, who at
+first used to go into raptures over museums, ruins and the sunsets
+on the Aventine or the Monte Mario and who was always tired by her
+rambles through Rome, now devoted herself exclusively to the hundreds
+of churches, visited and studied them all and above all faithfully
+attended the musical services and spoke ecstatically of the choir in
+the Sistine Chapel and the quavering Glorias of the male soprani.
+
+Cornélie spoke to Mrs. van der Staal and the Baronin von Rothkirch
+of the conversation between the marchesa and her nephew which
+she had heard through the half-open door; but neither of them,
+though interested and curious, took the marchesa's words seriously,
+regarding them only as so much thoughtless talk between a foolish,
+match-making aunt and an unwilling nephew. Cornélie was struck by
+seeing how unable people are to take things seriously; but the Baronin
+was quite indifferent, saying that Rudyard could do her no harm and
+was still supplying her with tickets; and Mrs. van der Staal, who had
+been in Rome a long time and was accustomed to little boarding-house
+conspiracies, considered that Cornélie was making herself too uneasy
+about the fair Urania's fate.
+
+Suddenly, however, Miss Taylor disappeared from the table. They thought
+that she was ill, until it came to light that she had left the Pension
+Belloni. Rudyard said nothing; but, a few days later, the whole pension
+knew that Miss Taylor had been converted to the Catholic faith and
+had moved to a pension recommended by Rudyard, a pension frequented
+by monsignori and noted for its religious tone. Her disappearance
+produced a certain constraint in the conversation between Rudyard,
+the German ladies and Cornélie; and the latter, in the course of a
+week which the Baronin was spending at Naples, changed her seat and
+joined her fellow-countrywomen the Van der Staals. The Von Rothkirches
+also changed, because of the draught, said the Baronin; their seats
+were taken by new arrivals; and Urania was left alone with Rudyard
+at lunch and dinner, amid those foreign elements.
+
+Cornélie reproached herself and one day spoke seriously to the American
+girl and warned her. But she dared not repeat what she had overheard
+at the dance; and her warning made no impression on Urania. And,
+when Rudyard had obtained for Miss Hope the privilege of a private
+audience of the Pope, Urania would not hear a word against Rudyard
+and considered him the kindest man whom she had ever met, Jesuit or
+no Jesuit.
+
+But Rudyard continued to appear through a haze of mystery; and people
+were not agreed as to whether he was a priest or a layman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What do those strangers matter to you?" asked Duco.
+
+They were sitting in his studio: Mrs. van der Staal, Cornélie and the
+girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie was pouring out the tea; and they were
+discussing Miss Taylor and Urania.
+
+"I am a stranger to you too!" said Cornélie.
+
+"You are not a stranger to me, to us. But Miss Taylor and Urania don't
+matter. Hundreds of shadows pass through our lives: I don't see them
+and don't feel for them."
+
+"And am I not a shadow?"
+
+"I have talked to you too much in the Borghese and on the Palatine
+to look upon you as a shadow."
+
+"Rudyard is a dangerous shadow," said Annie.
+
+"He has no hold over us," Duco replied.
+
+Mrs. van der Staal looked at Cornélie. She understood the enquiring
+glance and said, laughing:
+
+"No, he has no hold over me either. Still, if I felt the need of
+a religion, I mean an ecclesiastical religion, I would rather be a
+Roman Catholic than a Protestant. But, as things are ..."
+
+She did not complete her sentence. She felt safe in this studio,
+in this soft, many-coloured profusion of beautiful things, in the
+affection of her friends; she felt in harmony with them all: with the
+worldly charm of that somewhat superficial mother and her two pretty
+girls, a little doll-like and vaguely cosmopolitan and a trifle vain
+of the little marquises with whom they danced and bicycled; and with
+that son, that brother so very different from the three of them and
+yet obviously related to them, as a movement, a gesture, a single
+word would show. It also struck Cornélie that they accepted each
+other affectionately as they were: Duco, his mother and sisters,
+with their stories about the Princesses Colonna and Odescalchi;
+mevrouw and the girls and him, with his worn jacket and his unkempt
+hair. And, when he began to speak, especially about Rome, when he
+put his dream into words, in almost bookish sentences, which however
+flowed easily and naturally from his lips, Cornélie felt in harmony
+with her surroundings, secure and interested and to some extent
+lost that longing to contradict him which his artistic indolence
+sometimes aroused in her. And, besides, his indolence suddenly seemed
+to her merely apparent and perhaps an affection, for he showed her
+sketches and water-colour drawings, not one of them finished, but
+every water-colour alive with light before all things, alive with
+all that light of Italy: the pearl sunsets over the molten emerald of
+Venice; the campanili of Florence drawn vaguely and dreamily against
+tender tea-rose skies; Siena fortress-like, blue-black in the bluish
+moonlight; the blazing sunshine behind St. Peter's; and, above all,
+the ruins, in every kind of light: the Forum in the bright sunlight,
+the Palatine by twilight, the Colosseum mysterious in the night;
+and then the Campagna: all the dream-like skies and luminous haze of
+the glad and sad Campagna, with pale-pink mauves, dewy blues, dusky
+violets or the swaggering ochres of pyrotechnical sunsets and clouds
+flaring like the crimson pinions of the phoenix. And, when Cornélie
+asked him why nothing was finished off, he answered that nothing was
+right. He saw the skies as dreams, visions and apotheoses; and on
+his paper they became water and paint; and paint was not a thing to
+be finished off. Besides, he lacked the self-confidence. And then he
+laid his skies aside, he said, and sat down to copy Byzantine madonnas.
+
+When he saw that his water-colours interested her nevertheless, he
+went on talking about himself: how he had at first raved over the
+noble and ingenuous Primitives, Giotto and especially Lippo Memmi;
+how, after that, spending a year in Paris, he had found nothing that
+excelled Forain: cold, dry satire in two or three lines; how, next,
+in the Louvre, Rubens had become revealed to him, Rubens whose own
+talent and whose own brush he used to trace amid all the prentice-work
+and imitations of his pupils, until he was able to tell which cherub
+was by Rubens himself in a sky full of cherubs painted by four or
+five disciples.
+
+And then, he said, he would pass weeks without giving a thought to
+painting or taking up a brush and would go daily to the Vatican,
+lost in contemplation of the magnificent marbles.
+
+Once he had sat dreaming a whole morning in front of the Eros; once
+he had dreamt a poem there, to a very gentle, melodious, monotonous
+accompaniment, like an inward incantation. On coming home he had
+tried to put both poem and music on paper, but he had failed. Now he
+could no longer look at Forain, thought Rubens coarse and disgusting,
+but remained faithful to the Primitives:
+
+"And suppose for a moment that I painted a lot and sent a lot of
+pictures to exhibitions? Should I be any the happier? Should I feel
+satisfied in having done something? I doubt it. Sometimes I do finish
+a water-colour and sell it; and then I can go on living for a month
+without troubling Mamma. Money I don't care about. Ambition is quite
+foreign to my nature.... But don't let us talk about myself. Do you
+still think of the future and ... bread?"
+
+"Perhaps," she said, with a melancholy laugh, while the studio around
+her grew dusk and dim and the figures of his mother and sisters,
+sitting silent, languid and uninterested in their easy-chairs,
+gradually faded away and every colour slowly paled. "But I am so
+weak-minded. You say that you are not an artist; and I ... I am not
+an apostle."
+
+"To give one's life a course: that is the difficulty. Every life
+has a line, an appointed course, a road, a path: life has to flow
+along that line to death and what comes after death; and that line
+is difficult to find. I shall never find my line."
+
+"I don't see my line before me either."
+
+"Do you know, a restlessness has come over me. Mamma, listen, a
+restlessness has come over me. I used to dream in the Forum, I was
+happy and didn't think about my line, my appointed course. Mamma,
+do you think about your line? Do you, girls?"
+
+His sisters giggled in the dark, sunk in their low chairs, like two
+pussy-cats. Mamma got up:
+
+"Duco dear, you know I can't follow you. I admire Cornélie for liking
+your water-colours and understanding what you mean by that line. My
+line is to go home at once, for it's very late."
+
+"That's the line of the next two seconds. But there is a restlessness
+about my line that affects it for days and weeks to come. I am not
+leading the right life. The past is very beautiful and so peaceful,
+because it has been. But I have lost that peace. The present is very
+small. But the future! ... Oh, if we could only find an aim ... for
+the future!"
+
+They no longer listened; they went down the dark stairs, groping
+their way.
+
+"Bread?" he asked himself, wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+One morning when Cornélie stayed indoors she went through the books
+that lay scattered about her room. And she found that it was useless
+for her to read Ovid, in order to study something of Roman manners,
+some of which had alarmed and shocked her; she found that Dante and
+Petrarch were too difficult to learn Italian from, whereas she had
+only to pick up a word or two in order to make herself understood in a
+shop or by the servants; she found Hare's Walks a too wearisome guide,
+because every cobble-stone in Rome did not inspire her with the same
+interest that Hare evidently derived from it. Then she confessed to
+herself that she could never see Italy and Rome as Duco van der Staal
+did. She never saw the light of the skies or the drifting of the clouds
+as he had seen them in his unfinished water-colour sketches. She had
+never seen the ruins transfigured in glory as he did in his hours of
+dreaming on the Palatine or in the Forum. She saw a picture merely
+with a layman's eye; a Byzantine madonna made no appeal to her. She
+was very fond of statues; but to fall head over ears in love with
+a mutilated marble torso, in the spirit in which he loved the Eros,
+seemed to her sickly ... and yet it seemed to be the right spirit in
+which to see the Eros. Well, not sickly, she admitted ... but morbid:
+the word, though she herself smiled at it expressed her opinion better;
+not sickly, but morbid. And she looked upon an olive as a tree rather
+like a willow, whereas Duco had told her that an olive was the most
+beautiful tree in the world.
+
+She did not agree with him, either about the olive or about the
+Eros; and yet she felt that he was right from a certain mysterious
+standpoint on which there was no room for her, because it was like
+a mystic eminence amid impassable sensitive spheres which were not
+hers, even as the eminence was to her an unknown vantage-point of
+sensitiveness and vision. She did not agree with him and yet she
+was convinced of his greater rightness, his truer view, his nobler
+insight, his deeper feeling; and she was certain that her way of
+seeing Italy, in the disappointment of her disillusion, in the
+grey light of a growing indifference, was neither noble nor good;
+and she knew that the beauty of Italy escaped her, whereas to him
+it was like a tangible and comprehensible vision. And she cleared
+away Ovid and Petrarch and Hare's guidebook and locked them up in
+her trunk and took out the novels and pamphlets which had appeared
+that year about the woman movement in Holland. She took an interest
+in the problem and thought that it made her more modern than Duco,
+who suddenly seemed to her to belong to a bygone age, not modern,
+not modern. She repeated the words with enjoyment and suddenly felt
+herself stronger. To be modern: that should be her strength. One
+phrase of Duco's had struck her immensely, that exclamation:
+
+"Oh, if we could only find an aim! Our life has a line, a path,
+which it must follow...."
+
+To be modern: was that not a line? To find the solution of a modern
+problem: was that not an aim in life? He was quite right, from his
+point of view, from which he saw Italy; but was not the whole of
+Italy a past, a dream, at least that Italy which Duco saw, a dreamy
+paradise of nothing but art? It could not be right to stand like
+that, see like that a dream like that. The present was here: on
+the grey horizon muttered an approaching storm; and the latter-day
+problems flashed like lightning. Was that not what she had to live
+for? She felt for the woman, she felt for the girl: she herself
+had been the girl, brought up only as a social ornament, to shine,
+to be pretty and attractive and then of course to get married; she
+had shone and she had married; and now she was three-and-twenty,
+divorced from the husband who at one time had been her only aim and,
+for her sake, the aim of her parents; now she was alone, astray,
+desperate and utterly disconsolate: she had nothing to cling to and
+she suffered. She still loved him, cad and scoundrel though he was;
+and she had thought that she was doing something very clever, when she
+went abroad, to Italy, to study art. But she did not understand art,
+she did not feel Italy. Oh, how clearly she saw it, after those talks
+with Duco, that she would never understand art, even though she used
+to sketch a bit, even though she used to have a biscuit-group after
+Canova in her boudoir, Cupid and Psyche: so nice for a young girl! And
+with what certainty she now knew that she would never grasp Italy,
+because she did not think an olive-tree so very beautiful and had
+never seen the sky of the Campagna as a fluttering phoenix-wing! No,
+Italy would never be the consolation of her life....
+
+But what then? She had been through much, but she was alive and very
+young. And once again, at the sight of those pamphlets, at the sight
+of that novel, the desire arose in her soul: to be modern, to be
+modern! And to take part in the problem of to-day! To live for the
+future! To live for her fellow-women, married or unmarried!...
+
+She dared not look deep down into herself, lest she should waver. To
+live for the future!... It separated her a little more from Duco,
+that new ideal. Did she mind? Was she in love with him? No, she
+thought not. She had been in love with her husband and did not want
+to fall in love at once with the first agreeable young man whom she
+chanced to meet in Rome....
+
+And she read the pamphlets, about the feminine problem and love. Then
+she thought of her husband, then of Duco. And wearily she dropped the
+pamphlets and reflected how sad it all was: people, women, girls. She,
+a woman, a young woman, an aimless woman: how sad her life was! And
+Duco: he was happy. And yet he was seeking the line of his life,
+yet he was looking out for his aim. A new restlessness had entered
+into him. And she wept a little and anxiously twisted herself on her
+cushions and clasped her hands and prayed, unconsciously, without
+knowing to whom she was praying:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+It was then, after a few days, that Cornélie conceived the idea
+of leaving the boarding-house and going to live in rooms. The
+hotel-life disturbed her budding thoughts, like a wind of vanity
+that was constantly blighting very vague and fragile blossoms;
+and, despite a torrent of abuse from the marchesa, who reproached
+her with having engaged to stay the whole winter, she moved into
+the rooms which she had found with Duco van der Staal, after much
+hunting and stair-climbing. They were in the Via dei Serpenti, up any
+number of stairs: a set of two roomy, but almost entirely unfurnished
+apartments, containing only the absolute essentials; and, though the
+view extended far and wide above the house-tops of Rome to the circular
+ruin of the Colosseum, the rooms were rough and uncomfortable, bare
+and uninviting. Duco had not approved of them and said that they made
+him shiver, although they faced the sun; but there was something about
+the ruggedness of the place that harmonized with Cornélie's new mood.
+
+When they parted that day, he thought how inartistic she was and
+she how unmodern he was. They did not meet again for several days;
+and Cornélie was very lonely, but did not feel her loneliness,
+because she was writing a pamphlet on the social position of divorced
+women. The idea was suggested to her by a few sentences in a tract
+on the feminist problem; and at once, without wasting much time in
+thought, she flung off her sentences in a succession of impulses and
+intuitions, rough-hewn, cold and clear; she wrote in an epistolary
+style, without literary art, as though to warn girls against cherishing
+too many illusions about marriage.
+
+She had not made her rooms comfortable; she sat there, high up over
+Rome, with her view across the house-tops to the Colosseum, writing,
+writing and writing, absorbed in her sorrow, uttering herself in
+her stubborn sentences, feeling intensely bitter, but pouring the
+wormwood of her soul into her pamphlet. Mrs. van der Staal and the
+girls, who came to see her, were surprised by her untidy appearance,
+her rough-looking rooms, with a dying fire in the little grate and
+with no flowers, no books, no tea and no cushions; and, when they went
+away after fifteen minutes, pleading urgent errands, they looked at
+each other, tripping down the endless stairs, with eyes of amazement,
+utterly at a loss to understand this transformation of an interesting,
+elegant little woman, surrounded by an aura of poetry and a tragic
+past, into an "independent woman," working furiously at a pamphlet full
+of bitter invective against society. And, when Duco looked her up again
+in a week's time and came to sit with her a little, he remained silent,
+stiff and upright in his chair, without speaking, while Cornélie read
+the beginning of her pamphlet to him. He was touched by the glimpses
+which it revealed to him of personal suffering and experience, but he
+was irritated by a certain discord between that slender, lily-like
+woman, with her drooping movements, and the surroundings in which
+she now felt at her ease, entirely absorbed in her hatred for the
+society--Hague society--which had become hostile to her because she
+refused to go on living with a cad who ill-treated her. And while
+she was reading, Duco thought:
+
+"She would not write like that if she were not writing it all down from
+her own suffering. Why doesn't she make a novel of it? Why generalize
+from one's personal sorrows and why that admonishing voice?..."
+
+He did not like it. He thought the sound of that voice was hard,
+those truths so personal, that bitterness unattractive and that
+hatred of convention so small. And, when she put a question to him,
+he did not say much, nodded his head in vague approval and remained
+sitting in his stiff, uncomfortable attitude. He did not know what to
+answer, he was unable to admire, he thought her inartistic. And yet a
+great compassion welled up within him when he saw, in spite of it all,
+how charming she would be and what charm and womanly dignity would be
+hers could she find the line of her life and moved harmoniously along
+that line with the music of her own movement. He now saw her taking a
+wrong road, a path pointed out to her by the fingers of others and not
+entered upon from the impulse of her own soul. And he felt the deepest
+pity for her. He, an artist, but above all a dreamer, sometimes saw
+vividly, despite his dreaming, despite his sometimes all-embracing
+love of line and colour and atmosphere; he, the artist and dreamer,
+sometimes very clearly saw the emotion looming through the outward
+actions of his fellow-creatures, saw it like light shining through
+alabaster; and he suddenly saw her lost, seeking, straying: seeking
+she herself knew not what, straying she herself knew not through what
+labyrinth, far from her line, the line of her life and the course of
+her soul's journey, which she had never yet found.
+
+She sat before him excitedly. She had read her last pages with a
+flushed face, in a resonant voice, her whole being in a fever. She
+looked as if she would have liked to fling those bitter pages
+at the feet of her Dutch sisters, at the feet of all women. He,
+absorbed in his speculations, melancholy in his pity for her,
+had scarcely listened, nodding his head in vague approval. And
+suddenly she began to speak of herself, revealed herself wholly,
+told him her life: her existence as a young girl at the Hague, her
+education with a view to shining a little and being attractive and
+pretty, with not one serious glance at her future, only waiting for
+a good match, with a flirtation here and a little love-affair there,
+until she was married: a good match, in her own circle; her husband
+a first lieutenant of hussars, a fine, handsome fellow, of a good,
+distinguished family, with a little money. She had fallen in love with
+him for his handsome face and his fine figure, which his uniform showed
+to advantage, and he with her as he might have done with any other
+girl who had a pretty face. Then came the revelation of those very
+early days: the discord between their characters manifesting itself
+luridly at once. She, spoilt at home, dainty, delicate, fastidious,
+but selfishly fastidious and flying out against any offence to her
+own spoilt little ego; he no longer the lover but immediately and
+brutally the man with rights to this and rights to that, with an oath
+here and a roar there; she with neither the tact nor the patience
+to make of their foundering lives what could still be made of them,
+nervous, quick-tempered, quick to resent coarseness, which made his
+savagery flare up so violently that he ill-treated her, swore at her,
+struck her, shook her and banged her against the wall.
+
+The divorce followed. He had not consented at first, content, in
+spite of all, to have a house and in that house a wife, female to
+him, the male, and declining to return to the discomfort of life in
+chambers, until she simply ran away, first to her parents, then to
+friends in the country, protesting loudly against the law, which was
+so unjust to women. He had yielded at last and allowed himself to
+be accused of infidelity, which was not beside the truth. She was
+now free, but stood as it were alone, looked at askance by all her
+acquaintances, refusing to yield to their conventional demand for that
+sort of half-mourning which, according to their conventional ideas,
+should surround a divorced woman and at once returning to her former
+life, the gay life of an unmarried girl. But she had felt that this
+could not go on, both because of her acquaintances and because of
+herself: her acquaintances looking at her askance and she loathing
+her acquaintances, loathing their parties and dinners, until she felt
+profoundly unhappy, lonely and forlorn, without anything or anybody
+to cling to, and had felt all the depression that weighs down on the
+divorced woman. Sometimes, in her heart of hearts, she reflected that
+by dint of great patience and great tact she might have managed that
+man, that he was not wicked, only coarse, that she was still fond of
+him, or at least of his handsome face and his sturdy figure. Love, no,
+it was not love; but had she ever thought of love as she now sometimes
+pictured it? And did not nearly everybody live more or less so-so,
+with a good deal of give and take?
+
+But this regret she hardly confessed to herself, did not now confess
+to Duco; and what she did confess was her bitterness, her hatred of
+her husband, of marriage, of convention, of people, of the world,
+of all the great generalities, generalizing her own feelings into
+one great curse against life. He listened to her, with pity. He
+felt that there was something noble in her, which, however, had been
+stifled from the beginning. He forgave her for not being artistic,
+but he was sorry that she had never found herself, that she did
+not know what she was, who she was, what her life should be, or
+where the line of her life wound, the only path which she ought to
+tread, as every life follows one path. Oh, how often, if a person
+would but let herself go, like a flower, like a bird, like a cloud,
+like a star which so obediently ran its course, she would find her
+happiness and her life, even as the flower or the bird finds them,
+even as the cloud drifts before the sun, even as the star follows its
+course through the heavens. But he told her nothing of his thoughts,
+knowing that, especially in her present mood of bitterness, she would
+not understand them and could derive no comfort from them, because they
+would be too vague for her and too far removed from her own manner of
+thinking. She thought of herself, but imagined that she was thinking
+of women and girls and their movement towards the future. The lines
+of the women ... but had not every woman a line of her own? Only,
+how few of them knew it: their direction, their path, their line of
+life, their wavering course in the twilight of the future. And perhaps,
+because they did not know it for themselves, they were now all seeking
+together a broad path, a main road, along which they would march in
+troops, in a threatening multitude of women, in regiments of women,
+with banners and mottoes and war-cries, a broad path, parallel with
+the movement of the men, until the two paths would melt into one,
+until the troops of women would mingle with the troops of men, with
+equal rights and equal fullness of life....
+
+He said nothing to her. She noticed his silence and did not see how
+much was going on within him, how earnestly he was thinking of her,
+how profoundly he pitied her. She thought that she had bored him. And
+suddenly, around her, she saw the dim, barren room, saw that the fire
+was out; and her zeal subsided, her fever cooled and she thought her
+pamphlet bad, lacking strength and conviction. What would she not
+have given for a word from him! But he sat silent, seemed to take no
+interest, probably did not admire her style of writing. And she felt
+sad, deserted, lonely, estranged from him and bitter because of the
+estrangement; she felt ready to weep, to sob; and, strange to say, in
+her bitterness she thought of him, of her husband, with his handsome
+face. She could not restrain herself, she wept. Duco came up to her,
+put his hand on her shoulder. Then she felt something of what was
+going on within him and that his silence was not due to coldness. She
+told him that she could not remain alone that evening: she was too
+wretched, too wretched. He comforted her, said that there was much
+that was good, much that was true in her pamphlet; that he was not
+a good judge of these modern questions; that he was never clever
+except when he talked about Italy; that he felt so little for people
+and so much for statues, so little for what was newly building for
+a coming century and so much for what lay in ruins and remained over
+from earlier centuries. He said it as though apologizing. She smiled
+through her tears but repeated that she could not stay alone that
+evening and that she was coming with him to Belloni's, to his mother
+and sisters. And they went together, they walked round together; and,
+to divert her mind, he spoke to her of his own thoughts, told her
+anecdotes of the Renascence masters. She did not hear what he said,
+but his voice was sweet to her ears. There was something so gentle
+about his indifference to the modern things that interested her, he had
+so much calmness, healing as balsam, in the restfulness of his soul,
+which allowed itself to move along the golden thread of his dreams,
+as though that thread was the line of his life, so much calmness and
+gentleness that she too grew calmer and gentler and looked up to him
+with a smile.
+
+And, however far removed they might be from each other--he going along
+a dreamy path, she lost in an obscure maze--they nevertheless felt each
+other approaching, felt their souls drawing nearer to each other, while
+their bodies moved beside each other in the actual street, through
+Rome, in the evening. He put his arm through hers to guide her steps.
+
+And, when they came in sight of Belloni's, she thanked him, she did
+not know exactly for what: for the look in his eyes, for his voice, for
+the walk, for the consolation which she felt inexplicably yet clearly
+radiating from him; and she was glad to have come with him this evening
+and to feel the distraction of the Belloni table-d'hôte around her.
+
+But at night, alone, alone in her bare rooms, she was overcome by
+her wretchedness as by a sea of blackness; and, looking out at the
+Colosseum, which showed faintly as a black arc in the black night,
+she sobbed until she felt herself sinking to the point of death,
+derelict, lonely and forlorn, high up above Rome, above the roofs,
+above the pale lights of Rome by night, under the clouds of the
+black night, sinking and derelict, as though she were drifting,
+a shipwrecked waif on an ocean which drowned the world and roared
+its plaints to the inexorable heavens.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Nevertheless Cornélie recovered her calmness when her pamphlet
+was finished. She unpacked her trunks, arranged her rooms a little
+more snugly and, now more at her ease, rewrote the pamphlet and,
+in the revision, improved her style and even her ideas. When she had
+done working in the morning, she usually lunched at a small osteria,
+where she nearly always met Duco van der Staal and had her meal with
+him at a little table. As a rule she dined at Belloni's, beside the
+Van der Staals, in order to obtain a little diversion. The marchesa
+had not bowed to her at first, though she suffered her to attend her
+table-d'hôte, at three lire an evening; but after a time she bowed to
+Cornélie again, with a bitter-sweet little smile, for she had relet
+her two rooms at a higher price. And Cornélie, in her calmer mood,
+found it pleasant to change in the evening, to see Mrs. van der Staal
+and the girls, to listen to their little stories about the Roman
+salons and to cast a glance over the long tables. And they saw that
+the guests were ever again different, as in a kaleidoscope of fleeting
+personalities. Rudyard had disappeared, owing money to the marchesa,
+no one knew whither; the Von Rothkirches had gone to Greece; but Urania
+Hope was still there and sat next to the Marchesa Belloni. On her other
+side was the nephew, the Prince of Forte-Braccio, Duke of San Stefano,
+who dined at Belloni's every night. And Cornélie saw that a sort of
+conspiracy was in progress, the marchesa and the prince laying siege
+to the vain little American from either side. And next day she saw two
+monsignori seated in eager conversation with Urania at the marchesa's
+table, while the marchesa and the prince nodded their heads. All the
+visitors commented on it, every eye was turned in that direction,
+everybody watched the manoeuvres and delighted in the romance.
+
+Cornélie was the only one who was not amused. She would have liked to
+warn Urania against the marchesa, the prince and the monsignori who had
+taken Rudyard's place, but especially against marriage, even marriage
+with a prince and duke. And, growing excited, she spoke to Mrs. van
+der Staal and the girls, repeated phrases out of her pamphlet, glowing
+with her red young hatred against society and people and the world.
+
+Dinner was over; and, still eagerly talking, she went with the Van
+der Staals--mevrouw and the girls and Duco--to the drawing-room,
+sat down in a corner, resumed her conversation, flew out at mevrouw,
+who had contradicted her, and then suddenly saw a fat lady--the girls
+had already nick-named her the Satin Frigate--come towards her with
+a smile and say, while still at some distance:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but there's something I want to say. Look here, I
+have been to Belloni's regularly every winter for the last ten years,
+from November to Easter; and every evening after dinner--but only
+after dinner--I sit in this corner, at this table, on this sofa. I
+hope you won't mind, but I should be glad to have my own seat now."
+
+And the Satin Frigate smiled amiably; but, when the Van der Staals and
+Cornélie rose in mute amazement, she dumped herself down with a rustle
+on the sofa, bobbed up and down for a moment on the springs, laid her
+crochet-work on the table with a gesture as though she were planting
+the Union Jack in a new colony and said, with her most amiable smile:
+
+"Very much obliged. So many thanks."
+
+Duco roared, the girls giggled, but the Satin Frigate merely nodded to
+them good-humouredly. And, not even yet realizing what had happened,
+astounded but gay, they sat down in another corner, the girls still
+seized with an irrepressible giggle. The two æsthetic ladies, with
+the evening-dress and the Jaegers, who sat reading at the table in
+the middle of the room, closed their two books with one slam, rose
+and indignantly went away, because people were laughing and talking
+in the drawing-room:
+
+"It's a shame!" they said, aloud.
+
+And, angular, arrogant and grimy, they stalked out through the door.
+
+"What strange people!" thought Duco, smiling. "Shadows of
+people!... Their lines curl like arabesque through ours. Why do they
+cross our lines with their petty movements and why are ours never
+crossed by those which perhaps would be dearest to our souls?..."
+
+He always took Cornélie back to the Via dei Serpenti. They walked
+slowly through the silent, deserted streets. Sometimes it was late in
+the evening, but sometimes it was immediately after dinner and then
+they would go through the Corso and he would generally ask her to
+come and sit at Aragno's for a little. She agreed and they drank their
+coffee amid the gaiety of the brightly-lit café, watching the bustle
+on the pavement outside. They exchanged few words, distracted by the
+passers-by and the visitors to the café; but they both enjoyed this
+moment and felt at one with each other. Duco evidently did not give
+a thought to the unconventionality of their behaviour; but Cornélie
+thought of Mrs. van der Staal and that she would not approve of it or
+consent to it in one of her daughters, to sit alone with a gentleman
+in a café in the evening. And Cornélie also remembered the Hague and
+smiled at the thought of her Hague friends. And she looked at Duco,
+who sat quietly, pleased to be sitting with her, and drank his coffee
+and spoke a word now and again or pointed to a queer type or a pretty
+woman passing....
+
+One evening, after dinner, he suggested that they should all go to
+the ruins. It was full moon, a wonderful sight. But mevrouw was
+afraid of malaria, the girls of foot-pads; and Duco and Cornélie
+went by themselves. The streets were quite empty, the Colosseum rose
+menacingly like a fortress in the night; but they went in and the
+moonlight blue of the night shone through the open arches: the round
+pit of the arena was black on one side with shadow, while the stream
+of moonlight poured in on the other side, like a white flood, like
+a cascade; and it was as though the night were haunted, as though
+the Colosseum were haunted by all the dead past of Rome, emperors,
+gladiators and martyrs; shadows prowled like lurking wild animals,
+a patch of light suggested a naked woman and the galleries seemed to
+rustle with the sound of the multitude. And yet there was nothing and
+Duco and Cornélie were alone, in the depths of the huge, colossal ruin,
+half in shadow and half in light; and, though she was not afraid, she
+was obsessed by that awful haunting of the past and pushed closer to
+him and clutched his arm and felt very, very small. He just pressed
+her hand, with his simple ease of manner, to reassure her. And the
+night oppressed her, the ghostliness of it all suffocated her, the
+moon seemed to whirl giddily in the sky and to expand to a gigantic
+size and spin round like a silver wheel. He said nothing, he was in
+one of his dreams, seeing the past before him. And silently they went
+away and he led her through the Arch of Titus into the Forum. On
+the left rose the ruins of the imperial palaces; and all around
+them stood the black fragments, with a few pillars soaring on high
+and the white moonlight pouring down like a ghostly sea out of the
+night. They met no one, but she was frightened and clung tighter to his
+arm. When they sat down for a moment on a fragment of the foundation
+of some ancient building, she shivered with cold. He started up,
+said that she must be careful not to catch a chill; and they walked
+on and left the Forum. He took her home and she went upstairs alone,
+striking a match to see her way up the dark staircase. Once in her
+room, she perceived that it was dangerous to wander about the ruins
+at night. She reflected how little Duco had spoken, not thinking
+of danger, lost in his nocturnal dream, peering into the awful
+ghostliness. Why ... why had he not gone alone? Why had he asked her
+to go with him? She fell asleep after a chaos of whirling thoughts:
+the prince and Urania, the fat satin lady, the Colosseum and the
+martyrs and Duco and Mrs. van der Staal. His mother was so ordinary,
+his sisters charming but commonplace and he ... so strange! So simple,
+so unaffected, so unreserved; and for that very reason so strange. He
+would be impossible at the Hague, among her friends. And she smiled
+as she thought of what he had said and how he had said it and how he
+could sit quietly silent, for minutes on end, with a smile about his
+lips, as though thinking of something beautiful....
+
+But she must warn Urania....
+
+And she wearily fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Cornélie's premonition regarding Mrs. van der Staal's opinion of her
+intercourse with Duco was confirmed: mevrouw spoke to her seriously,
+saying that she would compromise herself if she went on like that and
+adding that she had spoken to Duco in the same sense. But Cornélie
+answered rather haughtily and nonchalantly, declared that, after
+always minding the conventions and becoming very unhappy in spite of
+it, she had resolved to mind them no longer, that she valued Duco's
+conversation and that she was not going to be deprived of it because
+of what people thought or said. And then, she asked Mrs. van der Staal,
+who were "people?" Their three or four acquaintances at Belloni's? Who
+knew her besides? Where else did she go? Why should she care about
+the Hague? And she gave a scornful laugh, loftily parrying Mrs. van
+der Staal's arguments.
+
+The conversation caused a coolness between them. Wounded in her
+touchy over-sensitiveness, she did not come to dinner at Belloni's
+that evening. Next day, meeting Duco at their little table in the
+osteria, she asked him what he thought of his mother's rebuke. He
+smiled vaguely, raising his eyebrows, obviously not realizing the
+commonplace truth of his mother's words, saying that those were just
+Mamma's ideas, which of course were all very well and current in
+the set in which Mamma and his sisters lived, but which he didn't
+enter into or bother about, unless Cornélie thought that Mamma was
+right. And Cornélie blazed out contemptuously, shrugged her shoulders,
+asked who or what there was for whose sake she should allow herself
+to break off their friendly intercourse. They ordered a mezzo-fiasco
+between them and had a long, chatty lunch like two comrades, like
+two students. He said that he had been thinking over her pamphlet;
+he talked, to please her, about the modern woman, modern marriage,
+the modern girl. She condemned the way in which Mrs. van der Staal
+was bringing up her daughters, that light, frivolous education and
+that endless going about, on the look for a husband. She said that
+she spoke from experience.
+
+They walked along the Via Appia that afternoon and went to the
+Catacombs, where a Trappist showed them round. When Cornélie returned
+home she felt pleasantly light and cheerful. She did not go out again;
+she piled up the logs on her fire against the evening, which was
+turning chilly, and supped off a little bread and jelly, so as not
+to go out for her dinner. Sitting in her tea-gown, with her hands
+folded over her head, she stared into the briskly burning logs and
+let the evening speed past her. She was satisfied with her life,
+so free, independent of everything and everybody. She had a little
+money, she could go on living like this. She had no great needs. Her
+life in rooms, in little restaurants was not expensive. She wanted
+no clothes. She felt satisfied. Duco was an agreeable friend: how
+lonely she would be without him! Only her life must acquire some
+aim. What aim? The feminist movement? But how, abroad? It was such
+a different movement to work at.... She would send her pamphlet now
+to a newly founded women's paper. But then? She wasn't in Holland
+and she didn't want to go to Holland; and yet there would certainly
+be more scope there for her activity, for exchanging views with
+others. Whereas here, in Rome.... An indolence overcame her, in
+the drowsiness of her cosy room. For Duco had helped her to arrange
+her sitting-room. He certainly was a cultivated fellow, even though
+he was not modern. What a lot he knew about history, about Italy;
+and how cleverly he told it all! The way he explained Italy to her,
+she was interested in the country after all.
+
+Only, he wasn't modern. He had no insight into Italian politics,
+into the struggle between the Quirinal and the Vatican, into
+anarchism, which was showing its head at Milan, into the riots in
+Sicily.... An aim in life: what a difficult thing it was! And, in
+her evening drowsiness after a pleasant day, she did not feel the
+absence of an aim and enjoyed the soft luxury of letting her thoughts
+glide on in unison with the drowsy evening hours, in a voluptuous
+self-indulgence. She looked at the sheets of her pamphlet, scattered
+over her big writing-table, a real table to work at: they lay yellow
+under the light of her reading-lamp; they had not all been recopied,
+but she was not in the mood now; she threw a log into the little grate
+and the fire smoked and blazed. So pleasant, that foreign habit of
+burning wood instead of coal....
+
+And she thought of her husband. She missed him sometimes. Could she
+not have managed him, with a little tact and patience? After all,
+he was very nice during the period of their engagement. He was rough,
+but not bad. He might have sworn at her sometimes, but perhaps he did
+not mean any great harm. He waltzed divinely, he swung you round so
+firmly.... He was good-looking and, she had to confess, she was in love
+with him, if only for his handsome face, his handsome figure. There
+was something about his eyes and mouth that she was never able to
+resist. When he spoke, she had to look at his mouth. However, that
+was all over and done with....
+
+After all, perhaps the life at the Hague was too monotonous for her
+temperament. She liked travelling, seeing new people, developing
+new ideas; and she had never been able to settle down in her little
+set. And now she was free, independent of all ties, of all people. If
+Mrs. van der Staal was angry, she didn't care.... And, all the same,
+Duco was rather modern, in his indifference to convention. Or was
+it merely the artistic side in him? Or was he, as a man who was not
+modern, indifferent to it even as she, a modern woman, was? A man
+could allow himself more. A man was not so easily compromised.... A
+modern woman. She repeated the words proudly. Her drowsiness acquired
+a certain arrogance. She drew herself up, stretching out her arms,
+looked at herself in the glass: her slender figure, her delicate
+little face, a trifle pale, with the eyes big and grey and bright
+under their remarkably long lashes, her light-brown hair in a loose,
+tangled coil, the lines of her figure, like those of a drooping lily,
+very winsome in the creased folds of her old tea-gown, pale-pink and
+faded.... What was her path in life? She felt herself to be something
+more than a worker and fighter, to be very complex, felt that she was
+a woman too, felt a great womanliness inside her, like a weakness
+which would hamper her energy. And she wandered through the room,
+unable to decide to go to bed, and, staring into the gloomy ashes
+of the expiring fire, she thought of her future, of what she would
+become and how, of how she would go and whither, along which curve
+of life, wandering through what forests, winding through what alleys,
+crossing which other curves of which other, seeking souls....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The idea had long fixed itself in Cornélie's mind that she must speak
+to Urania Hope; and one morning she sent her a note asking for an
+appointment that afternoon. Miss Hope wrote back assenting; and at
+five o'clock Cornélie found her at home in her handsome and expensive
+sitting-room at Belloni's: many lights, many flowers; Urania hammering
+on the piano in an indoor gown of Venetian lace; the table decked with
+a rich tea, with cut bread-and-butter, cakes and sweets. Cornélie had
+said that she wanted to see Miss Hope alone, on a matter of importance,
+and at once asked if she would be alone, feeling a doubt of it, now
+that Urania was receiving her so formally. But Urania reassured her:
+she had said that she was at home to no one but Mrs. de Retz and was
+very curious to know what Cornélie had come to talk about. Cornélie
+reminded Urania of her former warning and, when Urania laughed, she
+took her hand and looked at her with such serious eyes that she made an
+impression of the American girl's frivolous nature and Urania became
+puzzled. Urania now suddenly thought it very momentous--a secret,
+an intrigue, a danger, in Rome!--and they whispered together. And
+Cornélie, no longer feeling anxious amid this increasing intimacy,
+confessed to Urania what she had heard through the half-open door: the
+marchesa's machinations with her nephew, whom she was absolutely bent
+on marrying to a rich heiress at the behest of the prince's father, who
+seemed to have promised her so much for putting the match through. Then
+she spoke of Miss Taylor's conversion, effected by Rudyard: Rudyard,
+who did not seem able to achieve his purpose with Urania, failing to
+obtain a hold on her confiding, but frivolous, butterfly nature, and
+who, as Cornélie suspected, had for that reason incurred the disfavour
+of his ecclesiastical superiors and vanished without settling his
+debt to the marchesa. His place appeared to have been taken by the two
+monsignori, who looked more dignified and worldly and displayed great
+unctuousness, were more lavish in smiles. And Urania, staring at this
+danger, at these pit-falls under her feet which Cornélie had suddenly
+revealed to her, now became really frightened, turned pale and promised
+to be on her guard. Really she would have liked to tell her maid to
+pack up at once, so that they might leave Rome as soon as possible,
+for another town, another pension, one with lots of titled people: she
+adored titles! And Cornélie, seeing that she had made an impression,
+continued, spoke of herself, spoke of marriage in general, said that
+she had written a pamphlet against marriage and on The Social Position
+of Divorced Women. And she spoke of the suffering which she had been
+through and of the feminist movement in Holland. And, once in the vein,
+she abandoned all restraint and talked more and more emphatically,
+until Urania thought her exceedingly clever, a very clever girl,
+to be able to argue and write like that on a ques-tion brû-lante,
+laying a fine stress on the first syllables of the French words. She
+admitted that she would like to have the vote and, as she said this,
+spread out the long train of her lace tea-gown. Cornélie spoke of the
+injustice of the law which leaves the wife nothing, takes everything
+from her and forces her entirely into the husband's power; and Urania
+agreed with her and passed the little dish of chocolate-creams. And
+to the accompaniment of a second cup of tea they talked excitedly,
+both speaking at once, neither listening to what the other was saying;
+and Urania said that it was a shame. From the general discussion they
+relapsed to the consideration of their particular interests: Cornélie
+depicted the character of her husband, unable, in the coarseness of
+his nature, to understand a woman or to consent that a woman should
+stand beside him and not beneath him. And she once more returned to
+the Jesuits, to the danger of Rome for rich girls travelling alone,
+to that virago of a marchesa and to the prince, that titled bait
+which the Jesuits flung to win a soul and to improve the finances
+of an impoverished Italian house which had remained faithful to the
+Pope and refused to serve the king. And both of them were so vehement
+and excited that they did not hear the knock and looked up only when
+the door slowly opened. They started, glanced round and both turned
+pale when they saw the Prince of Forte-Braccio enter the room. He
+apologized with a smile, said that he had seen a light in Miss
+Urania's sitting-room, that the porter had told him she was engaged,
+but that he had ventured to disobey her orders. And he sat down;
+and, in spite of all that they had been saying, Urania thought it
+delightful to have the prince sitting there and accepting a cup of
+tea at her hands and graciously consenting to eat a piece of cake.
+
+And Urania showed her album of coats of arms--the prince had already
+contributed an impression of his--and next the album with patterns
+of the queen's ball-dresses. Then the prince laughed and felt in his
+pocket for an envelope; he opened it and carefully produced a cutting
+of blue brocade embroidered with silver and seed-pearls.
+
+"What is it?" asked Urania, in ecstasy.
+
+And he said that he had brought her a pattern of her majesty's last
+dress; his cousin--not a Black, like himself, but a White, belonging
+not to the papal but to the court party and a lady-in-waiting to the
+queen--had procured this cutting for him for Urania's album. Urania
+would see it herself: the queen would wear the dress at next week's
+court ball. He was not going, he did not even go to his cousin's
+officially, not to her parties; but he saw her sometimes, because
+of the family relationship, out of friendship. And he begged Urania
+not to give him away: it might injure him in his career--"What
+career?" Cornélie wondered to herself--if people knew that he saw
+much of his cousin; but he had called on her pretty often lately,
+for Urania's sake, to get her that pattern.
+
+And Urania was so grateful that she forgot all about the social
+position of girls and women, married or unmarried, and would gladly
+have sacrificed her right to the franchise for such a charming Italian
+prince. Cornélie became vexed, rose, bowed coldly to the prince and
+drew Urania with her to the door:
+
+"Don't forget what we have been saying," she warned her. "Be on
+your guard."
+
+And she saw the prince look at her sarcastically, as they whispered
+together, suspecting that she was talking about him, but proud of
+the power of his personality and his title and his attentions over
+the daughter of an American stockinet-manufacturer.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+A coolness had arisen between Mrs. van der Staal and Cornélie; and
+Cornélie no longer went to dine at Belloni's. She did not see mevrouw
+and the girls again for weeks; but she saw Duco daily. Notwithstanding
+the essential differences in their characters, they had grown so
+accustomed to being together that they missed each other if a day
+passed without their meeting; and so they had gradually come to
+lunch and dine together every day, almost as a matter of course:
+in the morning at the osteria and in the evening at some small
+restaurant or other, usually very simply. To avoid dividing the bill,
+Duco would pay one time and Cornélie the next. Generally they had
+much to talk about: he taught her Rome, took her after lunch to all
+manner of churches and museums; and under his guidance she began
+to understand, appreciate and admire. By unconscious suggestion he
+inspired her with some of his ideas. She found painting very difficult,
+but understood sculpture much more readily. And she began to look upon
+him as not merely morbid; she looked up to him, he spoke quite simply
+to her, as from his exalted standpoint of feeling and knowledge and
+understanding, of very exalted matters which she, as a girl and later
+as a young married woman, had never seen in the glorious apotheosis
+which he caused to rise before her like the first gleam of a dawn,
+of a new day in which she beheld new types of life, created of all
+that was noblest in the artist's soul. He regretted that he could not
+show her Giotto in the Santa Croce at Florence and the Primitives in
+the Uffizi and that he had to teach her Rome straight away; but he
+introduced her to all the exuberant art-life of the Papal Renascence,
+until, under the influence of his speech, she shared that life for a
+single intense second and until Michael Angelo and Raphael stood out
+before her, also living. After a day like that, he would think that
+after all she was not so hopelessly inartistic; and she thought of
+him with respect, even after the suggestion was interrupted and when
+she reflected on what she had seen and heard and really, deep down in
+herself, no longer understood things so well as she had that morning,
+because she was lacking in love for them. But so much glamour of colour
+and the past remained whirling before her eyes in the evening that
+it made her pamphlet seem drab and dull; and the feminist movement
+ceased to interest her and she did not care about Urania Hope.
+
+He admitted to himself that he had quite lost his peace of mind,
+that Cornélie stood before him in his thoughts, between him and his
+old triptychs, that his lonely, friendless, ingenuous, simple life,
+content with wandering through and outside Rome, with reading,
+dreaming and now and then painting a little, had changed entirely
+in habit and in line, now that the line of his life had crossed that
+of hers and they both seemed to be going one way, he did not really
+know why. Love was not exactly the word for the feeling that drew
+him towards her. And just very vaguely, inwardly and unconsciously
+he suspected, though he never actually said or even thought as much,
+that it was the line of her figure, which was marked by something
+almost Byzantine, the slenderness of the frame, the long arms, the
+drooping lily-line of the woman who suffered, with the melancholy in
+her grey eyes, overshadowed by their almost too-long lashes; that it
+was the noble shape of her hand, small and pretty for a tall woman;
+that it was a movement of her neck, as of a swaying stalk, or a tired
+swan trying to glance backwards. He had never met many women and those
+whom he had met had always seemed very ordinary; but she was unreal
+to him, in the contradictions of her character, in its vagueness
+and intangibility, in all the half-tints which escaped his eye,
+accustomed to half-tints though it was.... What was she like? What he
+had always seen in her character was a woman in a novel, a heroine in
+a poem. What was she as a living woman of flesh and blood? She was
+not artistic and she was not inartistic; she had no energy and yet
+she did not lack energy; she was not precisely cultivated; and yet,
+obeying her impulse and her intuition, she wrote a pamphlet on one of
+the most modern questions and worked at it and revised and copied it,
+till it became a piece of writing no worse than another. She had a
+spacious way of thinking, loathing all the pettiness of the cliques,
+no longer feeling at home, after her suffering, in her little Hague
+set; and here, in Rome, at a dance she listened behind a door to
+a nonsensical conspiracy, hardly worthy of the name, he thought,
+and had gone to Urania Hope to mingle with the confused curves of
+smaller lives, curves without importance, of people whom he despised
+for their lack of line, of colour, of vision, of haze, of everything
+that was dear as life to him and made up life for him.... What was
+she like? He did not understand her. But her curve was of importance
+to him. She was not without a line: a line of art and line of life;
+she moved in the dream of her own indefiniteness before his gazing
+eyes; and she loomed up out of the haze, as out of the twilight of
+his studio atmosphere, and stood before him like a phantom. He would
+not call that love; but she was dear to him like a revelation that
+constantly veiled itself in secrecy. And his life as a lonely wanderer
+was, it was true, changed; but she had introduced no inharmonious
+habit into his life: he enjoyed taking his meals in a little café or
+osteria; and she took them with him easily and simply, not squalidly
+but pleasantly and harmoniously, with an adaptability and with just
+as much natural grace as when she used to dine of an evening at the
+table-d'hôte at Belloni's. All this--that contradictory admixture of
+unreality, of inconsistency; that living vision of indefiniteness;
+that intangibility of her individual essence; that self-concealment of
+the soul; that blending of her essential characteristics--had become
+a charm to him: a restlessness, a need, a nervous want in his life,
+otherwise so restful, so easily contented and calm, but above all a
+charm, an indispensable every-day charm.
+
+And, without troubling about what people might think, about what
+Mrs. van der Staal thought, they would one day go to Tivoli together,
+or another day walk from Castel Gandolfo to Albano and drive to the
+Lago di Nemi and picnic at the Villa Sforza-Cesarini, with the broken
+capital of a classic pillar for a table. They rested side by side in
+the shadow of the trees, admired the camellias, silently contemplated
+the glassy clearness of the lake, Diana's looking-glass, and drove
+back over Frascati. They were silent in the carriage; and he smiled
+as he reflected how they had been taken everywhere that day for man
+and wife. She also thought of their increasing intimacy and at the
+same time thought that she would never marry again. And she thought
+of her husband and compared him with Duco, so young in the face but
+with eyes full of depth and soul, a voice so calm and even, with
+everything that he said much to the point, so accurately informed;
+and then his calmness, his simplicity, his lack of passion, as though
+his nerves had schooled themselves only to feel the calmness of art
+in the dreamy mist of his life. And she confessed to herself, there,
+in the carriage beside him, amid the softly shelving hills, purpling
+away in the evening, while before her faded the rose-mallow of a pale
+gold sunset, that he was dear to her because of that cleverness, that
+absence of passion, that simplicity and that accuracy of information--a
+clear voice sounding up out of the dreamy twilight--and that she was
+happy to be sitting beside him, to hear that voice and by chance
+to feel his hand, happy in that her line of life had crossed his,
+in that their two lines seemed to form a path towards the increasing
+brightness, the gradual daily elucidation of their immediate future....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Cornélie now saw no one except Duco. Mrs. van der Staal had broken
+with her and would not allow her daughters to have any further
+intercourse with her. A coolness had arisen even between the mother
+and the son. Cornélie saw no one now except Duco and, at times,
+Urania Hope. The American girl came to her pretty often and told
+her about Belloni's, where the people talked about Cornélie and Duco
+and commented on their relations. Urania was glad to think herself
+above that hotel gossip, but still she wanted to warn Cornélie. Her
+words displayed a simple spontaneity of friendship that appealed to
+Cornélie. When Cornélie, however, asked after the prince, she became
+silent and confused and evidently did not wish to say much. Then,
+after the court ball, at which the queen had really worn the dress
+embroidered with seed-pearls, Urania came and looked Cornélie up again
+and admitted, over a cup of tea, that she had that morning promised to
+go and see the prince at his own place. She said this quite simply,
+as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Cornélie was
+horrified and asked her how she could have promised such a thing.
+
+"Why not?" Urania replied. "What is there in it? I receive his
+visits. If he asks me to come and see his rooms--he lives in the
+Palazzo Ruspoli and wants to show me his pictures and miniatures and
+old lace--why should I refuse to go? Why should I make a fuss about
+it? I am above any such narrow-mindedness. We American girls go about
+freely with our men friends. And what about yourself? You go for walks
+with Mr. van der Staal, you lunch with him, you go for trips with him,
+you go to his studio...."
+
+"I have been married," said Cornélie. "I am responsible to no one. You
+have your parents. What you are thinking of doing is imprudent and
+high-handed. Tell me, does the prince think of ... marrying you?"
+
+"If I become a Catholic."
+
+"And ...?"
+
+"I think ... I shall. I have written to Chicago," she said,
+hesitatingly.
+
+She closed her beautiful eyes for a second and went pale, because
+the title of princess and duchess flashed before her sight.
+
+"Only ..." she began.
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"I sha'n't have a cheerful life. The prince belongs to the Blacks. They
+are always in mourning because of the Pope. They have hardly anything
+in their set: no dances, no parties. If we got married, I should like
+him to come to America with me. Their home in the Abruzzi is a lonely,
+tumbledown castle. His father is a very proud, stand-offish, silent
+person. I have been told so by ever so many people. What am I to do,
+Cornélie? I'm very fond of Gilio: his name is Virgilio. And then, you
+know, the title is an old Italian title: Principe di Forte-Braccio,
+Duca di San Stefano.... But then, you see, that's all there is
+to it. San Stefano is a hole. That's where his papa lives. They
+sell wine and live on that. And olive-oil; but they don't make any
+money. My father manufactures stockinet; but he has grown rich on
+it. They haven't many family-jewels. I have made enquiries.... His
+cousin, the Contessa di Rosavilla, the lady in waiting to the queen,
+is nice ... but we shouldn't see her officially. I shouldn't be able
+to go anywhere. It does strike me as rather boring."
+
+Cornélie spoke vehemently, blazed out and repeated her phrases: against
+marriage in general and now against this marriage in particular, merely
+for the sake of a title. Urania assented: it was merely for the title;
+but then there was Gilio too, of course: he was so nice and she was
+fond of him. But Cornélie didn't believe a word of it and told her
+so straight out. Urania began to cry: she did not know what to do.
+
+"And when were you to go to the prince?"
+
+"This evening."
+
+"Don't go."
+
+"No, no, you're right, I sha'n't go."
+
+"Do you promise me?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Don't go, Urania."
+
+"No, I sha'n't go. You're a dear girl. You're quite right: I won't
+go. I swear to you I won't."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The undertaking which Urania had given was so vague, however,
+that Cornélie felt uneasy and spoke of it to Duco that evening,
+when she met him at the restaurant. But he was not interested
+in Urania, in what she did or didn't do; and he shrugged his
+shoulders indifferently. Cornélie, on the other hand, was silent
+and absent-minded and did not listen to what he was talking about:
+a side-panel of a triptych, undoubtedly by Lippo Memmi, which
+he had discovered in a little shop by the Tiber; the angel of the
+Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling
+with the stir of his last flight yet about him, with the lily-stem
+in his hands. But the dealer asked two hundred lire for it and he
+did not want to give more than fifty. And yet the dealer had not
+mentioned Memmi's name, did not suspect that the angel was by Memmi.
+
+Cornélie was not listening; and suddenly she said:
+
+"I am going to the Palazzo Ruspoli."
+
+He looked up in surprise:
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To ask for Miss Hope."
+
+He was dumb with amazement and continued to look at her open-mouthed.
+
+"If she's not there," Cornélie went on, "it's all right. If she is, if
+she has gone after all, I'll ask to speak to her on urgent business."
+
+He did not know what to say, thinking her sudden idea so strange,
+so eccentric, thinking it so unnecessary that her curve should cross
+the curves of insignificant, indifferent people, that he did not know
+how to choose his words. Cornélie glanced at her watch:
+
+"It's past half-past nine. If she does go, she will go about this
+time."
+
+She called the waiter and paid the bill. And she buttoned her coat
+and stood up. He followed after her:
+
+"Cornélie," he began, "isn't what you are doing rather strange? It'll
+mean all sorts of worries for you."
+
+"If one always objected to being worried, one would never do a good
+action."
+
+They walked on in silence, he moving irritably by her side. They did
+not speak: he thought her intention simply crazy; she thought him
+wanting in chivalry, not to wish to protect Urania. She was thinking
+of her pamphlet, of her fellow-women; and she wanted to protect Urania
+from marriage, from that prince. And they walked through the Corso
+to the Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made another attempt to
+restrain her; but she had already asked the porter:
+
+"Is il signore principe at home?"
+
+The man looked at her suspiciously:
+
+"No," he said, curtly.
+
+"I believe he is. If so, ask if Miss Hope is with his excellency. Miss
+Hope was not at home; I believe that she was coming to see the prince
+this evening; and I want to speak to her urgently ... on a matter
+which will not brook delay. Here: la Signora de Retz...."
+
+She handed him her card. She spoke with the greatest self-possession
+and referred to Urania's visit calmly and simply, as though it were
+an every-day occurrence for American girls to call on Italian princes
+in the evening and as though she were persuaded that the porter knew
+of this custom. The man was disconcerted by her attitude, bowed,
+took the card and went away. Cornélie and Duco waited in the portico.
+
+He admired her calmness. He considered her behaviour eccentric; but
+she carried out her eccentricity with a self-assurance which once
+more showed her in a new light. Would he never understand her, would
+he never grasp anything or know anything for certain of that changeful
+and intangible vagueness of hers? He could never have spoken those few
+words to that porter in just that tone! Where had she got that tact
+from, that dignified, serious attitude towards that imposing janitor,
+with his long cane and his cocked hat? She did it all as easily as
+she ordered their simple dinner, with a pleasant familiarity, of the
+waiter at their little restaurant.
+
+The porter returned:
+
+"Miss Hope and his excellency beg that you will come upstairs."
+
+She looked at Duco with a triumphant smile, amused at his confusion:
+
+"Will you come too?"
+
+"Why, no," he stammered. "I can wait for you here."
+
+She followed the footman up the stairs. The wide corridor was hung
+with family-portraits. The drawing-room door was open and the prince
+came out to meet her.
+
+"Please forgive me, prince," she said, calmly, putting out her hand.
+
+His eyes were small and pinched and gleamed like carbuncles; he was
+white with rage; but he controlled himself and pressed his lips to
+the hand which she gave him.
+
+"Forgive me," she went on. "I want to speak to Miss Hope on an
+urgent matter."
+
+She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing and
+embarrassed.
+
+"You understand," Cornélie said, with a smile, "that I would not have
+disturbed you if it had not been important. A question between women
+... and still important!" she continued, jestingly; and the prince
+made an insipid, gallant reply. "May I speak to Miss Hope alone for
+a moment?"
+
+The prince looked at her. He suspected unfriendliness in her and more,
+hostility. But he bowed, with his insipid smile, and said that he
+would leave the ladies to themselves. He went to another room.
+
+"What is it, Cornélie?" asked Urania, in agitation.
+
+She took Cornélie's two hands and looked at her anxiously.
+
+"Nothing," said Cornélie, severely. "I have nothing to say to you. Only
+I had my suspicions and felt sure that you would not keep your
+promise. I wanted to make certain if you were here. Why did you come?"
+
+Urania began to weep.
+
+"Don't cry!" whispered Cornélie, mercilessly. "For God's sake don't
+start crying. You've done the most thoughtless thing imaginable...."
+
+"I know I have!" Urania confessed, nervously, drying her tears.
+
+"Then why did you do it?"
+
+"I couldn't help it."
+
+"Alone, with him, in the evening! A man well-known to be a bad lot."
+
+"I know."
+
+"What do you see in him?"
+
+"I'm fond of him."
+
+"You only want to marry him for his title. For the sake of his title
+you're compromising yourself. What if he doesn't respect you this
+evening as his future wife? What if he compels you to be his mistress?"
+
+"Cornélie! Don't!"
+
+"You're a child, a thoughtless child. And your father lets you travel
+by yourself ... to see 'dear old Italy!' You're an American and
+broad-minded: that's all right; to travel through the world pluckily
+on your own is all right; but you're not a woman, you're a baby!"
+
+"Cornélie...."
+
+"Come away with me; say that you're going with me ... for an urgent
+reason. Or no ... better say nothing. Stay. But I'll stay too."
+
+"Yes, you stay too."
+
+"We'll send for him now."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Cornélie rang the bell. A footman appeared.
+
+"Tell his excellency that we are ready."
+
+The man went away. In a little while the prince entered. He had never
+been treated like that in his own house. He was seething with rage,
+but he remained very polite and outwardly calm:
+
+"Is the important matter settled?" he asked, with his small eyes and
+his hypocritical smile.
+
+"Yes; thank you very much for your discretion in leaving us to
+ourselves," said Cornélie. "Now that I have spoken to Miss Hope,
+I am greatly relieved by what she has told me. Aha, you would like
+to know what we were talking about!"
+
+The prince raised his eyebrows. Cornélie had spoken archly, holding
+up her finger as though in threat, smiling; and the prince looked at
+her and saw that she was handsome. Not with the striking beauty and
+freshness of Urania Hope, but with a more complex attractiveness, that
+of a married woman, divorced, but very young; that of a fin-de-siècle
+woman, with a faintly perverse expression in her deep grey eyes,
+moving under very long lashes; that of a woman of peculiar grace
+in the drooping lines of her tired, lax, morbid charm: a woman who
+knew life; a woman who saw through him: he was certain of it; a woman
+who, though disliking him, nevertheless spoke to him coquettishly in
+order to attract him, to win him, unconsciously, from sheer womanly
+perversity. And he saw her, in her perverse beauty, and admired her,
+sensitive as he was to various types of women. He suddenly thought her
+handsomer and less commonplace than Urania and much more distinguished
+and not so ingenuously susceptible to his title, a thing which he
+thought so silly in Urania. He was suddenly at his ease with her,
+his anger subsided: he thought it fun to have two good-looking women
+with him instead of one; and he jested in return, saying that he was
+consumed with curiosity, that he had been listening at the door but
+had been unable to catch a word, alas!
+
+Cornélie laughed with coquettish gaiety and looked at her watch. She
+said something about going, but sat down at the same time, unbuttoned
+her coat and said to the prince:
+
+"I have heard so much about your miniatures. Now that I have the
+chance, may I see them?"
+
+The prince was willing, charmed by the look in her eyes, by her voice;
+he was all fire and flame in a second.
+
+"But," said Cornélie, "my escort is waiting outside in the portico. He
+would not come up: he doesn't know you. It is Mr. van der Staal."
+
+The prince laughed as he glanced at her. He knew of the gossip at
+Belloni's. He did not for a moment doubt the existence of a liaison
+between Van der Staal and Signora de Retz. He knew that they did not
+care for the proprieties. And he began to like Cornélie very much.
+
+"But I will send to Mr. van der Staal at once to ask him to come up."
+
+"He is waiting in the portico," said Cornélie. "He won't like to...."
+
+"I'll go myself," said the prince, with obliging vivacity.
+
+He left the room. The ladies stayed behind. Cornélie took off her
+coat, but kept on her hat, because her hair was sure to be untidy. She
+looked into the glass:
+
+"Have you your powder on you?" she asked Urania.
+
+Urania took her little ivory powder-box from her bag and handed it
+to Cornélie. And, while Cornélie powdered her face, Urania looked at
+her friend and did not understand. She remembered the impression of
+seriousness which Cornélie had made on her at their first meeting:
+studying Rome; afterwards, writing a pamphlet on the woman question
+and the position of divorced women. Then her warnings against marriage
+and the prince. And now she suddenly saw her as a most attractive,
+frivolous woman, irresistibly charming, even more bewitching than
+actually beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of her grey eyes,
+which glanced up and down under the curling lashes, simply dressed in
+a dark-silk blouse and a cloth skirt, but with so much distinction
+and so much coquetry, with so much dignity and yet with a touch of
+yielding winsomeness, that she hardly knew her.
+
+But the prince had returned, bringing Duco with him. Duco was nervously
+reluctant, not knowing what had happened, not grasping how Cornélie had
+acted. He saw her sitting quietly, smiling; and she at once explained
+that the prince was going to show her his miniatures.
+
+Duco declared flatly that he did not care for miniatures. The prince
+suspected from his irritable tone that he was jealous. And this
+suspicion incited the prince to pay attentions to Cornélie. And
+he behaved as though he were showing his miniatures only to her,
+as though he were showing her his old lace. She admired the lace
+in particular and rolled it between her delicate fingers. She asked
+him to tell her about his grandmothers, who used to wear the lace:
+had they had any adventures? He told her one, which made her laugh
+very much; then he told an anecdote or two, vivaciously, flaming
+up under her glance, and she laughed. Amid the atmosphere of that
+big drawing-room, his study--it contained his writing-table--with
+the candles lighted and flowers everywhere for Urania, a certain
+perverse gaiety began to reign, an airy joie de vivre. But only
+between Cornélie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent; and Duco
+did not speak a word. Cornélie was a revelation to him also. He had
+never seen her like that: not at the dance on Christmas Day, nor at
+the table-d'hôte, nor in his studio, nor on their excursions, nor in
+their restaurant. Was she a woman, or was she ten women?
+
+And he confessed to himself that he loved her, that he loved her
+more at each revelation, more with each woman that he saw in her,
+like a new facet which she made to gleam and glitter. But he could
+not speak, could not join in their pleasantry, feeling strange in
+that atmosphere, strange in that atmosphere of buoyant animal spirits,
+caused by nothing but aimless words, as though the French and Italian
+which they mixed up together were dropping so many pearls, as though
+their jests shone like so much tinsel, as though their equivocal
+playing upon words had the iridescence of a rainbow....
+
+The prince regretted that his tea was no longer fit to drink, but
+he rang for some champagne. He thought that his plans had partly
+failed that evening, for, fearing to lose Urania, he had intended
+to compel her; seeing her hesitation, he had resolved to force the
+irreparable. But his nature was so devoid of seriousness--he was
+marrying to please his father and the Marchesa Belloni rather than
+himself; he enjoyed his life quite as well with a load of debts and no
+wife as he could hope to do with a wife and millions of money--that
+he began to consider the failure of his plans highly amusing and had
+to laugh within himself when he thought of his father, of his aunt,
+the marchesa, and of their machinations, which had no effect on Urania,
+because a pretty, flirtatious woman had objected.
+
+"Why did she object?" he wondered, as he poured out the foaming
+Monopole, spilling it over the glasses. "Why does she put herself
+between me and the American stocking-seller? Is she herself in Italy
+hunting for a title?"
+
+But he did not care: he thought the intruder charming, pretty, very
+pretty, coquettish, seductive, bewitching. He fussed around her,
+neglecting Urania, almost forgetting to fill her glass. And, when
+it grew late and Cornélie at last rose to go and drew Urania's arm
+through hers and looked at the prince with a glance of triumph which
+they mutually understood, he whispered in her ear:
+
+"I am ever so grateful to you for visiting me in my humble abode. You
+have defeated me: I acknowledge myself defeated."
+
+The words appeared to be merely an allusion to their jesting discussion
+about nothing; but, uttered between him and her, between the prince
+and Cornélie, they sounded full of meaning; and he saw the smile of
+victory in her eyes....
+
+He remained behind in his room and poured himself out what remained of
+the champagne. And, as he raised the glass to his lips, he said, aloud:
+
+"O, che occhi! Che belli occhi!... Che belli occhi!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Next day, when Duco met Cornélie at the osteria, she was very cheerful
+and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from
+the woman's paper to which she had sent her pamphlet the week before
+and that her work was not only accepted but would be paid for. She
+was so proud at earning money for the first time that she was as
+merry as a little child. She did not speak of the previous evening,
+seemed to have forgotten Urania, but felt an exuberant need to talk.
+
+She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a journalist,
+to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to pursue every
+reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate to congresses
+and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning already made
+her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a lot of money
+and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought her simply
+adorable: in the half light of the osteria, as she sat at the little
+table eating her gnocchi, with in front of her the mezzofiasco of
+pale-yellow wine of the country, her usual languor acquired a new
+vivacity which astonished him; her outline, half-dark on the left,
+lighted on the right by the sunshine in the street, acquired a modern
+grace of drawing which reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the
+rather pale face with the delicate features, lit up by her smile,
+faintly indicated under the sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes;
+the hair, touched with gold, or a dark light-brown; the white veil
+raised into a rumpled mist above; her figure, slender and gracious
+in the simple, unbuttoned coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.
+
+The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she addressed
+the cameriere--the only one, who knew them well, from seeing them
+daily--with a pleasant familiarity; the vivacity replacing her languor;
+her great plans, her gay phrases: all this seemed to shine upon him,
+unconstrained and yet distinguished, free and yet womanly and, above
+all, easy, as she was at her ease everywhere, with an assimilative
+tact which for him constituted a peculiar harmony. He thought of
+the evening before, but she did not speak of it. He thought of that
+revelation of her coquetry, but she was not thinking of coquetry. She
+was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, regarded him as
+clever and exceptional, though not belonging to his time; she respected
+him for the things which he said and thought; and she was as matter of
+fact towards him as one chum towards another, who happened to be older
+and cleverer. She felt for him a sincere friendship, an indescribable
+something that implied the need of being together, of living together,
+as though the lines of their two lives should form one line. It was
+not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion and to her mind it
+was not love; but it was a great sense of respectful tenderness, of
+longing admiration and of affectionate delight at having met him. If
+she never saw him again, she would miss him as she would never miss
+any one in her life. And that he took no interest in modern questions
+did not lower him in the eyes of this young modern Amazon, who was
+about to wave her first banner. It might vex her for an instant,
+but it did not carry weight in her estimation of him. And he saw
+that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without coquetry. Yet
+he would never forget what she had been like yesterday, with the
+prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in Urania also. But she
+herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with her nature that
+she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince, of Urania,
+of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on their side.
+
+He paid the bill--it was his turn--and she gaily took his arm and
+said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he would
+be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a very
+handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was going
+to receive for her article. But she hadn't got it yet ... as though
+that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to give him
+his present now.
+
+He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and
+whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it
+be? But she refused to tell him yet.
+
+The vetturino drove them through the Borgo to the Tiber and stopped
+outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the wares lay heaped
+up right out into the street.
+
+"Cornélie!" Duco exclaimed, guessing.
+
+"Your Lippo Memmi angel. I'm getting it for you. Not a word!"
+
+The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop.
+
+"Ask him how much he wants for it."
+
+He was too much moved to speak; and Cornélie had to ask the price
+and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a
+hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.
+
+And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the
+stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness
+into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a
+noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with long, almond-shaped
+eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last stir of his flight;
+and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak fluttered in the
+air while his long wings quivered straight above him. Duco stared at
+his Memmi, filled with a two-fold emotion, because of the angel and
+because of her.
+
+And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms:
+
+"May I thank you, Cornélie?"
+
+And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When she came home she found the prince's card. It was an ordinary
+civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected visit to the
+Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a second thought. She was
+in a pleasant frame of mind, pleased with herself, glad that her work
+would appear first as an article in Het Recht der Vrouw [1]--she would
+publish it as a pamphlet afterwards--and glad that she had made Duco
+happy with the Memmi. She changed into her tea-gown and sat down by the
+fire in her musing attitude and thought of how she could carry out her
+great plans. To whom ought she to apply? There was an International
+Women's Congress sitting in London; and Het Recht der Vrouw had sent
+her a prospectus. She turned over the pages. Different feminist leaders
+were to speak; there would be numbers of social questions discussed:
+the psychology of the child; the responsibility of the parents; the
+influence on domestic life of women's admission to all the professions;
+women in art, women in medicine; the fashionable woman; the woman at
+home, on the stage; marriage- and divorce-laws.
+
+In addition the prospectus gave concise biographies of the speakers,
+with their portraits. There were American, Russian, English, Swedish,
+Danish women; nearly every nationality was represented. There were
+old women and young women; some pretty, some ugly; some masculine,
+some womanly; some hard and energetic, with sexless boys' faces; one
+or two only were elegant, with low-cut dresses and waved hair. It was
+not easy to divide them into groups. What impulse in their lives had
+prompted them to join in the struggle for women's rights? In some,
+no doubt, inclination, nature; in an occasional case, vocation;
+in another, the desire to be in the fashion. And, in her own case,
+what was the impulse?... She dropped the prospectus in her lap and
+stared into the fire and reflected. Her drawing-room education passed
+before her once more, followed by her marriage, by her divorce....
+
+What was the impulse? What was the inducement?... She had come to it
+gradually, to go abroad, to extend her sphere of vision, to reflect,
+to learn about art, about the modern life of women. She had glided
+gradually along the line of her life, with no great effort of will
+or striving, without even thinking much or feeling much.... She
+glanced into herself, as though she were reading a modern novel,
+the psychology of a woman. Sometimes she seemed to will things, to
+wish to strive, as just now, to pursue her great plans. Sometimes
+she would sit thinking, as she often did in these days, beside her
+cosy fire. Sometimes she felt, as she now did, for Duco. But mostly
+her life had been a gradual gliding along the line which she had to
+follow, urged by the gentle pressure of the finger of fate.... For
+a moment she saw it clearly. There was a great sincerity in her: she
+never posed either to herself or to others. There were contradictions
+in her, but she recognized them all, in so far as she could see
+herself. But the open landscape of her soul became clear to her at
+that moment. She saw the complexity of her being gleam with its many
+facets.... She had taken to writing, out of impulse and intuition;
+but was her writing any good? A doubt rose in her mind. A copy of
+the code lay on her table, a survival of the days of her divorce; but
+had she understood the law correctly? Her article was accepted; but
+was the judgement of the editress to be trusted? As her eyes wandered
+once again over those women's portraits and biographies, she became
+afraid that her work would not be good, would be too superficial,
+and that her ideas were not directed by study and knowledge. But she
+could also imagine her own photograph appearing in that prospectus,
+with her name under it and a brief comment: writer of The Social
+Position of Divorced Women, with the name of the paper, the date and
+so on. And she smiled: how highly convincing it sounded!
+
+But how difficult it was to study, to work and understand and act and
+move in the modern movement of life! She was now in Rome: she would
+have liked to be in London. But it did not suit her at the moment
+to make the journey. She had felt rich when she bought Duco's Memmi,
+thinking of the payment for her article; and now she felt poor. She
+would much have liked to go to London. But then she would have missed
+Duco. And the congress lasted only a week. She was pretty well at home
+here now, was beginning to love Rome, her rooms, the Colosseum lying
+yonder like a dark oval, like a sombre wing at the end of the city,
+with the hazy-blue mountains behind it.
+
+Then the prince came into her mind and for the first time she thought
+of yesterday, saw that evening again, an evening of jesting and
+champagne: Duco silent and sulky, Urania depressed and the prince
+small, lively, slender, roused from his slackness as an aristocratic
+man-about-town and with his narrow carbuncle eyes. She thought him
+really pleasant; once in a way she liked that atmosphere of coquetry
+and flirtation; and the prince had understood her. She had saved
+Urania, she was sure of that; and she felt the content of her good
+action....
+
+She was too lazy to dress and go to the restaurant. She was not very
+hungry and would stay at home and sup on what was in her cupboard:
+a couple of eggs, bread, some fruit. But she remembered Duco and that
+he would certainly be waiting for her at their little table and she
+wrote him a note and sent it by the hall-porter's boy....
+
+Duco was just coming down, on his way out to the restaurant, when
+he met the little fellow on the stairs. He read the note and felt
+as if he was suffering a grievous disappointment. He felt small and
+unhappy, like a child. And he went back to his studio, lit a single
+lamp, threw himself on a broad couch and lay staring in the dusk at
+Memmi's angel, who, still standing on the chair, glimmered vaguely
+gold in the middle of the room, sweet as comfort, with his gesture
+of annunciation, as though he sought to announce all the mystery that
+was about to be fulfilled....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+A few days later, Cornélie was expecting a visit from the prince, who
+had asked her for an appointment. She was sitting at her writing-table,
+correcting proofs of her article. A lamp on the writing-table cast
+a soft glow over her through a yellow silk shade; and she wore
+her tea-gown of white crêpe de Chine, with a bunch of violets at
+her breast. Another lamp, on a pedestal, cast a second gleam from a
+corner; and the room flickered in cosy intimacy with the third light
+from the log-fire, falling over water-colours by Duco, sketches and
+photographs, white anenomes in vases, violets everywhere and one tall
+palm. The writing-table was littered with books and printed sheets,
+bearing witness to her work.
+
+There was a knock at the door; and, at her "Come in," the prince
+entered. She remained seated for a moment, laid down her pen and
+rose. She went up to him with a smile and held out her hand. He
+kissed it. He was very smartly dressed in a frock-coat, with a silk
+hat and pale-grey gloves; he wore a pearl pin in his tie. They sat
+down by the fire and he paid her compliments in quick succession, on
+her sitting-room, her dress and her eyes. She made a jesting reply;
+and he asked if he was disturbing her:
+
+"Perhaps you were writing an interesting letter to some one near
+your heart?"
+
+"No, I was revising some proofs."
+
+"Proofs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you write?"
+
+"I have just begun to."
+
+"A story?"
+
+"No, an article."
+
+"An article? What about?"
+
+She gave him the long title. He looked at her open-mouthed. She
+laughed gaily:
+
+"You would never have believed it, would you?"
+
+"Santa Maria!" he murmured in surprise, unaccustomed in his own world
+to "modern" women, taking part in a feminist movement. "Dutch?"
+
+"Yes, Dutch."
+
+"Write in French next time: then I can read it."
+
+She laughed and gave her promise, poured him out a cup of tea, handed
+the chocolates. He nibbled at them:
+
+"Are you so serious? Have you always been? You were not serious the
+other day."
+
+"Sometimes I am very serious."
+
+"So am I."
+
+"I gathered that. If I had not come that time, you might have become
+very serious."
+
+He gave a fatuous laugh and looked at her knowingly:
+
+"You are a wonderful woman!" he said. "Very interesting and very
+clever. What you want to happen happens."
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Sometimes what I want also. Sometimes I also am very clever. When
+I want a thing. But generally I don't want it."
+
+"You did the other day."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Yes! You were cleverer than I then. To-morrow perhaps I shall be
+cleverer than you."
+
+"Who knows!"
+
+They both laughed. He nibbled the chocolates in the dish, one after
+the other, and asked if he might have a glass of port instead of
+tea. She poured him out a glass.
+
+"May I give you something?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"A souvenir of our first acquaintance."
+
+"It is very charming of you. What is it to be?"
+
+He took something wrapped in tissue-paper from his pocket and handed
+it to her. She opened the little parcel and saw a strip of old Venetian
+lace, worked in the shape of a flounce, for a low bodice.
+
+"Do accept it," he besought her. "It is a lovely piece. It is such
+a pleasure to me to give it to you."
+
+She looked at him with all her coquetry in her eyes, as though she
+were trying to see through him.
+
+"You must wear it like this."
+
+He stood up, took the lace and draped it over her white tea-gown from
+shoulder to shoulder. His fingers fumbled with the folds, his lips
+just touched her hair.
+
+She thanked him for his gift. He sat down again:
+
+"I am glad that you will accept it."
+
+"Have you given Miss Hope something too?"
+
+He laughed, with his little laugh of conquest:
+
+"Patterns are all she wants, patterns of the queen's ball-dresses. I
+wouldn't dare to give you patterns. To you I give old lace."
+
+"But you nearly ruined your career for the sake of that pattern?"
+
+"Oh, well!" he laughed.
+
+"Which career?"
+
+"Oh, don't!" he said, evasively. "Tell me, what do you advise me
+to do?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Shall I marry her?"
+
+"I am against all marriage, between cultivated people."
+
+She wanted to repeat some of her phrases, but thought to herself,
+why? He would not understand them. He looked at her profoundly,
+with his carbuncle eyes:
+
+"So you are in favour of free love?"
+
+"Sometimes. Not always. Between cultivated people."
+
+He was certain now, had any doubt still lingered in his mind, that
+a liaison existed between her and Van der Staal.
+
+"And do you think me ... cultivated?"
+
+She laughed provocatively, with a touch of scorn in her voice:
+
+"Listen. Shall I speak to you seriously?"
+
+"I wish you would."
+
+"I consider neither you nor Miss Hope suited for free love."
+
+"So I am not cultivated?"
+
+"I don't mean it in the sense of being civilized. I mean modern
+culture."
+
+"So I am not modern."
+
+"No," she said, slightly irritated.
+
+"Teach me to be modern."
+
+She gave a nervous laugh:
+
+"Oh, don't let us talk like this! You want to know my advice. I advise
+you not to marry Urania."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you would both of you have a wretched life. She is a dear
+little American parvenue...."
+
+"I am offering her what I possess; she is offering me what she
+possesses...."
+
+He nibbled at the chocolates. She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"Then marry her," she said, with indifference.
+
+"Tell me that you don't want me to and I won't."
+
+"And your father? And the marchesa?"
+
+"What do you know about them?"
+
+"Oh ... everything and nothing!"
+
+"You are a demon!" he exclaimed. "An angel and a demon! Tell me,
+what do you know about my father and the marchesa?"
+
+"For how much are you selling yourself to Urania? For not less than
+ten millions?"
+
+He looked at her in bewilderment.
+
+"But the marchesa thinks five enough. And a very handsome sum it is:
+five millions. Which is it, dollars or lire?"
+
+He clapped his hands together:
+
+"You are a devil!" he cried. "You are an angel and a devil! How do
+you know? How do you know? Do you know everything?"
+
+She flung herself back in her chair and laughed:
+
+"Everything."
+
+"But how?"
+
+She looked at him and shook her head tantalizingly.
+
+"Tell me."
+
+"No. It's my secret."
+
+"And you think that I ought not to sell myself?"
+
+"I dare not advise you as regards your own interest."
+
+"And as regards Urania?"
+
+"I advise her not to do it."
+
+"Have you done so already?"
+
+"Once in a way."
+
+"So you are my enemy?" he exclaimed, angrily.
+
+"No," she said, gently, wishing to conciliate him. "I am a friend."
+
+"A friend? To what length?"
+
+"To the length to which I wish to go."
+
+"Not the length to which I wish?"
+
+"Oh, no, never!"
+
+"But perhaps we both wish to go to the same length?"
+
+He had stood up, with his blood on fire. She remained seated calmly,
+almost languidly, with her head thrown back. She did not reply. He
+fell on his knees, seized her hand and was kissing it before she
+could prevent him:
+
+"Oh, angel, angel. Oh, demon!" he muttered, between his kisses.
+
+She now withdrew her hand, pushed him away from her gently and said:
+
+"How quick an Italian is with his kisses!"
+
+She laughed at him. He rose from his knees:
+
+"Teach me what Dutchwomen are like, though they are slower than we."
+
+She pointed to his chair, with an imperious gesture:
+
+"Sit down," she said. "I am not a typical Dutchwoman. If I
+were, I should not have come to Rome. I pride myself on being a
+cosmopolitan. But we were not discussing that, we were speaking of
+Urania. Are you thinking seriously of marrying her?"
+
+"What can I do, if you thwart me? Why not be on my side, like a
+dear friend?"
+
+She hesitated. Neither of these two, Urania or he, was ripe for
+her ideas. She despised them both. Very well, let them get married:
+he in order to be rich; she to become a princess and duchess.
+
+"Listen to me," she said, bending towards him. "You want to marry her
+for the sake of her millions. But your marriage will be unhappy from
+the beginning. She is a frivolous little thing; she will want to cut
+a dash ... and you belong to the Blacks."
+
+"We can live at Nice: then she can do as she pleases. We will come
+to Rome now and again, go to San Stefano now and again. And, as for
+unhappiness," he continued, pulling a tragic face, "what do I care? I
+am not happy as it is. I shall try to make Urania happy. But my heart
+... will be elsewhere."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"With the feminist movement."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"Well, shall I be nice to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And promise to help you?"
+
+What did she care, when all was said?
+
+"Oh, angel, demon!" he cried. He nibbled at a chocolate. "And what
+does Mr. van der Staal think of it?" he asked, mischievously.
+
+She raised her eyebrows:
+
+"He doesn't think about it. He thinks only of his art."
+
+"And of you."
+
+She looked at him and bowed her head in queenly assent:
+
+"And of me."
+
+"You often dine with him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come and dine with me one day."
+
+"I shall be delighted."
+
+"To-morrow evening? And where?"
+
+"Wherever you like."
+
+"In the Grand-Hôtel?"
+
+"Ask Urania to come too."
+
+"Why not you and I alone?"
+
+"I think it better that you should invite your future wife. I will
+chaperon her."
+
+"You are right. You are quite right. And will you ask Mr. van der
+Staal also to give me the pleasure of his company?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Until to-morrow then, at half-past eight?"
+
+"Until half-past eight to-morrow."
+
+He rose to take his leave:
+
+"Propriety demands that I should go," he said. "Really I should prefer
+to stay."
+
+"Well, then stay ... or stay another time, if you have to go now."
+
+"You are so cold."
+
+"And you don't think enough of Urania."
+
+"I think of the feminist movement."
+
+He sat down.
+
+"I'm afraid you must go," she said, laughing with her eyes. "I have
+to dress ... to go and dine with Mr. van der Staal."
+
+He kissed her hand:
+
+"You are an angel and a demon. You know everything. You can do
+anything. You are the most interesting woman I ever met."
+
+"Because I correct proofs."
+
+"Because you are what you are."
+
+And, very seriously, still holding her hand he said, almost
+threateningly:
+
+"I shall never be able to forget you."
+
+And he went away. As soon as she was alone, she opened all her
+windows. She realized, it was true, that she was something of a
+coquette, but that lay in her nature: she was like that of herself, to
+some men. Certainly not to all. Never to Duco. Never to men whom she
+respected. Whereas she despised that little prince, with his blazing
+eyes and his habit of kissing people.... But he served to amuse her....
+
+And she dressed and went out and reached the restaurant long after
+the appointed hour, found Duco waiting for her at their little table,
+with his head in his hands, and at once told him that the prince had
+detained her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Duco had at first wished to decline the invitation, but Cornélie
+said that she would think it pleasanter if he came. And it was an
+exquisite dinner in the restaurant of the Grand-Hôtel and Cornélie
+had enjoyed herself exceedingly and looked most charming in an old
+yellow ball-dress, dating back to the first days of her marriage,
+which she had altered quickly here and there and draped with the
+prince's old lace. Urania had looked very handsome, with her clear,
+fresh complexion, her shining eyes and gleaming teeth, clad in a
+close-fitting frock in the latest fashion, blue-black spangles on
+black tulle, as though she were moulded in a cuirass: the prince said,
+a siren with a mermaid's tail. And the people at the other tables had
+stared across at theirs, for everybody knew Virgilio di Forte-Braccio;
+everybody knew that he was going to marry a rich American heiress;
+and everybody had noticed that he was paying great attention to the
+slender, fair-haired woman whom nobody knew. She had been married,
+they thought; she was chaperoning the future princess; and she was
+very intimate with that young man, a Dutch painter, who was studying
+art in Italy. They had soon found out all that there was to know.
+
+Cornélie had thought it pleasant that they all looked at her; and
+she had flirted so obviously with the prince that Urania had become
+angry. And early next morning, while Cornélie was still in bed, no
+longer thinking of last night but pondering over a sentence in her
+pamphlet, the maid knocked, brought in her breakfast and letters and
+said that Miss Hope was asking to speak to her. Cornélie had Urania
+shown in, while she remained in bed and drank her chocolate. And
+she looked up in surprise when Urania at once overwhelmed her with
+reproaches, burst into sobs, scolded and raved, made a violent scene,
+said that she now saw through her and admitted that the marchesa had
+urged her to be careful of Cornélie, whom she described as a dangerous
+woman. Cornélie waited until she had had her say and replied coolly
+that she had nothing on her conscience, that on the contrary she had
+saved Urania and been of service to her as a chaperon, though she did
+not tell her that the prince had wanted her, Cornélie, to dine with
+him alone. But Urania refused to listen and went on ranting. Cornélie
+looked at her and thought her vulgar in that rage of hers, talking
+her American English, as though she were chewing filberts; and at
+last she answered, calmly:
+
+"My dear girl, you're upsetting yourself about nothing. But, if
+you like, I will write to the prince that he must pay me no more
+attentions."
+
+"No, no, don't do that: it'll make Gilio think I'm jealous!"
+
+"And aren't you?"
+
+"Why do you monopolize Gilio? Why do you flirt with him? Why do
+you make yourself conspicuous with him, as you did yesterday, in a
+restaurant full of people?"
+
+"Well, if you dislike it, I won't flirt with Gilio again or make myself
+conspicuous with him again. I don't care twopence about your prince."
+
+"That's an extra reason."
+
+"Very well, dear, that's settled."
+
+Her coolness calmed Urania, who asked:
+
+"And do we remain good friends?"
+
+"Why, of course, my dear girl. Is there any occasion for us to
+quarrel? I don't see it."
+
+Both of them, the prince and Urania, were quite indifferent to
+her. True, she had preached to Urania in the beginning, but about a
+general idea: when afterwards she perceived Urania's insignificance,
+she withdrew the interest which she took in her. And, if the girl
+was offended by a little gaiety and innocent flirtation, very well,
+there should be no more of it. Her thoughts were more with the proofs
+which the post had brought her.
+
+She got out of bed and stretched herself:
+
+"Go into the sitting-room, Urania dear, and just let me have my bath."
+
+Presently, all fresh and smiling, she joined Urania in the
+sitting-room. Urania was crying.
+
+"My dear child, why are you upsetting yourself like this? You've
+achieved your ideal. Your marriage is as good as certain. You're
+waiting for an answer from Chicago? You're impatient? Then cable
+out. I should have cabled at once in your place. You don't imagine,
+do you, that your father has any objection to your becoming Duchess
+di San Stefano?"
+
+"I don't know yet what I myself want," said Urania, weeping. "I don't
+know, I don't know."
+
+Cornélie shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You're more sensible than I thought," she said.
+
+"Are you really my friend? Can I trust you? Can I trust your advice?"
+
+"I won't advise you again. I have advised you. You must know your
+own mind."
+
+Urania took her hand:
+
+"Which would you prefer, that I accepted Gilio ... or not?"
+
+Cornélie looked her straight in the eyes:
+
+"You're making yourself unhappy about nothing. You think--and
+the marchesa probably thinks with you--that I want to take Gilio
+from you? No, darling, I wouldn't marry Gilio if he were king and
+emperor. I have a bit of the socialist in me: I don't marry for the
+sake of a title."
+
+"No more would I."
+
+"Of course, darling, no more would you. I never dreamt of suggesting
+that you would. But you ask me which I should prefer. Well, I tell
+you in all sincerity: I don't prefer either. The whole business leaves
+me cold."
+
+"And you call yourself my friend!"
+
+"So I am, dear, and I will remain your friend. Only don't come
+overwhelming me with reproaches on an empty stomach!"
+
+"You're a flirt."
+
+"Sometimes. It comes natural to me. But, honestly, I won't be so
+again with Gilio."
+
+"Do you mean it?"
+
+"Yes, of course. What do I care? He amuses me; but, if it offends you,
+I'll gladly sacrifice my amusement for your sake. I don't value it
+so much."
+
+"Are you fond of Mr. van der Staal?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Are you going to marry him, Cornélie?"
+
+"No, dear. I sha'n't marry again. I know what marriage means. Are
+you coming for a little walk with me? It's a fine day; and you have
+upset me so with your little troubles that I can't do any work this
+morning. It's lovely weather: come along and buy some flowers in the
+Piazza di Spagna."
+
+They went and bought the flowers. Cornélie took Urania back to
+Belloni's. As she walked away, on the road to the osteria for lunch,
+she heard somebody following her. It was the prince.
+
+"I caught sight of you from the corner of the Via Aurora," he
+said. "Urania was just going home."
+
+"Prince," she said at once, "there must be no more of it."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"No more visits, no more joking, no more presents, no more dinners
+at the Grand-Hôtel, no more champagne."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The future princess won't have it."
+
+"Is she jealous?"
+
+Cornélie described the scene to him:
+
+"And you mayn't even walk with me."
+
+"Yes, I may."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"I shall, for all that."
+
+"By the right of the man, of the strongest?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"My vocation is to fight against it. But to-day I am untrue to my
+vocation."
+
+"You are charming ... as always."
+
+"You mustn't say that any more."
+
+"Urania's a bore.... Tell me, what do you advise me to do? Shall I
+marry her?"
+
+Cornélie gave a peal of laughter:
+
+"You both of you keep asking my advice!"
+
+"Yes, yes, what do you think?"
+
+"Marry her by all means!"
+
+He did not observe her contempt.
+
+"Exchange your escutcheon for her purse," she continued and laughed
+and laughed.
+
+He now perceived it:
+
+"You despise me, perhaps both of us."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Tell me that you don't despise me."
+
+"You ask me my opinion. Urania is a very sweet, dear child, but she
+ought not to travel by herself. And you ..."
+
+"And I?"
+
+"You are a delightful boy. Buy me those violets, will you?"
+
+"Subito, subito!"
+
+He bought her the bunch of violets:
+
+"You're crazy over violets, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. This must be your second ... and your last present. And here
+we say good-bye."
+
+"No, I shall take you home."
+
+"I'm not going home."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the osteria. Mr. van der Staal is waiting for me."
+
+"He's a lucky man!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He needs must be!"
+
+"I don't see why. Good-bye, prince."
+
+"Ask me to come too," he entreated. "Let me lunch with you."
+
+"No," she said, seriously. "Really not. It's better not. I believe...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That Duco is just like Urania."
+
+"Jealous?... When shall I see you again?"
+
+"Really, believe me, it's better not.... Good-bye, prince. And thank
+you ... for the violets."
+
+He bent over her hand. She went into the osteria and saw that Duco
+had witnessed their leave-taking through the window.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Duco was silent and nervous at table. He played with his bread;
+and his fingers trembled. She felt that he had something on his mind:
+
+"What is it?" she asked, kindly.
+
+"Cornélie," he said, excitedly, "I want to speak to you."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"You're not behaving properly."
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on
+putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish,"
+he said, looking around him: there was no one in the restaurant save
+two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they could speak without
+being overheard. "Let me finish," he repeated, when she tried to
+interrupt him. "Let me say what I have to say. You of course are
+free to act as you please. But I am your friend and I want to advise
+you. What you are doing is not right. The prince is a cad, a low,
+common cad. How can you accept presents from him and invitations? Why
+did you compel me to come yesterday? The dinner was one long torture
+to me. You know how fond I am of you: why shouldn't I confess it? You
+know how high I hold you. I can't bear to see you lowering yourself
+with him. Let me speak. Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your
+shoe-strings. And you play with him, you jest with him, you flirt--let
+me speak--you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like
+that? What part can he play in your life? Let him marry Miss Hope:
+what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people matter
+to you, Cornélie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then
+why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their
+titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh,
+I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I
+love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't
+matter whether I understand you. But I do feel that this isn't right. I
+ask you not to see the prince any more. Have nothing more to do with
+him. Cut him.... That dinner, last night, was a torture to me...."
+
+"My poor boy," she said, gently, filling his glass from their fiasco,
+"but why?"
+
+"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
+
+"I do not stand so high. No, let me speak now. I do not stand
+high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which are
+broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an
+ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No,
+Duco, I'm speaking now. I don't consider the prince a cad. I may think
+him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know that I
+too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty. Now
+don't get angry. You are much more than that. I'm not even comparing
+il nostro Gilio with you. I won't say anything more about you, or
+you will become conceited, but cheerful and witty you are not. And
+my poor nature sometimes feels a need for these qualities. What have
+I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I am very glad to possess
+your friendship, very happy in having met you. But why may I not
+sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a little light-heartedness
+in me, a little frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco,
+am I wicked?"
+
+He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did
+not answer.
+
+"I can fight, if necessary," she resumed. "But is this a thing to fight
+against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I forget it the next
+minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you I do not forget."
+
+He was looking at her radiantly.
+
+"Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't flirt and
+fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry."
+
+She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her fingers:
+
+"Cornélie," he said, softly. "Yes, I feel that you are loyal. Cornélie,
+will you be my wife?"
+
+She looked straight in front of her and drooped her head a little
+and stared before her earnestly. They were no longer eating. The two
+Italians stood up, bowed and went away. They were alone. The waiter
+set some fruit before them and withdrew.
+
+They both sat silent for a moment. Then she spoke in a gentle voice;
+and her whole being displayed so tender a melancholy that he could
+have burst into sobs and worshipped her where she sat.
+
+"I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was in the
+nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead to
+that question. But it can't be, dearest Duco. It can't be, my dear,
+dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it's not that. I am against
+marriage ... but it's not that. In some cases a woman is unfaithful
+to all her ideas in a single second.... Then what is it?..."
+
+She stared wide-eyed and passed her hand over her forehead, as though
+she did not see clearly. Then she continued:
+
+"It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through it,
+I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see
+that habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual
+characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit,
+a groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I
+think passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can
+be noble and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based
+upon our petty human morality and calculation. And I have become
+frightened of those prudent moral ties. I promised myself--and I
+believe that I shall keep my promise--never to marry again. My whole
+nature has become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl
+going to parties and dinners and looking out for a husband, together
+with her parents.... My love for him was passion. And in my marriage
+he wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I
+rebelled.... I'd rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too short a
+time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow, etcetera? One
+needn't marry for that. I can feel esteem just as well without being
+married. Of course there is the question of the children, there are
+many difficulties. I can't think it all out now. I merely feel now,
+very seriously and calmly, that I am not fit to marry and that I
+never will marry again. I should not make you happy.... Don't be sad,
+Duco. I am fond of you, I love you. And perhaps ... had I met you
+at the right moment. Had I met you before, in my Hague life ... you
+would certainly have stood too high for me. I could not have grown
+fond of you. Now I can understand you, respect you and look up to
+you. I tell you this quite simply, that I love you and look up to you,
+look up to you, in spite of all your gentleness, as I never looked up
+to my husband, however much he made his manly privilege prevail. And
+you are to believe that, very firmly and with great certainty, and
+you must believe that I am true. I am coquettish ... only with Gilio."
+
+He looked at her through his silent tears. He stood up, called the
+waiter, paid the bill absent-mindedly, while everything swam and
+flashed before his eyes. They went out of the door and she hailed a
+carriage and told the man to drive to the Villa Doria-Pamphili. She
+remembered that the gardens were open. They drove there in silence,
+steeped in their thoughts of the future that was opening tremulously
+before them. Sometimes he heaved a deep breath and quivered all over
+his body. Once she fervently squeezed his hand. At the gate of the
+villa they alighted and walked up the majestic avenues. Rome lay in
+the depths below; and they suddenly saw St. Peter's. But they did
+not speak; and she suddenly sat down on an ancient bench and began
+to weep softly and feebly. He put his arm round her and comforted
+her. She dried her tears, smiled and embraced him and returned his
+kiss.... Twilight fell; and they went back. He gave the address of
+his studio. She accompanied him. And she gave herself to him, in all
+her truthful sincerity and with a love so violent and so great that
+she thought she would swoon in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+They did not alter their mode of life. Duco, however, after a
+scene with his mother, no longer slept at Belloni's but in a
+little room adjoining his studio and at first filled with trunks
+and lumber. Cornélie was sorry about the scene: she had always had
+a liking for Mrs. van der Staal and the girls. But a certain pride
+arose in her; and Cornélie despised Mrs. van der Staal because she
+was unable to understand either her or Duco. Still, she would have
+been pleased to prevent this coolness. At her advice Duco went to see
+his mother again, but she remained cool and sent him away. Thereupon
+Cornélie and Duco went to Naples. They did not do this by way of
+an elopement, they did it quite simply: Cornélie told Urania and
+the prince that she was going to Naples for a little while and that
+Van der Staal would probably follow her. She did not know Naples and
+would appreciate it greatly if Van der Staal showed her over the town
+and the surrounding country. Cornélie kept on her rooms in Rome. And
+they spent a fortnight of sheer, careless and immense happiness. Their
+love grew spacious and blossoming in the golden sunlight of Naples,
+on the blue gulfs of Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and Castellamare, simply,
+irresistibly and restfully. They glided gradually along the purple
+thread of their lives, they walked hand in hand down their lines now
+fused into one path, heedless of the laws and ideas of men; and their
+attitude was so lofty, their action so serene and so certain of their
+happiness, that their relations did not degenerate into insolence,
+although within themselves they despised the world. But this happiness
+softened all that pride in their soaring souls, as if their happiness
+were strewing blossoms all around it. They lived in a dream, first
+among the marbles in the museum, then on the flower-strewn cliffs
+of Amalfi, on the beach of Capri or on the terrace of the hotel at
+Sorrento, with the sea roaring at their feet and, in a pearly haze,
+yonder, vaguely white, as though drawn in white chalk, Castellamare
+and Naples and the ghost of Vesuvius, with its hazy plume of smoke.
+
+They held aloof from everybody, from all the people and excursionists;
+they had their meals at a small table; and it was generally thought
+that they were newly married. If others looked up their names in the
+visitors' book, they read two names and made whispered comments. But
+the lovers did not hear, did not see; they lived their dream, looking
+into each other's eyes or at the opal sky, the pearly sea and the hazy,
+white mountain-vistas, studded with towns like little specks of chalk.
+
+When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to
+Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now,
+in his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued
+their dream among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati,
+beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the
+gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their
+happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found
+love with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of
+him. And because of that charm they were surrounded by a sort of aura,
+through which they did not see ordinary life or meet ordinary people.
+
+At last, one afternoon, Urania found them both at home, in Cornélie's
+room, the fire lighted, she smiling and gazing into the fire, he
+sitting at her feet and she with her arm round his neck. And they
+were evidently thinking of so little besides their own love that
+neither of them heard her knock and both suddenly saw her standing
+before them, like an unexpected reality. Their dream was over for that
+day. Urania laughed, Cornélie laughed and Duco pushed an easy-chair
+closer. And Urania, blithe, beautiful and brilliant, told them that
+she was engaged. Where on earth had they been hiding, she asked,
+inquisitively. She was engaged. She had been to San Stefano, she had
+seen the old prince. And everything was lovely and good and dear:
+the old castle a dear old house, the old man a dear old man. She saw
+everything through the glitter of her future princess' title. Princess
+and duchess! The wedding-day was fixed: immediately after Easter, in
+a little more than three months therefore. It was to be celebrated at
+San Carlo, with all the splendour of a great wedding. Her father was
+coming over for it with her youngest brother. She was obviously not
+looking forward to their arrival. And she never finished talking:
+she gave a thousand details about her bridal outfit, with which
+the marchesa was helping her. They were going to live at Nice, in
+a large flat. She raved about Nice: that was a first-rate idea of
+Gilio's. And incidentally she remembered and told them that she had
+become a Catholic. That was a great nuisance! But the monsignori saw
+to everything and she allowed herself to be guided by them. And the
+Pope was to receive her in private audience, together with Gilio. The
+difficulty was what to wear at the audience: black, of course, but
+... velvet, satin? What did Cornélie advise her? She had such excellent
+taste. And a black-lace veil on her head, with brilliants. She was
+going to Nice next day, with the marchesa and Gilio, to see their flat.
+
+When she was gone, after begging Cornélie to come and admire her
+trousseau, Cornélie said, with a smile:
+
+"She is happy. After all, happiness is something different for
+everybody. A trousseau and a title would not make me happy."
+
+"These are the small people," he said, "who cross our lives now and
+again. I prefer to get out of their way."
+
+And they did not say so, but they both thought--with their fingers
+interlaced, her eyes gazing into his--that they also were happy, but
+with a loftier, better and nobler happiness; and pride arose within
+them; and they beheld as in a vision the line of their life winding up
+a steep hill. But happiness snowed blossoms down upon it; and amid the
+snowing blossoms, holding high their proud heads, with smiles and eyes
+of love, they walked on in their dream remote from mankind and reality.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+The months dreamed past. And their happiness caused such a summer to
+bloom in them that she ripened in beauty and he in talent; the pride in
+them broke into expression: in her it was the blossoming of her being,
+in him it was energy; her languid charm became transformed into a proud
+slenderness; her contour increased in fullness; a light illumined
+her eyes, a gladness shone about her mouth. His hands quivered with
+nervous emotion when he took up his brushes; and the skies of Italy
+arched firmaments before his eyes like a canopy of love and fervid
+colour. He drew and completed a series of water-colours: hazes of
+dreamy atmosphere which suggested Turner's noblest creations; natural
+monuments of sheer haze; all the milky blue and pearly mistiness of the
+Bay of Naples, like a goblet filled with light in which a turquoise
+is melted into water; and he sent them to Holland, to London, found
+that he had suddenly discovered his vocation, his work and his fame:
+courage, strength, aim and conquest.
+
+She too achieved a certain success with her article: it was discussed,
+contested; her name was mentioned. But she felt a certain indifference
+when she read her name in connection with the feminist movement. She
+preferred to live with him his life of observation and emotion; and
+she often imparted to all the haze of his vision, to the excessive
+haziness of his colour-dream a lustre of light, a definite horizon,
+a streak of actuality which gave realism to the mist of his ideal. She
+learnt with him to distinguish and to feel nature, art, all Rome; and,
+when a symbolic impulse overmastered him, she surrendered herself
+to it entirely. He planned a large sketch of a procession of women,
+mounting along a line of life that wound up a hill: they seemed
+to be moving out of a crumbling city of antiquity, whose pillars,
+joined by a single architrave, quivered on high in a violet haze
+of evening dusk; they seemed to be releasing themselves from the
+shadow of the ruins fading away on the horizon into the void of
+night; and they thronged upwards, calling to one another aloud,
+beckoning to one another with great waving gestures of their hands,
+under a mighty fluttering of streamers and pennants; they grasped
+hammer and pick-axe with sinewy arms; and the throng of them moved
+up and up, along the line, where the light grew whiter and whiter,
+until in the hazy air there dimly showed the distant vista of a new
+city, whose iron buildings, like central stations and Eiffel towers
+in the white glimmer of the distance, gleamed up very faintly with
+a reflection of glass arches and glass roofs and, high in the air,
+the musical staves of the threads of sound and accompaniment....
+
+And to so great an extent did their influences work upon each other's
+souls that she learnt to see and he learnt to think: she saw beauty,
+art, nature, haze and emotion and no longer imagined them but felt
+them; he, as in his sketch, a very vague, modern city of glass and
+iron, saw a modern city rising out of his dream-haze and thought of a
+modern question, in accordance with his own nature and aptitudes. She
+learnt above all to see and feel like a woman in love, with the
+eyes and heart of the man she loves; he thought out the question
+plastically. But whatever the imperfection in the absoluteness of
+their new spheres of feeling and thought, the reciprocal influence,
+through their love, gave them a happiness so great, so united,
+that at that moment they could not contemplate it or apprehend it:
+it was almost ecstasy, a faint unreality, in which they dreamed,
+whereas it was all pure truth and tangible actuality. Their manner
+of thinking, feeling and living was an ideal of reality, an ideal
+entered and attained, along the gradual line of their life, along
+the golden thread of their love; and they scarcely apprehended or
+contemplated it, because the every-day life still clung to them. But
+only to the smallest, inevitable extent. They lived apart; but in
+the morning she went to him and found him working at his sketch; and
+she sat down beside him and leant her head on his shoulder; and they
+thought it out together. He sketched each figure in his procession
+of women separately and sought for the features and the modelling of
+the figures: some had the Mongolian aspect of Memmi's angel of the
+Annunciation, others Cornélie's slenderness and her later, fuller
+wholesomeness; he sought for the folds of the costumes: the women
+escaped from the violet dusk of the ruined city in pleated pepli;
+and farther on their garments altered as in a masquerade of the ages:
+the long trains of the medieval ladies, the veils of the sultanas, the
+homespun of the workwomen, the caps of the nursing sisters, the attire
+becoming more modern as the wearer personified a more modern age. And
+in this grouping the draughtsmanship was so unsubstantial and sober,
+the transition from drooping folds to practical stiffness so careful
+and so gradual, that Cornélie hardly perceived the transition, that
+she appeared to be contemplating one style, one fashion in dress,
+whereas each figure nevertheless was clad in a different stuff, of
+different cut, falling into different lines.... The drawing displayed
+an old-mastery purity, a simplicity of outline, which was nevertheless
+modern, nervous and morbid, but without the conventional ideal of
+symbolical human forms; the grouping showed a Raphaelite harmony,
+the water-colour tints of the first studies the haze of Italy: the
+ruined city loomed in the dusk as he saw the Forum looming; the city
+of iron and glass gleamed up with its architecture of light, such as
+he had seen from Sorrento shining around Naples. She felt that he was
+creating a great work and had never taken so lively an interest in
+anything as she now did in his idea and his sketches. She sat behind
+him silent and still and followed his drawing of the waving banners
+and fluttering pennants; and she did not breathe when she saw him,
+with a few dabs of white and touches of light--as though light were
+one of the colours on his palette--make the glass city emerge as
+from a dream on the horizon. Then he would ask her something about
+one of the figures and put his arm around her and draw her to him;
+and they would long sit scrutinizing and thinking out lines and ideas,
+until evening fell and the evening chill shuddered through the studio
+and they rose slowly from their seats. Then they went out and in
+the Corso they returned to real life: silently, sitting at Aragno's,
+they watched the bustle outside; and in their little restaurant, with
+their eyes absorbing each other's glance, they ate their simple dinner
+and looked so obviously and harmoniously happy, that the Italians,
+the two who also always sat at the far table, at that same hour,
+smiled as they bowed to them on entering....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+At the same time Duco developed great powers of work: so much thought
+dimly took shape before him that he was constantly discovering another
+motive and symbolizing it in another figure. He sketched a life-size
+woman walking, with that admixture of child, woman and goddess which
+characterized his figures, and she walked slowly down a descending
+line towards a sombre depth, without seeing or understanding; her eyes
+towards the abyss in magnetic attraction; vague hands hovered around
+her like a cloud and softly pushed and guided her; on the hill-top,
+on high rocks, in the bright light, other figures, holding harps,
+called to her; but she went towards the depth, pushed by hands;
+in the abyss blossomed strange purple orchids, like mouths of love....
+
+When Cornélie came to his studio one morning, he had suddenly sketched
+this idea. It came upon her as a surprise, for he had not mentioned
+it to her: the idea had sprung up suddenly; the quick, spontaneous
+execution had not taken him an hour. He was almost apologizing to her
+when he saw her surprise. She certainly admired it, but shuddered at
+it and preferred The Banners, the great water-colour, the procession
+of the women marching to the battle of life.
+
+And to please her he put the straying woman aside and worked on
+solely at the striving women. But constantly a fresh thought came and
+disturbed him in his work; and in her absence he would sketch some
+new symbol, until the sketches accumulated and lay spread on every
+side. She put them away in portfolios; she removed them from easel
+and board; she saved him from wandering too far from The Banners;
+and this was the one thing that he completed.
+
+Thus smoothly did their life seem willing to run, along a gracious
+line, in one golden direction, while his symbols blossomed like flowers
+on either side, while the azure of their love seemed to form the sky
+overhead; but she plucked away the superfluous flowers and only The
+Banners waved above their path, in the firmament of their ecstasy,
+even as they waved above the militant women.
+
+They had but one distraction, the wedding of the prince and Urania:
+a dinner, a ball and the ceremony at San Carlo, attended by all
+the Roman aristocracy, who however welcomed the wealthy American
+bride with a certain reserve. But, when the Prince and Princess
+di Forte-Braccio left for Nice, all distraction was at an end; and
+the days once more glided along the same gracious golden line. And
+Cornélie retained only one unpleasant recollection: her meeting during
+those festive days with Mrs. van der Staal, who cut her persistently,
+turned her back on her and succeeded in conveying to her that the
+friendship was over. She had accepted the position; she had realized
+how difficult it was--even if Mrs. van der Staal had been willing to
+speak to her--to explain to a woman like this, rooted in her social
+and worldly conventions, her own proud ideas of freedom, independence
+and happiness. And she had avoided the girls also, understanding
+that Mrs. van der Staal wished it. She was not angry at all this
+nor hurt; she could understand it in Duco's mother: she was only a
+little sad about it, because she liked Mrs. van der Staal and liked
+the two girls. But she quite understood: it had to be so; Mrs. van
+der Staal knew or suspected everything. Duco's mother could not act
+differently, though the prince and Urania, for friendship's sake,
+overlooked any liaison between Duco and Cornélie; though the Roman
+world during the wedding-festivities accepted them simply as friends,
+as acquaintances, as fellow-countrymen, whatever they might whisper,
+smiling, behind their fans. But now those festivities were over, now
+they had passed that point of contact with the world and people, now
+their golden line once more sloped gently and evenly before them....
+
+Then Cornélie, not thinking of the Hague at all, received a letter
+from the Hague. The letter was from her father and consisted of
+several sheets, which surprised her, for he never wrote. What she read
+startled her greatly, but did not at first dishearten her altogether,
+perhaps because she did not realize the full import of her father's
+news. He implored her forgiveness. He had long been in financial
+difficulties. He had lost a great deal of money. They would have to
+move into a smaller house. The atmosphere at home was unpleasant: Mamma
+cried all day; the sisters quarrelled; the family proffered advice; the
+acquaintances were disagreeable. And he implored her forgiveness. He
+had speculated and lost. And he had also lost her own little capital,
+which he managed for her, her godmother's legacy. He asked her not to
+think too hardly of him. Things might have turned out differently;
+and then she would have been three times as well off. He admitted
+it, he had done wrong; but still he was her father and he asked her,
+his child, to forgive him and requested her to come home.
+
+She was at first greatly startled, but soon recovered her calmness. She
+was in too happy a mood of vital harmony to be depressed by the
+news. She received the letter in bed, did not get up at once, reflected
+a little, then dressed, breakfasted as usual and went to Duco. He
+received her with enthusiasm and showed her three new sketches. She
+reproached him gently for allowing himself to be distracted from his
+main idea, said that these distractions would exhaust his activity, his
+perseverance. She urged him to keep on working at The Banners. And she
+inspected the great water-colour intently, with the ancient, crumbling
+Forum-like city and the procession of the women towards the metropolis
+of the future, standing high in the dawn. And suddenly it was borne
+in upon her that her future also had fallen into ruins and that its
+crumbling arches hung menacingly over her head. Then she gave him her
+father's letter to read. He read it twice, looked at her aghast and
+asked what she proposed to do. She said that she had already thought it
+over, but so far decided only upon the most immediate thing to be done:
+to give up her rooms and come to him in his studio. She had just enough
+left to pay the rent of her rooms. But, after that, she had no money,
+no money at all. She had never consented to accept alimony from her
+husband. All that was still due to her was the payment for her article.
+
+He at once put out his hands to her, kissed her and said that this
+had been also his idea at once, that she should come to him and live
+with him. He had enough: a tiny patrimony; he made a little money
+in addition: there would be enough for the two of them. And they
+laughed and kissed and glanced round the studio. Duco slept in a
+small adjoining den, a sort of long wall-cupboard. And they glanced
+round to see what they could do. Cornélie knew: here, a curtain
+draped over a cord, with her wash-hand-stand behind it. That was
+all she needed, only that little corner: otherwise Duco would not
+have a good light. They were very merry and thought it a jolly, a
+capital idea. They went out at once, bought a little iron bedstead
+and a dressing-table and themselves hung up the curtain. Then they
+both went to pack the trunks in the Via di Serpenti ... and dined
+at the osteria. Cornélie suggested that they should dine at home now
+and then: it was cheaper. When they returned home, she was enchanted
+that her installation took up so little room, hardly six feet by six,
+with that little bed behind the curtain. They were very cheerful
+that evening. The bohemianism of it all amused them. They were in
+Italy, the land of sunshine, of beauty, of lazzaroni, of beggars who
+slept on the steps of a cathedral; and they felt akin to that sunny
+poverty. They were happy, they wanted for nothing. They would live
+on nothing, or at any rate on very little. And they saw the future
+bright, smiling. They were closer together now, they would live more
+closely linked together. They loved each other and were happy in a
+land of beauty, in an ideal of noble symbolism and life-embracing art.
+
+Next morning he worked zealously, without a word, absorbed in his
+dream, in his work; and she, likewise, silent, contented, happy,
+examined her blouses and skirts attentively and reflected that she
+would need nothing more for quite another year and that her old clothes
+were amply sufficient for their life of happiness and simplicity.
+
+And she answered her father's letter very briefly, saying that she
+forgave him, that she was sorry for all of them, but that she was not
+coming back to the Hague. She would provide for her own maintenance,
+by writing. Italy was cheap. That was all she wrote. She did not
+mention Duco. She cut herself off from her family, in thought and
+in fact. She had met with no sympathy from any of them during her
+unhappy marriage, during the painful days of her divorce; and now,
+in her turn, she felt no affection for them. And her happiness made
+her partial and selfish. She wanted nothing but Duco, nothing but
+their harmonious life in common. He sat working, laughing to her
+now and then as she lay on the couch and reflected. She looked at
+the women marching to battle; she too could not remain lying on a
+couch, she too would have to sally forth and fight. She foresaw that
+she would have to fight ... for him. He was at present in the first
+fine frenzy of his art; but, if this slackened, momentarily, after
+a result of some kind, after a success for himself and the world,
+that would be commonplace and logical; and then she would have to
+fight. He was the noble element in their two lives; his art could
+never become her bread-winner. His little fortune amounted to hardly
+anything. She would have liked to work and make money for both of them,
+so that he need not depart from the pure principle of his art. But
+how was she to strive, how to work, how to work for their lives and
+their bread? What could she do? Write? It brought in so little. What
+else? She was overcome by a slight melancholy, because she could
+do so little. She possessed minor talents and accomplishments: she
+wrote a good style, she sang, she played the piano, she could make a
+blouse and she knew something about cooking. She would herself do the
+cooking now and then and would make her own clothes. But that was all
+so small, so little. Strive? Work? In what way? However, she would do
+what she could. And suddenly she took up a Baedeker, turned over the
+pages and sat down to write at Duco's writing-table. She thought for a
+moment and began a casual article, a travel-picture for a newspaper,
+about the environs of Naples: that was easier than at once beginning
+about Rome. And in the studio, filled with a faint warmth of the fire,
+because the room faced north and was chilly, everything became still
+and silent, save for the occasional scratching of her pen or the noise
+made by him when fumbling among his chalks and paint-brushes. She
+wrote a few pages but could not hit upon an ending. Then she got up; he
+turned round and smiled at her, with his smile of friendly happiness.
+
+And she read to him what she had written. It was not in the style of
+her pamphlet. It contained no invective; it was a pleasant traveller's
+sketch.
+
+He thought it very nice, but nothing out of the way. But that wasn't
+necessary, she said, defending herself. And he kissed her, for her
+industry and her pluck. It was raining that day and they did not go out
+for their lunch; there were eggs and tomatoes and she made an omelette
+on an oil-stove. They drank water, ate quantities of bread. And, while
+the rain outside lashed the great curtain-less window of the studio,
+they enjoyed their repast, sitting like two birds that huddle side
+by side, against each other, so as not to get wet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+It was a couple of months after Easter, in the spring days of May. The
+flood of tourists had ebbed away immediately after the great church
+festivities; and Rome was already very hot and growing very quiet. One
+morning, when Cornélie was crossing the Piazza di Spagna, where the
+sunshine streamed along the cream-coloured front of the Trinita de'
+Monti and down the monumental staircase, where only a few beggars
+and the very last flower-boy sat dreaming with blinking eye-lids in
+a shady corner, she saw the prince coming towards her. He bowed to
+her with a smile of gladness and hastened up to speak to her:
+
+"How glad I am to meet you! I am in Rome for a day or two, on my way
+to San Stefano, to see my father on business. Business is always a
+bore; and this is more so than usual. Urania is at Nice. But it is
+too hot there and we are going away. We have just returned from a
+trip on the Mediterranean. Four weeks on board a friend's yacht. It
+was delightful! Why did you never come to see us at Nice, as Urania
+asked you to?"
+
+"I really wasn't able to come."
+
+"I went to call on you yesterday in the Via dei Serpenti. They told
+me you had moved."
+
+He looked at her with a touch of mocking laughter in his small,
+glittering eyes. She did not speak.
+
+"After that I did not like to commit a further indiscretion," he said,
+meaningly. "Where are you going?"
+
+"To the post-office."
+
+"May I come with you? Isn't it too hot for walking?"
+
+"Oh, no, I love the heat! Come by all means, if you like. How is
+Urania?"
+
+"Very well, capital. She's capital. She's splendid, simply splendid. I
+should never have thought it. I should never have dared to think
+it. She plays her part to perfection. So far as she is concerned,
+I don't regret my marriage. But, for the rest, Gesu mio, what a
+disappointment, what a disillusion!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You knew, did you not--I even now don't know how--you knew for how
+many millions I sold myself? Not five millions but ten millions. Ah,
+signora mia, what a take in! You saw my father-in-law at the time
+of our wedding. What a Yankee, what a stocking-merchant and what a
+tradesman! We're no match for him: I, Papa, or the marchesa. First
+promises, contracts: oh, rather! But then haggling here, haggling
+there. We're no good at that: neither Papa nor I. Aunt alone was
+able to haggle. But she was no match for the stocking-merchant. She
+had not learnt that, in all the years during which she kept a
+boarding-house. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Or
+yes, perhaps we did get something like that, plus a heap of promises,
+for our children's children, when everybody's dead. Ah, signora,
+signora, I was better off before I was married! True, I had debts then
+and not now. But Urania is so economical, so practical! I should never
+have thought it of her. It has been a disappointment to everybody:
+Papa, my aunt, the monsignori. You should have seen them together. They
+could have scratched one another's eyes out. Papa almost had a
+stroke, my aunt nearly came to blows with the monsignori.... Ah,
+signora, signora, I don't like it! I am a victim. Winter after
+winter, they angled with me. But I didn't want to be the bait,
+I struggled, I wouldn't let the fish bite. And then this came of
+it. Not three millions. Lire, not dollars. I was so stupid, I thought
+at first it would be dollars. And Urania's economy! She allows me my
+pocket-money. She controls everything, does everything. She knows
+exactly how much I lose at the club. Yes, you may laugh, but it's
+sad. Don't you see that I sometimes feel as if I could cry? And she has
+such queer notions. For instance, we have our flat at Nice and we keep
+on my rooms in the Palazzo Ruspoli, as a pied-à-terre in Rome. That's
+enough: we don't come often to Rome, because we are 'black' and
+Urania thinks it dull. In the summer, we were to go here or there,
+to some watering-place. That was all right, that was settled. But now
+Urania suddenly conceives the notion of selecting San Stefano as a
+summer residence. San Stefano! I ask you! I shall never be able to
+stand it. True, it's high up, it's cool: it's a pleasant climate,
+good, fresh mountain air. But I need more in my life than mountain
+air. I can't live on mountain air. Oh, you wouldn't know Urania! She
+can be so awfully obstinate. It's settled now, beyond recall: in the
+summer, San Stefano. And the worst of it is that she has won Papa's
+heart by it. I have to suffer. They're two to one against me. And the
+worst of it is that Urania says we shall have to be very economical,
+in order to do San Stefano up a bit. It's a famous historical place,
+but fallen into grisly disrepair. It's not our fault: we never had
+any luck. There was once a Forte-Braccio pope; after that our star
+declined and we never had another stroke of luck again. San Stefano is
+the type of ruined greatness. You ought to see the place. To economize,
+to renovate San Stefano! That's Urania's ideal. She has taken it into
+her head to do that honour to our ancestral abode. However, she has
+won Papa's heart by it and he has recovered from his stroke. But can
+you understand now that il povero Gilio is poorer than he was before
+he acquired shares in a Chicago stocking-factory?"
+
+There was no checking his flow of words. He felt profoundly unhappy,
+small, beaten, tamed, conquered, destroyed; and he had a need to ease
+his heart. They had passed the post-office and now retraced their
+steps. He looked for sympathy from Cornélie and found it in the smiling
+attention with which she listened to his grievances. She replied that,
+after all, it showed that Urania had a real feeling for San Stefano.
+
+"Oh, yes!" he admitted, humbly. "She is very good. I should never
+have thought it. She is every inch a princess and duchess. It's
+splendid. But the ten millions: gone, an illusion!... But tell me:
+how well you're looking! Each time I see you, you've grown lovelier
+and lovelier. Do you know that you're a very lovely woman? You must
+be very happy, I'm certain! You're an exceptional woman, I always
+said so. I don't understand you.... May I speak frankly? Are we good
+friends, you and I? I don't understand. I think what you have done such
+a terrible thing. I have never heard of anything like it in our world."
+
+"I don't live in your world, prince."
+
+"Very well, but all the same your world must have much the same ideas
+about it. And the calmness, the pride, the happiness with which you
+do, just quietly, as you please! I think it perfectly awful. I stand
+aghast at it.... And yet ... it's a pity. People in my world are very
+easy-going. But that sort of thing is not allowed!"
+
+"Prince, once more, I have no world. My world is my own sphere."
+
+"I don't understand that. Tell me, how am I to tell Urania? For
+I should think it delightful if you would come and stay at San
+Stefano. Oh, do come, do: come to keep us company. I entreat you. Be
+charitable, do a good work.... But first tell me, how shall I tell
+Urania?"
+
+She laughed:
+
+"What?"
+
+"What they told me in the Via dei Serpenti, that your address was
+now Signor van der Staal's studio, Via del Babuino."
+
+Laughing, she looked at him almost pityingly:
+
+"It is too difficult for you to tell her," she replied, a little
+condescendingly. "I will myself write to Urania and explain my
+conduct."
+
+He was evidently relieved:
+
+"That's delightful, capital! And ... will you come to San Stefano?"
+
+"No, I can't really."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I can no longer move in the circle in which you live, after my change
+of address," she said, half laughing, half seriously.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Listen," he said. "You know our Roman society. So long as certain
+conventions are observed ... everything's permitted."
+
+"Exactly; but it's just those conventions which I don't observe."
+
+"And that's where you are wrong. Believe me, I am saying it as your
+friend."
+
+"I live according to my own laws and I don't want to move in your
+world."
+
+He folded his hands in entreaty:
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. You are a 'new woman.' You have your own laws. But
+I beseech you, take pity on me. Be an angel of mercy and come to
+San Stefano."
+
+She seemed to hear a note of seduction in his voice and therefore said:
+
+"Prince, even if it agreed with the conventions of your world ... even
+then I shouldn't wish to. For I will not leave Van der Staal."
+
+"You come first and let him come a little later. Urania will be
+glad to have his advice on some artistic questions, concerning the
+'doing up' of San Stefano. We have a lot of pictures there. And old
+things generally. Do let's arrange that. I am going to San Stefano
+to-morrow. Urania will follow me in a week. I will suggest to her to
+ask you down soon."
+
+"Really, prince ... it can't happen just yet."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+She looked at him for some time before answering:
+
+"Shall I be candid with you?"
+
+"But of course!"
+
+They had already passed the post-office twice. The street was quite
+silent and deserted. He looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "we are in great financial difficulties. We
+have no money at present. I have lost my little capital; and the
+small sum which I earned by writing an article is spent. Duco is
+working hard, but he is engaged on a big work and making nothing
+in the meantime. He expects to receive a bit of money in a month or
+so. But at the moment we have nothing, nothing at all. That is why
+I went to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much a dealer
+would give for a couple of old pictures which Duco wants to sell. He
+doesn't like parting with them, but there's no help for it. So you
+see that I can't come. I should not care to leave him; besides,
+I should not have the money for the journey or a decent wardrobe."
+
+He looked at her. The first thing that he had noticed was her new and
+blooming loveliness; now he noticed that her skirt was a little worn
+and her blouse none too fresh, though she wore a couple of roses in
+the waist-band.
+
+"Gesu mio!" he exclaimed. "And you tell me that so calmly, so quietly!"
+
+She smiled and shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"What would you have me do? Moan and groan about it?"
+
+"But you are a woman ... a woman to revere and respect!" he cried. "How
+does Van der Staal take it?"
+
+"He is a bit depressed, of course. He has never known money
+trouble. And it hinders him from employing his full talent. But I
+hope to help him bear up during this difficult time. So you see,
+prince, that I can't come to San Stefano."
+
+"But why didn't you write to us? Why not ask us for money?"
+
+"It is very nice of you to say that, but the idea never even occurred
+to us."
+
+"Too proud?"
+
+"Yes, too proud."
+
+"But what a position to be in! What can I do for you? May I give
+you two hundred lire? I have two hundred lire on me. And I will tell
+Urania that I gave it to you."
+
+"No, thank you, prince. I am very grateful to you, but I can't
+accept it."
+
+"Not from me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not from Urania?"
+
+"Not from her either."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I want to earn my money and I can't accept alms."
+
+"A fine principle. But for the moment ..."
+
+"I remain true to it."
+
+"Will you allow me to tell you something?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I admire you. More than that: I love you."
+
+She made a gesture with her hand and wrinkled her brows.
+
+"Why mayn't I tell you so? An Italian does not keep his love
+concealed. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and superior
+to anything that I could ever imagine any woman to be.... Don't
+be angry with me: I am not asking anything of you. I am a bad lot,
+but at this moment I really feel the sort of thing that you see in
+our old family-portraits, an atom of chivalry which has survived by
+accident. I ask for nothing from you. I merely tell you--and I say
+it in Urania's name as well as my own--that you can always rely on
+us. Urania will be angry that you haven't written to us."
+
+They now entered the post-office and she bought a few stamps:
+
+"There go my last soldi," she said, laughing and showing her empty
+purse. "We wanted the stamps to write to the secretary of an exhibition
+in London. Are you seeing me home?"
+
+She saw suddenly that he had tears in his eyes.
+
+"Do accept two hundred lire from me!" he entreated.
+
+She smilingly shook her head.
+
+"Are you dining at home?" he asked.
+
+She gave him a quizzing look:
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+He was unwilling to ask any further questions, was afraid lest he
+should wound her:
+
+"Be kind," he said, "and dine with me this evening. I'm bored. I
+have no friends in Rome at the moment. Everybody is away. Not at the
+Grand-Hôtel, but in a snug little restaurant, where they know me. I'll
+come and fetch you at seven o'clock. Do be nice and come! For my sake!"
+
+He could not restrain his tears.
+
+"I shall be delighted," she said, softly, with her smile.
+
+They were standing in the porch of the house in the Via del Babuino
+where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a
+fervent kiss upon it. Then he took off his hat and hurried away. She
+went slowly up the stairs, mastering her emotion before she entered
+the studio.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+She found Duco lying listlessly on the sofa. He had a bad headache
+and she sat down beside him.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"The man offered me eighty lire for the Memmo," she said, "but he
+declared that the panel was not by Gentile da Fabriano: he remembered
+having seen it here."
+
+"The man's crazy," he replied. "Or else he is trying to get my Gentile
+for nothing.... Cornélie, I really can't sell it."
+
+"Well, Duco, then we'll think of something else," said she, laying
+her hand on his aching forehead.
+
+"Perhaps one or two smaller things, a knickknack or two," he moaned.
+
+"Perhaps. Shall I go back to him this afternoon?"
+
+"No, no, I'll go. But, really it is easier to buy that sort of thing
+than to sell it."
+
+"That is so, Duco," she agreed, laughing. "But I asked yesterday
+what I should get for a pair of bracelets; and I'll dispose of those
+to-day. And that will keep us going for quite a month. But I have
+some news for you. Do you know whom I met?"
+
+"No."
+
+"The prince."
+
+He gave a scowl:
+
+"I don't like that cad," he said.
+
+"I've told you before, Duco. I don't consider him a cad. And I don't
+believe he is one either. He asked us to dine with him this evening,
+quite quietly."
+
+"No, I don't care about it."
+
+She said nothing. She stood up, boiled some water on a spirit-stand
+and made tea:
+
+"Duco dear, I've been careless about lunch. A cup of tea and some
+bread-and-butter is all I can give you. Are you very hungry?"
+
+"No," he said, evasively.
+
+She hummed a tune while she poured out the tea into an antique cup. She
+cut the bread-and-butter and brought it to him on the sofa. Then she
+sat down beside him, with her own cup in her hand.
+
+"Cornélie, hadn't we better lunch at the osteria?"
+
+She laughed and showed him her empty purse:
+
+"Here are the stamps," she said.
+
+Disheartened, he flung himself back on the cushions.
+
+"My dear boy," she continued, "don't be so down. I shall have some
+money this afternoon, for the bracelets. I ought to have sold them
+sooner. Really, Duco, it's not of any importance. Why haven't you
+been working? It would have cheered you up."
+
+"I didn't feel inclined and I had a headache."
+
+She waited a moment and then said:
+
+"The prince was angry that we didn't write and ask him to help us. He
+wanted to give me two hundred lire...."
+
+"You refused, surely?" he asked, fiercely.
+
+"Well, of course," she answered, calmly. "He invited us to stay at San
+Stefano, where they will be spending the summer. I refused that too."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the clothes.... But you wouldn't care to go, would you?"
+
+"No," he said, dully.
+
+She drew his head to her and stroked his forehead. A wide patch of
+reflected afternoon light fell through the studio-window from the
+blue sky outside; and the studio was like a confused swirl of dusty
+colour, in which the outlines stood forth with their arrested action
+and changeless emotion. The raised embroideries of the chasubles and
+stoles, the purples and sky-blues of Gentile's panel, the mystic
+luxury of Memmi's angel in his cloak of heavily-pleated brocade,
+with the golden lily-stem between his fingers, were like a hoard
+of colour and flashed in that reflected light like so many handfuls
+of jewels. On the easel stood the water-colour of The Banners, with
+its noble refinement. And, as they sat on the sofa, he leaning his
+head against her, both drinking their tea, they harmonized in their
+happiness with that background of art. And it seemed incredible that
+they should be worried about a couple of hundred lire, for they
+were surrounded by colour as of precious stones and her smile was
+still radiant. But his eyes were dejected and his hand hung limply
+by his side.
+
+She went out again that afternoon for a little while, but soon returned
+again, saying that she had sold the bracelets and that he need not
+worry any longer. And she sang and moved gaily about the studio. She
+had made a few purchases: an almond-tart, biscuits and a small bottle
+of port. She had carried the things home herself, in a little basket,
+and she sang as she unpacked them. Her liveliness cheered him; he
+stood up and suddenly sat down to The Banners. He looked at the light
+and thought that he would be able to work for an hour longer. He was
+filled with transport as he contemplated the drawing: he saw a great
+deal that was good in it, a great deal that was beautiful. It was both
+spacious and delicate; it was modern and yet free of any modern trucs;
+there was thought in it and yet purity of line and grouping. And the
+colours were restful and dignified: purple and grey and white; violet
+and pale-grey and bright white; dusk, twilight, light; night, dawn,
+day. The day especially, the day dawning high up yonder, was a day
+of white, self-conscious sunlight: a bright certitude, in which the
+future became clear. But as a cloud were the streamers, pennants,
+flags, banners, waving in heraldic beauty above the heads of the
+militant women uplifted in ecstasy.... He selected his colours, chose
+his brushes, worked zealously, until there was no light left. Then
+he sat down beside her, happy and contented. In the falling dusk
+they drank some of the port, ate some of the tart. He felt like it,
+he said; he was hungry....
+
+At seven o'clock there was a knock. He started up and opened the door;
+the prince entered. Duco's forehead clouded over; but the prince did
+not perceive it, in the twilit studio. Cornélie lit a lamp:
+
+"Scusi, prince," she said. "I am positively distressed: Duco does
+not care to go out--he has been working and is tired--and I had no
+one to send and tell you that we could not accept your invitation."
+
+"But you don't mean that, surely! I had reckoned so absolutely on
+having you both to dinner! What shall I do with my evening if you
+don't come!"
+
+And, bursting into a flow of language, the complaints of a spoiled
+child, the entreaties of an indulged boy, he began to persuade Duco,
+who remained unwilling and sullen. At last Duco rose, shrugged
+his shoulders, but, with a compassionate, almost insulting smile,
+yielded. But he was unable to suppress his sense of unwillingness;
+his jealousy because of the quick repartees of Cornélie and the prince
+remained unassuaged, like an inward pain. At the restaurant he was
+silent at first. Then he made an effort to join in the conversation,
+remembering what Cornélie had said to him on that momentous day at
+the osteria: that she loved him, Duco; that she did not even compare
+the prince with him; but ... that he was not cheerful or witty. And,
+conscious of his superiority because of that recollection, he displayed
+a smiling superciliousness towards the prince, for all his jealousy,
+condescending slightly and suffering his pleasantry and his flirtation,
+because it amused Cornélie, that clashing interplay of swift words
+and short, parrying phrases, like the dialogue in a French comedy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+The prince was to leave for San Stefano next day; and early in the
+morning Cornélie sent him the following letter:
+
+
+
+"My dear Prince,
+
+
+"I have a favour to ask of you. Yesterday you were so good as to offer
+me help. I thought then that I was in a position to decline your
+kind offer. But I hope that you will not think me very changeable
+if I come to you to-day with this request: lend me what you offered
+yesterday to give me.
+
+"Lend me two hundred lire. I hope to be able to repay you as soon as
+possible. Of course it need not be a secret from Urania; but don't
+let Duco know. I tried to sell my bracelets yesterday, but sold only
+one and received very little for it. The goldsmith offered me far too
+little, but I had to let him have one at forty lire, for I had not a
+soldo left! And so I am writing to appeal to your friendship and to
+ask you to put the two hundred lire in an envelope and let me come
+and fetch it myself from the porter. Pray receive my sincere thanks
+in advance.
+
+"What a pleasant evening you gave us yesterday! A couple of hours'
+cheerful talk like that, at a well-chosen dinner, does me good. However
+happy I may be, our present position of financial anxiety sometimes
+depresses me, though I keep up my spirits for Duco's sake. Money
+worries interfere with his work and impair his energy. So I discuss
+them with him as little as I can; and I particularly beg you not to
+let him into our little secret.
+
+"Once more, my best and most sincere thanks.
+
+
+"Cornélie de Retz."
+
+
+
+When she left the house that morning, she went straight to the
+Palazzo Ruspoli:
+
+"Has his excellency gone?"
+
+The porter bowed respectively and confidentially:
+
+"An hour ago, signora. His excellency left a letter and a parcel for
+me to give you if you should call. Permit me to fetch them."
+
+He went away and soon returned; he handed Cornélie the parcel and
+the letter.
+
+She walked down a side-street turning out of the Corso, opened the
+envelope and found a few bank-*notes and this letter:
+
+
+
+"Most honoured Lady,
+
+
+"I am so glad that you have applied to me at last; and Urania also
+will approve. I feel I am acting in accordance with her wishes when
+I send you not two hundred but a thousand lire, with the most humble
+request that you will accept it and keep it as long as you please. For
+of course I dare not ask you to take it as a present. Nevertheless
+I am making so bold as to send you a keepsake. When I read that you
+were compelled to sell a bracelet, I hated the idea so that, without
+stopping to think, I ran round to Marchesini's and, as best I could,
+picked you out a bracelet which, at your feet, I entreat you to
+accept. You must not refuse your friend this. Let my bracelet be a
+secret from Urania as well as from Van der Staal.
+
+"Once more receive my sincere thanks for deigning to apply to me
+for aid and be assured that I attach the highest value to this mark
+of favour.
+
+
+"Your most humble servant,
+"Virgilio di F. B."
+
+
+
+Cornélie opened the parcel and found a velvet case containing a
+bracelet in the Etruscan style: a narrow gold band set with pearls
+and sapphires.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+In those hot May days, the big studio facing north was cool while the
+town outside was scorching. Duco and Cornélie did not go out before
+nightfall, when it was time to think of dining somewhere. Rome was
+quiet: Roman society had fled; the tourists had migrated. They saw
+nobody and their days glided past. He worked diligently; The Banners
+was finished: the two of them, with their arms around each other's
+waists and her head on his shoulder, would sit in front of it, proudly
+smiling, during the last days before the drawing was to be sent to the
+International Exhibition in Knightsbridge. Their feeling for each other
+had never contained such pure harmony, such unity of concord, as now,
+when his work was done. He felt that he had never worked so nobly,
+so firmly, so unhesitatingly, never with the same strength, yet never
+so tenderly; and he was grateful to her for it. He confessed to her
+that he could never have worked like that if she had not thought with
+him and felt with him in their long hours of sitting and gazing at
+the procession, the pageant of women, as it wound out of the night
+of crumbling pillars to the city of sheer increasing radiance and
+gleaming palaces of glass. There was rest in his soul, now that
+he had worked so greatly and nobly. There was pride in them both:
+pride because of their life, their independence, because of that
+work of noble and stately art. In their happiness there was much
+that was arbitrary; they looked down upon people, the multitude,
+the world; and this was especially true of him. In her there was
+more of quietude and humility, though outwardly she showed herself
+as proud as he. Her article on The Social Position of Divorced Women
+had been published in pamphlet form and made a success. But her own
+performance did not make her proud as Duco's art made her proud,
+proud of him and of their life and their happiness.
+
+While she read in the Dutch papers and magazines the reviews of
+her pamphlet--often displaying opposition but never any slight and
+always acknowledging her authority to speak on the question--while
+she read her pamphlet through again, a doubt arose within her of her
+own conviction. She felt how difficult it was to fight with a single
+mind for a cause, as those symbolic women in the drawing marched to
+the fight. She felt that what she had written was inspired by her own
+experience, by her own suffering and by these only; she saw that she
+had generalized her own sense of life and suffering, but without deeper
+insight into the essence of those things: not from pure conviction, but
+from anger and resentment; not from reflection, but after melancholy
+musing upon her own fate; not from her love of her fellow-women, but
+from a petty hatred of society. And she remembered Duco's silence at
+that time, his mute disapproval, his intuitive feeling that the source
+of her excitement was not pure, but the bitter and turbid spring of
+her own experience. She now respected his intuition; she now perceived
+the essential purity of his character; she now felt that he--because
+of his art--was high, noble, without ulterior motives in his actions,
+creating beauty for its own sake. But she also felt that she had
+roused him to it. That was her pride and her happiness; and she
+loved him more dearly for it. But about herself she was humble. She
+was conscious of her femininity, of all the complexity of her soul,
+which prevented her from continuing to fight for the objects of the
+feminist movement. And she thought again of her education, of her
+husband, her short but sad married life ... and she thought of the
+prince. She felt herself so complex and she would gladly have been
+homogeneous. She swayed between contradiction and contradiction and
+she confessed to herself that she did not know herself. It gave a
+tinge of melancholy to her days of happiness.
+
+The prince ... was not her pride only apparent that she had asked
+him not to tell Urania that she was living with Duco, because
+she would tell her so herself? In reality, she feared Urania's
+opinion.... She was troubled by the dishonesty of the life: she called
+the intersections of the line with the lines of other small people the
+petty life. Why, so soon as she crossed one of these intersections,
+did she feel, as though by instinct, that honesty was not always
+wise? What became of her pride and her dignity--not apparently, but
+actually--from the moment that she feared Urania's criticism, from the
+moment that she feared lest this criticism might be unfavourable to
+her in one respect or another? And why did she not speak of Virgilio's
+bracelet to Duco? She did not speak of the thousand lire because she
+knew that money matters depressed him and that he did not want to
+borrow from the prince, because, if he knew about it, he would not
+be able to work free from care; and her concealment had been for a
+noble object. But why did she not speak of Gilio's bracelet?...
+
+She did not know. Once or twice she had tried to say, just naturally
+and casually:
+
+"Look, I've had this from the prince, because I sold that one
+bracelet."
+
+But she was not able to say it, she did not know why. Was it because
+of Duco's jealousy? She didn't know, she didn't know. She felt that
+it would make for peace and tranquillity if she said nothing about
+the bracelet and did not wear it. Really she would have been glad to
+send it back to the prince. But she thought that unkind, after all
+his readiness to assist her.
+
+And Duco ... he thought that she had sold the bracelets for a good
+sum, he knew that she had received money from the publisher, for
+her pamphlet. He asked no further questions and ceased to think
+about money. They lived very simply.... But still she disliked his
+not knowing, even though it had been good for his work that he had
+not known.
+
+These were little things. These were little clouds in the golden
+skies of their great and noble life, their life of which they were
+proud. And she alone saw them. And, when she saw his eyes, radiant
+with the pride of life; when she heard his voice, vibrating with his
+new assured energy and pride; and when she felt his embrace, in which
+she felt the thrill of his delight in the happiness which she brought
+him, then she no longer saw the little clouds, then she felt her own
+thrill of delight in the happiness which he had brought her and she
+loved him so passionately that she could have died in his arms....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+Urania wrote most charmingly. She said that they were having a very
+quiet time with the old prince at San Stefano, as they were not
+inviting visitors because the castle was too gloomy, too shabby, too
+lonely, but that she would think it most delightful if Cornélie would
+come and spend a few weeks with them. She added that she would send
+Mr. van der Staal an invitation as well. The letter was addressed
+to the Via dei Serpenti and forwarded to Cornélie from there. She
+understood from this that Gilio had not mentioned that she was living
+in Duco's studio and she understood also that Urania accepted their
+liaison without criticizing it....
+
+The Banners had been dispatched to London; and, now that Duco was
+no longer working, a slight indolence and a vague boredom hung about
+the studio, which was still cool, while the town was scorching. And
+Cornélie wrote to Urania that she was very glad to accept and promised
+to come in a week's time. She was pleased that she would meet no
+other guests at the castle, for she had no dresses for a country-house
+visit. But with her usual tact she freshened up her wardrobe, without
+spending much money. This took up all the intervening days; and she
+sat sewing while Duco lay on the sofa and smoked cigarettes. He also
+had accepted, because of Cornélie and because the district around the
+Lake of San Stefano, which was overlooked by the castle, attracted
+him. He promised Cornélie with a smile not to be so stiff. He would
+do his best to make himself agreeable. He looked down rather haughtily
+on the prince. He considered him a scallywag, but no longer a bounder
+or a cad. He thought him childish, but not base or ignoble.
+
+Cornélie went off. He took her to the station. In the cab she kissed
+him fondly and told him how much she would miss him during those few
+days. Would he come soon? In a week? She would be longing for him:
+she could not do without him. She looked deep into his eyes, which
+she loved. He also said that he would be terribly bored without
+her. Couldn't he come earlier, she asked. No, Urania had fixed
+the date.
+
+When he helped her into a second-class compartment, she felt sad to
+be going without him. The carriage was full; she occupied the last
+vacant seat. She sat between a fat peasant and an old peasant-woman;
+the man civilly helped her to put her little portmanteau in the rack
+and asked whether she minded if he smoked his pipe. She civilly
+answered no. Opposite them sat two priests in frayed cassocks. An
+unimportant-looking little brown wooden box was lying between their
+feet: it was the supreme unction, which they were taking to a dying
+person.
+
+The peasant entered into conversation with Cornélie, asked if she was
+a foreigner: English, no doubt? The old peasant-woman offered her a
+tangerine orange.
+
+The remainder of the compartment was occupied by a middle-class family:
+father, mother, a small boy and two little sisters. The slow train
+shook, rattled and wound its way along, stopping constantly. The
+little girls kept on humming tunes. At one station a lady stepped
+out of a first-class carriage with a little girl of five, in a white
+frock and a hat with white ostrich-feathers.
+
+"Oh, che bellezza!" cried the small boy. "Mamma, mamma, look! Isn't
+she beautiful? Isn't she lovely? Divinamente! Oh ... mamma!"
+
+He closed his black eyes, lovelorn, dazzled by the little white
+girl of five. The parents laughed, the priests laughed, everybody
+laughed. But the boy was not at all confused:
+
+"Era una bellezza!" he repeated once more, casting a glance of
+conviction all around him.
+
+It was very hot in the train. Outside, the mountains gleamed white on
+the horizon and glittered like a fire with opal reflections. Close to
+the railway stood a row of eucalyptus-trees, sickle-leaved, brewing a
+heavy perfume. On the dry, sun-scorched plain, the wild cattle grazed,
+lifting their black curly heads with indifference to the train. In the
+stifling, stewing heat, the passengers' drowsy heads nodded up and
+down, while a smell of sweat, tobacco-smoke and orange-peel mingled
+with the scent of the eucalyptuses outside. The train swung round a
+curve, rattling like a toy-train of tin coaches almost tumbling over
+one another. And a level stretch of unruffled lazulite--metallic,
+crystalline, sky-blue--came into view, spreading into an oval goblet
+between slopes of mountain-land, like a very deep-set vase in which a
+sacred fluid was kept very blue and pure and motionless by a wall of
+rocky hills, which rose higher and higher until, as the train swung
+and rattled round the clear goblet, at one lofty point a castle
+stood, coloured like the rocks, broad, massive and monastic, with
+the cloisters running down the slope. It rose in noble and sombre
+melancholy; and from the train one could hardly distinguish what was
+rock and what was building-stone, as though it were all one barbaric
+growth, as though the castle had grown naturally out of the rock and,
+in growing, had assumed something of the shape of a human dwelling
+of the earliest times. And, as though the oval with its divine blue
+water had been a sacred reservoir, the mountains hedged in the Lake
+of San Stefano and the castle rose as its gloomy guardian.
+
+The train wound along a curve by the water-side, swung round a
+bend, then round another and stopped: San Stefano. It was a small,
+quiet town, lying sleepily in the sun, without life or traffic, and
+visited only in the winter by day-trippers, who came from Rome to
+see the cathedral and the castle and tasted the wine of the country
+at the osteria.
+
+When Cornélie alighted, she at once saw the prince.
+
+"How sweet of you to come and look us up in our eyrie!" he cried,
+in rapture, eagerly pressing her two hands.
+
+He led her through the station to his little basket-carriage, with
+two little horses and a tiny groom. A porter would bring her luggage
+to the castle.
+
+"It's delightful of you to come!" he repeated. "You have never been
+to San Stefano before? You know the cathedral is famous. We shall go
+right through the town: the road to the castle runs behind it."
+
+He was smiling with pleasure. He started the horses with a click of
+his tongue, with a repeated shake of the reins, like a child. They
+flew along the road, between the low, sleepy little houses, across
+the square, where in the glowing sunlight the glorious cathedral
+rose, Lombardo-Romanesque in style, begun in the eleventh and added
+to in every succeeding century, with the campanile on the left and
+the battisterio on the right: marvels of architecture in red, black
+and white marble, one vast sculpture of angels, saints and prophets
+and all as it were covered with a thick dust of ages, which had long
+since tempered the colours of the marble to rose, grey and yellow and
+which hovered between the groups as the one and only thing that had
+been left over of all those centuries, as though they had sunk into
+dust in every crevice.
+
+The prince drove across a long bridge, whose arches were the remains of
+an ancient aqueduct and now stood in the river, the bed of which was
+quite dried up, with children playing in it. Then he let the little
+horses climb at a foot's pace. The road led steeply, winding, barren
+and rocky, up to the castle, while valleys of olives sank beneath
+them, affording an ever wider view over the ever wider panorama of
+blue-white mountains and opal horizons gleaming in the sun, with
+suddenly a glimpse of the lake, the oval goblet, now sunk deeper and
+deeper, as in a fluted brim of sun-scorched hills, its blue growing
+deeper and more precipitous, a mystic blue that caught all the blue
+of the sky, until the air shimmered between lake and sky as in long
+spirals of light that whirled before the eyes. Until suddenly there
+drifted an intoxication of orange-blossom, a heavy, sensual breath
+as of panting love, as though thousands of mouths were exhaling a
+perfumed breath that hung stiflingly in the windless atmosphere of
+light, between the lake and the sky.
+
+The prince, happy and vivacious, talked a great deal, pointed this
+way and that with his whip, clicked at the horses, asked Cornélie
+questions, asked if she did not admire the landscape. Slowly, straining
+the muscles of their hind-legs, the horses drew the carriage up the
+ascent. The castle lay massive, huddling close to the ground. The
+lake sank lower and lower. The horizons became wider, like a world;
+a fitful breeze blew away some of the orange-blossom breath. The road
+became broad, easy and level. The castle lay extended like a fortress,
+like a town, behind its pinnacled walls, with gate within gate. They
+drove in, across a courtyard, under an archway into a second courtyard,
+under a second archway with a third courtyard. And Cornélie received
+a sensation of awe, a vision of pillars, arches, statues, arcades
+and fountains. They alighted.
+
+Urania ran out to meet her, embraced her, welcomed her affectionately
+and took her up the stairs and through the passages to her room. The
+windows were open; she looked out at the lake and the town and the
+cathedral. And Urania kissed her again and made her sit down. And
+Cornélie was struck by the fact that Urania had grown thin and had lost
+her former brilliant beauty of an American girl, with the unconscious
+look of a cocotte in her eyes, her smile and her clothes. She was
+changed. She had "gone off" a little and was no longer so pretty,
+as though her good looks had been a short-lived pretence, consisting
+of freshness rather than line. But, if she had lost her bloom, she
+had gained a certain distinction, a certain style, something that
+surprised Cornélie. Her gestures were quieter, her voice was softer,
+her mouth seemed smaller and was not always splitting open to display
+her white teeth; her dress was exceedingly simple: a blue skirt and a
+white blouse. Cornélie found it difficult to realize that the young
+Princess di Forte-Braccio, Duchess di San Stefano, was Miss Urania
+Hope of Chicago. A slight melancholy had come over her, which became
+her, even though she was less pretty. And Cornélie reflected that
+she must have some sorrow, which had smoothed her angles, but that
+she was also tactfully accommodating herself to her entirely novel
+environment. She asked Urania if she was happy. Urania said yes,
+with her sad smile, which was so new and so surprising. And she
+told her story. They had had a pleasant winter at Nice, but among
+a cosmopolitan circle of friends, for, though her new relations
+were very kind, they were exceedingly condescending and Virgilio's
+friends, especially the ladies, kept her at arm's length in an almost
+insolent fashion. Already during the honeymoon she had perceived
+that the aristocracy were prepared to tolerate her, but that they
+could never forget that she was the daughter of Hope the Chicago
+stockinet-manufacturer. She had seen that she was not the only one who,
+though she was now a princess and duchess, was accepted on sufferance
+and only for her millions: there were others like herself. She had
+formed no friendships. People came to her parties and dances: they
+were frère et compagnon and hand and glove with Gilio; the women
+called him by his Christian name, laughed and flirted with him and
+seemed quite to approve of him for marrying a few millions. To Urania
+they were just barely civil, especially the women: the men were not
+so difficult. But the whole thing saddened her, especially with all
+these women of the higher nobility--bearers of the most famous names
+in Italy--who treated her with condescension and always managed to
+exclude her from every intimacy, from all private gatherings, from all
+cooperation in the matter of parties or charities. When everything
+had been discussed, then they asked the Princess di Forte-Braccio
+to take part and offered her the place to which she was entitled
+and even did so with scrupulous punctiliousness. They manifestly
+treated her as a princess and an equal in the eyes of the world, of
+the public. But in their own set she remained Urania Hope. And the
+few other, middle-class millionaire elements of course ran after her,
+but she kept these at a distance; and Gilio approved. And what had
+Gilio said when she once complained of her grievance to him? That she,
+by displaying tactfulness, would certainly conquer her position, but
+with great patience and after many, many years. She was now crying,
+with her head on Cornélie's shoulder: oh, she reflected, she would
+never conquer them, those haughty women! What after all was she,
+a Hope, compared with all those celebrated families, which together
+made up the ancient glory of Italy and which, like the Massimos,
+traced back their descent to the Romans of old?
+
+Was Gilio kind? Yes, but from the beginning he had treated her as
+"his wife." All his pleasantness, all his cheerfulness was kept for
+others: he never talked to her much. And the young princess wept: she
+felt lonely, she sometimes longed for America. She had now invited her
+brother to stay with her, a nice boy of seventeen, who had come over
+for her wedding and travelled about Europe a little before returning
+to his farm in the Far West. He was her darling, he consoled her;
+but he would be gone in a few weeks. And then what would she have
+left? Oh, how glad she was that Cornélie had come! And how well she
+was looking, prettier than she had ever seen her look! Van der Staal
+had accepted: he would be here in a week. She asked, in a whisper,
+were they not going to get married? Cornélie answered positively no;
+she was not marrying, she would never marry again. And, in a sudden
+burst of candour, unable to conceal things from Urania, she told
+her that she was no longer living in the Via dei Serpenti, that she
+was living in Duco's studio. Urania was startled by this breach of
+every convention; but she regarded her friend as a woman who could
+do things which another could not. So it was only their happiness
+and friendship, she whispered, as though frightened, and without
+the sanction of society? Urania remembered Cornélie's imprecations
+against marriage and, formerly, against the prince. But she did like
+Gilio a little now, didn't she? Oh, she, Urania, would not be jealous
+again! She thought it delightful that Cornélie had come; and Gilio,
+who was bored, had also looked forward so to her arrival. Oh, no,
+Urania was no longer jealous!
+
+And, with her head on Cornélie's shoulder and her eyes still full
+of tears, she seemed merely to ask for a little friendship, a little
+affection, a few kind words and caresses, this wealthy American child
+who now bore the title of an ancient Italian house. And Cornélie
+felt for her because she was suffering, because she was no longer
+a small insignificant person, whose line of life happened to cross
+her own. She took her in her arms, comforted her, the weeping little
+princess, as with a new friendship; she accepted her in her life as a
+friend, no longer as a small insignificant person. And, when Urania,
+staring wide-eyed, remembered Cornélie's warning, Cornélie treated that
+warning lightly and said that Urania ought to show more courage. Tact,
+she possessed, innate tact. But she must be courageous and face life
+as it came....
+
+They stood up and, clasped in each other's arms, looked out of the
+open window. The bells of the cathedral were pealing through the air;
+the cathedral rose in noble pride from out of a very low huddle of
+roofs, a gigantic cathedral for so small a town, an immense symbol
+of ecclesiastical dominion over the roof-tops of the little town
+kneeling in reverence. And the awe which had filled Cornélie in the
+courtyard, among the arcades, statues and fountains, inspired her anew,
+because glory and grandeur, dying but not dead, mouldering but not
+spent, seemed to loom dimly from the mystic blue of the lake, from
+the age-old architecture of the cathedral, up the orange-clad hills
+to the castle, where at an open window stood a young foreign woman,
+discouraged, although that phantom of glory and grandeur needed her
+millions in order to endure for a few more generations....
+
+"It is beautiful and stately, all this past," thought Cornélie. "It
+is great. But still it is no longer anything. It is a phantom. For
+it is gone, it is all gone, it is but a memory of proud and arrogant
+nobles, of narrow souls that do not look towards the future."
+
+And the future, with a confusion of social problems, with the waving of
+new banners and streamers, now whirled before her in the long spirals
+of light, which, like blue notes of interrogation, shimmered before
+her eyes, between the lake and the sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+Cornélie had changed her dress and now left her room. She went down
+the corridor and saw nobody. She did not know the way, but walked
+on. Suddenly a wide staircase fell away before her, between two
+rows of gigantic marble candelabra; and Cornélie came to an atrio
+which opened over the lake. The walls, with frescoes by Mantegna,
+representing feats of bygone San Stefanos, supported a cupola which,
+painted with sky and clouds, appeared as though it were open to the
+outer air and which was surrounded by groups of cupids and nymphs
+looking down from a balustrade.
+
+She stepped outside and saw Gilio. He was sitting on the balustrade
+of the terrace, smoking a cigarette and gazing at the lake. He came
+up to her:
+
+"I was almost sure that you would come this way," he said. "Aren't
+you tired? May I show you round? Have you seen our Mantegnas? They
+have suffered badly. They were restored at the beginning of the
+century. [2] They look rather dilapidated, don't they? Do you see
+that little mythological scene up there, by Giulio Romano? Come here,
+through this door. But it's locked. Wait...."
+
+He called out an order to some one below. Presently an old serving-man
+arrived with a heavy bunch of keys, which he handed to the prince.
+
+"You can go, Egisto. I know the keys."
+
+The man went away. The prince opened a heavy bronze door. He showed
+her the bas-reliefs:
+
+"Giovanni da Bologna," he said.
+
+They went on, through a room hung with tapestries; the prince pointed
+to a ceiling by Ghirlandajo: the apotheosis of the only pope of
+the house of San Stefano. Next through a hall of mirrors, painted
+by Mario de' Flori. The dusty, musty smell of an ill-kept museum,
+with its atmosphere of neglect and indifference, stifled the breath;
+the white-silk window-curtains were yellow with age, soiled by flies;
+the red curtains of Venetian damask hung in moth-eaten rags and
+tatters; the painted mirrors were dull and tarnished; the arms of
+the Venetian glass chandeliers were broken. Pushed aside anyhow,
+like so much rubbish in a lumber-room, stood the most precious
+cabinets, inlaid with bronze, mother-of-pearl and ebony panels,
+and mosaic tables of lapis-lazuli, malachite and green, yellow,
+black and pink marble. In the tapestries--Saul and David, Esther,
+Holofernes, Salome--the vitality of the figures had evaporated,
+as though they were suffocated under the grey coat of dust that lay
+thick upon their worn textures and neutralized every colour.
+
+In the immense halls, half-dark in their curtained dusk, a sort of
+sorrow lingered, like a melancholy of hopeless, conquered exasperation,
+a slow decline of greatness and magnificence; between the masterpieces
+of the most famous painters mournful empty spaces yawned, the witnesses
+of pinching penury, spaces once occupied by pictures that had once
+and even lately been sold for fortunes. Cornélie remembered something
+about a law-suit some years ago, an attempt to send some Raphaels
+across the frontier, in defiance of the law, and to sell them in
+Berlin.... And Gilio led her hurriedly through the spectral halls,
+gay as a boy, light-hearted as a child, glad to have his diversion,
+mentioning without affection or interest names which he had heard in
+his childhood, but making mistakes and correcting himself and at last
+confessing that he had forgotten:
+
+"And here is the camera degli sposi...."
+
+He fumbled at the bunch of keys, read the brass labels till he found
+the right one and opened the door, which grated on its hinges; and
+they went in.
+
+And suddenly there was something like an intense and exquisite
+stateliness of intimacy: a huge bedroom, all gold, with the dim gold
+of tenderly faded golden tissues. On the walls were gold-coloured
+tapestries: Venus rising from the gilt foam of a golden ocean, Venus
+and Mars, Venus and Cupid, Venus and Adonis. The pale-pink nudity of
+these mythological beings stood forth very faintly against the sheer
+gold of sky and atmosphere, in golden woodlands, amid golden flowers,
+with golden cupids and swans and doves and wild boars; golden peacocks
+drank from golden fountains; water and clouds were of elemental gold;
+and all this had tenderly faded into a languorous sunset of expiring
+radiance. The state bed was gold, under a canopy of gold brocade, on
+which the armorial bearings of the family were embroidered in heavy
+relief; the bedspread was gold; but all this gold was lifeless, had
+lapsed into the melancholy of all but grey lustre: it was effaced,
+erased, obliterated, as though the dusty ages had cast a shadow over
+it, had woven a web across it.
+
+"How beautiful!" said Cornélie.
+
+"Our famous bridal chamber," said the prince, laughing. "It was a
+strange idea of those old people, to spend the first night in such
+a peculiar apartment. When they married, in our family, they slept
+here on the bridal night. It was a sort of superstition. The young
+wife remained faithful only provided it was here that she spent the
+first night with her husband. Poor Urania! We did not sleep here,
+signora mia, among all these indecent goddesses of love. We no longer
+respect the family tradition. Urania is therefore doomed by fate to
+be unfaithful to me. Unless I take that doom on my own shoulders...."
+
+"I suppose the fidelity of the husbands is not mentioned in this
+family tradition?"
+
+"No, we attached very little importance to that ... nor do we
+nowadays...."
+
+"It's glorious," Cornélie repeated, locking around her. "Duco will
+think it perfectly glorious. Oh, prince, I never saw such a room! Look
+at Venus over there, with the wounded Adonis, his head in her lap,
+the nymphs lamenting! It is a fairy-tale."
+
+"There's too much gold for my taste."
+
+"It may have been so before, too much gold...."
+
+"Masses of gold denoted wealth and abundant love. The wealth is
+gone...."
+
+"But the gold is softened now, so beautifully toned down...."
+
+"The abundant love has remained: the San Stefanos have always loved
+much."
+
+He went on jesting, called attention to the wantonness of the design
+and risked an allusion.
+
+She pretended not to hear. She looked at the tapestries. In the
+intervals between the panels golden peacocks drank from golden
+fountains and cupids played with doves.
+
+"I am so fond of you!" he whispered in her ear, putting his arm round
+her waist. "Angel! Angel!"
+
+She pushed him away:
+
+"Prince...."
+
+"Call me Gilio!"
+
+"Why can't we be just good friends?"
+
+"Because I want something more than friendship."
+
+She now released herself entirely:
+
+"And I don't!" she answered, coldly.
+
+"Do you only love one then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's not possible."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, if so, you would marry him. If you loved nobody but Van
+der Staal, you would marry him."
+
+"I am opposed to marriage."
+
+"Nonsense! You're not marrying him, so that you may be free. And, if
+you want to be free, I also am entitled to ask for my moment of love."
+
+She gave him a strange look. He felt her scorn.
+
+"You ... you don't understand me at all," she said, slowly and
+compassionately.
+
+"You understand me."
+
+"Oh, yes! You are so very simple!"
+
+"Why won't you?"
+
+"Because I won't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I haven't that feeling for you."
+
+"Why not?" he insisted; and his hands clenched as he spoke.
+
+"Why not?" she repeated. "Because I think you a cheerful and pleasant
+companion with whom to take things lightly, but in other respects
+your temperament is not in tune with mine."
+
+"What do you know about my temperament?"
+
+"I can see you."
+
+"You are not a doctor."
+
+"No, but I am a woman."
+
+"And I a man."
+
+"But not for me."
+
+Furiously, with a curse, he caught her in his quivering arms. Before
+she could prevent him, he had kissed her fiercely. She struggled out
+of his grasp and slapped his face. He gave another curse and flung
+out his arms to seize her again, but she drew herself up:
+
+"Prince!" she cried, screaming with laughter. "You surely don't think
+that you can compel me?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+She gave a disdainful laugh:
+
+"You can not," she said, aloud. "For I refuse and I will not be
+compelled."
+
+He saw red, he was furious. He had never before been defied and
+thwarted; he had always conquered.
+
+She saw him rushing at her, but she quietly flung back the door of
+the room.
+
+The long galleries and apartments stretched out before them, as
+though endlessly. There was something in that vista of ancestral
+spaciousness that restrained him. He was an impetuous rather than a
+deliberate ravisher. She walked on very slowly, looking attentively
+to right and left.
+
+He came up with her:
+
+"You struck me!" he panted, furiously. "I'll never forgive it, never!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said, with her sweetened voice and smile. "I
+had to defend myself, you know."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Prince," she said, persuasively, "why all this anger and passion and
+exasperation? You can be so nice; when I saw you last in Rome you
+were so charming. We were always such good friends. I enjoyed your
+conversation and your wit and your good-nature. Now it's all spoilt."
+
+"No," he entreated.
+
+"Yes, it is. You won't understand me. Your temperament is not in
+harmony with mine. Don't you understand? You force me to speak
+coarsely, because you are coarse yourself."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You don't believe in the sincerity of my independence."
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"Is that courteous, towards a woman?"
+
+"I am courteous only up to a certain point."
+
+"We have left that point behind. So be courteous again as before."
+
+"You are playing with me. I shall never forget it; I will be revenged."
+
+"So it's a struggle for life and death?"
+
+"No, a struggle for victory, for me."
+
+They had reached the atrio:
+
+"Thanks for showing me round," she said, a little mockingly. "The
+camera degli sposi, above all, was splendid. Don't let us be angry
+any more."
+
+And she offered him her hand.
+
+"No," he said, "you struck me here, in the face. My cheek is still
+burning. I won't accept your hand."
+
+"Poor cheek!" she said, teasingly. "Poor prince! Did I hit hard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How can I extinguish that burning?"
+
+He looked at her, still breathing hard, and flushed, with glittering
+carbuncle eyes:
+
+"You're a bigger coquette than any Italian woman."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"With a kiss?" she asked.
+
+"Demon!" he muttered, between his teeth.
+
+"With a kiss?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes," he said. "There, in our camera degli sposi."
+
+"No, here."
+
+"Demon!" he muttered, still more softly.
+
+She kissed him quickly. Then she gave him her hand:
+
+"And now that's over. The incident is closed."
+
+"Angel! She-devil!" he hissed after her.
+
+She looked over the balustrade at the lake. Evening had fallen and
+the lake lay shimmering in mist. She regarded him as a young boy,
+who sometimes amused her and had now been naughty. She was no longer
+thinking of him; she was thinking of Duco:
+
+"How lovely he will think it here!" she thought. "Oh, how I long
+for him!..."
+
+There was a rustle of women's skirts behind her. It was Urania and
+the Marchesa Belloni.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Urania asked Cornélie to come in, because it was not healthy out of
+doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations from the lake. The
+marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinched her eyes together and
+pretended not to remember Cornélie very well.
+
+"I can understand that," said Cornélie, smiling acidly. "You see
+different boarders at your pension every day and I stayed for a much
+shorter time than you reckoned on. I hope that you soon disposed
+of my rooms again, marchesa, and that you suffered no loss through
+my departure?"
+
+The Marchesa Belloni looked at her in mute amazement. She was here,
+at San Stefano, in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law
+of the old prince, never spoke here of her foreigners' boarding-house;
+she never met her Roman guests here: they sometimes visited the castle,
+but only at fixed hours, whereas she spent the weeks of her summer
+villeggiatura here. And here she laid aside her plausible manner
+of singing the praises of a chilly room, her commercial habit of
+asking the most that she dared. She here carried her curled, leonine
+head with a lofty dignity; and, though she still wore her crystal
+brilliants in her ears, she also wore a brand-new spencer around her
+ample bosom. She could not help it, that she, a countess by birth,
+she, the Marchesa Belloni--the late marquis was a brother of the
+defunct princess--possessed no personal distinction, despite all
+her quarterings; but she felt herself to be, as indeed she was, an
+aristocrat. The friends, the monsignori whom she did sometimes meet
+at San Stefano, promoted the Pension Belloni in their conversation
+and called it the Palazzo Belloni.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, at last, very coolly, blinking her eyes with
+an aristocratic air, "I remember you now ... although I've forgotten
+your name. A friend of the Princess Urania, I believe? I am glad to
+see you again, very glad.... And what do you think of your friend's
+marriage?" she asked, as she went up the stairs beside Cornélie,
+between Mino da Fiesole's marble candelabra.
+
+Gilio, still angry and flushed and not at all calmed by the kiss, had
+moved away. Urania had run on ahead. The marchesa knew of Cornélie's
+original opposition, of her former advice to Urania; and she was
+certain that Cornélie had acted in this way because she herself had had
+views on Gilio. There was a note of triumphant irony in her question.
+
+"I think it was made in Heaven," Cornélie replied, in a bantering
+tone. "I believe there is a blessing on their marriage."
+
+"The blessing of his holiness," said the marchesa, naïvely, not
+understanding.
+
+"Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of Heaven."
+
+"I thought you were not religious?"
+
+"Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very
+religious. What peace for the Princess Urania's soul when she became
+a Catholic! What happiness in life, to marry il caro Gilio! There is
+still peace and happiness left in life."
+
+The marchesa had a vague suspicion that she was mocking and thought
+her a dangerous woman.
+
+"And you, has our religion no charm for you?"
+
+"A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches and
+pictures. But that is an artistic conception. You will not understand
+it perhaps, for I don't think you are artistic, marchesa? And
+marriage also has charms for me, a marriage like Urania's. Couldn't
+you help me too some time, marchesa? Then I will spend a whole
+winter in your pension and--who knows?--perhaps I too shall become
+a Catholic. You might give Rudyard another chance, with me; and,
+if that didn't succeed, the two monsignori. Then I should certainly
+become converted.... And it would of course be lucrative."
+
+The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage:
+
+"Lucrative?..."
+
+"If you get me an Italian title, but accompanied by money, of course
+it would be lucrative."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, ask the old prince, marchesa, or the two monsignori."
+
+"What do you know about it? What are you thinking of?"
+
+"I? Nothing!" Cornélie answered, coolly. "But I have second sight. I
+sometimes suddenly see a thing. So keep on friendly terms with me and
+don't pretend again to forget an old boarder.... Is this the Princess
+Urania's room? You go in first, marchesa; after you...."
+
+The marchesa entered all aquiver: she had thoughts of witchcraft. How
+did that woman know anything of her transactions with the old prince
+and the monsignori? How did she come to suspect that Urania's marriage
+and her conversion had enriched the marchesa to the tune of a few
+ten thousand lire?
+
+She had not only had a lesson: she was shuddering, she was
+frightened. Was that woman a witch? Was she the devil? Had she the
+mal'occhio? And the marchesa made the sign of the jettatura with her
+little finger and fore-finger in the folds of her dress and muttered:
+
+"Vade retro, Satanas...."
+
+In her own drawing-room, Urania poured out tea. The three pointed
+windows of the room overlooked the town and the ancient cathedral,
+which in the orange reflection of the last gleams of sunset shot up
+for yet a moment out of its grey dust of ages with the dim huddle
+of its saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with handsome
+tapestries--an allegory of Abundance: nymphs outpouring the contents
+of their cornucopias--was half old, half modern, not always perfect in
+taste or pure in tone, with here and there a few hideously commonplace
+modern ornaments, here and there some modern comfort that clashed
+with the rest, but still cosy, inhabited and Urania's home. A
+young man rose from a chair and Urania introduced him to Cornélie
+as her brother. Young Hope was a strongly-built, fresh-looking boy
+of eighteen; he was still in his bicycling-suit: it didn't matter,
+said his sister, just to drink a cup of tea. Laughing, she stroked
+his close-clipped round head and, with the ladies' permission,
+gave him his tea first: then he would go and change. He looked so
+strange, so new and so healthy as he sat there with his fresh, pink
+complexion, his broad chest, his strong hands and muscular calves,
+with the youthfulness of a young Yankee farmer who, notwithstanding
+the millions of "old man Hope," worked on his farm, way out in the Far
+West, to make his own fortune; he looked so strange in this ancient
+San Stefano, within view of that severely symbolical cathedral,
+against this background of old tapestries. And suddenly Cornélie
+was impressed still more strangely by the new young princess. Her
+name--her American name of Urania--had a first-rate sound: "the
+Princess Urania" sounded unexpectedly well. But the little young wife,
+a trifle pale, a trifle sad, with her clipping American accent,
+suddenly struck Cornélie as somewhat out of place amid the faded
+glories of San Stefano. Cornélie was continually forgetting that
+Urania was Princess di Forte-Braccio: she always thought of her
+as Miss Hope. And yet Urania possessed great tact, great ease of
+manner, a great power of assimilation. Gilio had entered; and the
+few words which she addressed to her husband were, quite naturally,
+almost dignified ... and yet carried, to Cornélie's ears, a sound
+of resigned disillusionment which made her pity Urania. She had from
+the beginning felt a vague liking for Urania; now she felt a fonder
+affection. She was sorry for this child, the Princess Urania. Gilio
+behaved to her with careless coolness, the marchesa with patronizing
+condescension. And then there was that awful loneliness around her, of
+all that ruined magnificence. She stroked her young brother's head. She
+spoilt him, she asked him if his tea was all right and stuffed him
+with sandwiches, because he was hungry after his bicycle-ride. She
+had him with her now as a reminder of home, a reminder of Chicago;
+she almost clung to him. But for the rest she was surrounded by the
+depressing gloom of the immense castle, the neglected glory of its
+ancient stateliness, the conceit of that aristocratic pride, which
+could do without her but not without her millions. And for Cornélie
+she had lost all her absurdity as an American parvenue and, on the
+contrary, had acquired an air of tragedy, as of a young sacrificial
+victim. How alien they were as they sat there, the young princess
+and her brother, with his muscular calves!
+
+Urania displayed her portfolio of drawings and designs: the ideas
+of a young Roman architect for restoring the castle. And she became
+excited, with a flush in her cheeks, when Cornélie asked her if
+so much restoration would really be beautiful. Urania defended her
+architect. Gilio smoked cigarettes with an air of indifference; he was
+in a bad temper. The marchesa sat like an idol, with her leonine head
+and the crystals sparkling in her ears. She was afraid of Cornélie and
+promised herself to be on her guard. A major-domo came and announced
+to the princess that dinner was served. And Cornélie recognized old
+Giuseppe from the Pension Belloni, the old archducal major-domo, who
+had once dropped a spoon, according to Rudyard's story. She looked
+at Urania with a laugh and Urania blushed:
+
+"Poor man!" she said, when Giuseppe was gone. "Yes, I took him over
+from my aunt. He was so hard-worked at the Palazzo Belloni! Here
+he has very little to do and he has a young butler under him. The
+number of servants had to be increased in any case. He is enjoying
+a pleasant old age here, poor dear old Giuseppe.... There, Bob,
+now you haven't dressed!"
+
+"She's a dear child," thought Cornélie, while they all rose and
+Urania gently reproached her brother, as she would a spoiled boy,
+for coming down to dinner in his knickerbockers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+They were in the great sombre dining-room, with the almost black
+tapestries, with the almost black panels of the ceiling, with the
+almost black oak carvings, with the black, monumental chimney-piece
+and, above it, the arms of the family in black marble. The light of
+two tall silver candle-sticks on the table merely cast a gleam over
+the damask and crystal, but left the remainder of the too large room
+in a gloomy obscurity of shadow, piled in the corners into masses of
+densest shadow, with a fainter shadow descending from the ceiling like
+a haze of dark velvet that floated in atoms above the candlelight. The
+ancestral antiquity of San Stefano hovered above them in this room
+like a palpable sense of awe, blended with a melancholy of black
+silence and black pride. Here their words sounded muffled. This
+still remained as it always had been, retaining as it were the
+sacrosanctity of their aristocratic traditions, in which Urania
+would never dare to alter anything, even as she hardly ventured to
+open her mouth to speak or eat. They waited for a moment. Then a
+double door was opened. And there entered like a spectral shade an
+old, grey man, with his arm in the arm of the priest walking beside
+him. Old Prince Ercole approached with very slow and stately steps,
+while the chaplain regulated his pace by that stately slowness. He
+wore a long black coat of an old-fashioned, roomy cut, which hung
+about him in folds, something like a cassock, and on his silvery grey
+hair, which waved over his neck, a black-velvet skull-cap. And the
+others approached him with the greatest respect: first the marchesa;
+then Urania, whom he kissed on the forehead, very slowly, as though
+he were consecrating her; then Gilio, who submissively kissed his
+father's hand. The old man nodded to young Hope, who bowed, and
+glanced towards Cornélie. Urania presented her. And the prince said
+a few amiable words to her, as though he were granting an audience,
+and asked her if she liked Italy. When Cornélie had replied, Prince
+Ercole sat down and handed his skull-cap to Giuseppe, who took it with
+a deep bow. Then they all sat down: the marchesa and the chaplain
+opposite Prince Ercole, who sat between Cornélie and Urania; Gilio
+next to Cornélie; Bob Hope next to his sister:
+
+"My legs don't show," he whispered.
+
+"Ssh!" said Urania.
+
+Giuseppe, revivified in his former dignity, standing at a sideboard,
+solemnly filled the plates with soup. He was back in his element; he
+was obviously grateful to Urania; he wore a distinguished air, as of
+one whose mind is at peace, and looked like an elderly diplomatist in
+his dress-coat. He amused Cornélie, who thought of Belloni's, where
+he used to become impatient when the visitors were late at meals and
+to rail at the young greenhorns of waiters whom the marchesa engaged
+for economy's sake. When the two footmen had handed round the soup,
+the chaplain stood up and said grace. Not a word had been spoken
+yet. They ate the soup in silence, while the three servants stood
+motionless. The spoons clinked against the plates and the marchesa
+smacked her lips. The candles flickered now and again; and the shadow
+fell more oppressively, like a haze of black velvet. Then Prince Ercole
+addressed the marchesa. And turn by turn he addressed them all, with a
+kindly, condescending dignity, in French and Italian. The conversation
+became a little more general, but the old prince continued to lead
+it. And Cornélie noticed that he was very civil to Urania. But she
+remembered Gilio's words:
+
+"Papa nearly had a stroke, because old Hope haggled over Urania's
+dowry. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Dollars? No,
+lire!"
+
+And the prince suddenly struck her as the grey-haired egoism of San
+Stefano's glory and aristocratic pride, struck her as the living
+shade of the past that loomed behind him, as she had felt it that
+afternoon, when she stood gazing with Urania into the deep, blue lake:
+an exacting shade; a shade demanding millions; a shade demanding a new
+increment of vitality; a spectral parasite who had sold his depreciated
+symbols to gratify the vanity of a new commercial house, but who, in
+his distinction, had been no match for the merchant's cunning. Their
+title of princess and duchess for less than three million lire! Papa
+had almost had a stroke, Gilio had said. And Cornélie, during the
+measured, affable stiffness of the conversation led by Prince Ercole,
+looked from the old prince and duke, seventy years of age, to the
+breezy young Far-Westerner, aged eighteen, and from him to Prince
+Gilio, the hope of the old house, its only hope. Here, in the gloom of
+this dining-room, where he was bored and moreover still out of temper,
+he seemed small, insignificant, shrunken, a paltry, distinguished
+little viveur; and his carbuncle eyes, which could sparkle merrily
+with wit and depravity, now looked dully, from under their drooping
+lids, upon his plate, at which he picked without appetite.
+
+She felt sorry for him; and her mind went back to the golden bridal
+chamber. She despised him a little. She looked upon him not so much
+as a man who could not obtain what he wanted but rather as a naughty
+boy. And he must feel jealous of Bob, she reflected: jealous of his
+young blood, which tingled in his cheeks, of his broad shoulders and
+his broad chest. But still he amused her. He could be very agreeable,
+gay and witty and vivacious, when in the mood, vivacious in his words
+and in his wits. She liked him, when all was said. And then he was
+good-hearted. She thought of the bracelet and especially the thousand
+lire, always remembered, with a certain emotion, how touched she had
+been during that walk up and down past the post-office, how touched
+by his letter and his generous assistance. He had no backbone, he was
+not a man to her; but he was witty and he had a very good heart. She
+liked him as a friend and a pleasant companion. How dejected and moody
+he was! But then why would he venture on those silly enterprises?...
+
+She spoke to him now and again, but could not succeed in rousing
+him from his depression. For the rest, the conversation dragged on
+stiffly and affably, always led by Prince Ercole. The dinner came to
+an end; and Prince Ercole rose from his chair. Giuseppe handed him his
+skull-cap; every one said good-night to him; the doors were opened
+and Prince Ercole withdrew, leaning on his chaplain's arm. Gilio,
+still angry, disappeared. The marchesa, still terrified of Cornélie,
+also disappeared, making the jettatura at her in the folds of her
+dress. And Urania took Cornélie and Bob back with her to her own
+drawing-room. They all three breathed again. They all talked freely, in
+English: the boy said in despair that he wasn't getting enough to eat,
+that he dared not eat enough to stay his hunger; and Cornélie laughed,
+thinking him jolly, because of his wholesomeness, while Urania hunted
+out some biscuits for him and a piece of cake left over from tea and
+promised that he should have some cold meat and bread before they
+went to bed. And they relaxed their minds after the pompous, stately
+meal. Urania said that the old prince never appeared except at dinner,
+but that she always looked him up in the morning and sat talking to
+him for an hour or playing chess with him. At other times he played
+chess with the chaplain. She was very busy, Urania. The reorganizing
+of the housekeeping, which used to be left to a poor relation, who
+now lived at a pension in Rome, took up a lot of her time. In the
+mornings, she discussed a host of details with Prince Ercole, who,
+notwithstanding his secluded life, knew about everything. Then she
+had consultations with her architect from Rome about the restorations
+to be effected in the castle: these consultations were sometimes held
+in the old prince's study. Then she was having a big hostel built in
+the town, an albergo dei poveri, a hostel for old men and women, for
+which old Hope had given her a separate endowment. When she first came
+to San Stefano she had been struck by the ruinous, tumbledown houses
+and cottages of the poorer quarters, leprous and scabby with filth,
+eaten up by their own poverty, in which a whole population vegetated
+like toadstools. She was now building the hostel for the old people,
+finding work on the estate for the young and healthy and looking after
+the neglected children; she had built a new school-house. She talked
+about all this very simply, while cutting cake for her brother Bob,
+who was tucking in after his formal dinner. She asked Cornélie to
+come with her one morning to see how the albergo was progressing,
+to see the new school, run by two priests who had been recommended
+to her by the monsignori.
+
+Through the pointed windows the town loomed faintly in the depths
+below; and the lines of the cathedral rose high into the sultry,
+star-spangled night. And Cornélie thought to herself:
+
+"It was not only for a shadow and an unsubstantial shade that she came
+here, the rich American who thought titles 'so nice,' the child who
+used to collect patterns of the queen's ball-dresses--she hides the
+album now that she is a 'black' princess--the girl who used to trip
+through the Forum in her white-serge tailor-made, without understanding
+either ancient Rome or the dawn of the new future."
+
+And, as Cornélie went to her own room through the silent heavy darkness
+of the Castle of San Stefano, she thought:
+
+"I write, but she acts. I dream and think; but she teaches the
+children, though it be with the aid of a priest; she feeds and houses
+old men and women."
+
+Then, in her room, looking out at the lake under the summer night
+all dusted with stars, she reflected that she too would like to be
+rich and to have a wide field of labour. For now she had no field,
+now she had no money and now ... now she longed only for Duco; and he
+must not leave her too long alone in this castle, amid all this sombre
+greatness, which oppressed her as with the weight of the centuries.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Next morning Urania's maid was showing Cornélie through a maze of
+galleries to the garden, where breakfast was to be served, when she
+met Gilio on the stairs. The maid turned back.
+
+"I still need a guide to find my way," Cornélie laughed.
+
+He grunted some reply.
+
+"How did you sleep, prince?"
+
+He gave another grunt.
+
+"Look here, prince, there must be an end of this ill-temper of
+yours. Do you hear? It's got to finish. I insist. I won't have any
+more sulking to-day; and I hope that you'll go back to your cheerful,
+witty style of conversation as soon as possible, for that's what I
+like in you."
+
+He mumbled something.
+
+"Good-bye, prince," said Cornélie, curtly.
+
+And she turned to go away.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked.
+
+"To my room. I shall breakfast in my room."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I don't care for you as a host."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, you. Yesterday you insult me. I defend myself, you go on being
+rude, I at once become as amiable as ever, I give you my hand, I
+even give you a kiss. At dinner you sulk with me in the most uncivil
+fashion. You go to bed without bidding me good-night. This morning you
+meet me without a word of greeting. You grunt, sulk and mumble like
+a naughty child. Your eyes are blazing with anger, you are yellow
+with spleen. Really, you're looking very bad. It doesn't suit you
+at all. You are most unpleasant, rough, rude and petty. I have no
+inclination to breakfast with you in that mood. And I'm going to
+my room."
+
+"No," he implored.
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Then be different. Make an effort, don't think any more about your
+defeat and be nice to me. You're behaving as the offended party,
+whereas it is I who ought to take offence. But I don't know how
+to sulk and I am not petty. I can't behave pettily. I forgive you;
+do you forgive me too. Say something nice, say something pleasant."
+
+"I am mad about you."
+
+"You don't show it. If you're mad about me, be pleasant, civil,
+gay and witty. I demand it of you as my host."
+
+"I won't sulk any longer ... but I do love you so! And you struck me!"
+
+"Will you never forget that act of self-defence?"
+
+"No, never!"
+
+"Then good-bye."
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"No, no, don't go back. Come to breakfast in the pergola. I apologize,
+I beg your pardon. I won't be rude again, I won't be petty. You are
+not petty. You are the most wonderful woman I ever met. I worship you."
+
+"Then worship in silence and amuse me."
+
+His eyes, his black carbuncle eyes, began to light up again, to laugh;
+his face lost its wrinkles and cheered up.
+
+"I am too sad to be amusing."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"Honestly, I am full of sorrow and suffering...."
+
+"Poor prince!"
+
+"You just won't believe me. You never take me seriously. I have to
+be your clown, your buffoon. And I love you and have nothing to hope
+for. Tell me, mayn't I hope?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"You are inexorable ... and so severe!"
+
+"I have to be severe with you: you are just like a naughty boy.... Oh,
+I see the pergola! Do you promise to improve?"
+
+"I shall be good."
+
+"And amusing?"
+
+He heaved a sigh:
+
+"Poor Gilio!" he sighed. "Poor buffoon!"
+
+She laughed. In the pergola were Urania and Bob Hope. The pergola,
+overgrown with creeping vine and rambler roses hanging in crimson
+clusters, displayed a row of marble caryatides and hermes--nymphs,
+satyrs and fauns--whose torsos ended in slender, sculptured pedestals,
+while their raised hands supported the flat roof of leaves and
+flowers. In the middle was an open rotunda like an open temple;
+the circular balustrade was also supported by caryatides; and an
+ancient sarcophagus had been adapted to serve as a cistern. A table
+was laid for breakfast in the pergola; and they breakfasted without
+old Prince Ercole or the marchesa, who broke her fast in her room. It
+was eight o'clock; a morning coolness was still wafted from the lake;
+a haze of blue gossamer floated over the hills, in the heart of which,
+as though surrounded by a gently fluted basin, the lake was sunk like
+an oval goblet.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful it is here!" cried Cornélie, delightedly.
+
+Breakfast was a sunny and cheerful meal, after yesterday's dark and
+gloomy dinner. Urania talked vivaciously about her albergo, which
+she was going to visit presently with Cornélie, Gilio recovered his
+amiability and Bob ate heartily. And, when Bob went off bicycling,
+Gilio even accompanied the ladies to the town. They drove at a
+foot-pace in a landau down the castle road. The sun grew hotter and
+the little old town lit up, with whitish-grey and creamy-white houses
+like stone mirrors, in which the sun reflected itself, and little open
+spaces like walls, into which the sun poured its light. The coachman
+pulled up outside the partly-finished albergo. They all alighted;
+the contractor approached ceremoniously; the perspiring masons looked
+round at the prince and princess. The heat was stifling. Gilio kept
+on wiping his forehead and sheltered under Cornélie's parasol. But
+Urania was all vivacity and interest; quick and full of energy
+in her white-piqué costume, with her white sailor-hat under her
+white sun-shade, she tripped along planks, past heaps of bricks and
+cement and tubs full of mortar, accompanied by her contractor. She
+made him explain things, proffered advice, disagreed with him at
+times and pulled a wise face, saying that she did not like certain
+measurements and refused to accept the contractor's assurance that
+she would like the measurements as the building progressed; she shook
+her head and impressed this and that upon him, all in a quick, none
+too correct, broken Italian, which she chewed between her teeth. But
+Cornélie thought her charming, attractive, every inch the Princess di
+Forte-Braccio. There was not a doubt about it. While Gilio, fearful
+of dirtying his light flannel suit and brown shoes with the mortar,
+remained in the shadow of her parasol, puffing and blowing with the
+heat and taking no interest whatever, his wife was untiring, did not
+trouble to think that her white skirt was becoming soiled at the hem
+and spoke to the contractor with a lively and dignified certainty
+which compelled respect. Where had the child learnt that? Where
+had she acquired her powers of assimilation? Where did she get this
+love for San Stefano, this love for its poor? How had the American
+girl picked up this talent for filling her new and exalted position
+so worthily? Gilio thought her admirabile and whispered as much to
+Cornélie. He was not blind to her good qualities. He thought Urania
+splendid, excellent; she always astounded him. No Italian woman of his
+own set would have been like that. And they liked her. The servants
+at the castle loved her. Giuseppe would have gone through fire and
+water for her; that contractor admired her; the masons followed her
+respectfully with their eyes, because she was so clever and knew so
+much and was so good to them in their poverty.
+
+"Admirabile!" said Gilio.
+
+But he puffed and blowed. He knew nothing about bricks, beams
+and measurements and did not understand where Urania had got that
+technical sense from. She was indefatigable. She went all over the
+works, while he cast up his eyes to Cornélie in entreaty. And at
+last, speaking in English, he begged his wife in Heaven's name to come
+away. They went back to the carriage; the contractor took off his hat,
+the workmen raised their caps with an air of mingled gratitude and
+independence. And they drove to the cathedral, which Cornélie wanted
+to see. Urania showed her round. Gilio asked to be excused and went
+and sat on the steps of the altar, with his hands hanging over his
+knees, to cool himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+A week had passed. Duco had arrived. After the solemn dinner in
+the gloomy dining-room, where Duco had been presented to Prince
+Ercole, the summer evening, when Cornélie and Duco went outside,
+was like a dream. The castle was already wrapped in heavy repose;
+but Cornélie had made Giuseppe give her a key. And they went out,
+to the pergola. The stars dusted the night sky with a pale radiance;
+and the moon crowned the hill-tops and shimmered faintly in the mystic
+depths of the lake. A breath of sleeping roses was wafted from the
+flower-garden beyond the pergola; and below, in the flat-roofed town,
+the cathedral, standing in its moonlit square, lifted its gigantic
+fabric to the stars. And sleep hung everywhere, over the lake, over
+the town and behind the windows of the castle; the caryatides and
+hermes--the satyrs and nymphs--slept, as they bore the leafy roof
+of the pergola, in the enchanted attitudes of the servants of the
+Sleeping Beauty. A cricket chirped, but fell silent the moment that
+Duco and Cornélie approached. And they sat down on an antique bench;
+and she flung her arms about his body and nestled against him:
+
+"A week!" she whispered. "A whole week since I saw you, Duco,
+my darling. I cannot do so long without you. At everything that I
+thought and saw and admired I thought of you, of how lovely you would
+think it here. You have been here once before on an excursion. Oh,
+but that is so different! It is so beautiful just to stay here,
+not just to go on, but to remain. That lake, that cathedral, those
+hills! The rooms indoors: neglected but so wonderful! The three
+courtyards are dilapidated, the fountains are crumbling to pieces
+... but the style of the atrio, the sombre gloom of the dining-room,
+the poetry of this pergola!... Duco, doesn't the pergola remind you
+of a classic ode? You know how we used to read Horace together: you
+translated the verses so well, you improvised so delightfully. How
+clever you are! You know so much, you feel things so beautifully. I
+love your eyes, your voice, I love you altogether, I love everything
+that is you ... I can't tell you how much, Duco. I have gradually
+surrendered myself to every word of you, to every sensation of you, to
+your love for Rome, to your love for museums, to your manner of seeing
+the skies which you put into your drawings. You are so deliriously
+calm, almost like this lake. Oh, don't laugh, don't make a jest of it:
+it's a week since I saw you, I feel such a need to talk to you! Is it
+exaggerated? I don't feel quite normal here either: there is something
+in that sky, in that light, that makes me talk like this. It is so
+beautiful that I can hardly believe that all this is ordinary life,
+ordinary reality.... Do you remember, at Sorrento, on the terrace of
+the hotel, when we looked out over the sea, over that pearl-grey sea,
+with Naples lying white in the distance? I felt like this then; but
+then I dared not speak like this: it was in the morning; there were
+people about, whom we didn't see but who saw us and whom I suspected
+all around me; but now we are alone and now I want to tell you, in
+your arms, against your breast, how happy I am! I love you so! All my
+soul, all that is finest in me is for you. You laugh, but you don't
+believe me. Or do you? Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes, I believe you, I am not laughing at you, I am only just
+laughing.... Yes, it is beautiful here.... I also feel happy. I am
+so happy in you and in my art. You taught me to work, you roused me
+from my dreams. I am so happy about The Banners: I have heard from
+London; I will show you the letters to-morrow. I have you to thank for
+everything. It is almost incredible that this is ordinary life. I have
+been so quiet too in Rome. I saw nobody; I just worked a bit, not very
+much; and I had my meals alone in the osteria. The two Italians--you
+know the men I mean--felt sorry for me, I think. Oh, it was a terrible
+week! I can no longer do without you.... Do you remember our first
+walks and talks in the Borghese and on the Palatine? How strange we
+were to each other then, not a bit in unison. But I believe I felt
+at once that all would be well and beautiful between us...."
+
+She was silent and lay against his breast. The cricket chirped again,
+with a long quaver. But everything else slept....
+
+"Between us," she repeated, as though in a fever; and she embraced
+him passionately.
+
+The whole night slept; and, while they breathed their life in each
+other's arms, the enchanted caryatides--fauns and nymphs--lifted the
+leafy roof of the pergola above their heads, between them and the
+star-spangled sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+Gilio hated the villeggiatura at San Stefano. Every morning he had
+to be up and dressed by six o'clock, with Prince Ercole, Urania
+and the marchesa, to hear mass said by the chaplain in the private
+chapel of the castle. After that, he did not know what to do with
+his time. He had gone bicycling once or twice with Bob Hope, but the
+young Far-Westerner had too much energy for him, like Bob's sister,
+Urania. He flirted and argued a little with Cornélie, but secretly he
+was still offended and angry with himself and her. He remembered her
+first arrival that evening at the Palazzo Ruspoli, when she came and
+disturbed his rendez-vous with Urania. And in the camera degli sposi
+she had for the second time been too much for him! He seethed with fury
+when he thought of it and he hated her and swore by all his gods to be
+revenged. He cursed his own lack of resolution. He had been too weak
+to use violence or force and there ought never to have been any need
+to resort to force: he was accustomed to a quick surrender. And he
+had to be told by her, that Dutchwoman, that his temperament did not
+respond to hers! What was there about that woman? What did she mean
+by it? He was so unaccustomed to thinking, he was such a thoughtless,
+easy-going, Italian child of nature, so accustomed to let his life run
+on according to his every whim and impulse, that he hardly understood
+her--though he suspected the meaning of her words--hardly understood
+that reserve of hers. Why should she behave so to him, this foreigner
+with her demoniacal new ideas, who cared nothing about the world,
+who would have nothing to do with marriage, who lived with a painter
+as his mistress! She had no religion and no morals--he knew about
+religion and morals--she belonged to the devil; demoniacal was what she
+was: didn't she know all about Aunt Lucia Belloni's manoeuvres? And
+hadn't Aunt Lucia warned him lately that she was a dangerous woman,
+an uncanny woman, a woman of the devil? She was a witch! Why should
+she refuse? Hadn't he plainly seen her figure last night going through
+the courtyard in the moonlight, beside Van der Staal's figure, and
+hadn't he seen them opening the door that led to the terrace by the
+pergola? And hadn't he waited an hour, two hours, without sleeping,
+until he saw them come back and lock the door after them? And why
+did she love only him, that painter? Oh, he hated him, with all the
+blazing hatred of his jealousy; he hated her, for her exclusiveness,
+for her disdain, for all her jesting and flirting, as though he were
+a buffoon, a clown! What was it that he asked? A favour of love, such
+as she granted her lover! He was not asking for anything serious,
+any oath or lifelong tie; he asked for so little: just one hour of
+love. It was of no importance: he had never looked upon that as of much
+importance. And she, she refused it to him! No, he did not understand
+her, but what he did understand was that she disdained him; and he,
+he hated the pair of them. And yet he was enamoured of her with all the
+violence of his thwarted passion. In the boredom of that villeggiatura,
+to which his wife forced him in her new love for their ruined eyrie,
+his hatred and the thought of his revenge formed an occupation for
+his empty brains. Outwardly he was the same as usual and flirted with
+Cornélie, flirted even more than usual, to annoy Van der Staal. And,
+when his cousin, the Countess di Rosavilla--his "white" cousin, the
+lady-in-waiting to the queen--came to spend a few days with them,
+he flirted with her too and tried to provoke Cornélie's jealousy. He
+failed in this, however, and consoled himself with the countess,
+who made up to him for his disappointment. She was no longer a young
+woman, but represented the cold, sculptured Juno type, with a rather
+foolish expression; she had Juno eyes, protruding from their sockets;
+she was a leader of fashion at the Quirinal and in the "white"
+world; and her reputation for gallantry was generally known. She
+had never had a liaison with Gilio that lasted for longer than an
+hour. She had very simple ideas on love, without much variety. Her
+light-hearted depravity amused Gilio. And, flirting in the corners,
+with his foot on hers under her skirt, Gilio told her about Cornélie,
+about Duco and about the adventure in the camera degli sposi and asked
+his cousin whether she understood. No, the Countess di Rosavilla did
+not understand it any too well either. Temperament? Oh, yes, perhaps
+she--questa Cornelia--preferred fair men to dark: there were women
+who had a preference! And Gilio laughed. It was so simple, l'amore;
+there wasn't very much to be said about it.
+
+Cornélie was glad that Gilio had the countess to amuse him. She and
+Duco interested themselves in Urania's plans; Duco had long talks with
+the architect. And he was indignant and advised them not to rebuild
+so much in that undistinguished restoration manner: it was lacking
+in style, cost heaps of money and spoilt everything.
+
+Urania was disconcerted, but Duco went on, interrupted the architect,
+advised him to build up only what was actually falling to pieces, and,
+so far as possible, to confine himself to underpinning, reinforcing
+and preserving. And one morning Prince Ercole deigned to walk through
+the long rooms with Duco, Urania and Cornélie. There was a great deal
+to be done, Duco considered, by merely repairing and artistically
+arranging what at present stood thoughtlessly huddled together.
+
+"The curtains?" asked Urania.
+
+"Let them be," Duco considered. "At the most, new window-curtains;
+but the old red Venetian damask; oh, let it be, let it be!"
+
+It was so beautiful; here and there it might be patched, very
+carefully. He was horrified at Urania's notion: new curtains! And
+the old prince was enraptured, because in this way the restoration of
+San Stefano would cost thousands less and be much more artistic. He
+regarded his daughter-in-law's money as his own and preferred it to
+her. He was enraptured: he took Duco with him to his library, showed
+him the old missals, the old family books and papers, charters and
+deeds of gift, showed him his coins and medals. It was all out of
+order and neglected, first from lack of money and then from slighting
+indifference; but now Urania wanted to reorganize the family museum
+with the aid of experts from Rome, Florence and Bologna. The old
+prince's interest revived, now that there was money. And the experts
+came and stayed at the castle and Duco spent whole mornings in their
+company. He enjoyed every moment of it. He lived in his enchantment
+of the past, no longer in the days of antiquity, but in the middle
+ages and the Renascence. The days were too short. And his love for
+San Stefano became such that one day an archivist took him for the
+young prince, for Prince Virgilio. At dinner that evening Prince
+Ercole told the story. And everybody laughed, but Gilio thought the
+joke beyond price, whereas the archivist, who was there at dinner,
+did not know how to apologize sufficiently.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+Gilio had followed the advice of his cousin, the Countess di
+Rosavilla. Immediately after dinner, he had stolen outside; and he
+walked along the pergola to the rotunda, into which the moonlight
+fell as into a white beaker. But there was shadow behind a couple
+of caryatides; and here he hid. He waited for an hour. But the night
+slept, the caryatides slept, standing motionless and supporting the
+leafy roof. He uttered a curse and stole indoors again. He walked
+down the corridors on tiptoe and listened at Van der Staal's door. He
+heard nothing, but perhaps Van der Staal was asleep?...
+
+Gilio, however, crept along another corridor and listened at Cornélie's
+door. He held his breath.... Yes, there was a sound of voices. They
+were together! Together! He clenched his fists and walked away. But
+why did he excite himself? He knew all about their relations. Why
+should they not be together here? And he went on and tapped at the
+countess' door....
+
+Next evening he again waited in the rotunda. They did not come. But,
+a few evenings later, as he sat waiting, choking with annoyance,
+he saw them come. He saw Duco lock the terrace-door behind him: the
+rusty lock grated in the distance. Slowly he saw them walk along
+and approach in the light, disappearing from view in the shadow,
+reappearing in the moonlight. They sat down on the marble bench....
+
+How happy they seemed! He was jealous of their happiness, jealous above
+all of him. And how gentle and tender she was, she who considered him,
+Gilio, only good enough for her amusement, to flirt with, a clown:
+she, the devilish woman, was angelic to the man she loved! She bent
+towards her lover with a smiling caress, with a curve of her arm,
+with a proffering of her lips, with something intensely alluring,
+with a velvety languor of love which he would never have suspected
+in her, after her cold, jesting flirtation with him, Gilio. She was
+now leaning on Duco's arms, on his breast, with her face against
+his.... Oh, how her kiss filled Gilio with flame and fury! This was
+no longer her icy lack of sensuous response towards him, Gilio, in the
+camera degli sposi. And he could restrain himself no longer: he would
+at least disturb their moment of happiness. And, quivering in every
+nerve, he stepped from behind the caryatides and went towards them,
+through the rotunda. Lost in each other's eyes, they did not see him
+at once. But, suddenly, simultaneously, they both started; their arms
+fell apart then and there; they sprang up in one movement; they saw
+him approaching but evidently did not at once recognize him. Not until
+he was closer did they perceive who he was; and they looked at him in
+startled silence, wondering what he would say. He made a satirical bow:
+
+"A delightful evening, isn't it? The view is lovely, like this, at
+night, from the pergola. You are right to come and enjoy it. I hope
+that I am not disturbing you with my unexpected company?"
+
+His tremulous voice sounded so spiteful and aggressive that they
+could not doubt the violence of his anger.
+
+"Not at all, prince!" replied Cornélie, recovering her
+composure. "Though I can't imagine what you are doing here, at
+this hour."
+
+"And what are you doing here, at this hour?"
+
+"What am I doing? I am sitting with Van der Staal...."
+
+"At this hour?"
+
+"At this hour! What do you mean, prince, what are you suggesting?"
+
+"What am I suggesting? That the pergola is closed at night."
+
+"Prince," said Duco, "your tone is offensive."
+
+"And you are altogether offensive."
+
+"If you were not my host, I would strike you in the face...."
+
+Cornélie caught Duco by the arm; the prince cursed and clenched
+his fists.
+
+"Prince," she said, "you have obviously come to pick a quarrel with
+us. Why? What objection can you have to my meeting Van der Staal here
+in the evening? In the first place, our relation towards each other
+is no secret for you. And then I think it unworthy of you to come
+spying on us."
+
+"Unworthy? Unworthy?" He had lost all self-control. "I am unworthy,
+am I, and petty and rude and not a man and my temperament doesn't suit
+you? His temperament seems to suit you all right! I heard the kiss
+you gave him! She-devil! Demon! Never have I been insulted as I have
+by you. I have never put up with so much from anybody. I will put up
+with no more. You struck me, you demon, you she-devil! And now he's
+threatening to strike me! My patience is at an end. I can't bear that
+in my own house you should refuse me what you give to him.... He's not
+your husband! He's not your husband! I have as much right to you as
+he; and, if he thinks he has a better right than I, then I hate him,
+I hate him!..."
+
+And, blind with rage, he flew at Duco's throat. The attack was so
+unexpected that Duco stumbled. They both wrestled furiously. All their
+hidden antipathy broke forth in fury. They did not hear Cornélie's
+entreaties, they struck each other with their fists, they grappled with
+arms and legs, breast to breast. Then Cornélie saw something flash. In
+the moonlight she saw that the prince had drawn a knife. But the very
+movement was an advantage to Duco, who gripped his wrist as in a vice,
+forced him to the ground and, pressing his knee on Gilio's chest,
+took him by the throat with his other hand.
+
+"Let go!" yelled the prince.
+
+"Let go that knife!" yelled Duco.
+
+The prince obstinately persisted:
+
+"Let go!" he yelled once more.
+
+"Let go that knife."
+
+The knife dropped from his fingers. Duco grasped it and rose to
+his feet:
+
+"Get up," he said, "we can continue this fight, if you like, to-morrow,
+under less primitive conditions: not with a knife, but with swords
+or pistols."
+
+The prince stood panting, blue in the face.... When he came to himself,
+he said, slowly:
+
+"No, I will not fight a duel. Unless you want to. But I don't. I am
+defeated. She has a demoniacal force which would always make you win,
+whatever game we played. We've had our duel. This struggle tells
+me more than a regular duel would. Only, if you want to fight me,
+I have no objection. But I now know for certain that you would kill
+me. She protects you."
+
+"I don't want to fight a duel with you," said Duco.
+
+"Then let us look on this struggle as a duel and now give me your
+hand."
+
+Duco put out his hand; Gilio pressed it:
+
+"Forgive me," he said, bowing before Cornélie. "I have insulted you."
+
+"No," said she, "I do not forgive you."
+
+"We have to forgive each other. I forgive you the blow you struck me."
+
+"I forgive you nothing. I shall never forgive you this evening's work:
+not your spying, nor your lack of self-control, nor the rights which
+you try to claim from me, an unmarried woman--whereas I allow you no
+rights whatever--nor your attack, nor your knife."
+
+"Are we enemies then, for good?"
+
+"Yes, for good. I shall leave your house to-morrow."
+
+"I have done wrong," he confessed, humbly. "Forgive me. I am
+hot-blooded."
+
+"Until now I looked upon you as a gentleman...."
+
+"I am also an Italian."
+
+"I do not forgive you."
+
+"I once proved to you that I could be a good friend."
+
+"This is not the moment to remind me of it."
+
+"I remind you of everything that might make you more gently disposed
+towards me."
+
+"It is no use."
+
+"Enemies then?"
+
+"Yes. Let us go indoors. I shall leave your house to-morrow."
+
+"I will do any penance that you inflict upon me."
+
+"I inflict nothing. I want this conversation to end and I want to
+go indoors."
+
+"I will go ahead of you."
+
+They walked up the pergola. He himself opened the terrace-door and
+let them in before him.
+
+They went in silence to their rooms. The castle lay asleep in
+darkness. The prince struck a match to light the way. Duco was the
+first to reach his room.
+
+"I will light you to your room," said the prince, meekly.
+
+He struck a second match and accompanied Cornélie to her door. Here
+he fell on his knees:
+
+"Forgive me," he whispered, with a sob in his throat.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+And without more she locked the door behind her. He remained on his
+knees for another moment. Then he slowly rose to his feet. His throat
+hurt him. His shoulder felt as though it were dislocated.
+
+"It's over," he muttered. "I am defeated. She is stronger now than I,
+but not because she is a devil. I have seen them together. I have seen
+their embrace. She is stronger, he is stronger than I ... because of
+their happiness. I feel that, because of their happiness, they will
+always be stronger than I...."
+
+He went to his room, which adjoined Urania's bedroom. His chest
+heaved with sobs. Dressed as he was, he flung himself sobbing on
+his bed, swallowing his sobs in the slumbering night that hung over
+the castle. Then he got up and looked out of the window. He saw the
+lake. He saw the pergola, where they had been fighting. The night
+was sleeping there; the caryatides, sleeping, stood out white against
+the shadow. And his eyes sought the exact spot of their struggle and
+of his defeat. And, with his superstitious faith in their happiness,
+he became convinced that there would be no fighting against it, ever.
+
+Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if he were flinging a load off
+his back:
+
+"Fa niente!" he said to console himself. "Domani megliore...."
+
+And he meant that to-morrow he would achieve, if not this victory,
+another. Then, with eyes still moist, he fell asleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+Urania sobbed nervously in Cornélie's arms when she told the young
+princess that she was leaving that morning. She and Duco were alone
+with Urania in Urania's own drawing-room.
+
+"What has happened?" she sobbed.
+
+Cornélie told her of the previous evening:
+
+"Urania," she said, seriously, "I know I am a coquette. I thought it
+pleasant to talk with Gilio; call it flirting, if you like. I never
+made a secret of it, either to Duco or to you. I looked upon it as an
+amusement, nothing more. Perhaps I did wrong; I know it annoyed you
+once before. I promised not to do it again; but it seems to be beyond
+my control. It's in my nature; and I shall not attempt to defend
+myself. I looked upon it as a trifle, as a diversion, as fun. But
+perhaps it was wrong. Do you forgive me? I have grown so fond of you:
+it would hurt me if you did not forgive me."
+
+"Make it up with Gilio and stay on."
+
+"That's impossible, my dear girl. Gilio has insulted me, Gilio drew
+his knife against Duco; and those are two things which I can never
+forgive him. So it is impossible for us to remain."
+
+"I shall be so lonely!" she sobbed. "I also am so fond of you, I am
+fond of you both. Is there no way out of it? Bob is going to-morrow
+too. I shall be all alone. And I have nothing here, nobody who is
+fond of me...."
+
+"You have a great deal left, Urania. You have an object in life; you
+can do any amount of good in your surroundings. You are interested
+in the castle, which is now your own."
+
+"It's all so empty!" she sobbed. "It means nothing to me. I need
+affection. Who is there that is fond of me? I have tried to love Gilio
+and I do love him, but he doesn't care for me. Nobody cares for me."
+
+"Your poor are devoted to you. You have a noble aim in life."
+
+"I'm glad of it, but I am too young to live only for an aim. And I
+have nothing else. Nobody cares for me."
+
+"Prince Ercole, surely?"
+
+"No, he despises me. Listen. I told you once before what Gilio
+said ... that there were no family-jewels, that they were all sold:
+you remember, don't you? Well, there are family-jewels. I gathered
+that from something the Countess di Rosavilla said. There are
+family-jewels. But Prince Ercole keeps them in the Banco di Roma. They
+despise me; and I am not thought good enough to wear them. And to me
+they pretend that there are none left. And the worst of it is that
+all their friends, all their set know that the jewels are there, in
+the bank, and they all say that Prince Ercole is right. My money is
+good enough for them, but I am not good enough for their old jewels,
+the jewels of their grandmother!"
+
+"That's a shame!" said Cornélie.
+
+"It's the truth!" sobbed Urania. "Oh, do make it up, stay a little
+longer, for my sake!..."
+
+"Judge for yourself, Urania: we really can't."
+
+"I suppose you're right," she admitted, with a sigh.
+
+"It's all my fault."
+
+"No, no, Gilio is sometimes so impetuous...."
+
+"But his impetuousness, his anger, his jealousy are my fault. I am
+sorry about it, Urania, because of you. Forgive me. Come and look
+me up in Rome when you go back. Don't forget me; and write, won't
+you?... Now I must go and pack my trunk. What time is the train?"
+
+"Ten twenty-five," said Duco. "We shall go together."
+
+"Can I say good-bye to Prince Ercole? Send and ask if he can see me."
+
+"What shall I tell him?"
+
+"The first thing that comes into your head: that a friend of mine in
+Rome is ill, that I am going to look after her and that Van der Staal
+is taking me back because I am nervous travelling. I don't care what
+Prince Ercole thinks."
+
+"Cornélie...."
+
+"Darling, I really haven't another moment. Kiss me and forgive me. And
+think of me sometimes. Good-bye. We have had a delightful time together
+and I have grown very fond of you."
+
+She tore herself from Urania's embrace; Duco also said good-bye. They
+left the princess sobbing by herself. In the passage they met Gilio.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked, in his humble voice.
+
+"We are going by the ten twenty-five."
+
+"I am very, very sorry...."
+
+But they went on and left him standing there, while Urania sat sobbing
+in the drawing-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+In the train, in the scorching morning heat, they were silent; and
+they found Rome as it were bursting out of its houses in the blazing
+sunshine. The studio, however, was cool, solitary and peaceful.
+
+"Cornélie," said Duco, "tell me what happened between you and the
+prince. Why did you strike him?"
+
+She pulled him down on the sofa, threw herself on his neck and told him
+the incident of the camera degli sposi. She told him of the thousand
+lire and the bracelet. She explained that she had said nothing about
+it before, so as not to speak to him of financial worries while he
+was finishing his water-colour for the exhibition in London:
+
+"Duco," she continued, "I was so frightened when I saw Gilio draw
+that knife yesterday. I felt as if I was going to faint, but I
+didn't. I had never seen him like that, so violent, so ready to do
+anything.... It was then that I really felt how much I loved you. I
+should have murdered him if he had wounded you."
+
+"You ought not to have played with him," he said, severely. "He
+loves you."
+
+But, in spite of his stern voice, he drew her closer to him.
+
+Filled with a certain consciousness of guilt, she laid her head
+coaxingly on his chest:
+
+"He is only a little in love," she said, defending herself feebly.
+
+"He is very passionately in love. You ought not to have played
+with him."
+
+She made no further reply, merely stroked his face with her hand. She
+liked him all the better for reproaching her as he did; she loved that
+stern, earnest voice, which he hardly ever adopted towards her. She
+knew that she had that need for flirting in her, that she had had
+it ever since she was a very young girl; it did not count with her,
+it was only innocent fun. She did not agree with Duco, but thought
+it unnecessary to go over the whole ground: it was as it was, she
+didn't think about it, didn't dispute it; it was like a difference of
+opinion, almost of taste, which did not count. She was lying against
+him too comfortably, after the excitement of last evening, after a
+sleepless night, after a precipitate departure, after a three hours'
+railway-journey in the blazing heat, to argue to any extent. She liked
+the silent coolness of the studio, the sense of being alone with him,
+after her three weeks at San Stefano. There was a peacefulness here,
+a return to herself, which filled her with bliss. The tall window
+was open and the warm air poured in beneficently and was tempered by
+the natural chilliness of the north room. Duco's easel stood empty,
+awaiting him. This was their home, amid all that colour and form
+of art which surrounded them. She now understood that colour and
+form; she was learning Rome. She was learning it all in dreams of
+happiness. She gave little thought to the woman question and hardly
+glanced at the notices of her pamphlet, taking but a scanty interest
+in them. She admired Lippo's angel, admired the panel of Gentile da
+Fabriano and the resplendent colours of the old chasubles. It was
+very little, after the treasures at San Stefano, but it was theirs
+and it was home. She did not speak, felt happy and contented resting
+on Duco's breast and passing her fingers over his face.
+
+"The Banners is as good as sold," he said. "For ninety pounds. I
+shall telegraph to London to-day. And then we shall soon be able to
+pay the prince back that thousand lire."
+
+"It's Urania's money," she said, feebly.
+
+"But I won't have that debt hanging on."
+
+She felt that he was a little angry, but she was in no mood to discuss
+money matters and she was filled with a blissful languor as she lay
+on his breast....
+
+"Are you cross, Duco?"
+
+"No ... but you oughtn't to have done it."
+
+He clasped her more tightly, to make her feel that he did not want to
+grumble at her, even though he thought that she had done wrong. She
+thought that she had done right not to mention the thousand lire to
+him, but she did not defend herself. It meant useless words; and she
+felt too happy to talk about money.
+
+"Cornélie," he said, "let us get married."
+
+She looked at him in dismay, startled out of her blissfulness:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Not because of ourselves. We are just as happy unmarried. But because
+of the world, because of people."
+
+"Because of the world? Because of people?"
+
+"Yes. We shall be feeling more and more isolated. I discussed it
+once or twice with Urania. She was very sorry about it, but she
+sympathized with us and wasn't shocked. She thought it an impossible
+position. Perhaps she is right. We can't go anywhere. At San Stefano
+they still acted as though they did not know that we were living
+together; but that is over now."
+
+"What do you care about the opinion of 'small, insignificant people,
+who chance to cross your path,' as you yourself say?"
+
+"It's different now. We owe the prince money; and Urania is the only
+friend you have."
+
+"I have you: I don't want any one else."
+
+He kissed her:
+
+"Really, Cornélie, it is better that we should get married. Then
+nobody can insult you again as the prince dared to do."
+
+"He has narrow-minded notions: how can you want to get married for
+the sake of a world and people like San Stefano and the prince?"
+
+"The whole world is like that, without exception, and we are in the
+world. We live in the midst of other people. It is impossible to
+isolate one's self entirely; and isolation brings its own punishment
+later. We have to attach ourselves to other people: it is impossible
+always to lead your own existence, without any sense of community."
+
+"Duco, how you've changed! These are the ideas of ordinary society!"
+
+"I have been reflecting more lately."
+
+"I am just learning how not to reflect.... My darling, how grave
+you are this morning! And this while I'm lying up against you so
+deliciously, to rest after all that excitement and the hot journey."
+
+"Seriously, Cornélie, let us get married."
+
+She snuggled against him a little nervously, displeased because he
+persisted and because he was forcibly dissipating her blissful mood:
+
+"You're a horrid boy. Why need we get married? It would alter nothing
+in our position. We still shouldn't trouble about other people. We are
+living so delightfully here, living for your art. We want nothing more
+than each other and your art and Rome. I am so very fond of Rome now;
+I am quite altered. There is something here that is always attracting
+me afresh. At San Stefano I felt homesick for Rome and for our
+studio. You must choose a new subject ... and get to work again. When
+you're doing nothing, you sit thinking--about social ethics--and that
+doesn't suit you at all. It makes you so different. And then such
+petty, conventional ideas. To get married! Why, in Heaven's name,
+should we, Duco? You know my views on marriage. I have had experience:
+it is better not."
+
+She had risen and was mechanically looking through some half-finished
+sketches in a portfolio.
+
+"Your experience," he repeated. "We know each other too well to be
+afraid of anything."
+
+She took the sketches from the portfolio: they were ideas which had
+occurred to him and which he had jotted down while he was working at
+The Banners. She examined them and scattered them abroad:
+
+"Afraid?" she repeated, vaguely. "No," she suddenly resumed, more
+firmly. "A person never knows himself or another. I don't know you,
+I don't know myself."
+
+Something deep down within herself was warning her:
+
+"Don't marry, don't give in. It's better not, it's better not."
+
+It was barely a whisper, a shadow of premonition. She had not thought
+it out; it was unconscious and mysterious as the depths of her
+soul. For she was not aware of it, she did not think it, she hardly
+heard it within herself. It flitted through her; it was not a feeling;
+it only left a thwarting reluctance in her, very plainly. Not until
+years later would she understand that unwillingness.
+
+"No, Duco, it is better not."
+
+"Think it over, Cornélie."
+
+"It is better not," she repeated, obstinately. "Please, don't let us
+talk about it any more. It is better not, but I think it so horrid
+to refuse you, because you want it. I never refuse you anything,
+as you know. I would do anything else for you. But this time I feel
+... it is better not!"
+
+She went to him, all one caress, and kissed him:
+
+"Don't ask it of me again. What a cloud on your face! I can see that
+you mean to go on thinking of it."
+
+She stroked his forehead as though to smooth away the wrinkles:
+
+"Don't think of it any more. I love you, I love you! I want nothing
+but you. I am happy as we are. Why shouldn't you be too? Because
+Gilio was rude and Urania prim?... Come and look at your sketches:
+will you be starting work soon? I love it when you're working. Then
+I'll write something again: a chat about an old Italian castle. My
+recollections of San Stefano. Perhaps a short story, with the pergola
+for a background. Oh, that beautiful pergola!... But yesterday,
+that knife!... Tell me, Duco, are you going to work again? Let's look
+through them together. What a lot of ideas you had at that time! But
+don't become too symbolical: I mean, don't get into habits, into
+tricks; don't repeat yourself.... This woman here is very good. She
+is walking so unconsciously down that shelving line ... and all
+those hands pushing around her ... and those red flowers in the
+abyss.... Tell me, Duco, what had you in your mind?"
+
+"I don't know: it was not very clear to myself."
+
+"I think it very good, but I don't like this sketch. I can't say
+why. There's something dreary in it. I think the woman stupid. I
+don't like those shelving lines: I like lines that go up, as in
+The Banners. That all flowed out of darkness upwards, towards the
+sun! How beautiful that was! What a pity that we no longer have it,
+that it is being sold! If I were a painter, I should never be able
+to part with anything. I shall keep the sketches, to remind me of
+it. Don't you think it dreadful, that we no longer have it?"
+
+He agreed; he also loved and missed his Banners. And he hunted
+with her among the other studies and sketches. But, apart from the
+unconscious woman, there was nothing that was clear enough to him to
+elaborate. And Cornélie would not have him finish the unconscious
+woman: no, she didn't like those shelving lines.... But after that
+he found some sketches of landscape-studies, of clouds and skies over
+the Campagna, Venice and Naples....
+
+And he set to work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+They were very economical; they had a little money; and all through the
+scorching Roman summer the months passed as in a dream. They went on
+living their lonely, happy life, without seeing any one except Urania,
+who came to Rome now and again, looked them up, lunched with them
+at the studio and went back again in the evening. Then Urania wrote
+to them that Gilio could stand it no longer at San Stefano and that
+they were going abroad, first to Switzerland and then to Ostend. She
+came once more to say good-bye; and after that they saw nobody.
+
+In the old days Duco had known an artist here and there, a
+fellow-countryman painting in Rome; now he knew nobody, saw nobody. And
+their life in the cool studio was like life in a lonely oasis amid
+the torrid desert of Rome in August. For economy's sake, they did
+not go into the mountains, to a cooler spot. They spent no more than
+was absolutely necessary; and none the less this bohemian poverty,
+in its coloured setting of triptych and chasuble, spelt happiness.
+
+Money, however, remained scarce. Duco sold a water-colour once in
+a way, but at times they had to resort to the sale of a curio. And
+it always went to Duco's heart to part with anything that he had
+collected. They had few needs, but the time would come when the rent of
+the studio fell due. Cornélie sometimes wrote an article or a sketch
+and bought out of the proceeds what she needed for her wardrobe. She
+possessed a certain knack of putting on her clothes, a talent for
+looking smart in an old, worn blouse. She was fastidious about her
+hair, her skin, her teeth, her nails. With a new veil she would
+wear an old hat, with an old walking-dress a pair of fresh gloves;
+and she wore everything with a certain air of smartness. At home, in
+her pink tea-gown, which had lost its colour, the lines of her figure
+were so charming that Duco was constantly sketching her. They hardly
+ever went to a restaurant now. Cornélie cooked something at home,
+invented easy recipes, fetched a fiasco of wine from the nearest
+olio e vino, where the cab-drivers sat drinking at little tables;
+and they dined better and more cheaply than at the osteria. And Duco,
+now that he no longer bought things from the dealer in antiques on
+the Tiber, spent nothing at all. But money remained scarce. Once,
+when they had sold a silver crucifix for far less than it was worth,
+Cornélie was so dejected that she sobbed on Duco's breast. He consoled
+her, caressed her and declared that he didn't care much about the
+crucifix. But she knew that the crucifix was a very fine piece of
+work by an unknown sixteenth-century artist and that he was very
+unhappy at losing it. And she said to him seriously that it could
+not go on like this, that she could not be a burden to him and that
+they had better part; that she would look about for something to do,
+that she would go back to Holland. He was alarmed by her despair and
+said that it was not necessary, that he was able to look after her as
+his wife, but that unfortunately he was such an unpractical fellow,
+who could do nothing but splash about a bit with water-colours and
+even that not well enough to live on. But she said that he must
+not talk like that; he was a great artist. It was just that he did
+not possess a facile, money-making fertility, but he ranked all the
+higher on that account. She said that she would not live on his money,
+that she wanted to keep herself. And she collected the scattered
+remnants of her feminist ideas. Once again he begged her to consent
+to their marriage; they would become reconciled with his mother; and
+Mrs. van der Staal would give him what she used to give him when he
+used to live with her at Belloni's. But she refused to hear either
+of marriage or of an allowance from his mother, even as he refused
+to take money from Urania. How often had Urania not offered to help
+them! He had never consented; he was even angry when Urania had given
+Cornélie a blouse which Cornélie accepted with a kiss.
+
+No, it couldn't go on like this: they had better part; she must go
+back to Holland and seek employment. It was easier in Holland than
+abroad. But he was so desperate, because of their happiness, which
+tottered before his eyes, that he held her tightly pressed to his
+breast; and she sobbed, with her arms round his neck. Why should they
+part, he asked. They would be stronger together. He could no longer
+do without her; his life, if she left him, would be no life. He used
+to live in his dreams; he now lived in the reality of their happiness.
+
+And things remained as they were: they could not alter anything; they
+lived as thriftily as possible, in order to keep together. He finished
+his landscapes and always sold them; but he sold them at once, much
+too cheaply, so as not to have to wait for the money. But then poverty
+threatened once more; and she thought of writing to Holland. As it
+happened, however, she received a letter from her mother, followed
+by one from one of her sisters. And they asked her in those letters
+if it was true, what people were saying at the Hague, that she was
+living with Van der Staal. She had always looked upon herself as so
+far from the Hague and from Hague people that it had never occurred
+to her that her way of life might become known. She met nobody,
+she knew nobody with Dutch connections. Anyhow, her independent
+attitude was now known. And she answered the letters in a feminist
+tone, declared her dislike of marriage and admitted that she was
+living with Van der Staal. She wrote coldly and succinctly, so as
+to give those people at the Hague the impression that she was a free
+and independent woman. They knew her pamphlet there, of course. But
+she understood that she could now no longer think of Holland. She
+gave up her family as hopeless. Still it tore something in her, the
+unconscious family-tie. But that tie was already greatly loosened,
+through lack of sympathy, especially at the time of her divorce. And
+she felt all alone: she had only her happiness, her lover, Duco. Oh,
+it was enough, it was enough for all her life! If only she could make
+a little money! But how? She went to the Dutch consul, asked his
+advice; the visit led to nothing. She was not suited for a nurse:
+she wanted to earn money at once and had no time for training. She
+could serve in a shop, of course. And she applied, without saying
+anything to Duco; but, notwithstanding her worn cloak, they thought
+her too much of a lady wherever she went and she thought the salary
+too small for a whole day's work. And, when she felt that she hadn't
+it in her blood to work for her bread, despite all her ideas and all
+her logic, despite her pamphlet and her independent womanhood, she
+felt helpless to the point of despair and, as she went home, weary,
+exhausted by climbing many stairs and by useless conversations and
+appeals, the old plaint rose to her lips:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+She wrote regularly to Urania, in Switzerland, at Ostend; and
+Urania always wrote back very kindly and offered her assistance. But
+Cornélie always declined, afraid of hurting Duco. She, for herself,
+felt no such scruples, especially now that it was being borne in
+upon her that she would not be able to work. But she understood those
+scruples in Duco and respected them. For her own part, however, she
+would have accepted help, now that her pride was wavering, now that
+her ideas were falling to pieces, too weak to withstand the steady
+pressure of life's hardships. It was like a great finger that just
+passed along a house of cards: though built up with care and pride,
+everything fell flat at the least touch. The only things that stood
+firm and unshakable amid the ruins were her love and her happiness. Oh,
+how she loved him, how simple was their happiness! How dear he was
+to her for his gentleness, his calmness, his lack of irritability,
+as though his nerves were strung only to the finer sensibilities of
+the artist. She felt so deliciously that it was all imperturbable,
+that it was all settled for good. Without that happiness they could
+never have dragged their difficult life along from day to day. Now she
+did not feel that burden every day, as though they were dragging the
+load along from one day to the next. She now felt it only sometimes,
+when the future was quite dark and they did not know whither they were
+dragging the burden of their lives, in the dusk of that future. But
+they always triumphed again: they loved each other too well to sink
+under the load. They always found a little more courage; smiling,
+they supported each other's strength.
+
+September came and October; and Urania wrote that they were coming
+back to San Stefano, to spend a couple of months there before going
+for the winter to Nice. And one morning Urania arrived unexpectedly
+in the studio. She found Cornélie alone: Duco had gone to an
+art-dealer's. They exchanged affectionate greetings:
+
+"I am so glad to see you again!" Urania prattled, gaily. "I am glad to
+be back in Italy and to put in a little more time at San Stefano. And
+is everything as it used to be, in your cosy studio? Are you happy? Oh,
+I need not ask!"
+
+And she hugged and kissed Cornélie, like a child, still lacking the
+strength of mind to condemn her friend's too free existence, especially
+now, after her own summer at Ostend. They sat beside each other on
+the couch, Cornélie in her old tea-gown, which she wore with her own
+peculiar grace, and the young princess in her pale-grey tailor-made,
+which clung to her figure in a very up-to-date manner and rustled
+with heavy silk lining, and a hat with black feathers and silver
+spangles. Her jewelled fingers toyed with a very long watch-chain
+which she wore round her neck: the latest freak of fashion. Cornélie
+was able to admire without feeling envious and made Urania stand up
+and turn round in front of her, approved of the cut of her skirt,
+said that the hat looked sweet on her and examined the watch-chain
+attentively. And she plunged into these matters of chiffons: Urania
+described the dresses at Ostend; Urania admired Cornélie's old
+tea-gown; Cornélie smiled:
+
+"Especially after Ostend, eh?" she laughed, merrily.
+
+But Urania meant it seriously: Cornélie wore it with such chic! And,
+changing the topic, she said that she wanted to speak very seriously,
+that perhaps she knew of something for Cornélie, now that Cornélie
+would never accept her, Urania's, assistance. At Ostend she had made
+the acquaintance of an old American lady, Mrs. Uxeley, a regular
+type. She was ninety years of age and lived at Nice in the winter. She
+was fabulously rich: an oil-queen's fortune. She was ninety, but still
+behaved as if she were forty-five. She dined out, went into society,
+flirted. People laughed at her but accepted her because of her money
+and her splendid entertainments. All the cosmopolitan colony visited
+her at Nice. Urania produced an Ostend casino-paper and read out
+a journalistic account of a ball at Ostend, in which Mrs. Uxeley
+was called la femme la plus élégante d'Ostende. The journalist
+had been paid so much for it; everybody laughed and was amused by
+it. Mrs. Uxeley was a caricature, but with enough tact to get herself
+taken seriously. Well, Mrs. Uxeley was looking for somebody. She always
+had a lady companion with her, a girl, a young woman; and already
+numberless ladies had succeeded one another in her employ. She had
+had cousins living with her, distant cousins, very distant cousins and
+total strangers. She was tiresome, capricious, impossible; everybody
+knew that. Would Cornélie care to try it? Urania had already discussed
+it with Mrs. Uxeley and recommended her friend. Cornélie did not feel
+greatly attracted, but thought it worth thinking over. Mrs. Uxeley's
+companion was staying on till November, when the old thing went back
+through Paris to Nice. And at Nice they would see so much of each
+other, Cornélie and Urania. But Cornélie thought it terrible to leave
+Duco. She did not think that it would ever work. They were so attached
+to each other, so used to each other. From the money point of view
+it would be excellent--an easy life which attracted her, after that
+blow to her moral pride--but she could not think of leaving Duco. And
+what would Duco do at Nice! No, she couldn't, she simply couldn't: she
+must stay with him.... She felt a reluctance to go, like a hand that
+withheld her. She told Urania to put the old lady off, to let her look
+out for somebody else. She could not do it. What use to her was such a
+life--socially dependent, though financially independent--without Duco?
+
+And, when Urania was gone--she was going on to San Stefano--Cornélie
+was glad that she had at once declined that stupid, easy life of
+dependence as companion to a rich old dotard. She glanced round the
+studio. She loved it with its precious colours, its noble antiques
+and, behind that curtain, her bed, behind that screen, her oil-stove,
+making the space look like a little kitchen; with the Bohemianism
+of its precious bibelots and very primitive comforts, it had become
+indispensable to her, had become her home. And, when Duco came
+in, she kissed him and told him about Urania and Mrs. Uxeley. She
+was glad to be able to nestle in his arms. He had sold a couple
+of water-colours. There was no reason whatever to leave him. He
+didn't wish it either, he never would wish it. And they held each
+other tightly embraced, as though they were conscious of something
+that would be able to part them, an ineluctable necessity, as if
+hands hovered around them pushing them, guiding them, opposing and
+inhibiting them, a contest of hands, like a cloud around them both:
+hands that strove by main force to sunder their radiant path of life,
+their coalescent line of life, as if it were too narrow for the feet
+of the two of them and the hands were trying to wrench it asunder,
+in order to let the broad track wind apart in two curves. They said
+nothing: clasped in each other's arms, they gazed at life, shuddered at
+the hands, felt the approaching constraint which already was clouding
+more closely around them. But they felt warm in each other's company;
+they locked up their little happiness tightly in their embrace and
+hid it between them, so that the hands might not point to it, touch
+it and thrust it aside....
+
+And under their fixed gaze life softly receded, the cloud dispersed,
+the hands faded away and disappeared and their breasts heaved a sigh
+of relief, while she still remained lying against him and closed her
+eyes, as though in sleep....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+But the life of constraint returned, the hovering hands reappeared,
+like a gentle mysterious force. Cornélie wept bitterly and admitted
+to herself and admitted to Duco: it could not go on any longer. At
+one moment they had not enough to pay the rent of the studio and
+had to apply to Urania. Gaps showed in the studio, colours vanished,
+owing to the sale of things which Duco had collected with love and
+sacrifice. But Lippo Memmi's angel, whom he refused to sell, still
+shone as of old, still holding forth the lily, in his gown of gold
+brocade. Around him on every side yawned melancholy spaces, with
+bare nails showing in the walls. At first they tried to hang other
+things in the place of those which had gone; but they soon lost the
+inclination. And, as they sat side by side, in each other's arms,
+conscious of their little happiness, but also of the constraint of life
+with its pushing hands, they closed their eyes, that they might no
+longer see the studio which seemed to be crumbling about them, while
+in the first cooler days a sunless chill descended shivering from
+the ceiling, which seemed higher and farther away. The easel stood
+waiting, empty. And they both closed their eyes and thus remained,
+feeling that, despite the strength of their happiness and their love,
+they were gradually conquered by life, which persisted in its tyranny
+and day by day took something from them. Once, while they were sitting
+thus, their arms relaxed and their embrace fell away, as though hands
+were drawing them apart. They remained sitting for a long time, side
+by side, without touching each other. Then she sobbed aloud and flung
+herself with her face on his knees. There was no more to be done:
+life was too strong for them, speechless life, the life of the soft,
+persistent constraint, which surrounded them with so many hands. Their
+little happiness seemed to be escaping them, like an angelic child
+that was dying and sinking out of their embrace.
+
+She said that she would write to Urania: the Forte-Braccios were at
+Nice. He listlessly assented. And, as soon as she received a reply,
+she mechanically packed her trunk, packed up her old clothes. For
+Urania wrote and told her to come, said that Mrs. Uxeley wanted to
+see her. Mrs. Uxeley sent her the money for her journey. She was
+in a desperate state of constant nervous sobbing and she felt as if
+she were being torn from him, torn from that home which was dear to
+her and which was crumbling about her, all through her fault. When
+she received the registered letter with the money, she had a nervous
+attack, complaining to him like a child that she couldn't leave him,
+that she wouldn't leave him, that she could not live without him,
+that she loved him for ever, for ever, that she would die, so far
+away from him. She lay on the sofa, her arms stiff, her legs stiff,
+crying out with a mouth distorted as though by physical pain. He took
+her in his arms and soothed her, bathed her forehead, gave her ether
+to drink, comforted her, said that everything would be all right
+again later.... Later? She looked at him vacantly. She was half
+mad with grief. She tossed everything out of the trunk again, all
+about the room--underclothing, blouses--and laughed and laughed. He
+conjured her to control herself. When she saw his frightened face,
+when he too began to sob on her breast, she drew him tightly to her,
+kissed him and comforted him in her turn. And everything in her became
+dulness and lethargy. Together they packed the trunk again. Then she
+looked round and, in a gust of energy, arranged the studio for him,
+had her bed taken away, pinned his own sketches to the walls, tried to
+build up something of what had gone to pieces around them, rearranged
+everything, did her best. She cooked their last meal; she made up
+the fire. But a desperate threat of loneliness and desertion reigned
+over everything. It was all wrong, it was all wrong.... Sobbing,
+they fell asleep, in each other's arms, close against each other.
+
+Next morning he took her to the station. And, when she had stepped into
+her compartment, they both of them lost all their self-control. They
+embraced each other sobbing, while the guard was waiting to lock the
+door. And she saw Duco run away like a madman, pushing his way through
+the crowd; and, broken with misery, she threw herself back in her
+seat. She was so ill and distressed, so near to fainting, that a lady
+beside her came to her aid and bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne....
+
+She thanked the lady, apologized for the trouble she had given and,
+seeing the other passengers staring at her with compassionate eyes,
+she mastered herself, sat huddled in her corner and gazed vacantly
+through the window. She went on, stopping nowhere, only alighting to
+change trains. Though hungry, she had not the energy to order food at
+the stations. She ate nothing and drank nothing. She travelled a day
+and a night and arrived at Nice late the following evening. Urania was
+at the station and was startled to see Cornélie look grey and sallow,
+dead-tired, with hollow eyes. And she was most charming: she took
+Cornélie home with her, looked after her for some days, made her stay
+in bed and went herself to tell Mrs. Uxeley that her friend was too
+unwell to report herself. Gilio came for a moment to pay Cornélie his
+respects; and she could not do other than thank him for these days
+of hospitality and care under his roof. And the young princess was
+like a sister, was like a mother and fed Cornélie up with milk and
+eggs and strengthening medicines. Cornélie let her do as she liked,
+remained limp and indifferent and ate to please Urania. After a few
+days, Urania said that Mrs. Uxeley was coming to call that afternoon,
+being anxious to see her new companion. Mrs. Uxeley was alone now,
+but could wait until Cornélie's recovery. Cornélie dressed herself as
+well as she could and with Urania awaited the old lady's arrival. She
+entered gushingly, with a torrent of words; and, in the dim light of
+Urania's drawing-room, Cornélie was unable to realize that she was
+ninety years old. Urania winked at Cornélie, who only smiled faintly
+in return: she was afraid of this first interview. But Mrs. Uxeley, no
+doubt because Cornélie was a friend of the Princess di Forte-Braccio,
+was very easy-mannered, very pleasant and free of all condescension
+towards her future companion; she enquired after Cornélie's health in
+a wearisome profusion of little exclamations and sentences and bits of
+advice. Cornélie, in the twilight of the lace-shaded standard-lamps,
+took her in with a glance and saw a woman of fifty, with the little
+wrinkles carefully powdered over, in a mauve-velvet gown embroidered
+with dull gold and spangles and beads. On the brown, waved chignon was
+a hat with a white aigrette. Her jewels kept on sparkling, because
+she was very fussy, very restless in her movements. She now took
+Cornélie's hands and began to talk more confidentially. So Cornélie
+would come the day after to-morrow. Very well. She was accustomed to
+pay a hundred dollars a month, or five hundred francs, never less,
+but also never more. But she could understand that Cornélie would
+want something now, for new clothes: would she order what she wanted
+at this address and have it put down to Mrs. Uxeley's account? A
+couple of ball-dresses, two or three less dressy evening-frocks,
+in short, everything. The Princess Urania would tell her all about
+it and would go with her. And she rose, affecting the young woman,
+simpering through her long-handled lorgnette, but meanwhile leaning
+hard on her sunshade, working herself with a muscular effort along
+the stick of her sunshade, with a sudden twitch of rheumatism which
+uncovered all sorts of wrinkles. Urania saw her to the hall and came
+back shrieking with laughter; and Cornélie also laughed, but only
+listlessly. She really didn't care: she was more amazed at Mrs. Uxeley
+than amused. Ninety years old! What an energy, worthy of a better
+object, to remain elegant: la femme la plus élégante d'Ostende!
+
+Ninety years old! How the woman must suffer, during the hours of her
+long toilet, while she was being made up into that caricature! Urania
+said that it was all false: the hair, the bust. And Cornélie felt a
+loathing at having to live for the future beside this woman, as though
+beside an ignominy. In the happiness of her love, a great part of her
+energy had become relaxed, as though their dual happiness--Duco's and
+hers--had unfitted her for any further struggle for life and diminished
+her zest for life; but it had refined and purified something in her
+soul and she loathed the sight of so much show for so vain and petty
+an object. And it was only necessity itself--the inevitability of
+the things of life, which urged and pushed her with a guiding finger
+along a line of life now winding solitary before her--that gave
+her the strength to hide within herself her sorrow, her longing,
+her nostalgia for everything that she had left behind. She did not
+talk about it to Urania. Urania was so glad to see her, looked upon
+her as a good friend, in the loneliness of her stately life, in her
+isolation among her aristocratic acquaintances. Urania accompanied her
+enthusiastically to dressmakers' establishments and shops and helped
+her to choose her new outfit. She did not care about it all. She,
+an elegant woman, a woman of innate elegance, who in her outward
+appearance had always fought against poverty and who, in the days
+of her happiness, was able, with the aid of a fresh ribbon, to wear
+an old blouse gracefully, was utterly indifferent to everything
+that she was now buying on Mrs. Uxeley's account. To her it was as
+though these things were not for her. She let Urania ask and choose;
+she approved of everything. She allowed herself to be fitted as
+though she had been a doll. She greatly disliked having to spend
+money at a stranger's expense. She felt lowered and humiliated:
+all her haughty pride of life was gone. She was afraid of what they
+would say of her in the circle of Mrs. Uxeley's friends, afraid lest
+they knew of her independent ideas, of her cohabitation with Duco,
+afraid of Mrs. Uxeley's opinion. For Urania had had to be honest
+and tell everything. It was only on Urania's eager recommendation
+that she had been taken by Mrs. Uxeley. She felt out of place,
+now that she would once more dare to play her part among all those
+people; and she was afraid of giving herself away. She would have to
+make-believe, to conceal her ideas, to pick her words; and she was no
+longer accustomed to doing so. And all for that money. All because
+she had not had the energy, living with Duco, to earn her own bread
+and, gaily, independently, to cheer him in his work, in his art. Oh,
+if she could only have managed to do that, how happy she would have
+been! If only she had not allowed the wretched languor that was in
+her blood to increase within her like a morbid growth: the languor
+of her upbringing, her superficial, showy, drawing-room education,
+which had unfitted her for everything whatsoever! By temperament she
+was a creature of love as well as a woman of sensuousness and luxury,
+but there was more of love in her than of luxury: she would be happy
+under the simplest conditions if only she was able to love. And now
+life had torn her away from him, gradually but inexorably. And now
+her sensuous, luxurious nature was gratified, but in dependence; yet
+it no longer satisfied her cravings, because she could not satisfy her
+soul. In that lonely soul a miserable dissatisfaction sprang up like a
+riotous growth. Her only happiness was his letters, letters of longing
+but also letters of comfort. He wrote expressing his longing, but he
+also wrote enjoining courage and hope. He wrote to her every day. He
+was now at Florence, seeking his consolation in the Uffizi, in the
+Pitti Palace. He had found it impossible to stay in Rome; the studio
+was now locked up. At Florence he was a little nearer to her. And
+his letters were to her a love-story, the only novel that she read;
+and it was as though she saw his landscapes in his style, the same
+dim blending of colour and emotion, the pearly white, misty, dreamy
+distances filled with light, the horizon of his longing, as though
+his eyes were ever gazing at the vista in which she, on the night
+of departure, had vanished as in a mauve-grey sunset, a sky of the
+dreary Campagna. In those letters they still lived together. But she
+could not write to him in this strain. Though she wrote to him daily,
+she wrote briefly, telling him ever the same things in other words:
+her longing, her weary indifference. But she wrote of the happiness
+which she derived from his letters, which were her daily bread.
+
+She was now with Mrs. Uxeley and occupied in the gigantic villa
+two charming rooms overlooking the sea and the Promenade des
+Anglais. Urania had helped her to arrange them. And she lived in an
+unreal dream of strangeness, of non-existence alone with her soul,
+of unlived actions and gestures, performed according to the will of
+others. In the mornings she went to Mrs. Uxeley in her boudoir and
+read her the French and American papers and sometimes a few pages of
+a French novel. She humbly did her best. Mrs. Uxeley thought that she
+read very nicely, only she said that Cornélie must cheer up a bit,
+that her melancholy days were over now. Duco was never mentioned and
+Mrs. Uxeley behaved as though she knew nothing. The great boudoir
+looked through the open balcony-windows over the sea, where, on the
+Promenade, the morning stroll was already beginning, with the gaudy
+colours of the parasols striking a shrill note against the deep-blue
+sea, an expensive sea, a costly tide, waves that seemed to exact a
+mint of money before they would consent to roll up prettily. The old
+lady, already painted, bedizened and bewigged, with a white-lace wrap
+over her wig against the draught, lay in the black and white lace of
+her white-silk tea-gown on the piled-up cushions of her sofa. In her
+wrinkled hand she held the lorgnette, with her initials in diamonds,
+through which it amused her to peer at the shrill patches of the
+parasols outside. Now and then, when her rheumatism gave a twinge,
+she suddenly distorted her face into one great crease of wrinkles,
+under which the smooth enamel of her make-up almost cracked, like
+crackle-china. In the daylight she seemed hardly alive, looked like
+an automatic, jointed, stiff-limbed doll, which spoke and moved
+mechanically. She was always a trifle tired in the mornings, from
+never sleeping at night; after eleven she took a little nap. She
+observed a strict régime; and her doctor, who called daily, seemed
+to revive her a little every day, to enable her to hold out until
+the evening. In the afternoon she drove out, alighted at the Jetée,
+paid her visits. But in the evening she revived with a trace of real
+life, dressed, put on her jewels and recovered her exuberance, her
+little exclamations and simpers. Then came the dances, the parties,
+the theatre. Then she was no more than fifty.
+
+But these were her good days. Sometimes, after a night of insufferable
+pain, she remained in her bedroom, with yesterday's enamelling
+untouched, her bald head wrapped in black lace, a black-satin
+bed-jacket hanging loosely around her like a sack; and she moaned
+and cried and shrieked and seemed to be begging for release from her
+torments. This lasted for a couple of days and occurred regularly
+every three weeks, after which she gradually revived again.
+
+Her fussy conversation was limited to a constantly recurrent discussion
+of all sorts of family-matters, with appropriate annotations. She
+explained to Cornélie all the family-connections of her friends,
+American and European, but she enlarged more particularly
+upon the great European families which she numbered among her
+acquaintances. Cornélie could never listen to what she was saying
+and forgot the pedigrees again at once. It was sometimes unendurably
+tedious to have to listen for so long; and only for this reason,
+as though she were forced to it, Cornélie found the energy to talk
+a little herself, to relate an anecdote, to tell a story. When she
+saw that the old woman was very fond of anecdotes, riddles and puns,
+she collected as many as she could from the Vie parisienne and the
+Journal pour rire and kept them ready to hand. And Mrs. Uxeley thought
+her very entertaining. Once, as she noticed Duco's daily letter, she
+referred to it; and Cornélie suddenly discovered that the old lady
+was devoured with curiosity. Then she quietly told her the truth:
+her marriage, her divorce, her independent ideas, her meeting and
+her life with Duco. The old woman was a little disappointed because
+Cornélie spoke so simply about it all. She merely advised her to live
+discreetly and correctly now. What people said about former incidents
+did not matter so very much. But there must be no occasion for gossip
+now. Cornélie promised meekly. And Mrs. Uxeley showed her her albums,
+with her own photographs, dating back to her young days, and the
+photographs of all sorts of men. And she told her about this friend
+and that friend and, vain-gloriously, allowed the suggestion of a very
+lurid past to peep through. But she had always lived discreetly and
+correctly. That was her pride. And what Cornélie had done was wrong....
+
+The hour or so from eleven to half-past twelve was a relief. Then the
+old woman regularly went to sleep--her only sleep in the twenty-four
+hours--and Urania came to fetch Cornélie for a drive or a walk along
+the Promenade or to sit in the Jardin Public. And it was the only
+moment when Cornélie more or less appreciated her new-found luxury and
+took pleasure in the gratification of her vanity. The passers-by turned
+round to stare at the two young and pretty women in their exquisite
+serge frocks, with their fashionable headgear withdrawn in the twilight
+of their sunshades, and admired the Princess di Forte-Braccio's glossy
+victoria, irreproachable liveries and spanking greys.
+
+Gilio maintained a reserved and respectful attitude towards
+Cornélie. He was polite but kept a courteous distance when he joined
+the two ladies for a moment in the gardens or on the Jetée. After
+the night in the pergola, after the sudden flash of his angry knife,
+she was afraid of him, afraid also because she had lost much of her
+courage and haughtiness. But she could not answer him more coldly
+than she did, because she was grateful to him as well as to Urania
+for the care shown her during the first few days, for their tact in
+not at once surrendering her to Mrs. Uxeley and in keeping her with
+them until she had recovered some of her strength.
+
+In the freedom of those mornings, when she felt herself released from
+the old woman--vain, selfish, insignificant, ridiculous--who was as
+the caricature of her life, she felt that in Urania's friendship she
+was finding herself again, she became conscious of being at Nice,
+she contemplated the garish bustle around her with clearer eyes and
+she lost the unreality of the first days. At such times it was as
+though she saw herself again for the first time, in her light serge
+walking-dress, sitting in the garden, her gloved fingers playing with
+the tassels of her sunshade. She could hardly believe in herself,
+but she saw herself. Deep down within herself, hidden even from
+Urania, she concealed her longing, her home-sickness, her stifling
+discontent. She sometimes felt ready to burst into sobs. But she
+listened to Urania and joined in her laughter and talk and looked up
+with a smile at Gilio, who stood in front of her, mincing to and fro
+on the tips of his shoes and swinging his walking-stick behind his
+back. Sometimes, suddenly--as a vision whirling through the crowd--she
+saw Duco, the studio, the happiness of the past fading away for one
+brief moment. Then with her finger-tips she felt his letter of that
+morning, between the strips of gathered lace in front of her bolero,
+and just crushed the hard envelope against her breast, as something
+belonging to him that was caressing her.
+
+And it was not to be denied: she saw herself and Nice around her; she
+became sensible of new life: it was not unreal, even though it was not
+actual to her soul; it was a sorrowful comedy, in which she--dismally,
+feebly, listlessly--played her part.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there was no possibility
+of the least alteration: everything was done in accordance with a fixed
+law. The reading of the newspaper; her hour and a half to herself;
+then lunch. After lunch, the drive, the Jetée, the visits; every
+day, those visits and afternoon teas. Once in a way, a dinner-party;
+and in the evening generally a dance, a reception or a theatre. She
+made new acquaintances by the score and forgot them again at once
+and no longer remembered, when she saw them again, whether she knew
+them or not. As a rule people were fairly pleasant to her in that
+cosmopolitan set, because they knew that she was an intimate friend
+of the Princess Urania's. But, like Urania herself, she was sometimes
+conscious, from the feminine bearers of the old Italian names and
+titles which sometimes glittered in that set, of an overwhelming
+pride and contempt. The men always asked to be introduced to her; but,
+whenever she asked to be introduced to their ladies, her only reward
+was a nod of vague surprise. She herself minded very little, but she
+felt sorry for Urania. For she saw at once, at Urania's own parties,
+that they hardly looked upon her as the hostess, that they surrounded
+and made much of Gilio, but accorded to his wife no more than the
+civility which was her due as Princess di Forte-Braccio, without ever
+forgetting that she was once Miss Hope. And for Urania this contempt
+was more difficult to put up with than for herself. For she accepted
+her rôle as the companion. She always kept an eye on Mrs. Uxeley,
+constantly joined her for a minute in the course of the evening,
+fetched a fan which Mrs. Uxeley had left in the next room or did her
+this or that trifling service. Then she would sit down, against the
+wall alone in the busily humming drawing-room, and gaze indifferently
+before her. She sat, always very smartly dressed, in an attitude of
+graceful indifference and weary boredom, tapping her little foot or
+unfolding her fan. She took no notice of anybody. Sometimes a couple of
+men would come up to her and she spoke to them, or danced with one of
+them, indifferently, as though conferring a favour. Once, when Gilio
+was talking to her, she sitting and he standing, and the Duchess di
+Luca and Countess Costi both came up to him and, standing, began to
+chaff him profusely, without honouring her with a word or a glance,
+she first stared at the ladies between her mocking lids, eyeing them
+from head to foot, and then rose slowly, took Gilio's arm and, with
+a glance which darted sharp as a needle from her narrowed eyes, said:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but you must excuse me if I rob you of the Prince
+di Forte-Braccio, because I have to finish a private conversation."
+
+And with the pressure of her arm she made Gilio move on a few steps,
+then at once sat down again, made him sit down beside her and began to
+whisper with him very confidentially, while she left the duchess and
+countess standing two yards away, open-mouthed with stupefaction at
+her rudeness, and furthermore spread her train wide between herself
+and the two ladies and waved her fan to and fro, as though to preserve
+a distance. She could do this sort of thing so calmly, so tactfully
+and haughtily, that Gilio was tickled to death and sat and giggled
+with delight:
+
+"I wish that Urania knew how to behave like that!" he said, pleased
+as a child at the diversion which she had afforded him.
+
+"Urania is too nice to do anything so odious," she replied.
+
+She did not make herself liked, but people became afraid of her, afraid
+of her quiet malice, and avoided offending her in future. Moreover,
+the men thought her pretty and agreeable and were also attracted by her
+haughty indifference. And, without really intending it, she achieved a
+position, apparently by using the greatest diplomacy, but in reality
+quite naturally and easily. While Mrs. Uxeley's egoism was flattered
+by her little attentions--always dutifully remembered and paid with a
+charming air of maternal solicitude, in contrast to which Mrs. Uxeley
+thought it delightful to simper like a young girl--Cornélie gradually
+gathered a court of men around her in the evenings; and the women
+became insipidly civil. Urania often told her how clever she thought
+her, how much tact she displayed. Cornélie shrugged her shoulders:
+it all happened of itself; and really she did not care. But still,
+gradually, she recovered some of her cheerfulness. When she saw
+herself standing in the glass, she had to confess to herself that
+she was better-looking than she had ever been, either as a girl or
+as a newly-married woman. Her tall, slender figure had a languorous
+line of pride that gave her a special grace; her throat was statelier,
+her bosom fuller; her waist was slimmer in these new dresses; her hips
+had become heavier, her arms more rounded; and, though her features no
+longer wore the look of radiant happiness which they had worn in Rome,
+her mocking smile and her negligent irony gave her a certain attraction
+for those unknown men, something more alluring and provoking than
+the greatest coquetry would have been. And Cornélie had not wished
+for this; but, now that it came of itself, she accepted it. It was
+foreign to her nature to refuse it. And, besides, Mrs. Uxeley was
+pleased with her. Cornélie had such a pretty way of whispering to her:
+
+"Dear lady, you were in such pain yesterday. Don't you think you
+ought to go home a little earlier to-night?"
+
+And then Mrs. Uxeley would simper like a girl who was being admonished
+by her mother not to dance too much that evening. She loved these
+little ways of Cornélie's; and Cornélie, with careless indifference,
+gave her what she wanted. And those evenings amused her more than they
+did at first; only, the amusement was combined with self-reproach
+as soon as she thought of Duco, of their separation, of Rome, of
+the studio, of the happiness of those past days, which she had lost
+through her lack of fortitude.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+Two months had passed like this. It was January; and these were busy
+days for Cornélie, because Mrs. Uxeley was soon to give one of her
+celebrated evenings and Cornélie's free hours in the morning were
+now taken up with running all sorts of errands. Urania generally
+drove with her; and she came to rely upon Urania. They had to go to
+upholsterers, to pastry-cooks, to florists and to jewellers, where
+Cornélie and Urania selected presents for the cotillon. Mrs. Uxeley
+never went out for this, but occupied herself with every trifling
+indoor detail; and there were endless discussions, followed by more
+drives to the shops, for the old lady was anything but easy to please,
+vain as she was of her fame as a hostess and afraid of losing it
+through the least omission.
+
+During one of these drives, as the victoria was turning into the Avenue
+de la Gare, Cornélie started so violently that she clutched Urania's
+arm and could not restrain an exclamation. Urania asked her what she
+had seen, but she was unable to speak and Urania made her get out at a
+confectioner's to drink a glass of water. She was very nearly fainting
+and looked deathly pale. She was not able to continue her errands; and
+they drove back to Mrs. Uxeley's villa. The old lady was displeased at
+this sudden fainting-fit and grumbled so that Urania went off alone
+to complete the errands. After lunch, however, Cornélie felt better,
+made her apologies and accompanied Mrs. Uxeley to an afternoon tea.
+
+Next day, when she was sitting with Mrs. Uxeley and a couple of
+friends on the Jetée, she seemed to see the same thing again. She
+turned as white as a sheet, but retained her composure and laughed
+and talked merrily.
+
+These were the days of the preparations. The date of the entertainment
+drew nearer; and at last the evening arrived. Mrs. Uxeley was trembling
+with nervousness like a young girl and found the necessary strength to
+walk through the whole villa, which was all light and flowers. And with
+a sigh of satisfaction she sat down for a moment. She was dressed. Her
+face was smooth as porcelain, her hair was waved and glittered with
+diamond pins. Her gown of pale-blue brocade was cut very low; and
+she gleamed like a reliquary. A triple rope of priceless pearls hung
+down to her waist. In her hand--she was not yet gloved--she held a
+gold-knobbed cane, which was indispensable when she wanted to rise. And
+it was only when she rose that she showed her age, when she worked
+herself erect by muscular efforts, with that look of pain in her face,
+with that twinge of rheumatism which shot through her. Cornélie, not
+yet dressed, after a last glance through the villa, blazing with light,
+swooning with flowers, hurried to her room and, already feeling tired,
+dropped into the chair in front of her dressing-table, to have her
+hair done quickly. She was irritable and told the maid to hurry. She
+was just ready when the first guests arrived and she was able to join
+Mrs. Uxeley. And the carriages rolled up. Cornélie, at the top of the
+monumental staircase, looked down into the hall, where the people
+were streaming in, the ladies in their long evening-wraps--almost
+more expensive even than their dresses--which they carefully gave up
+in the crowded, buzzing cloakroom. And the first arrivals came up the
+stairs, waiting so as not to be the very first, and were beamed upon
+by Mrs. Uxeley. The drawing-rooms soon filled. In addition to the
+reception-rooms, the hostess' own rooms were thrown open, forming in
+all a suite of twelve apartments. Whereas the corridors and stairs
+were adorned only with clumps of red and white and pink camellias,
+in the rooms the floral decorations were contained in hundreds of
+vases and bowls and dishes, which stood about on every hand and,
+with the light of the shaded candles, gave an intimate charm to the
+entertainment. That was the speciality of Mrs. Uxeley's decorations
+on great occasions: the electric light not used; instead, on every
+hand candles with little shades, on every hand glasses and bowls
+full of flowers, giving the effect of a fairy garden. Though perhaps
+the main outlines were broken, a most charming effect of cosiness
+was gained. Small groups and couples could find a place everywhere:
+behind a screen, in a loggia; you constantly found a spot for privacy;
+and this perhaps explained the vogue of Mrs. Uxeley's parties. The
+villa, suitable for giving a court ball, was used only for giving
+entertainments of a luxurious intimate character to hundreds of people
+who were quite unknown to one another. Each little set chose itself
+a little corner, where it made itself at home. A very tiny boudoir,
+all in Japanese lacquer and Japanese silk, was aimed at generally, but
+was at once captured by Gilio, the Countess di Rosavilla, the Duchess
+di Luca and Countess Costi. They did not even go to the music-room,
+where a concert formed the first item. Paderewski was playing, Sigrid
+Arnoldson was to sing. The music-room also was lighted by shaded
+candles; and everybody whispered that, in this soft light, Mrs. Uxeley
+did not look a day over forty. During the interval she simpered to two
+very young journalists who were to describe her party. Urania, sitting
+beside Cornélie, was addressed by a Frenchman whom she introduced to
+her friend: the Chevalier de Breuil. Cornélie knew that Urania had
+met him at Ostend and that his name was coupled with the Princess
+di Forte-Braccio's. Urania had never mentioned De Breuil to her, but
+Cornélie now saw, by her smile, her blush and the sparkle in her eyes,
+that people were right. She left them to themselves, feeling sad when
+she thought of Urania. She understood that the little princess was
+consoling herself for her husband's neglect; and she suddenly thought
+this whole life of make-believe disgusting. She longed for Rome, for
+the studio, for Duco, for independence, love and happiness. She had
+had it all; but it had been fated not to endure. Everything around her
+was like one great lie, more brilliant than at the Hague, but even more
+false, brutal and depraved. People no longer even pretended to believe
+the lie: here they showed a brutal sincerity. The lie was respected,
+but nobody believed in it, nobody put forward the lie as a truth;
+the lie was nothing more than a form.
+
+Cornélie wandered through the rooms by herself, went up to Mrs. Uxeley
+for a moment, in accordance with her habit, whispered to ask how she
+felt, whether she wanted anything, if everything was going well, then
+continued on her way through the rooms. She was standing by a vase,
+rearranging some orchids, when a woman in black velvet, fair-haired,
+with a full throat and bosom, spoke to her in English:
+
+"I am Mrs. Holt. I dare say you don't know my name, but I know
+yours. I very much want to make your acquaintance. I have often been
+to Holland and I read Dutch a little. I read your pamphlet on The
+Social Position of Divorced Women and I thought a good deal of what
+you wrote most interesting."
+
+"You are very kind. Shall we sit down? I remember your name too. You
+were one of the leaders of the Women's Congress in London, were
+you not?"
+
+"Yes, I spoke about the training of children. Weren't you able to
+come to London?"
+
+"No, I did think about it, but I was in Rome at the time and I couldn't
+manage it."
+
+"That was a pity. The congress was a great step forward. If your
+pamphlet had been translated then and distributed, you would have
+had a great success."
+
+"I care very little for success of that kind."
+
+"Of course, I can understand that. But the success of your book is
+also for the good of the great cause."
+
+"Do you really mean that? Is there any merit in my little book?"
+
+"Do you doubt it?"
+
+"Very often."
+
+"How is that possible? It is written with such a sure touch."
+
+"Perhaps just for that reason."
+
+"I don't understand you. There's a vagueness sometimes about Dutch
+people which we English don't understand, something like a reflection
+of your beautiful skies in your character."
+
+"Do you never doubt? Do you feel sure of your ideas on the training
+of children?"
+
+"I have studied children in schools, in crèches and in their homes
+and I have acquired very decided ideas. And I work in accordance with
+these ideas for the people of the future. I will send you my pamphlet,
+containing the gist of my speeches at the congress. Are you working
+on another pamphlet now?"
+
+"No, I regret to say."
+
+"Why not? We must all fight shoulder to shoulder, if we are to
+conquer."
+
+"I believe I have said all that I had to say. I wrote what I did on
+impulse, from personal experience. And then ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Then things changed. All women are different and I never approved
+of generalizing. And do you believe that there are many women who can
+work for a universal object with a man's thoroughness, when they have
+found a lesser object for themselves, a small happiness, such as a
+love to satisfy their own ego, in which they can be happy? Don't you
+think that every woman has slumbering inside her a selfish craving
+for her own love and happiness and that, when she has found this,
+the outside world and the future cease to interest her?"
+
+"Possibly. But so few women find it."
+
+"I believe there are not many. But that is another question. And I
+do believe that an interest in universal questions is a pis-aller
+with most women."
+
+"You have become an apostate. You speak quite differently from what
+you wrote a year ago."
+
+"Yes, I have become very humble, because I am more sincere. Of course
+I believe in certain women, in certain choice spirits. But would the
+majority not always remain feminine, just women and weak?"
+
+"Not with a sensible training."
+
+"Yes, I believe that it lies in that, in the training...."
+
+"Of the child, of the girl."
+
+"I believe that I have never been educated and that this constitutes
+my weakness."
+
+"Our girls should be told when still very young of the struggle that
+lies before them."
+
+"You are right. We--my friends, my sisters and I--had the 'safety'
+of marriage impressed upon us at the earliest possible moment. Do you
+know whom I think the most to be pitied? Our parents! They honestly
+believed that they were having us taught all that was necessary. And
+now, at this moment, they must see that they did not divine the future
+correctly and that their training, their education was no education
+at all, because they failed to inform their children of the struggle
+which was being waged right before their eyes. It is our parents
+that are to be pitied. They can mend nothing now. They see us--girls,
+young women of twenty to thirty--overwhelmed by life; and they have
+not given us the strength for it. They kept us sheltered as long as
+possible under the paternal wing; and then they began to think of
+our marriage, not in order to get rid of us, but with a view to our
+happiness, our safety and our future. We are indeed unfortunate, we
+girls and women who were not, like our younger sisters, told of the
+struggle that lay just before us; but I believe that we may still
+have hope in our youth and that our parents are unhappier and more
+to be pitied than we, because they have nothing more to hope for and
+because they must secretly confess that they went astray in their love
+for their children. They were still educating us according to the past,
+while the future was already so near at hand. I pity our parents and I
+could almost love them better for that reason than I ever did before."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+She had suddenly turned very pale, as though under the stress of a
+sudden emotion. She covered her face with her fluttering fan and her
+fingers trembled violently; her whole body shuddered.
+
+"That is well thought on your part," said Mrs. Holt. "I am glad to
+have met you. I always find a certain charm in Dutch people: that
+vagueness, which we are unable to seize, and then all at once a light
+that flashes out of a cloud.... I hope to see you again. I am at home
+on Tuesdays, at five o'clock. Will you come one day with Mrs. Uxeley?"
+
+Mrs. Holt pressed her hand and disappeared among the other
+guests. Cornélie had risen from her chair, while her knees seemed to
+give way beneath her. She remained standing, half-turned towards the
+room, looking in the glass; and her fingers played with the orchids
+in a Venetian vase on the console-table. She was still rather pale,
+but controlled herself, though her heart was beating loudly and her
+breast heaving. And she looked in the glass. She saw first her own
+figure, her beautiful, slender outline, in her dress of white and
+black Chantilly, with the white-lace train, foaming with flounces,
+the black-lace tunic with the scalloped border and sprinkled with
+steel spangles and blue stones, a spray of orchids in the sleeveless
+corsage, which left her neck and arms and shoulders bare. Her hair
+was bound with three Greek fillets of pearls; and her fan of white
+feathers--a present from Urania--was like foam against her throat. She
+saw herself first and then, in the mirror, she saw him. He was coming
+nearer to her. She did not move, only her fingers played with the
+flowers in the vase. She felt as though she wished to take flight,
+but her knees gave way and her feet were paralysed. She stood rooted
+to the floor, hypnotized. She was unable to stir. And she saw him come
+nearer and nearer, while her back remained half-turned to the room. He
+approached; and his appearance seemed to fling out a net in which she
+was caught. He was close by her now, close behind her. Mechanically
+she raised her eyes and looked in the glass and met his eyes in the
+mirror. She thought that she would faint. She felt squeezed between
+him and the glass. In the mirror the room went round and round, the
+candles whirled giddily, like a reeling firmament. He did not say
+anything yet. She only saw his eyes gazing and his mouth smiling under
+his moustache. And he still said nothing. Then, in that unendurable
+lack of space between him and the mirror, which did not even give
+shelter as a wall would have done, but which reflected him so that he
+held her twice imprisoned, behind and before, she turned round slowly
+and looked him in the eyes. But she did not speak either. They looked
+at each other without a word.
+
+"You never expected this: that you would see me here one day," he said,
+at last.
+
+It was more than a year since she had heard his voice. But she felt
+his voice inside her.
+
+"No," she answered, at last, haughtily, coldly, distantly. "Though
+I saw you once or twice, in the street, on the Jetée."
+
+"Yes," he said. "Should I have bowed to you, do you think?"
+
+She shrugged her bare shoulders; and he looked at them. She felt for
+the first time that she was half-naked that evening.
+
+"No," she replied, still coldly and distantly. "Any more than you
+need have spoken to me now."
+
+He smiled at her. He stood before her as a wall. He stood before her
+as a man. His head, his shoulders, his chest, his legs, his whole
+stature rose before her as incarnate manhood.
+
+"Of course I needn't have done so," he said; and she felt his voice
+inside her: she felt his voice sinking in her like molten bronze into a
+mould. "If I had met you somewhere in Holland, I would only have taken
+off my hat and not spoken to you. But we are in a foreign country...."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"I felt I should like to speak to you.... I wanted to have a talk
+with you. Can't we do that as strangers?"
+
+"As strangers?" she echoed.
+
+"Oh, well, we're not strangers: we even know each other uncommonly
+intimately, eh?... Come and sit down and tell me about yourself. Did
+you like Rome?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+He had led her as though with his will to a couch behind a half-damask,
+half-glass, Louis-XV. screen; and she dropped down upon it in a rosy
+twilight of candles, with bunches of pink roses around her in all
+sorts of Venetian glasses. He sat on an ottoman, bending towards her
+slightly, with his arms on his knees and his hands folded together:
+
+"They've been gossiping about you finely at the Hague. First about
+your pamphlet ... and then about your painter."
+
+Her eyes pierced him like needles. He laughed:
+
+"You can look just as angry as ever.... Tell me, do you ever hear
+from the old people? They're in a bad way."
+
+"Now and then. I was able to send them some money lately."
+
+"That's damned good of you. They don't deserve it. They said that
+you no longer existed for them."
+
+"Mamma wrote that they were so pushed for money. Then I sent them a
+hundred guilders. It was the most that I could do."
+
+"Oh, now that they find you sending them money, you'll begin to exist
+for them again!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"I don't mind that. I was sorry for them ... and sorry I couldn't
+send more."
+
+"Ah, when you look so thundering smart...."
+
+"I don't pay for my clothes."
+
+"I'm only stating a fact. I'm not venturing to criticize. I think it
+damned handsome of you to send them money. But you do look thundering
+smart.... Look here, let me tell you something: you've become a damned
+handsome girl."
+
+He stared at her, with his smile, which compelled her to look at him.
+
+Then she replied, very calmly, waving her fan lightly in front of
+her bare neck, sheltering in the foam of her fan:
+
+"I'm damned glad to hear it!"
+
+He gave a loud, throaty laugh:
+
+"There, I like that! You've still got your witty sense of
+repartee. Always to the point. Damned clever of you!"
+
+She stood up strained and nervous:
+
+"I must leave you. I must go to Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+He spread out his arms:
+
+"Stay and sit with me a little longer. It does me good to talk to you."
+
+"Then restrain yourself a bit and don't 'damn' quite so much. I've
+not been used to it lately."
+
+"I'll do my best. Sit down."
+
+She fell back and hid herself behind her fan.
+
+"Let me tell you that you have positively become a very ... a very
+beautiful woman. Now is that like a compliment?"
+
+"It sounds more like one."
+
+"Well, it's the best I can do, you know. So you must make the most
+of it. And now tell me about Rome. How were you living there?"
+
+"Why should I tell you about it?"
+
+"Because I'm interested."
+
+"You have no need to be interested."
+
+"I dare say, but I happen to be. I've never quite forgotten you. And
+I should be surprised if you had me."
+
+"I have, quite," she said, coolly.
+
+He looked at her with his smile. He said nothing, but she felt that
+he knew better. She was afraid to convince him further.
+
+"Is it true, what they say at the Hague? About Van der Staal?"
+
+She looked at him haughtily.
+
+"Come, out with it!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are a cheeky baggage! Do you no longer care a straw for the
+whole boiling of them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And how do you manage here, with this old hag?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Do they just accept you here, at Nice?"
+
+"I don't brag about my independence; and no one is able to comment
+on my conduct here."
+
+"Where is Van der Staal?"
+
+"At Florence."
+
+"Why isn't he here?"
+
+"I'm not going to answer any more questions. You are indiscreet. It
+has nothing to do with you and I won't be cross-examined."
+
+She was very nervous again and once more rose to her feet. He spread
+out his arms.
+
+"Really, Rudolph, you must let me go," she entreated. "I have to go
+to Mrs. Uxeley. They are to dance a pavane in the ball-room and I
+have to ask for instructions and hand them on. Let me pass."
+
+"Then I'll take you there. Let me offer you my arm."
+
+"Rudolph, do go away! Don't you see how you're upsetting me? This
+meeting has been so unexpected. Do let me go, or I sha'n't be able
+to control myself. I'm going to cry.... Why did you speak to me,
+why did you speak to me, why did you come here, where you knew that
+you would meet me?"
+
+"Because I wanted to see one of Mrs. Uxeley's parties and because I
+wanted to meet you."
+
+"You must understand that it upsets me to see you again. What good
+does it do you? We are dead to each other. Why should you want to
+pester me like this?"
+
+"That's just what I wanted to know, whether we are dead to each
+other...."
+
+"Dead, dead, quite dead!" she cried, vehemently.
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Come, don't be so theatrical. You can understand that I was curious
+to see you again and talk to you. I used to see you in the street, in
+your carriage, on the Jetée; and I was pleased to find you looking so
+well, so smart, so happy and so handsome. You know that good-looking
+women are my great hobby. You are much better-looking than you used
+to be when you were my wife. If you had been then what you are now,
+I should never have allowed you to divorce me.... Come, don't be
+a child. No one knows here. I think it damned jolly to meet you
+here, to have a good old yarn with you and to have you leaning on my
+arm. Take my arm. Don't make a fuss and I'll take you where you want
+to go. Where shall we find Mrs. Uxeley? Introduce me ... as a friend
+from Holland...."
+
+"Rudolph...."
+
+"Oh, I insist: don't bother! There's nothing in it! It amuses me and
+it's no end of a lark to walk about with one's divorced wife at a ball
+at Nice. A delightful town, isn't it? I go to Monte Carlo every day
+and I've been damned lucky. Won three thousand francs yesterday. Will
+you come with me one day?"
+
+"You're mad!"
+
+"I'm not mad at all. I want to enjoy myself. And I'm proud to have
+you on my arm."
+
+She withdrew her arm:
+
+"Well, you needn't be."
+
+"Now don't get spiteful. That's all rot: let's enjoy ourselves. There
+is the old girl: she's looking at you."
+
+She had passed through some of the rooms on his arm; and they saw,
+near a tombola, round which people were crowding to draw presents
+and surprises, Mrs. Uxeley, Gilio and the Rosavilla, Costi and Luca
+ladies. They were all very gay round the pyramid of knickknacks,
+behaving like children when the number of one of them turned up on
+the roulette-wheel.
+
+"Mrs. Uxeley," Cornélie began, in a trembling voice, "may I introduce
+a fellow-countryman of mine? Baron Brox."
+
+Mrs. Uxeley simpered, uttered a few amiable words and asked if he
+wouldn't draw a number.
+
+The roulette-wheel spun round and round.
+
+"A fellow-countryman, Cornélie?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+"What do you say his name is?"
+
+"Baron Brox."
+
+"A splendid fellow! A handsome fellow! An astonishingly handsome
+fellow!... What is he? What does he do?"
+
+"He's in the army, a first lieutenant...."
+
+"In which regiment?"
+
+"In the hussars."
+
+"At the Hague?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An amazingly good-looking fellow! I like those tall, fine men."
+
+"Mrs. Uxeley, is everything going as it should?"
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"Do you feel all right?"
+
+"I have a little pain, but nothing to speak about."
+
+"Won't it soon be time for the pavane?"
+
+"Yes, see that the girls go and get dressed. Has the hairdresser
+brought the wigs for the young men?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then go and collect them and tell them to hurry up. They must be
+ready within half an hour...."
+
+Rudolph Brox returned from the tombola, where he had drawn a silver
+match-box. He thanked Mrs. Uxeley, who simpered, and, when he saw
+that Cornélie was moving away, he went after her:
+
+"Cornélie ..."
+
+"Please, Rudolph, let me be. I have to collect the girls and the men
+for the pavane. I have a lot to do...."
+
+"I'll help you...."
+
+She beckoned to a girl or two and sent a couple of footmen to hunt
+through the room for the young men and to ask them to go to the
+dressing-room. He saw that she was pale and trembling all over
+her body:
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'm tired."
+
+"Then let's go and get something to drink."
+
+She was numb with nervousness. The music of the invisible band
+boom-boomed fiercely against her brain; and at times the innumerable
+candles whirled before her eyes like a reeling firmament. The rooms
+were choked with people. They crowded and laughed aloud and showed
+one another their presents; the men trod on the ladies' trains. An
+intoxicating, suffocating fragrance of flowers, the atmosphere peculiar
+to crowded functions and the warm, perfumed odour of women's flesh
+hung in the rooms like a cloud. Cornélie hunted hither and thither
+and at last collected all the girls. The ballet-master came to ask
+her something. A butler came to ask her something. And Brox did not
+budge from her side.
+
+"Let's go now and get something to drink," he said.
+
+She mechanically took his arm; and her hand trembled on the sleeve of
+his dress-coat. He pushed his way with her through the crowd; they
+passed Urania and De Breuil. Urania said something which Cornélie
+did not catch. The refreshment-room also was chock-full and buzzed
+with loud, laughing voices. Behind the long tables stood the butler,
+like a minister, supervising the whole service. There was no crowding,
+no fighting for a glass of wine or a sandwich. People waited until
+a footman brought it on a tray.
+
+"It's very well managed," said Brox. "Do you do all this?"
+
+"No, it's been done like this for years...."
+
+She dropped into a chair, looking very pale.
+
+"What will you have?"
+
+"A glass of champagne."
+
+"I'm hungry. I had a bad dinner at my hotel. I must have something
+to eat."
+
+He ordered the champagne for her. He ate first a patty, then another,
+then a châteaubriant and peas. He drank two glasses of claret, followed
+by a glass of champagne. The footman brought him everything, dish by
+dish, on a silver tray. His handsome, virile face was brick-red in
+colour with health and animal strength. The stiff hair on his round,
+heavy skull was cropped quite close. His large grey eyes were bright
+and laughing, with a straight, impudent glance. A heavy, well-tended
+moustache curled over his mouth, in which the white teeth gleamed. He
+stood with his legs slightly astraddle, firm and soldierly in his
+dress-coat, which he wore with an easy correctness. He ate slowly
+and with relish, enjoying his good glass of fine wine.
+
+Mechanically she now watched him, from her chair. She had drunk a
+glass of champagne and asked for another; and the stimulant revived
+her. Her cheeks recovered some of their colour; her eyes sparkled.
+
+"They do you damn well here," he said, coming up to her with his
+glass in his hand.
+
+And he emptied his glass.
+
+"They are going to dance the pavane almost at once," she murmured.
+
+And they passed through the crowded rooms, to a big corridor outside,
+which looked like an avenue of camellia-shrubs. They were alone for
+a moment.
+
+"This is where the dancers are to meet."
+
+"Then let's wait for them. It's nice and cool out here."
+
+They sat down on a bench.
+
+"Are you feeling better?" he asked. "You were so queer in the
+ball-room."
+
+"Yes, I'm better."
+
+"Don't you think it's fun to meet your old husband again?"
+
+"Rudolph, I don't understand how you can talk to me like that and
+persecute me and tease me ... after everything that has happened...."
+
+"Oh, well, all that has happened and is done with!"
+
+"Do you think it's discreet on your part ... or delicate?"
+
+"No, neither discreet nor delicate. Those, you know, are things I've
+never been: you used to fling that in my face often enough, in the
+old days. But, if it's not delicate, it's amusing. Have you lost your
+sense of humour? It's damn jolly humorous, our meeting here.... And
+now listen to me. You and I are divorced. All right. That's so in
+the eyes of the law. But a legal divorce is a matter of law and form,
+for the benefit of society. As regards money affairs and so on. We've
+been too much husband and wife not to feel something for each other
+at a later meeting, such as this. Yes, yes, I know what you want to
+say. It's simply untrue. You have been too much in love with me and I
+with you for everything between us to be dead. I remember everything
+still. And you must do the same. Do you remember when...?"
+
+He laughed, pushed nearer to her and whispered close in her ear. She
+felt his breath thrilling on her flesh like a warm breeze. She flushed
+crimson with nervous distress. And she felt with her whole body
+that he had been her husband and that he had entered into her very
+blood. His voice ran like molten bronze, along her nerves of hearing,
+deep down within her. She knew him through and through. She knew his
+eyes, his mouth. She knew his broad, well-kept hands, with the large
+round nails and the dark signet-ring, as they lay on his knees, which
+showed square and powerful under the crease in his dress-trousers. And
+she felt, like a sudden despair, that she knew and felt him in her
+whole body. However rough he might have been to her in the old days,
+however much he had ill-treated her, striking her with his clenched
+fist, banging her against the wall ... she had been his wife. She,
+a virgin, had become his wife, had been initiated into womanhood by
+him. And she felt that he had branded her as his own, she felt it in
+her blood and in the marrow of her bones. She confessed to herself that
+she had never forgotten him. During the first lonely days in Rome,
+she had longed for his kisses, she had thought of him, had conjured
+up his virile image before her mind, had persuaded herself to believe
+that, by exercising tact and patience and a little management, she
+could have remained his wife....
+
+Then the great happiness had come, the gentle happiness of perfect
+harmony!...
+
+It all flashed through her like lightning.
+
+Oh, in that great, gentle happiness she had been able to forget
+everything, she had not felt the past within her! But she now felt
+that the past always remained, irrevocably and indelibly. She had
+been his wife and she held him still in her blood. She felt it now
+with every breath that she drew. She was indignant because he dared
+to whisper about the old days, in her ear; but it had all been as he
+said, irrevocably, indelibly.
+
+"Rudolph!" she entreated, clasping her hands together. "Spare me!"
+
+She almost screamed it, in a cry of fear and despair. But he laughed
+and with one hand seized both hers, clasped in entreaty:
+
+"If you go on like that, if you look at me so beseechingly with
+those beautiful eyes, I won't spare you even here and I'll kiss you
+until ..."
+
+His words swept over her like a scorching wind. But laughing voices
+approached; and two girls and two young men, dressed up, for the
+pavane, as Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois, came running down
+the stairs:
+
+"What's become of the others?" they cried, looking round in the
+staircase.
+
+And they came dancing up to Cornélie. The ballet-master also
+approached. She did not understand what he said:
+
+"Where are the others?" she repeated, mechanically, in a hoarse voice.
+
+"Here they come.... Now we're all there...."
+
+They were all talking and laughing and glittering and buzzing
+about her. She summoned up all her poor strength and issued a few
+instructions. The guests streamed into the great ball-room, sat down
+in the front chairs, crowded together in the corners. The pavane was
+danced in the middle of the room, to an old trailing melody: a long,
+winding curve of graceful steps, deep bows and satin gleaming with
+sudden lustre like that of porcelain ... with the occasional flutter
+of a cape ... and a flash of light on a rapier....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+"Urania, I beseech you, help me!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Come with me...."
+
+She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De Breuil
+into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost entirely
+deserted; the dense throng of guests stood packed along the sides of
+the great ball-room to watch the pavane.
+
+"What is it, Cornélie?"
+
+Cornélie was trembling in every limb and clutching Urania's arm. She
+drew her to the farthest corner of the room. There was no one there.
+
+"Urania," she entreated, in a supreme crisis of nervousness, "help
+me! What am I to do? I have met him unexpectedly. Don't you know
+whom I mean? My husband. My divorced husband. I had seen him once or
+twice before, in the street and on the Jetée. The time when I was so
+startled, you know, when I almost fainted: that was because of him. And
+he has been talking to me now, here, a moment ago. And I'm afraid of
+him. He spoke quite nicely, said he wanted to talk to me. It was so
+strange. Everything was finished between us. We were divorced. And
+suddenly I meet him and he speaks to me and asks me what sort of
+time I have had, tells me that I am looking well, that I have grown
+beautiful. Tell me, Urania, what I am to do. I'm frightened. I'm ill
+with anxiety. I want to get away. I should like best to go away at
+once, to Florence, to Duco. I am so frightened, Urania. I want to go
+to my room. Tell Mrs. Uxeley that I want to go to my room."
+
+She hardly knew what she was saying. The words fell incoherently from
+her lips, as in a fever. Men's voices approached. They were those
+of Gilio, De Breuil, the Duke di Luca and the young journalists,
+the two who were pushing their way into society.
+
+"What is the Signora de Retz doing?" asked the duke. "We are missing
+her everywhere."
+
+And the young journalists, standing in the shadow of these eminent
+noblemen, confirmed the statement: they had been missing her
+everywhere.
+
+"Fetch Mrs. Uxeley here," Urania whispered to Gilio. "Cornélie
+is ill, I think. I can't leave her here alone. She wants to go to
+her room. It's better that Mrs. Uxeley should know, else she might
+be angry."
+
+Cornélie was jesting nervously, in feverish gaiety, with the duke
+and with De Breuil and the journalists.
+
+"Would you rather I took you straight to Mrs. Uxeley?" Gilio whispered.
+
+"I want to go to my room!" she whispered, in a voice of entreaty,
+behind her fan.
+
+The pavane appeared to be over. The buzz of voices reached them,
+as though the guests were scattering about the rooms again:
+
+"I see Mrs. Uxeley," said Gilio.
+
+He went up to her, spoke to her. She simpered at first, leaning
+on the gold knob of her cane. Then her wrinkles became angrily
+contracted. She crossed the room. Cornélie went on jesting with the
+duke; the journalists thought every word witty.
+
+"Aren't you well?" whispered Mrs. Uxeley, going up to her,
+ruffled. "What about the cotillon?"
+
+"I will see to everything, Mrs. Uxeley," said Urania.
+
+"Impossible, dear princess; and I shouldn't dream of letting you
+either."
+
+"Introduce me to your friend, Cornélie!" said a deep voice behind
+Cornélie.
+
+She felt that voice like bronze inside her body. She turned round
+automatically. It was he. She seemed unable to escape him. And,
+under his glance, as though hypnotized, she appeared, very strangely,
+to recover her strength. It seemed as though he were willing her not
+to be ill. She murmured:
+
+"Urania, may I introduce ... a fellow-countryman?... Baron
+Brox.... Princess di Forte-Braccio...."
+
+Urania knew his name, knew who he was:
+
+"Darling," she whispered to Cornélie, "let me take you to your
+room. I'll see to everything."
+
+"It's no longer necessary," she said. "I'm much better. I only want
+a glass of champagne. I am much better, Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+"Why did you run away from me?" asked Rudolph Brox, with his smile
+and his eyes in Cornélie's eyes.
+
+She smiled and said the first thing that came into her head.
+
+"The dancing has begun," said Mrs. Uxeley. "But who's going to lead
+my cotillon presently?"
+
+"If I can be of any service, Mrs. Uxeley," said Brox, "I have some
+little talent as a cotillon-leader."
+
+Mrs. Uxeley was delighted. It was arranged that De Breuil and Urania,
+Gilio and the Countess Costi and Brox and Cornélie should lead the
+figures in turns.
+
+"You poor darling!" Urania said in Cornélie's ear. "Can you manage it?"
+
+Cornélie smiled:
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm all right again," she whispered.
+
+And she moved towards the ball-room on Brox's arm. Urania stared
+after her in amazement.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+It was twelve o'clock when Cornélie woke that morning. The sun was
+piercing the golden slit in the half-parted curtains with tiny eddying
+atoms. She felt dog-tired. She remembered that Mrs. Uxeley, on the
+morning after one of these parties, left her free to rest: the old
+lady herself stayed in bed, although she did not sleep. And Cornélie
+lacked the smallest capacity to rise. She remained lying where she
+was, heavy with fatigue. Her eyes wandered through the untidy room;
+her handsome ball-dress, hanging listlessly, limply over a chair,
+at once reminded her of yesterday. For that matter, everything in
+her was thinking of yesterday, everything in her was thinking of her
+husband, with a tense, hypnotized consciousness. She felt as if she
+were recovering from a nightmare, a bout of drunkenness, a swoon. It
+was only by drinking glass after glass of champagne that she had
+been able to keep going, had been able to dance with Brox, had been
+able to lead the figure when their turn came. But it was not only
+the champagne. His eyes also had held her up, had prevented her from
+fainting, from bursting into sobs, from screaming and waving her arms
+like a madwoman. When he had taken his leave, when everybody had gone,
+she had collapsed in a heap and been taken to bed. The moment she was
+no longer under his eyes, she had felt her misery and her weakness;
+and the champagne had as it were suddenly clouded her brain.
+
+Now she lay thinking of him in the dejected slackness of her
+overwhelming morning fatigue. And it seemed to her as if her whole
+Italian year had been an interlude, a dream. She saw herself at the
+Hague again, with her pretty little face and her little flirting ways
+and her phrases always to the point. She saw their first meetings and
+how she had at once fallen under his influence and been unable to flirt
+with him, because he laughed at her little feminine defences. He had
+been too strong for her from the first. Then came their engagement. He
+laid down the law and she rebelled, angrily, with violent scenes, not
+wishing to be controlled, injured in her pride as a girl who had always
+been spoiled and made much of. And then he subdued her as though with
+the rude strength of his fist--and always with a laugh on his handsome
+mouth--until they were married, until she created a scandal and ran
+away. He had refused to be divorced at first, but had consented later,
+because of the scandal. She had freed herself, she had fled!...
+
+The feminist movement, Italy, Duco.... Was it a dream? Was the
+great happiness, the delightful harmony, a dream and was she awaking
+after a year of dreams? Was she divorced or was she not? She had to
+make an effort to remember the formalities: yes, they were legally
+divorced. But was she divorced, was everything over between them? And
+was she really no longer his wife?
+
+Why had he done it, why had he pursued her after seeing her once
+at Nice? Oh, he had told her, during that cotillon, that endless
+cotillon! He had become proud of her when he saw how beautiful she
+was and how smart, how happy she looked driving in Mrs. Uxeley's
+or the princess' elegant victoria; it was then that he had seen
+her, beautiful, smart and happy; and he had grown jealous. She, a
+beautiful woman, had been his wife! He felt that he had a right to
+her, notwithstanding the law. What was the law? Had the law taught
+her womanhood or had he? And he had made her feel his right, together
+with the irrevocable past. It was all irrevocable and indelible....
+
+She looked about her, at her wits' end what to do. And she began to
+weep, to sob. Then she felt something gaining strength within her,
+the instinctive rebellion that leapt up within her like a spring which
+had at length recovered its resilience, now that she was resting and
+no longer under his eyes. She would not. She would not. She refused
+to feel him in her blood. Should she meet him once more, she would
+speak to him calmly, very curtly, and order him to leave her, show
+him the door, have him put out of the door.... She clenched her fists
+with rage. She hated him. She thought of Duco.... And she thought
+of writing to him, telling him everything. And she thought of going
+back to him as quickly as possible. He was not a dream, he existed,
+even though he was living so far away, at Florence. She had saved a
+little money, they would find their happiness again in the studio in
+Rome. She would write to him; and she wanted to get away as quickly
+as possible. With Duco she would be safe. Oh, how she longed for him,
+to lie so softly and quietly and blissfully in his arms, against
+his breast, as in the embrace of a miraculous happiness! Was it all
+true, their happiness, their love and harmony? Yes, it had existed,
+it was not a dream. There was his photograph; there, on the wall,
+were two of his water-colours--the sea at Sorrento and the skies over
+Amalfi--done in those days which had been like poems. She would be
+safer with him. When she was with Duco, she would not feel Rudolph,
+her husband, in her blood. For she felt Duco in her soul; and her soul
+would be the stronger! She would feel Duco in her soul, in her heart,
+in all the most fervent part of her life and gather from him her
+uppermost strength, like a sheaf of gleaming sword-blades! Already
+now, when she thought of him with such longing, she felt herself
+growing stronger. She could have spoken to Brox now. Yesterday he
+had taken her by surprise, had squeezed her between himself and
+that looking-glass, till she had seen him double and lost her wits
+and been defeated. That would never happen again. That was only due
+to the surprise. If she spoke to him again now, she would triumph,
+thanks to what she had learnt as a woman who stood on her own feet.
+
+And she got up and opened the windows and put on her dressing-gown. She
+looked at the blue sea, at the motley traffic on the Promenade. And
+she sat down and wrote to Duco. She told him everything: her first
+startled meeting, her surprise and defeat at the ball. Her pen flew
+over the paper. She did not hear the knock at the door, did not hear
+Urania come in carefully, fearing lest she should still be asleep
+and anxious to know how she felt. Excitedly she read out part of her
+letter and said that she was ashamed of her weakness of yesterday. How
+she could have behaved like that she herself was unable to understand.
+
+No, she herself could not understand it. Now that she felt somewhat
+rested and was speaking to Urania, who reminded her of Rome, and
+holding her long letter to Duco in her hand ... now she herself did
+not understand it all and wondered which had been a dream: her Italian
+year of happiness or that nightmare of yesterday....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+She stayed at home for a day, feeling tired and, deep down within
+herself, almost unconsciously, afraid, in spite of all, of meeting
+him. But Mrs. Uxeley, who would never hear of illness or fatigue,
+was so much put out that Cornélie accompanied her next day to the
+Promenade des Anglais. Friends came up to talk to them and gathered
+round their chairs, with Rudolph Brox among them. But Cornélie avoided
+any confidential conversation.
+
+Some days later, however, he called on Mrs. Uxeley's at-home day;
+and, amid the crowd of visitors paying duty-calls after the party,
+he was able to speak to her for a moment alone. He came up to her
+with that laugh of his, as though his eyes were laughing, as though
+his moustache were laughing. And she collected all her thoughts,
+so that she might be firm with him:
+
+"Rudolph," she said, loftily, "it is simply ridiculous. If you don't
+think it indelicate, you might at least try to think it ridiculous. It
+tickles your sense of humour, but imagine what people would say about
+it in Holland!... The other evening, at the party, you took me by
+surprise and somehow--I really don't know how it happened--I yielded
+to your strange wish to dance with me and to lead the cotillon. I
+frankly confess, I was confused. I now see everything clearly and
+plainly and I tell you this: I refuse to meet you again. I refuse
+to speak to you again. I refuse to turn the solemn earnest of our
+divorce into a farce."
+
+"If you look back," he said, "you will recollect that you never got
+anything out of me with that lofty tone and those dignified airs,
+but that, on the contrary, you just stimulate me to do what you
+don't want...."
+
+"If that is so, I shall simply tell Mrs. Uxeley in what relation I
+stand to you and ask her to forbid you her house."
+
+He laughed. She lost her temper:
+
+"Do you intend to behave like a gentleman or like a cad?"
+
+He turned red and clenched his fists:
+
+"Curse you!" he hissed, in his moustache.
+
+"Perhaps you would like to hit me and knock me about?" she continued,
+scornfully.
+
+He mastered himself.
+
+"We are in a room full of people," she sneered, defiantly. "What if
+we were alone? You've already clenched your fists! You would thrash
+me as you did before. You brute! You brute!"
+
+"And you are very brave in this room full of people!" he laughed,
+with his laugh which incited her to rage, when it did not subdue
+her. "No, I shouldn't thrash you," he continued. "I should kiss you."
+
+"This is the last time you're going to speak to me!" she hissed
+furiously. "Go away! Go away! Or I don't know what I shall do,
+I shall make a scene."
+
+He sat down calmly:
+
+"As you please," he said, quietly.
+
+She stood trembling before him, impotent. Some one spoke to her; the
+footman handed her some tea. She was now in the midst of a circle of
+men; and, mastering herself, she jested, with loud, nervous gaiety,
+flirted more coquettishly than ever. There was a little court around
+her, with the Duke di Luca as its ring-leader. Close by, Rudolph Brox
+sat drinking his tea, with apparent calmness, as though waiting. But
+his strong, masterful blood was boiling madly within him. He could have
+murdered her and he was seeing red with jealousy. That woman was his,
+despite the law. He was not going to be afraid of any more scandal. She
+was beautiful, she was as he wished her to be and he wanted her,
+his wife. He knew how he would win her back; and this time he would
+not lose her, this time she should be his, for as long as he wished.
+
+As soon as he was able to speak to her unheard, he came up to her
+again. She was just going to Urania, whom she saw sitting with
+Mrs. Uxeley, when he said in her ear, sternly and abruptly:
+
+"Cornélie...."
+
+She turned round mechanically, but with her haughty glance. She
+would rather have gone on, but could not: something held her back,
+a secret strength, a secret superiority, which sounded in his voice
+and flowed into her with a weight as of bronze that weakened and
+paralysed her energy.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"I want to speak to you alone."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes. Listen to me calmly for a moment, if you can. I am calm too,
+as you see. You needn't be afraid of me. I promise not to ill-treat
+you or even to swear at you. But I must speak to you, alone. After our
+meeting, after the ball last week, we can't part like this. You are
+not even entitled to show me the door, after talking to me and dancing
+with me so recently. There's no reason and no logic in it. You lost
+your temper. But let us both keep our tempers now. I want to speak
+to you...."
+
+"I can't: Mrs. Uxeley doesn't like me to leave the drawing-room when
+there are people here. I am dependent on her."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"You are almost even more dependent on her than you used to be on
+me! But you can give me just a second, in the next room."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you can."
+
+"What do you want to speak to me about?"
+
+"I can't tell you here."
+
+"I can't speak to you alone."
+
+"I'll tell you what it is: you're afraid to."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you are: you're afraid of me. With all your airs and your
+dignity, you're afraid to be alone with me for a moment."
+
+"I'm not afraid."
+
+"You are afraid. You're shaking in your shoes with fear. You received
+me with a fine speech which you rehearsed in advance. Now that you've
+delivered your speech ... it's over and you're frightened."
+
+"I am not frightened."
+
+"Then come with me, my plucky authoress of The Social Position of the
+What's-her-name! I promise, I swear that I shall be calm and tell you
+calmly what I have to say to you; and I give you my word of honour not
+to hit you.... Which room shall we go to?... Do you refuse? Listen
+to me: if you don't come with me, it's not finished yet. If you do,
+perhaps it will be finished ... and you will never see me again."
+
+"What can you have to say to me?"
+
+"Come."
+
+She yielded because of his voice, not because of his words:
+
+"But only for three minutes."
+
+"Very well, three minutes."
+
+She took him into the passage and into an empty room:
+
+"Well what is it?" she asked, frightened.
+
+"Don't be frightened," he said, laughing under his moustache. "Don't
+be frightened. I only wanted to tell you ... that you are my wife. Do
+you understand that? Don't try to deny it. I felt it at the ball the
+other night, when I had my arm round you, waltzing with you. Don't
+try to deny that you pressed yourself against me for a moment. You're
+my wife. I felt it then and I feel it now. And you feel it too, though
+you would like to deny it. But that won't help you. What has been can't
+be altered; and what has been ... always remains part of you. There,
+you can't say that I am not speaking prettily and delicately. Not an
+oath, not an improper word has escaped my lips. For I don't want to
+make you angry. I only want to make you confess that what I say is
+true and that you are still my wife. That law doesn't signify. It's
+another law that rules us. It's a law that rules you especially; a law
+which, without our ever suspecting it, brings us together again, even
+though it does so by a very strange, roundabout path, along which you,
+especially, have strayed. That law rules you especially. I am convinced
+that you still love me, or at least that you are still in love with
+me. I feel it, I know it as a fact: don't try to deny it. It's no
+use, Cornélie. And I'll tell you something besides: I am in love
+with you too and more so than ever. I feel it when you're flirting
+with those fellows. I could wring your neck then, I could break every
+bone in their bodies.... Don't be afraid: I'm not going to; I'm not
+in a temper. I just wanted to talk to you calmly and make you see the
+truth. Do you see it before you? It is in-con-tro-ver-tible. You see,
+you have nothing to say in reply. Facts are facts.... Will you show
+me the door now? Do you still propose to speak to Mrs. Uxeley? I
+shouldn't, if I were you. Your friend, the princess, knows who I am:
+leave it at that. Had the old woman never heard my name, or has she
+forgotten it? Forgotten it, I expect. Well, then, don't trouble to
+refresh her ancient memory. Leave things as they are. It's better to
+say nothing. No, the position is not ridiculous and it's not humorous
+either. It has become very serious: the truth is always serious. It is
+strange, I admit: I should never have expected it. It's a revelation
+to me as well.... And now I've said what I had to say. Less than five
+minutes by my watch. They will hardly have noticed your absence in the
+drawing-room. And now I'm going; but first give your husband a kiss,
+for I am your husband ... and always shall be."
+
+She stood trembling before him. It was his voice, which fell like
+molten bronze into her soul, into her body, and lamed and paralysed
+her. It was his voice of persuasion, of persuasive charm, the voice
+which she knew of old, the voice that compelled her to do everything
+that he wanted. Under the influence of that voice she became a thing,
+a chattel, something that belonged to him, once he had branded her
+for ever as his mate. She was powerless to cast him out of herself,
+to shake him from herself, to erase from herself the stamp of his
+possession and the brand which marked her as his property. She was
+his; and anything that otherwise was herself had left her. There was
+no longer in her brain either memory or thought....
+
+She saw him come up to her and put his arm around her. He took
+her to his breast slowly but so firmly that he seemed to be taking
+possession of her entirely. She felt herself melting away in his
+arms as in a scorching flame. On her lips she felt his mouth, his
+moustache, pressing, pressing, pressing, until she closed her eyes,
+half-fainting. He said something more in her ear, with that voice
+under which she seemed not to count, as though she were nothing,
+as though she existed only through him. When he released her, she
+staggered on her feet.
+
+"Come, pull yourself together," she heard him say, calmly,
+authoritatively, omnipotently. "And accept the position. Things are
+as they are. There's no altering them. Thank you for letting me speak
+to you. Everything is all right between us now: I'm sure of it. And
+now au revoir. Au revoir...."
+
+He kissed her again:
+
+"Give me a kiss too," he said, with that voice of his.
+
+She flung her arm round his body and kissed him on the lips.
+
+"Au revoir," he said, once more.
+
+She saw him laugh under his moustache; his eyes laughed at her with
+flames of gold; and he went away. She heard his feet going down the
+stairs and ringing on the marble of the hall, with the strength of his
+firm tread.... She remained standing as though bereft of life. In the
+drawing-room, next to the room in which she was, the hum of laughing
+voices sounded loudly. She saw Rome before her, saw Duco, in a short
+flash of lightning.... It was gone.... And, collapsing into a chair,
+she uttered a suppressed cry of despair, put her hands before her
+face and sobbed, restraining her despair before all those people,
+dully, as from a stifling throat.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly from his mastery,
+to fly from the emanation of that dominion which, mysteriously but
+irrevocably, wiped away with his caress all that was in her of will,
+energy and self. She remembered having felt the same thing in the
+old days: rebellion and anger when he became angry and coarse, but
+an eclipse of self when he caressed her; an inability to think when
+he merely laid his hand upon her head; a swooning away into a vast
+nothingness when he took her in his arms and kissed her. She had felt
+it from the first time of seeing him, when he stood before her and
+looked down upon her with that light irony in the smile of his eyes and
+his moustache, as though he took pleasure in her resistance--at that
+time prompted by flirting and fun, soon by petulance, later by anger
+and fury--as though he took pleasure in her futile feminine attempts to
+escape his power. He had at once realized that he ruled this woman. And
+she had found in him her master, her sole master. For no other man
+pressed down upon her with that empire which was of the blood, of the
+flesh. On the contrary, she was usually the superior. She had about
+her a cool indifference which was always provoking her to destructive
+criticism. She had a need for fun, for cheerful conversation, for
+coquetry, for flirtation; and, always a mistress of quick repartee,
+she invited the occasion for repartee; but, apart from this, men
+meant little to her and she always saw the absurd side of each of
+them, thinking this one too short, that one too tall, a third clumsy,
+a fourth stupid, finding something in every one of them to rouse her
+laughter, her mockery or her criticism. She would never be a woman to
+give herself to many. She had met Duco and given herself to him with
+her love, wholly, as one great inseparable golden gift; and after
+him she would never fall in love again. But before Duco she had met
+Rudolph Brox. Perhaps, if she had met him after Duco, his mastery
+would not have swayed her. She did not know. And what was the good
+of thinking about it. The thing was as it was. In her blood she was
+not a woman for many; in her blood she was the wife, the spouse, the
+consort. Of the man who had been her husband she was in her flesh and
+in her blood the wife; and she was his wife even without love. For she
+could not call this love: she gave the name of love only to that other
+passion, that proud, tender and intense completion of life's harmony,
+that journey along one golden line, the marriage of two gleaming
+lines.... But the phantom hands had risen all about them in a cloud,
+the hands had mysteriously and inevitably divided their golden line;
+and hers, a winding curve, had leapt back, like a quivering spring,
+crossing a darker line of former days, a sombre line of the past,
+a dark track full of unconscious action and fatal bondage. Oh,
+the strangeness, the most mysterious strangeness of those lines of
+life! Why should they curl back, force her backwards to her original
+starting-point? Why had it all been necessary?
+
+She had but one thought: to take to flight. She did not see the
+inevitability of those lines and the fatality of those paths and
+she did not wish to feel the pressure of the phantom hands that rose
+about her. To fly, to turn up the dusky path, back to the point of
+separation, back to Duco, and with him to rebraid and twist the two
+lost directions into one pure movement, one line of happiness!...
+
+To fly, to fly! She told Urania that she was going. She begged Urania
+to forgive her, because it was she who had recommended her to the old
+woman whom she was now suddenly leaving. And she told Mrs. Uxeley,
+without caring for her anger, her temper or her words of abuse. She
+admitted that she was ungrateful. But there was a vital necessity which
+compelled her suddenly to leave Nice. She swore that it existed. She
+swore that it would mean unhappiness, even ruin, were she to stay. She
+explained it to Urania in a single sentence. But she did not explain
+it to the old woman and left her in an impotent fury which made her
+writhe with rheumatic aches and pains. She left behind her everything
+that she had received from Mrs. Uxeley, all the superfluous wardrobe
+of her dependence. She put on an old frock. She went to the station
+like a criminal, trembling lest she should meet him. But she knew
+that at this hour he was always at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless she went
+in a closed cab and she took a second-class ticket for Florence. She
+telegraphed to Duco. And she fled.
+
+She had nothing left but him. She could never again count upon
+Mrs. Uxeley; and Urania had behaved coolly, not understanding that
+singular flight, because she did not understand the simple truth,
+Rudolph Brox' power. She thought that Cornélie was making things
+difficult for herself. In the circle in which Urania lived, her sense
+of social morality had wavered since her liaison with the Chevalier
+de Breuil. Hearing the Italian law of love whispered all around
+her, the law that love is as simple as an opening rose, she did not
+understand Cornélie's struggle. She no longer resented anything that
+Gilio did; and he in his turn left her free. What was happening to
+Cornélie? Surely it was all very simple, if she was still fond of her
+divorced husband! Why should she run away to Duco and make herself
+ridiculous in the eyes of all their acquaintances? And so she had
+parted coolly from Cornélie; but still she missed her friend. She
+was the Princess di Forte-Braccio; and lately, on her birthday,
+Prince Ercole had sent her a great emerald, out of the carefully kept
+family-jewels, as though she were becoming worthy of them gradually,
+stone by stone! But she missed Cornélie and she felt lonely, deadly
+lonely, notwithstanding her emerald and her lover....
+
+Cornélie fled: she had nothing in the world but Duco. But in him she
+would have everything. And, when she saw him at Florence, at the Santa
+Maria Novella Station, she flung herself on his breast and clung to him
+as to a cross of redemption, a saviour. He led her sobbing to a cab;
+and they drove to his room. There she looked round her nervously,
+done up with the overstrain of her long journey, thinking every
+minute that Rudolph would come after her. She told Duco everything,
+opened her heart to him entirely, as though he were her conscience, as
+though he were her soul, her god. She nestled up against him, she told
+him that he must help her. It was as though she were praying to him;
+her anguish went up to him like a prayer. He kissed her; and she knew
+that manner of comforting, she knew that tender caressing. She suddenly
+fell against him, utterly relaxed; and so she continued to lie, with
+closed eyes. It was as though she were sinking in a lake, in a blue
+sacred lake, mystic as the Lake of San Stefano in the sleeping night,
+powdered with stars. And she heard him say that he would help her;
+that there was nothing in her fears; that that man had no power over
+her; that he would never have any power over her, if she became his,
+Duco's, wife. She looked at him and did not understand what he was
+saying. She looked at him feverishly, as though he had awakened her
+suddenly while she lay sleeping for a second in the blue calmness
+of the mystic lake. She did not understand, but, dead-tired, she hid
+her face against his arm again and fell asleep.
+
+She was dead-tired. She slept for two hours immovably, breathing
+deeply, upon his breast. When he shifted his arm, she just moved her
+head heavily, like a flower on a weary stalk, but she slept on. He
+stroked her forehead, her hair; and she slept on, with her hand in
+his. She slept as if she had not slept for days, for weeks.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+"There is nothing to be afraid of, Cornélie," he said,
+convincingly. "That man has no power over you if you refuse, if you
+refuse with a firm will. I do not see what he could do. You are quite
+free, absolutely released from him. That you ran away so precipitately
+was certainly not wise: it will look to him like a flight. Why did you
+not tell him calmly that he can't claim any rights in you? Why did you
+not say that you loved me? If need were, you could have said that we
+were engaged. How can you have been so weak and so terrified? It's not
+like you! But, now that you are here, all is well. We are together
+now. Shall we go back to Rome to-morrow or shall we remain here a
+little first? I have always longed to show you Florence. Look, there,
+in front of us, is the Arno; there is the Ponto Vecchio; there is the
+Uffizi. You've been here before, but you didn't know Italy then. You'll
+enjoy it more now. Oh, it is so lovely here! Let us stay a week or
+two first. I have a little money; you need have no fear. And life is
+cheaper here than in Rome. Living in this room, we shall spend hardly
+anything. I have light enough through this window to sketch by, now
+and again. Or else I go and work in the San Marco or in San Lorenzo or
+up on San Miniato. It is delightfully quiet in the cloisters. There
+are a few excursionists at times; but I don't mind that. And you can
+go with me, with a book, a book about Florence; I'll tell you what
+to read. You must learn to know Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,
+but, above all, Donatello. We shall see him in the Bargello. And
+Lippo Memmi's Annunciation, the golden Annunciation! You shall see
+how like our angel is to it, our beautiful angel of happiness, the
+one you gave me! It is so rich here; we shall not feel that we are
+poor. We need so little. Or have you been spoilt by your luxury at
+Nice? But I know you so well: you will forget that at once; and we
+shall win through together. And presently we shall go back to Rome. But
+this time ... married, my darling, and you belonging to me entirely,
+legally. It must be so now; you must not refuse me again. We'll go
+to the consul to-morrow and ask what papers we want from Holland
+and what will be the quickest way of getting married. And meanwhile
+you must look upon yourself as my wife. Until now we have been very,
+very happy ... but you were not my wife. Once you feel yourself to
+be my wife--even though we wait another fortnight for those papers
+to sign--you will feel safe and peaceful. There is nobody and nothing
+that has any power over you. You're not well, if you really think there
+is. And then I'll bet you, when we are married, my mother will make it
+up with us. Everything will come right, my darling, my angel.... But
+you must not refuse: we must get married with all possible speed."
+
+She was sitting beside him on a sofa and staring out of doors, where,
+in the square frame of the tall window, the slender campanile rose like
+a marble lily between the dome-crowned harmonies of the Cathedral and
+the Battisterio, while on one side the Palazzio Vecchio lay, a massive,
+battlemented fortress, amid the welter of the streets and roofs, and
+lifted its tower, suddenly expanding into the machicolated summit,
+with Fiesole and the hills shimmering behind it in the purple of the
+evening. The noble city of eternal grace gleamed a golden bronze in
+the last reflection of the setting sun.
+
+"We must get married at once?" she repeated, with a doubting
+interrogation.
+
+"Yes, as soon as ever we can, darling."
+
+"But Duco, dearest Duco, it's less possible now than ever. Don't you
+see that it can't be done? It's impossible, impossible. It might have
+been possible before, some months ago, a year ago ... perhaps, perhaps
+not even then. Perhaps it was never possible. It is so difficult to
+say. But now it can't be done, really not...."
+
+"Don't you love me well enough?"
+
+"How can you ask me such a question? How can you ask me, darling? But
+it's not that. It is ... it is ... it can't be, because I am not free."
+
+"Not free?"
+
+"I am not free. I may feel free later ... or perhaps not, perhaps
+never.... My dearest Duco, it is impossible. I wrote to you, you know:
+that first meeting at the ball; it was so strange; I felt that ..."
+
+"That what?"
+
+She took his hand and stroked it; her eyes were vague, her words
+were vague:
+
+"You see ... he has been my husband."
+
+"But you're divorced from him: not merely separated, but divorced!"
+
+"Yes, I'm divorced; but it's not that."
+
+"What then, dearest?"
+
+She shook her head and hid her face against him:
+
+"I can't tell you, Duco."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I'm ashamed."
+
+"Tell me; do you still love him?"
+
+"No, it's not love. I love you."
+
+"But what then, my darling? Why are you ashamed?"
+
+She began to cry on his shoulder:
+
+"I feel...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That I am not free, although ... although I am divorced. I feel
+... that I am his wife all the same."
+
+She whispered the words almost inaudibly.
+
+"But then you do love him and more than you love me."
+
+"No, no, I swear I don't!"
+
+"But, darling, you're not talking sense!"
+
+"Yes, indeed I am."
+
+"No, you're not. It's impossible!"
+
+"It isn't. It's quite possible. And he told me so ... and I felt
+it...."
+
+"But the fellow's hypnotizing you!"
+
+"No, it's not hypnotism. It's not a delusion: it's a reality, deep,
+deep down within myself. Look here, you know me: you know how I
+feel. I love you and you only. That alone is love. I have never
+loved any one else. I am not a woman who is susceptible to.... I'm
+not hysterical. But with him ... No other man, no man whom I have
+ever met, rouses that feeling in me ... that feeling that I am not
+myself. That I belong to him, that I am his property, his chattel."
+
+She threw her arms about him, she hid herself like a child in his
+breast:
+
+"It is so strange.... You know me, don't you? I can be plucky and I
+am independent and I am never at a loss for an answer. But with him
+I am no longer sure of myself, I no longer have a life of my own. And
+I do what he tells me to."
+
+"But that is hypnotism: you can escape that, if you seriously wish
+to. I will help you."
+
+"It is not hypnotism. It is a truth, deep down inside me. It exists
+inside me. I know that it is so, that it has to be so.... Duco, it
+is impossible. I can't become your wife. I mustn't become your wife
+... less now than ever. Perhaps...."
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Perhaps I always felt like that, without knowing it, that it must
+not be. Both for you and for me ... and for him too.... Perhaps that
+was what I felt, without knowing it, when I talked as I used to,
+about my antipathy for marriage."
+
+"But that antipathy arose from your marriage ... with him!"
+
+"Yes, that's the strange part of it. I dislike him ... and yet...."
+
+"Yet you're in love with him!"
+
+"Yet I belong to him."
+
+"And you tell me that you love me!"
+
+She took his head in her two hands:
+
+"Try to understand. It tires me so, trying to make you understand. I
+love you ... but I am his wife...."
+
+"Are you forgetting what you were to me in Rome?..."
+
+"I was everything to you: love, happiness, intense happiness.... There
+was the most intense harmony between us: I shall never forget
+it.... But I was not your wife."
+
+"Not my wife!"
+
+"No, I was your mistress.... I was unfaithful to him.... Oh, don't
+repulse me! Pity me, pity me!"
+
+He had unconsciously made a gesture that frightened her.
+
+"Let me stay like this, leaning against you. May I? I am so tired and
+I feel restful, leaning against you like this, my darling. My darling,
+my darling ... things will never be as they were. What are we to do?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, in despair. "I want to marry you as soon as
+may be. You won't consent."
+
+"I can't. I mustn't."
+
+"Then I don't know what to do or say."
+
+"Don't be angry. Don't leave me. Help me, do, do! I love you, I love
+you, I love you!"
+
+She drew him into her arms, in a close, sudden embrace, as though in
+perplexity and despair. He kissed her passionately in response.
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!" she prayed, as she, lay hopelessly
+perplexed in his embrace.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+Next day, when Cornélie walked with Duco through Florence, when they
+entered the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, saw the Loggia dei Lanzi
+and looked in at the Uffizi to see Memmi's Annunciation, she felt
+something like her former sensations irresistibly unfolding within
+her. They seemed to have taken their lines which had burst asunder and
+with human force to have bent them together again into one path, along
+which the white daisies and white lilies shot up with a tenderness of
+soft, mystic recognition that was almost like a dream. And yet it was
+not quite the same as before. An oppression as of a grey cloud hung
+between her and the deep-blue sky, which hung out stretched like strips
+of æther, like paths of lofty, quivering atmosphere, above the narrow
+streets, above the domes and towers and turrets. She no longer felt the
+former apprehension; there was a remembrance in her, a heavy pondering
+weighed upon her brain, an anxiety for what was about to happen. She
+had a presentiment as of a coming storm; and when, after their walk,
+they had had something to eat and went home, she dragged herself up the
+stairs to Duco's room more wearily than she had ever done in Rome. And
+she at once saw a letter lying on the table, a letter addressed to
+her. But how addressed! It gave her so violent a start that she began
+to tremble in every limb and managed to thrust the letter away even
+before Duco had followed her into the room. She took off her hat and
+told Duco that she wanted to get something out of her trunk, which
+was standing in the passage. He asked if he could help her; but she
+said no and left the room and went into the narrow passage. Here,
+standing by the little window overlooking the Arno, she took out
+the letter. It was the only place where she could read for a moment
+undisturbed. And she read that address again, written in his hand,
+which she knew so well, with its great thick, heavy characters. The
+name which she bore abroad was her maiden name; she called herself
+Madame de Retz van Loo. But on the envelope she read, briefly:
+
+
+    "Baronne Brox,
+    37, Lung' Arno Torrigiani,
+    Florence."
+
+
+A deep crimson flush mantled over her face. She had borne that name
+for a year. Why did he call her by it now? Where was the logic in that
+title which, by the law, was hers no longer? What did he mean by it,
+what did he want?... And, standing by the little window, she read
+his short but imperious letter. He wrote that he took her flight very
+much amiss, especially after their last conversation. He wrote that,
+at this last interview, she had granted him every right over her,
+that she had not denied it and that, by kissing him and putting her
+arms around him, she had shown that she regarded herself as his wife,
+just as he regarded her as his wife. He wrote that he would not now
+resent her independent life of a year in Rome, because she was then
+still free, but that he was offended at her still looking upon herself
+as free and that he would not accept the insult of her flight. He
+called upon her to return. He said that he had no legal right to do
+so, but that he did it because he nevertheless had a right, a right
+which she could not dispute, which indeed she had not disputed, which
+on the contrary she had acknowledged by her kiss. He had learnt her
+address from the porter of the Villa Uxeley. And he ended by repeating
+that she was to return to Nice, to him, at the Hôtel Continental, and
+telling her that, if she did not do this, he would come to Florence
+and she would be responsible for the consequences of her refusal.
+
+Her knees shook; she was hardly able to stand upright. Should she
+show Duco the letter or keep it from him? She had to make up her mind
+then and there. He was calling to her from the room, asking what
+she was doing so long in the passage. She went in and was too weak
+to refrain from throwing herself on his breast. She showed him the
+letter. Leaning against him, sobbing violently, she heard him fume
+and rage, saw the veins on his temples swell, saw him clench his
+fists and roll the letter into a ball and dash it to the floor. He
+told her not to be frightened, said that he would protect her. He too
+regarded her as his wife. It all depended upon the light in which she
+henceforth regarded herself. She did not speak, merely sobbed, broken
+with fatigue, with fright, with head-ache. She undressed and went to
+bed, her teeth chattering with fever. He drew her curtains to darken
+the room and told her to go to sleep. His voice sounded angry and she
+thought that he was angry at her lack of resolution. She sobbed and
+cried herself to sleep. But in her sleep she felt the terror within
+herself and again felt the irresistible pressure. While sleeping
+she dreamt of what she could reply and wrote to Brox, but it was not
+clear what she wrote: it was all a vague, impotent pleading for mercy.
+
+When she woke, she saw Duco beside her bed. She took his hand; she was
+calmer. But she had no hope. She had no faith in the days that were
+coming. She looked at him and saw him gloomy, stern and self-contained,
+as she had never seen him before. Oh, their happiness was past! On
+that fatal day when he had seen her to the train in Rome, they had
+taken leave of their happiness. It was gone, it was gone! Gone the
+dear walks through ruins and museums, the trips to Frascati, Naples,
+Amalfi! Gone the dear, fond life of poverty in the big studio, among
+the gleaming colours of the old brocades and chasubles, of the old
+bronzes and silver! Gone the gazing together at his water-colour of
+The Banners, she with her head on his shoulder, within his arm, living
+his art with him, enjoying his work with him! Gone the ecstasy of the
+night in the pergola, in the star-spangled night, with the sacred lake
+at their feet! Life was not to be repeated. They had tried in vain to
+repeat it here, in this room, at Florence, in the Palazzo Vecchio,
+tried in vain to repeat it even in the presence of Memmi's angel
+emitting his beam of light! They tried in vain to repeat their life,
+their happiness, their love; it was in vain that they had forced
+together the lines which had burst asunder. These had merely twined
+round each other for a moment, in a despairing curve. It was gone,
+it was gone!... Gloomy and stern he sat beside her bed; and she knew
+it, he felt that he was powerless because she did not feel herself
+to be his wife. His mistress!... Oh, she had felt that involuntary
+repulsion when she had uttered the word! Had he not always wanted to
+marry her? But she had always felt unconsciously that it could not be,
+that it must not be. Under all the exuberance of her acrid feministic
+phrases, that had been the unconscious truth. She, railing against
+marriage, had always, inwardly, felt herself to be married ... not by
+a signature, in accordance with the law, but according to an age-old
+law, a primeval right of man over woman, a law and a right of flesh
+and blood and the very marrow of the bones. Oh, above that immovable
+physical truth her soul had blossomed its blossom of white daisies
+and lilies; and that blossom also was the intense truth, the lofty
+truth of happiness and love! But the daisies and lilies blossomed and
+faded: the soul blossoms for but a single summer. The soul does not
+blossom for a lifetime. It blossoms perhaps before life, it blossoms
+perhaps after it; but in life itself the soul blossoms for but a single
+summer. It had blossomed, it was over! And in her body, which lived,
+in her being, which survived, she felt the truth in her very marrow! He
+was sitting beside her bed, but he had no rights, now that the lilies
+had blossomed.... She was broken with pity for him. She took his hand
+and kissed it fervently and sobbed over it. He said nothing. He did not
+know how to say anything. It would all have been very simple for him,
+if she had consented to be his wife. As things were, he could not help
+her. As things were, he saw his happiness foundering while he looked
+on: there was nothing to be done. It was slowly falling to pieces,
+like a crumbling ruin. It was gone! It was gone!...
+
+She stayed in bed these days; she slept, she dreamt, she awoke again;
+and the dread waiting never left her. She had a slight temperature
+now and again; and it was better for her to stay in bed. As a rule, he
+remained by her side. But one day, when Duco had gone to the chemist's
+for something, there was a knock at the door. She leapt out of bed,
+terrified, terrified lest she should see the man of whom she was always
+thinking. Half-fainting with fright, she opened the door ajar. It was
+only the postman, with a registered letter ... from him! Even more
+curtly than last time, he wrote that, immediately on the receipt of his
+letter, she was to telegraph, stating the day when she would come. He
+said that, if on such and such a day--he would calculate, etc.,
+which--he did not receive her telegram, he would leave for Florence
+and shoot her lover like a dog at her feet. He would not take a moment
+to reflect. He did not care what happened.... In this short letter,
+his anger, his fury, raged like a red storm that lashed her across the
+face. She knew him; and she knew that he would do what he said. She
+saw, as in a flash, the terrible scene, with Duco dropping, murdered,
+weltering in his blood. And she was no longer her own mistress. The
+red fury of that letter, dispatched from afar, made her his chattel,
+his thing. She had torn the letter open hastily, before signing the
+postman's book. The man was waiting in the passage. Her brain whirled,
+the room spun before her eyes. If she paused to reflect, it would be
+too late, too late to reflect. And she asked the postman, nervously:
+
+"Can you send off a telegram for me at once?"
+
+No, he couldn't: it wasn't on his road.
+
+But she implored him to do it. She said that she was ill and that
+she must telegraph at once. And she found a gold ten-franc piece in
+her purse and gave it to him as a tip over and above the money for
+the telegram. And she wrote the telegram:
+
+
+    "Leaving to-morrow express train."
+
+
+It was a vague telegram. She did not know by what express; she had
+not been able to look it up. Would it be in the evening or quite
+early in the morning? She had no idea. How would she be able to get
+away? She had no idea. But she thought that the telegram would calm
+him. And she meant to go. She had no choice. Now that she had fled
+in despair, she saw it: if he wanted to have her back, back as his
+wife, she must go. If he had not wanted it, she could have remained,
+wherever she might be, despite her feeling that she belonged to
+him. But now that he wanted it, she must go back. But oh, how was
+she to tell Duco? She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking
+of Duco. She saw him lying before her in his blood. She forgot that
+she had no money left. Was she to ask him for it? O God, what was she
+to do? She could not go next day, notwithstanding her telegram! She
+could not tell Duco that she was going.... She had meant to slip
+quietly to the station, when he was out.... Or had she better tell
+him?... Which would be the least painful?... Or should ... should she
+tell everything to Duco and ... and run away ... run away somewhere
+with him and tell nobody where they were going.... But supposing he
+discovered where they had gone! And he would find them!... And then
+... then he would murder ... Duco!...
+
+She was almost delirious with fear, with terror, with not knowing
+what to do, how to act.... She now heard Duco's steps on the
+stairs.... He came in, bringing her the pills.... And, as usual, she
+told him everything, too weak, too tired, to keep anything hidden,
+and showed him the letter. He blazed out, furiously, with hatred; but
+she fell on her knees before him and took his hands. She said that
+she had already sent the answer. He suddenly became cool, as though
+overcome by the inevitable. He said that he had no money to pay for
+her journey. Then, once more, he took her in his arms, kissed her,
+begged her to be his wife, said that he would kill her husband, even
+as her husband had threatened to kill him. But she did nothing but sob
+and refuse, although she continued to cling to him convulsively. Then
+he yielded to the fatal omnipotence of life's silent tyranny. He felt
+death in his soul. But he wished to keep calm for her sake. He said
+that he forgave her. He held her, all sobbing, in his arms, because
+his touch calmed her. And he said that, if she wanted to go back--she
+despondently nodded yes--it was better to telegraph to Brox again,
+asking for money for the journey and for clear instructions as to the
+day and time. He would do this for her. She looked at him, through
+her tears, in surprise. He himself drew up the telegram and went out.
+
+"My darling, my darling!" she thought, as he went, as she felt the
+pain in his torn soul. She flung herself on the bed. He found her in
+hysterics when he returned. When he had tended her and tucked her up
+in bed, he sat down beside her. And he said, in a dead voice:
+
+"My dearest, be calm now. The day after to-morrow I shall take you to
+Genoa. Then we shall take leave of each other, for ever. If it can't
+be otherwise, it must be like that. If you feel that it has to be,
+then it must be. Be calm now, be calm now. If you feel like that,
+that you must go back to your husband, then perhaps you will not be
+unhappy with him. Be calm, dear, be calm."
+
+"Will you take me?"
+
+"I shall take you as far as Genoa. I have borrowed the money from a
+friend. But above all try to be calm. Your husband wants you back;
+he can't want you back only to beat you. He must feel something for
+you if he wants you so. And, if it has to be ... then perhaps it
+will be the best thing ... for you.... Even though I can't see it in
+that light!..."
+
+He covered his face with his hands and, no longer master of himself
+burst into sobs. She drew him to her breast. She was now calmer than
+he. And, as he sobbed with his head on her beating heart, she quietly
+stroked his forehead, while her eyes roamed distantly round the walls
+of the room....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+She was now alone in the train. By tipping the guard lavishly, they had
+travelled by themselves through the night and been left undisturbed
+in their compartment. Oh, the melancholy journey, the last silent
+journey of the end! They had not spoken but had sat close together,
+hand in hand, with eyes gazing into the distance before them, as though
+staring at the approaching point of separation. The dreary thought
+of that separation never left them, rushed onward in unison with the
+rattling train. Sometimes she thought of a railway-accident and that
+it would be welcome to her if she could die with him. But the lights
+of Genoa had gleamed up inexorably. Then the train had stopped. And he
+had flung out his arms and they had kissed for the last time. Pressed
+to his breast, she had felt all his grief within him. Then he had
+released her and rushed away, without looking round. She followed him
+with her eyes, but he did not look back and she saw him disappear in
+the morning mist, pierced with little lights, that hung about the
+station. She had seen him disappear among other people, swallowed
+up in the hovering mist. Then the silent and despairing surrender of
+her life had become so great that she was not even able to weep. Her
+head dropped limply, her arms hung lax. Like an inert thing she let
+the train bear her onward with its rending rattle.
+
+A white morning twilight had risen on the left over the brightening
+sea; and the dawning daylight tinted the water blue and defined the
+horizon. For hours and hours she travelled on, motionlessly, gazing
+out at the sea; and she felt almost painless with her impassive
+surrender of life. She would now let things happen as life willed,
+as her husband willed, as the train willed. As in a tired dream she
+thought of the inevitability of everything and all the unconscious life
+within herself, of her first rebellion against her husband's tyranny,
+of the illusion of her independence, the arrogance of her pride and all
+the happiness of her gentle ecstasy, all her gladness because of the
+harmony which she had achieved.... Now it was past; now all self-will
+was vain. The train was carrying her to where Rudolph called her;
+and life hemmed her in on every side, not roughly, but with a soft
+pressure of phantom hands, which pushed and led and guided....
+
+And she ceased to think. The tired dream became clouded in the deeper
+blue of the day; and she felt that she was approaching Nice. She
+returned to the petty realities of life. She felt that she was looking
+a little travel-worn: and, feeling that it would be better if Rudolph
+did not see her for the first time in so unattractive a light, she
+slowly opened her bag, washed her face with her handkerchief dipped
+in eau-de-Cologne, combed her hair, powdered her face, brushed
+herself down, put on a transparent white veil and took out a pair
+of new gloves. She bought a couple of yellow roses at a station and
+put them in her waistband. She did all this unconsciously, without
+thinking about it, feeling that it was best, that it was sensible to
+do it, best that Rudolph should see her like that, with that bloom
+of a beautiful woman about her. She felt that henceforth she must
+be above all beautiful and that nothing else mattered. And when
+the train droned into the station, when she recognized Nice, she
+was resigned, because she had ceased to struggle and had yielded to
+all the stronger forces. The door was flung open and, in the station,
+which at that early hour was comparatively empty, she saw him at once:
+tall, robust, easy, in his light summer suit, straw hat and brown
+shoes. He gave an impression of health and strength and above all of
+broad-shouldered virility; and, notwithstanding his broadness, he was
+still quite thoroughbred, thoroughly well-groomed without the least
+touch of toppishness; and the ironical smile beneath his moustache and
+the steady glance of his fine grey eyes, the eyes of a woman-hunter,
+gave him an air of strength, of the certainty of doing as he wished,
+of the power to subdue if he thought fit. An ironic pride in his
+handsome strength, with a tinge of contempt for the others who were
+less handsome and strong, less of the healthy animal and yet the
+aristocrat, and above all a mocking, supercilious sarcasm directed
+against all women, because he knew women and knew how much they were
+really worth: all this was expressed by his glance, his attitude,
+his movements. It was thus that she knew him. It had often roused
+her to rebellion in the old days, but she now felt resigned and also
+a little frightened.
+
+He had come to her; he helped her to alight. She saw that he was
+angry, that he intended to receive her rudely; then, that his
+moustache was curling ironically, as though in mockery because he
+was the stronger. She said nothing, however, took his hand calmly
+and alighted. He led her outside; and in the carriage they waited
+a moment for the trunk. His eyes took her in at a glance. She was
+wearing an old blue-serge skirt and a little blue-serge cape; but,
+notwithstanding her old clothes and her weary resignation, she looked
+a handsome and smartly-dressed woman.
+
+"I am glad to see that you thought it advisable at last to carry out
+my wishes," he said, in the end.
+
+"I thought it would be best," she answered, softly.
+
+Her tone struck him; and he watched her attentively, out of the corner
+of his eyes. He did not understand her, but he was pleased that she
+had come. She was tired now, from excitement and travelling; but he
+thought that she looked most charming, even though she was not so
+brilliant as on that night, at Mrs. Uxeley's ball, when he had first
+spoken to his divorced wife.
+
+"Are you tired?" he asked.
+
+"I have been a bit feverish for a day or two; and of course I had no
+sleep last night," she said, as though in apology.
+
+The trunk was brought and they drove away, to the Hôtel
+Continental. She did not speak again in the carriage. They were also
+silent as they entered the hotel and in the lift. He took her to his
+room. It was an ordinary hotel-bedroom; but she thought it strange to
+see his brushes lying on the dressing-table, his coats and trousers
+hanging on the pegs: familiar things with whose outlines and folds
+she was well-acquainted. She recognized his trunk in a corner.
+
+He opened the windows wide. She had sat down on a chair, in an
+expectant attitude. She felt a little faint and closed her eyes,
+which were blinded by the stream of sunlight.
+
+"You must be hungry," he said. "What shall I order for you?"
+
+"I should like some tea and bread-and-butter."
+
+Her trunk arrived; and he ordered her breakfast. Then he said:
+
+"Take off your hat."
+
+She stood up. She took off her cape. Her cotton blouse was rumpled;
+and this annoyed her. She removed the pins from her hat before the
+glass and quite naturally did her hair with his comb, which she saw
+lying there. And she settled the silk bow around her collar.
+
+He had lit a cigar and was smoking quietly, standing. A waiter came
+in with the breakfast. She ate a mouthful without speaking and drank
+a cup of tea.
+
+"Have you breakfasted?" she asked.
+
+"Yes"
+
+They were silent again and she went on eating.
+
+"And shall we have a talk now?" he asked, still standing up, smoking.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"I won't speak about your running off as you did," he said. "My first
+intention was to give you a regular flaying, for it was a damned
+silly trick...."
+
+She said nothing. She merely looked up at him; and her beautiful eyes
+were filled with a new expression, one of gentle resignation. He
+fell silent again, evidently restraining himself and seeking his
+words. Then he resumed:
+
+"As I say, I won't speak about that any more. For the moment you
+didn't know what you were doing and you weren't accountable for
+your actions. But there must be an end of that now, for I wish
+it. Of course I know that according to the law I have not the least
+right over you. But we've discussed all that; and I told it you in
+writing. And you have been my wife; and, now that I am seeing you
+again, I feel very plainly that, in spite of everything, I regard
+you as my wife and that you are my wife. And you must have retained
+the same impression from our meeting here, at Nice."
+
+"Yes," she said, calmly.
+
+"You admit that?"
+
+"Yes," she repeated.
+
+"Then that's all right. It's the only thing I wanted of you. So
+we won't think any more now of what happened, of our former
+unpleasantness, of our divorce and of what you have done since. From
+now on we will put all that behind us. I look upon you as my wife and
+you shall be my wife again. According to the law we can't get married
+again. But that makes no difference. Our divorce in law I regard as
+an intervening formality and we will counter it as far as we can. If
+we have children, we shall get them legitimatized. I will consult a
+lawyer about all that; and I shall take all the necessary measures,
+financial included. In this way our divorce will be nothing more
+than a formality, of no meaning to us and of as little significance
+as possible to the world and to the law. And then I shall leave the
+service. I shouldn't in any case care to stay in it for good, so I
+may as well leave it earlier than I intended. For you wouldn't find
+it pleasant to live in Holland; and it doesn't appeal to me either."
+
+"No," she murmured.
+
+"Where would you like to live?"
+
+"I don't know...."
+
+"In Italy?"
+
+"No," she begged, in a tone of entreaty.
+
+"Care to stay here?"
+
+"I'd rather not ... to begin with."
+
+"I was thinking of Paris. Would you like to live in Paris?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"That's all right then. So we will go to Paris as soon as possible
+and look out for a flat and settle in. It'll soon be spring now;
+and that is a good time to start life in Paris."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He flung himself into an easy-chair; it creaked under him. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Tell me, what do you really think, inside yourself?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I want to know what you thought of your husband. Did you think
+him absurd?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Come over here and sit on my knee."
+
+She stood up and went to him. She did as he wished, sat down on his
+knee; and he drew her to him. He laid his hand on her head, with that
+gesture which prevented her thinking. She closed her eyes and laid
+her head against his cheek.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me altogether?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"We ought never to have got divorced, ought we?"
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"But we used to be very bad-tempered then, both of us. You must never
+be bad-tempered in future. It makes you look spiteful and ugly. As
+you are now, you're much nicer and prettier."
+
+She smiled faintly.
+
+"I am glad to have you back with me," he whispered, with a long kiss
+on her lips.
+
+She closed her eyes under his kiss, while his moustache curled against
+her skin and his mouth pressed hers.
+
+"Are you still tired?" he asked. "Would you like to rest a little?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "I would like to get my things off."
+
+"You'd better go to bed for a bit," he said. "Oh, by the way, I forgot
+to tell you: your friend, the princess, is coming here this evening!"
+
+"Isn't Urania angry?"
+
+"No, I have told her everything and she knows about it all."
+
+She was pleased to know that Urania was not angry and that she still
+had a friend left.
+
+"And I have seen Mrs. Uxeley also."
+
+"She must be angry with me, isn't she?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"That old hag! No, not angry. She's in the dumps because she has no
+one with her. She set great store by you. She likes to have pretty
+people about her, she said. She can't stand an ugly companion, with
+no chic.... There, get undressed and go to bed. I'll leave you and
+go and sit downstairs somewhere."
+
+They stood up. His eyes had a golden glimmer in them; his moustache
+was lifted by his ironic smile. And he caught her fiercely in his arms:
+
+"Cornélie," he said, hoarsely, "I think it's wonderful to have you
+back again. Do you belong to me, tell me, do you belong to me?"
+
+He pressed her to him till he almost stifled her with the pressure
+of his arms:
+
+"Tell me, do you belong to me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What used you to say to me in the old days, when you were in love
+with me?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"What used you to say?" he insisted, holding her still more tightly.
+
+Pushing her hands against his shoulders, she fought to catch her
+breath:
+
+"My Rud!" she murmured. "My beautiful, glorious Rud!"
+
+Automatically she now wound her arms around his head. He released
+her as with an effort of will:
+
+"Take off your things," he said, "and try to get some sleep. I'll
+come back later."
+
+He went away. She undressed and brushed her hair with his brushes,
+washed her face and dripped into the basin some of the toilet-water
+which he used. She drew the curtains, behind which the noonday sun
+shone; and a soft crimson twilight filled the room. And she crept
+into the great bed and lay waiting for him, trembling. There was no
+thought in her. There was in her no grief and no recollection. She was
+filled only with a great expectancy, a waiting for the inevitability
+of life. She felt herself to be solely and wholly a bride, but not
+an innocent bride; and, deep in her blood, in the very marrow of her
+bones, she felt herself to be the wife, the very blood and marrow,
+of him whom she awaited. Before her, as she lay half-dreaming, she saw
+little figures of children. For, if she was to be his wife in truth and
+sincerity, she wanted to be not only his lover but also the woman who
+gave him his children. She knew that, despite his roughness, he loved
+the softness of children; and she herself would long for them, in her
+second married life, as a sweet comfort for the days when she would be
+no longer beautiful and no longer young. Before her, half-dreaming,
+she saw the figures of children.... And she lay waiting for him, she
+listened for his step, she longed for his coming, her flesh quivered
+towards him.... And, when he entered and came to her, her arms closed
+round him in profound and conscious certainty and she felt, beyond
+a doubt, on his breast, in his arms, the knowledge of his virile,
+over-mastering dominion, while before her eyes, in a dizzy, melancholy
+obscurity, the dream of her life--Rome, Duco, the studio--sank away....
+
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] Woman's Rights.
+
+[2] The nineteenth century.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 43005-8.txt or 43005-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/0/43005/
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/43005-8.zip b/43005-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4d47d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-8.zip
diff --git a/43005-h.zip b/43005-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..862730b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h.zip
diff --git a/43005-h/43005-h.htm b/43005-h/43005-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7282d66
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/43005-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10495 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
+<!-- This HTML file has been automatically generated from an XML source on 2013-06-21T18:30:57Z. -->
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta name="generator" content=
+"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 25 March 2009), see www.w3.org">
+<title>The Inevitable</title>
+<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
+<meta name="generator" content=
+"tei2html.xsl, see http://code.google.com/p/tei2html/">
+<meta name="author" content="Louis Couperus (1863&ndash;1923)">
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/new-cover.jpg">
+<link rel="schema.DC" href=
+"http://dublincore.org/documents/1998/09/dces/">
+<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Louis Couperus (1863&ndash;1923)">
+<meta name="DC.Title" content="The Inevitable">
+<meta name="DC.Language" content="en">
+<meta name="DC.Format" content="text/html">
+<meta name="DC.Publisher" content="Project Gutenberg">
+<meta name="DC:Subject" content="#####">
+<style type="text/css">
+body
+{
+font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
+font-size: 100%;
+line-height: 1.2em;
+margin: 1.58em 16%;
+text-align: left;
+}
+/* Titlepage */
+.titlePage
+{
+border: #DDDDDD 2px solid;
+margin: 3em 0% 7em 0%;
+padding: 5em 10% 6em 10%;
+text-align: center;
+}
+.titlePage .docTitle
+{
+line-height: 3.5em;
+margin: 2em 0% 2em 0%;
+font-weight: bold;
+}
+.titlePage .docTitle .mainTitle
+{
+font-size: 1.8em;
+}
+.titlePage .docTitle .subTitle, .titlePage .docTitle .seriesTitle, .titlePage .docTitle .volumeTitle
+{
+font-size: 1.44em;
+}
+.titlePage .byline
+{
+margin: 2em 0% 2em 0%;
+font-size:1.2em;
+line-height:1.72em;
+}
+.titlePage .byline .docAuthor
+{
+font-size: 1.2em;
+font-weight: bold;
+}
+.titlePage .figure
+{
+margin: 2em 0% 2em 0%;
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+}
+.titlePage .docImprint
+{
+margin: 4em 0% 0em 0%;
+font-size: 1.2em;
+line-height: 1.72em;
+}
+.titlePage .docImprint .docDate
+{
+font-size: 1.2em;
+font-weight: bold;
+}
+/* End Titlepage */
+.transcribernote
+{
+background-color:#DDE;
+border:black 1px dotted;
+color:#000;
+font-family:sans-serif;
+font-size:80%;
+margin:2em 5%;
+padding:1em;
+}
+.advertisment
+{
+background-color:#FFFEE0;
+border:black 1px dotted;
+color:#000;
+margin:2em 5%;
+padding:1em;
+}
+.correctiontable
+{
+width: 75%;
+}
+.width20
+{
+width: 20%;
+}
+.width40
+{
+width: 40%;
+}
+.indextoc
+{
+text-align: center;
+}
+.div0
+{
+padding-top: 5.6em;
+}
+.div1
+{
+padding-top: 4.8em;
+}
+.index
+{
+font-size: 80%;
+}
+.div2
+{
+padding-top: 3.6em;
+}
+.div3, .div4, .div5
+{
+padding-top: 2.4em;
+}
+.footnotes .body,
+.footnotes .div1
+{
+padding: 0;
+}
+.apparatusnote
+{
+text-decoration: none;
+}
+table.alignedtext
+{
+border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+table.alignedtext td
+{
+vertical-align: top;
+width: 50%;
+}
+table.alignedtext td.first
+{
+border-width: 0 0.2px 0 0;
+border-color: gray;
+border-style: solid;
+padding-right: 10px;
+}
+table.alignedtext td.second
+{
+padding-left: 10px;
+}
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, .h1, .h2, .h3, .h4
+{
+clear: both;
+font-style: normal;
+text-transform: none;
+}
+h3, .h3
+{
+font-size:1.2em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+}
+h3.label
+{
+font-size:1em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+margin-bottom:0;
+}
+h4, .h4
+{
+font-size:1em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+}
+.alignleft
+{
+text-align:left;
+}
+.alignright
+{
+text-align:right;
+}
+.alignblock
+{
+text-align:justify;
+}
+p.tb, hr.tb
+{
+margin-top: 1.6em;
+margin-bottom: 1.6em;
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+text-align: center;
+}
+p.argument, p.note, p.tocArgument
+{
+font-size:0.9em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+text-indent:0;
+}
+p.argument, p.tocArgument
+{
+margin:1.58em 10%;
+}
+p.tocPart
+{
+margin:1.58em 0%;
+font-variant: small-caps;
+}
+p.tocChapter
+{
+margin:1.58em 0%;
+}
+p.tocSection
+{
+margin:0.7em 5%;
+}
+.opener, .address
+{
+margin-top: 1.6em;
+margin-bottom: 1.6em;
+}
+.addrline
+{
+margin-top: 0;
+margin-bottom: 0;
+}
+.dateline
+{
+margin-top: 1.6em;
+margin-bottom: 1.6em;
+text-align: right;
+}
+.salute
+{
+margin-top: 1.6em;
+margin-left: 3.58em;
+text-indent: -2em;
+}
+.signed
+{
+margin-top: 1.6em;
+margin-left: 3.58em;
+text-indent: -2em;
+}
+.epigraph
+{
+font-size:0.9em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+width: 60%;
+margin-left: auto;
+}
+.epigraph span.bibl
+{
+display: block;
+text-align: right;
+}
+.trailer
+{
+clear: both;
+padding-top: 2.4em;
+padding-bottom: 1.6em;
+}
+.figure
+{
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+}
+.floatLeft
+{
+float:left;
+margin:10px 10px 10px 0;
+}
+.floatRight
+{
+float:right;
+margin:10px 0 10px 10px;
+}
+p.figureHead
+{
+font-size:100%;
+text-align:center;
+}
+.figAnnotation
+{
+font-size:80%;
+position:relative;
+margin: 0 auto; /* center this */
+}
+.figTopLeft, .figBottomLeft
+{
+float: left;
+}
+.figTop, .figBottom
+{
+}
+.figTopRight, .figBottomRight
+{
+float: right;
+}
+.hangq
+{
+text-indent: -0.32em;
+}
+.hangqq
+{
+text-indent: -0.40em;
+}
+.hangqqq
+{
+text-indent: -0.71em;
+}
+.figure p
+{
+font-size:80%;
+margin-top:0;
+text-align:center;
+}
+img
+{
+border-width:0;
+}
+p.smallprint,li.smallprint
+{
+color:#666666;
+font-size:80%;
+}
+span.parnum
+{
+font-weight: bold;
+}
+.marginnote
+{
+font-size:0.8em;
+height:0;
+left:1%;
+line-height:1.2em;
+position:absolute;
+text-indent:0;
+width:14%;
+}
+.pagenum
+{
+display:inline;
+font-size:70%;
+font-style:normal;
+margin:0;
+padding:0;
+position:absolute;
+right:1%;
+text-align:right;
+}
+a.noteref, a.pseudonoteref
+{
+font-size: 80%;
+text-decoration: none;
+vertical-align: 0.25em;
+}
+.displayfootnote
+{
+display: none;
+}
+div.footnotes
+{
+font-size: 80%;
+margin-top: 1em;
+padding: 0;
+}
+hr.fnsep
+{
+margin-left: 0;
+margin-right: 0;
+text-align: left;
+width: 25%;
+}
+p.footnote
+{
+margin-bottom: 0.5em;
+margin-top: 0.5em;
+}
+p.footnote .label
+{
+float:left;
+width:2em;
+height:12pt;
+display:block;
+}
+/* Tables */
+tr, td, th
+{
+vertical-align: top;
+}
+td.bottom
+{
+vertical-align: bottom;
+}
+td.label, tr.label td
+{
+font-weight: bold;
+}
+td.unit, tr.unit td
+{
+font-style: italic;
+}
+span.sum
+{
+padding-top: 2px; border-top: solid black 1px;
+}
+/* Table border styles */
+/* Table with borders on the outside and between the table head and data. */
+table.borderOutside
+{
+border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+table.borderOutside td
+{
+padding-left: 4px;
+padding-right: 4px;
+}
+table.borderOutside .cellHeadTop, table.borderOutside .cellTop
+{
+border-top: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderOutside .cellHeadBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 1px solid black;
+}
+table.borderOutside .cellBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderOutside .cellLeft, table.borderOutside .cellHeadLeft
+{
+border-left: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderOutside .cellRight, table.borderOutside .cellHeadRight
+{
+border-right: 2px solid black;
+}
+/* Table with borders on the vertical inside edges. */
+table.verticalBorderInside
+{
+border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+table.verticalBorderInside td
+{
+padding-left: 4px;
+padding-right: 4px;
+border-left: 1px solid black;
+}
+table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadTop, table.verticalBorderInside .cellTop
+{
+border-top: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 1px solid black;
+}
+table.verticalBorderInside .cellBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.verticalBorderInside .cellLeft, table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadLeft
+{
+border-left: 0px solid black;
+}
+/* Table with borders on all edges, outer edges somewhat fatter. */
+table.borderAll
+{
+border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+table.borderAll td
+{
+padding-left: 4px;
+padding-right: 4px;
+border: 1px solid black;
+}
+table.borderAll .cellHeadTop, table.borderAll .cellTop
+{
+border-top: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderAll .cellHeadBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 1px solid black;
+}
+table.borderAll .cellBottom
+{
+border-bottom: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderAll .cellLeft, table.borderAll .cellHeadLeft
+{
+border-left: 2px solid black;
+}
+table.borderAll .cellRight, table.borderAll .cellHeadRight
+{
+border-right: 2px solid black;
+}
+/* Poetry */
+.lgouter
+{
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+display:table; /* used to make the block shrink to the actual size */
+}
+.lg
+{
+text-align: left;
+}
+.lg h4, .lgouter h4
+{
+font-weight: normal;
+}
+.lg .linenum, .sp .linenum, .lgouter .linenum
+{
+color:#777;
+font-size:90%;
+left: 16%;
+margin:0;
+position:absolute;
+text-align:center;
+text-indent:0;
+top:auto;
+width:1.75em;
+}
+p.line
+{
+margin: 0 0% 0 0%;
+}
+span.hemistich /* invisible text to achieve visual effect of hemistich indentation. */
+{
+color: white;
+}
+.versenum
+{
+font-weight:bold;
+}
+/* Drama */
+.speaker
+{
+font-weight: bold;
+margin-bottom: 0.4em;
+}
+.sp .line
+{
+margin: 0 10%;
+text-align: left;
+}
+/* End Drama */
+/* right aligned page number in table of contents */
+span.tocPageNum, span.flushright
+{
+position: absolute;
+right: 16%;
+top: auto;
+}
+table.tocList
+{
+width: 100%;
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+border-width: 0;
+border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+td.tocPageNum, td.tocDivNum
+{
+text-align: right;
+width: 10%;
+border-width: 0;
+}
+td.tocDivNum
+{
+padding-left: 0;
+padding-right: 0.5em;
+}
+td.tocPageNum
+{
+padding-left: 0.5em;
+padding-right: 0;
+}
+td.tocDivTitle
+{
+width: auto;
+}
+span.corr, span.gap
+{
+border-bottom:1px dotted red;
+}
+span.abbr
+{
+border-bottom:1px dotted gray;
+}
+span.measure
+{
+border-bottom:1px dotted green;
+}
+/* Font Styles and Colors */
+.ex
+{
+letter-spacing: 0.2em;
+}
+.sc
+{
+font-variant: small-caps;
+}
+.uc
+{
+text-transform: uppercase;
+}
+.tt
+{
+font-family: monospace;
+}
+.underline
+{
+text-decoration: underline;
+}
+/* overline is actually a bit too high; overtilde is approximated with overline */
+.overline, .overtilde
+{
+text-decoration: overline;
+}
+.rm
+{
+font-style: normal;
+}
+.red
+{
+color: red;
+}
+/* End Font Styles and Colors */
+hr
+{
+clear:both;
+height:1px;
+margin-left:auto;
+margin-right:auto;
+margin-top:1em;
+text-align:center;
+width:45%;
+}
+.aligncenter, div.figure
+{
+text-align:center;
+}
+h1, h2
+{
+font-size:1.44em;
+line-height:1.5em;
+}
+h1.label, h2.label
+{
+font-size:1.2em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+margin-bottom:0;
+}
+h5, h6
+{
+font-size:1em;
+font-style:italic;
+line-height:1em;
+}
+p
+{
+text-indent:0;
+}
+p.firstlinecaps:first-line
+{
+text-transform: uppercase;
+}
+p.dropcap:first-letter
+{
+float: left;
+clear: left;
+margin: 0em 0.05em 0 0;
+padding: 0px;
+line-height: 0.8em;
+font-size: 420%;
+vertical-align:super;
+}
+.lg
+{
+padding: .5em 0% .5em 0%;
+}
+p.quote,div.blockquote, div.argument
+{
+font-size:0.9em;
+line-height:1.2em;
+margin:1.58em 5%;
+}
+.pagenum a, a.noteref:hover, a.hidden:hover, a.hidden
+{
+text-decoration:none;
+}
+ul { list-style-type: none; }
+.castlist, .castitem { list-style-type: none; }
+/* External Links */
+.pglink, .catlink, .exlink, .wplink, .biblink
+{
+background-repeat: no-repeat;
+background-position: right center;
+}
+.pglink
+{
+background-image: url(images/book.png);
+padding-right: 18px;
+}
+.catlink
+{
+background-image: url(images/card.png);
+padding-right: 17px;
+}
+.exlink, .wplink, .biblink
+{
+background-image: url(images/external.png);
+padding-right: 13px;
+}
+.pglink:hover
+{
+background-color: #DCFFDC;
+}
+.catlink:hover
+{
+background-color: #FFFFDC;
+}
+.exlink:hover, .wplink:hover, .biblink:hover
+{
+background-color: #FFDCDC;
+}
+body
+{
+background: #FFFFFF;
+font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
+}
+body, a.hidden
+{
+color: black;
+}
+h1, .h1
+{
+padding-bottom: 5em;
+}
+h1, h2, .h1, .h2
+{
+text-align: center;
+font-variant: small-caps;
+font-weight: normal;
+}
+p.byline
+{
+text-align: center;
+font-style: italic;
+margin-bottom: 2em;
+}
+.figureHead, .noteref, .pseudonoteref, .marginnote, p.legend, .versenum
+{
+color: #660000;
+}
+.rightnote, .pagenum, .linenum, .pagenum a
+{
+color: #AAAAAA;
+}
+a.hidden:hover, a.noteref:hover
+{
+color: red;
+}
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6
+{
+font-weight: normal;
+}
+table
+{
+margin-left: auto;
+margin-right: auto;
+}
+.tablecaption
+{
+text-align: center;
+}
+.pagenum, .linenum
+{
+speak: none;
+}
+</style>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+.xd21e109width
+{
+width:540px;
+}
+.xd21e115
+{
+text-align:center;
+}
+.xd21e5687
+{
+text-align:center;
+}
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Inevitable
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2013 [EBook #43005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="front">
+<div class="div1 cover">
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first"></p>
+<div class="figure xd21e109width"><img src="images/new-cover.jpg" alt=
+"Newly Designed Front Cover." width="540" height="720"></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 frenchtitle">
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first xd21e115">THE INEVITABLE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 ad">
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">THE WORKS OF LOUIS COUPERUS</p>
+<p>Translated by <span class="sc">Alexander Teixeira de
+Mattos</span></p>
+<p>THE BOOKS OF THE SMALL SOULS</p>
+<ul>
+<li>I. <span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34021">Small Souls</a></span></li>
+<li>II. <span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37578">The Later Life</a></span></li>
+<li>III. <span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34458">The Twilight of the
+Souls</a></span></li>
+<li>IV. <span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34761">Dr. Adriaan</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+<p><i>Also</i></p>
+<ul>
+<li><span class="sc">Old People and the Things that Pass</span></li>
+<li><span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37770">Ecstasy</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="sc"><a class="pglink xd21e48" title=
+"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37497">The Tour</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="sc">The Inevitable</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="titlePage">
+<div class="docTitle">
+<div class="mainTitle">THE INEVITABLE</div>
+</div>
+<div class="byline">BY<br>
+<span class="docAuthor">LOUIS COUPERUS</span><br>
+TRANSLATED BY<br>
+<span class="docAuthor">ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA <i>DE</i>
+MATTOS</span></div>
+<div class="docImprint">NEW YORK<br>
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY<br>
+<span class="docDate">1920</span></div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 copyright">
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first xd21e115"><span class="sc">Copyright, 1920,<br>
+By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.</span></p>
+<p class="xd21e115">VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY<br>
+BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb1" href="#pb1"
+name="pb1">1</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="body">
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="super">THE INEVITABLE</h2>
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The Marchesa Belloni&rsquo;s boarding-house was
+situated in one of the healthiest, if not one of the most romantic
+quarters of Rome. One half of the house had formed part of a <i lang=
+"it">villino</i> of the old Ludovisi Gardens, those beautiful old
+gardens regretted by everybody who knew them before the new
+barrack-quarters were built on the site of the old Roman park, with its
+border of villas. The entrance to the <i>pension</i> was in the Via
+Lombardia. The older or <i lang="it">villino</i> portion of the house
+retained a certain antique charm for the marchesa&rsquo;s boarders,
+while the new premises built on to it offered the advantages of
+spacious rooms, modern sanitation and electric light. The
+<i>pension</i> boasted a certain reputation for comfort, cheapness and
+a pleasant situation: it stood at a few minutes&rsquo; walk from the
+Pincio, on high ground, and there was no need to fear malaria; and the
+price charged for a long stay, amounting to hardly more than eight
+lire, was exceptionally low for Rome, which was known to be more
+expensive than any other town in Italy. The boarding-house therefore
+was generally full. The visitors began to arrive as soon as October:
+those who came earliest in the season paid least; and, with the
+exception of a few hurrying tourists, they nearly all remained until
+Easter, going southward to Naples after the great church festivals.</p>
+<p>Some English travelling-acquaintances had strongly recommended the
+<i>pension</i> to Corn&eacute;lie de Retz van <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb2" href="#pb2" name="pb2">2</a>]</span>Loo, who was
+travelling in Italy by herself; and she had written to the Marchesa
+Belloni from Florence. It was her first visit to Italy; it was the
+first time that she had alighted at the great cavernous station near
+the Baths of Diocletian; and, standing in the square, in the golden
+Roman sunlight, while the great fountain of the Acqua Marcia gushed and
+rippled and the cab-drivers clicked with their whips and their tongues
+to attract her attention, she was conscious of her &ldquo;nice Italian
+sensation,&rdquo; as she called it, and felt glad to be in Rome.</p>
+<p>She saw a little old man limping towards her with the instinct of a
+veteran porter who recognizes his travellers at once; and she read
+&ldquo;Hotel Belloni&rdquo; on his cap and beckoned to him with a
+smile. He saluted her with respectful familiarity, as though she were
+an old acquaintance and he glad to see her; asked if she had had a
+pleasant journey, if she was not over-tired; led her to the victoria;
+put in her rug and her hand-bag; asked for the tickets of her trunks;
+and said that she had better go on ahead: he would follow in ten
+minutes with the luggage. She received an impression of cosiness, of
+being well cared for by the little old lame man; and she gave him a
+friendly nod as the coachman drove away. She felt happy and careless,
+though she had just the faintest foreboding of something unhappy and
+unknown that was going to happen to her; and she looked to right and
+left to take in the streets of Rome. But she saw only houses upon
+houses, like so many barracks; then a great white palace, the new
+Palazzo Piombino, which she knew to contain the Juno Ludovisi; and then
+the <i lang="it">vettura</i> stopped and a boy in buttons came out to
+meet her. He showed her into the drawing-room, a gloomy apartment, in
+the middle of which was a table covered with periodicals, arranged in a
+regular and unbroken circle. Two ladies, <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb3" href="#pb3" name="pb3">3</a>]</span>obviously English and of the
+&aelig;sthetic type, with loose-fitting blouses and grimy hair, sat in
+a corner studying their Baedekers before going out. Corn&eacute;lie
+bowed slightly, but received no bow in return; she did not take
+offence, being familiar with the manners of the travelling Briton. She
+sat down at the table and took up the Roman <i>Herald</i>, the paper
+which appears once a fortnight and tells you what there is to do in
+Rome during the next two weeks.</p>
+<p>Thereupon one of the ladies asked her, from the corner, in an
+aggressive tone:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon, but would you please not take the
+<i>Herald</i> to your room?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie raised her head very haughtily and languidly in the
+direction where the ladies were sitting, looked vaguely above their
+grimy heads, said nothing and glanced down at the <i>Herald</i> again;
+and she thought herself a very experienced traveller and smiled
+inwardly because she knew how to deal with that type of
+Englishwoman.</p>
+<p>The marchesa entered and welcomed Corn&eacute;lie in Italian and in
+French. She was a large, fat matron, vulgarly fat; her ample bosom was
+contained in a silk cuirass or spencer, shiny at the seams and bursting
+under the arms; her grey frizzled hair gave her a somewhat leonine
+appearance; her great yellow and blue eyes, with bistre shadows beneath
+them, wore a strained expression, the pupils unnaturally dilated by
+belladonna; a pair of immense crystals sparkled in her ears; and her
+fat, greasy fingers were covered with nameless jewels. She talked very
+fast; and Corn&eacute;lie thought her sentences as pleasant and homely
+as the welcome of the lame porter in the square outside the station.
+The marchesa led her to the lift and stepped in with her; the hydraulic
+lift, a railed-in cage, running up the well of the staircase,
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb4" href="#pb4" name=
+"pb4">4</a>]</span>rose solemnly and suddenly stopped, motionless,
+between the second and the third floor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Third floor!&rdquo; cried the marchesa to some one below.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Non c&rsquo;e acqua!</i>&rdquo; the boy in
+buttons calmly called back, meaning thereby to convey that&mdash;as
+seemed natural&mdash;there was not enough water to move the lift.</p>
+<p>The marchesa screamed out some orders in a shrill voice; two
+<i lang="it">facchini</i> came running up and hung on to the cable of
+the lift, together with the ostensibly zealous boy in buttons; and by
+fits and starts the cage rose higher and higher, until at last it
+almost reached the third storey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A little higher!&rdquo; ordered the marchesa.</p>
+<p>But the <i lang="it">facchini</i> strained their muscles in vain:
+the lift refused to stir.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We can manage!&rdquo; said the marchesa. &ldquo;Wait a
+bit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Taking a great stride, which revealed the enormous white-stockinged
+calf of her leg, she stepped on to the floor, smiled and gave her hand
+to Corn&eacute;lie, who imitated her gymnastics.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here we are!&rdquo; sighed the marchesa, with a smile of
+satisfaction. &ldquo;This is your room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She opened a door and showed Corn&eacute;lie a room. Though the sun
+was shining brightly out of doors, the room was as damp and chilly as a
+cellar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Marchesa,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie said, without hesitation,
+&ldquo;I wrote to you for two rooms facing south.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; asked the marchesa, plausibly and
+ingenuously. &ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t remember. Yes, that is one of
+those foreigners&rsquo; ideas: rooms facing south.... This is really a
+beautiful room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, but I can&rsquo;t accept this room,
+marchesa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>La Belloni grumbled a bit, went down the corridor <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb5" href="#pb5" name="pb5">5</a>]</span>and opened
+the door of another room:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And this one, signora?... How do you like this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it south?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Almost&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want it full south.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This looks west: you see the most splendid sunsets from your
+window.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I absolutely must have a south room, marchesa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I also have the most charming little apartments looking east:
+you get the most picturesque sunrises there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, marchesa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you appreciate the beauties of nature?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Just a little, but I put my health first.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sleep in a north room myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are an Italian, marchesa, and you&rsquo;re used to
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry, but I have no rooms facing
+south.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m sorry too, marchesa, but I must look out
+somewhere else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie turned as though to go away. The choice of a room
+sometimes means the choice of a life.</p>
+<p>The marchesa caught hold of her hand and smiled. She had abandoned
+her cool tone and her voice was all honey:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Davvero</i>, that&rsquo;s one of those foreigners&rsquo;
+ideas: rooms facing south! But I have two little kennels left.
+Here....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she quickly opened two doors, two snug little cupboards of
+rooms, which showed through the open windows a lofty and spacious view
+of the sky, outspread above the streets and roofs below, with the blue
+dome of St. Peter&rsquo;s in the distance. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb6" href="#pb6" name="pb6">6</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;These are the only rooms I have left facing south,&rdquo;
+said the marchesa, plaintively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be glad to have these, marchesa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sixteen lire,&rdquo; smiled la Belloni.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ten, as you wrote.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could put two persons in here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall stay all the winter, if I am satisfied.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must have your way!&rdquo; the marchesa exclaimed,
+suddenly, in her sweetest voice, a voice of graceful surrender.
+&ldquo;You shall have the rooms for twelve lire. Don&rsquo;t let us
+discuss it any more. The rooms are yours. You are Dutch, are you not?
+We have a Dutch family staying here: a mother with two daughters and a
+son. Would you like to sit next to them at table?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;d rather you put me somewhere else; I don&rsquo;t
+care for my fellow-countrymen when travelling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The marchesa left Corn&eacute;lie to herself. She looked out of the
+window, absent-mindedly, glad to be in Rome, yet faintly conscious of
+the something unhappy and unknown that was going to happen. There was a
+tap at her door; the men carried in her luggage. She saw that it was
+eleven o&rsquo;clock and began to unpack. One of her rooms was a small
+sitting-room, like a bird-cage in the air, looking out over Rome. She
+altered the position of the furniture, draped the faded sofa with a
+shawl from the Abruzzi and fixed a few portraits and photographs with
+drawing-pins to the wall, whose white-washed surface was broken up by
+rudely-painted arabesques. And she smiled at the border of purple
+hearts transfixed by arrows, which surrounded the decorated panels of
+the wall.</p>
+<p>After an hour&rsquo;s work her sitting-room was settled: she had a
+home of her own, with a few of her own shawls and rugs, a screen here,
+a little table <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb7" href="#pb7" name=
+"pb7">7</a>]</span>there, cushions on the sofa, books within easy
+reach. When she had finished and had sat down and looked around her,
+she suddenly felt very lonely. She began to think of the Hague and of
+what she had left behind her. But she did not want to think and picked
+up her Baedeker and read about the Vatican. She was unable to
+concentrate her thoughts and turned to Hare&rsquo;s <i>Walks in
+Rome</i>. A bell sounded. She was tired and her nerves were on edge.
+She looked in the glass, saw that her hair was out of curl, her blouse
+soiled with coal and dust, unlocked a second trunk and changed her
+things. She cried and sobbed while she was curling her hair. The second
+bell rang; and, after powdering her face, she went downstairs.</p>
+<p>She expected to be late, but there was no one in the dining-room and
+she had to wait before she was served. She resolved not to come down so
+very punctually in future. A few boarders looked in through the open
+door, saw that there was no one sitting at table yet, except a new
+lady, and disappeared again.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie looked around her and waited.</p>
+<p>The dining-room was the original dining-room of the old villa, with
+a ceiling by Guercina. The waiters loitered about. An old grey
+major-domo cast a distant glance over the table, to see if everything
+was in order. He grew impatient when nobody came and told them to serve
+the macaroni to Corn&eacute;lie. It struck Corn&eacute;lie that he too
+limped with one leg, like the porter. But the waiters were very young,
+hardly more than sixteen to eighteen, and lacked the waiter&rsquo;s
+usual self-possession.</p>
+<p>A stout gentleman, vivacious, consequential, pock-marked,
+ill-shaven, in a shabby black coat which showed but little linen,
+entered, rubbing his hands, and took his seat, opposite
+Corn&eacute;lie. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb8" href="#pb8" name=
+"pb8">8</a>]</span></p>
+<p>He bowed politely and began to eat his macaroni.</p>
+<p>And this seemed to be the signal for the others to begin eating, for
+a number of boarders, mostly ladies, now came in, sat down and helped
+themselves to the macaroni, which was handed round by the youthful
+waiters under the watchful eye of the grey-haired major-domo.
+Corn&eacute;lie smiled at the oddity of these travelling types; and,
+when she involuntarily glanced at the pock-marked gentleman opposite,
+she saw that he too was smiling.</p>
+<p>He hurriedly mopped up his tomato-sauce with his bread, bent a
+little way across the table and almost whispered, in French:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amusing, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie raised her eyebrows:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A cosmopolitan company like this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are Dutch?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I saw your name in the visitors&rsquo; book, with
+&lsquo;<i lang="fr">la Haye</i>&rsquo; after it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am Dutch, yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There are some more Dutch ladies here, sitting over there:
+they are charming.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie asked the major-domo for some <i lang="fr">vin
+ordinaire</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That wine is no good,&rdquo; said the stout gentleman,
+vivaciously. &ldquo;This is Genzano,&rdquo; pointing to his
+<i>fiasco</i>. &ldquo;I pay a small corkage and drink my own
+wine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The major-domo put a pint bottle in front of Corn&eacute;lie: it was
+included in her <i>pension</i> without extra charge.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you like, I will give you the address where I get my wine.
+Via della Croce, 61.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie thanked him. The pock-marked gentleman&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb9" href="#pb9" name=
+"pb9">9</a>]</span>uncommon ease and vivacity diverted her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re looking at the major-domo?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a keen observer,&rdquo; she smiled in reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a type, our major-domo, Giuseppe. He used to be
+major-domo in the palace of an Austrian archduke. He did I don&rsquo;t
+know what. Stole something, perhaps. Or was impertinent. Or dropped a
+spoon on the floor. He has come down in the world. Now you behold him
+in the Pension Belloni. But the dignity of the man!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He leant forward:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The marchesa is economical. All the servants here are either
+old or very young. It&rsquo;s cheaper.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He bowed to two German ladies, a mother and daughter, who had come
+in and sat down beside him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have the permit which I promised you, to see the Palazzo
+Rospigliosi and Guido Reni&rsquo;s <i>Aurora</i>&rdquo; he said,
+speaking in German.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is the prince back then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, the prince is in Paris. The palace is not open to
+visitors, except yourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was said with a gallant bow.</p>
+<p>The German ladies exclaimed how kind he was, how he was able to do
+anything, to find a way out of every difficulty. They had taken endless
+trouble to bribe the Rospigliosi porter and they had not succeeded.</p>
+<p>A little thin Englishwoman had taken her seat beside
+Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And for you, Miss Taylor, I have a card for a low mass in His
+Holiness&rsquo; private chapel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miss Taylor was radiant with delight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you been sight-seeing again?&rdquo; the pock-marked
+gentleman continued.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Museo Kircheriano,&rdquo; said Miss Taylor. &ldquo;But I
+am tired out. It was most exquisite.&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb10" href="#pb10" name="pb10">10</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this
+afternoon and rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have an engagement to go to the Aventino....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t. You&rsquo;re tired. You look worse every
+day and you&rsquo;re losing flesh. You must rest, or you
+sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t have the card for the low mass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of
+delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman as
+though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from his
+lips.</p>
+<p>Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs.
+Corn&eacute;lie rose:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May I give you a glass out of my bottle?&rdquo; asked the
+stout gentleman. &ldquo;Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If
+so, I&rsquo;ll order a <i>fiasco</i> for you in the Via della
+Croce.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was
+deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink a
+pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed to
+read her quick thought:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a good thing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to drink a
+strengthening wine while you are in Rome, where life is so
+tiring.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie agreed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the <i>fiasco</i>.
+It will last you a long time: the wine keeps. So I&rsquo;ll order you a
+<i>fiasco</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He bowed to the ladies around and left the room.</p>
+<p>The German ladies bowed to Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Such an amiable man, that Mr. Rudyard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What can he be?&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie wondered.
+&ldquo;French, German, English, American?&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb11" href="#pb11" name="pb11">11</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She had hired a victoria after lunch and had driven
+through Rome, to make her first acquaintance with the city for which
+she had longed so eagerly. This first impression was a great
+disappointment. Her unspoiled imagination, her reading, even the
+photographs which she had bought in Florence and studied with the
+affection of an inexperienced tourist had given her the illusion of a
+city of an ideal antiquity, an ideal Renascence; and she had forgotten
+that, especially in Rome, life has progressed pitilessly and that the
+ages are not visible, in buildings and ruins, as distinct periods, but
+that each period is closely connected with the next by the passing days
+and years.</p>
+<p>Thus she had thought the dome of St. Peter&rsquo;s small, the Corso
+narrow and Trajan&rsquo;s Column a column like any other; she had not
+noticed the Forum as she drove past it; and she had been unable to
+think of a single emperor when she was at the Palatine.</p>
+<p>Now she was home again, tired, and was resting a little and
+meditating; she felt depressed, yet she enjoyed her vague reflections
+and the silence about her in the big house, to which most of the
+boarders had not yet returned. She thought of the Hague, of her big
+family, her father, mother, brothers and sisters, to whom she had said
+good-bye for a long time to go abroad. Her father, a retired colonel of
+hussars living on his pension, with no great private means, had been
+unable to contribute anything to the fulfilment of her caprice, as he
+called it; and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb12" href="#pb12" name=
+"pb12">12</a>]</span>she would not have been able to satisfy that
+caprice, of beginning a new life, but for a small legacy which she had
+inherited some years ago from a godmother. She was glad to be more or
+less independent, though she felt the selfishness of her
+independence.</p>
+<p>But what could she have done for her family-circle, after the
+scandal of her divorce? She was weak and selfish, she knew it; but she
+had received a blow under which she had at first expected to succumb.
+And, when she found herself surviving it, she had mustered such energy
+as she possessed and said to herself that she could not go on existing
+in that same narrow circle of her sisters and her girl friends; and she
+had forced her life into a different path. She had always had the knack
+of creating an apparently new frock out of an old dress, transforming a
+last year&rsquo;s hat into one of the latest fashion. Even so she had
+now done with her distraught and wretched life, all battered and broken
+as it was: she had gathered together, as in a fit of economy, all that
+was left, all that was still serviceable; and out of those remnants she
+had made herself a new existence. But this new life was unable to
+breathe in the old atmosphere: it felt aimless in it and estranged; and
+she had managed to force it into a different path, in spite of all the
+opposition of her family and friends. Perhaps she would not have
+succeeded so readily if she had not been so completely shattered.
+Perhaps she would not have felt this energy if she had suffered only a
+little. She had her strength and she had her weakness; she was very
+simple and yet she was very various; and it was perhaps just this
+complexity that had been the saving of her youth.</p>
+<p>Besides, she was actually very young, only twenty-three; and in
+youth one possesses an unconscious vitality, notwithstanding any
+apparent weakness. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb13" href="#pb13"
+name="pb13">13</a>]</span>And her contradictory qualities gave her
+equilibrium and saved her from falling over into the abyss....</p>
+<p>All this passed vaguely through her mind as clouds pass before the
+eyes, not with the conciseness of words but with the misty
+indefiniteness of a dreamy fatigue. As she lay there, she did not look
+as if she had ever exerted the strength to give a new path to her life:
+a pale, delicate woman, slender, with drooping movements, lying on a
+sofa in her not very fresh dressing-gown, with its faded pink and its
+rumpled lace. And yet there was a certain poetical fragrance about her
+personality, despite her weary eyes and the limp outlines of her
+attire, despite the boarding-house room, with its air of quickly
+improvised comfort, a comfort which was a matter of tact rather than
+reality and could be packed away in a single trunk. Her frail figure,
+her pale and delicate rather than beautiful features were surrounded,
+as by an aura, by that atmosphere of personal poetry which she
+unconsciously radiated, which she shed from her eyes upon the things
+which she beheld, from her fingers upon the things which she touched.
+To those who did not like her, this peculiar atmosphere, this
+unusualness, this eccentricity, this unlikeness to the typical young
+woman of the Hague, was the very thing with which they reproached her.
+To those who liked her, it was partly talent, partly soul; something
+peculiar to her which seemed almost genius; yet it was perturbing. It
+invested her with a great charm; it gave pause for thought and it
+promised much: more, perhaps, than could be realized. And this woman
+was the child of her time but especially of her environment and
+therefore so unfinished, revealing disparity against disparity, in an
+equilibrium of opposing forces, which might be her undoing or her
+salvation, but were in either case her fate. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb14" href="#pb14" name="pb14">14</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She felt lonely in Italy. She had stayed for weeks at Florence,
+where she tried to lead a full life, enriched by art and history.
+There, it was true, she forgot herself to a great extent, but she still
+felt lonely. She had spent a fortnight at Siena, but Siena had
+depressed her, with its sombre streets, its dead palaces; and she had
+yearned for Rome. But she had not found Rome yet that afternoon. And,
+though she felt tired, she felt above all things lonely, terribly
+lonely and useless in a great world, in a great town, a town in which
+one feels the greatness, uselessness and vast antiquity of things more
+perhaps than anywhere else. She felt like a little atom of suffering,
+like an insect, an ant, half-trodden, half-crushed, among the immense
+domes of Rome, of whose presence out of doors she was subtly
+conscious.</p>
+<p>And her hand wandered vacantly over her books, which she had stacked
+punctiliously and conscientiously on a little table: some translations
+of the classics, Ovid, Tacitus, together with Dante, Petrach, Tasso. It
+was growing dusk in her room, there was no light to read by, she was
+too much enervated to ring for a lamp; a chilliness hovered in her
+little room, now that the sun had quite gone down, and she had
+forgotten to ask for a fire on that first day. Loneliness was all about
+her, her suffering pained her; her soul craved for a fellow-soul, but
+her mouth craved for a kiss, her arms for <i>him</i>, once her husband;
+and, turning on her cushions and wringing her hands, she prayed deep
+down in herself:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;O God, tell me what to do!&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb15" href="#pb15" name="pb15">15</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">At dinner there was a buzz of voices; the three or
+four long tables were all full; the marchesa sat at the head of the
+centre table. Now and then she beckoned impatiently to Giuseppe, the
+old major-domo, who had dropped a spoon at an archducal court; and the
+unfledged little waiters rushed about breathlessly. Corn&eacute;lie
+found the obliging stout gentleman, whom the German ladies called Mr.
+Rudyard, sitting opposite her and her <i>fiasco</i> of Genzano beside
+her plate. She thanked Mr. Rudyard with a smile and made the usual
+remarks: how she had been for a drive that afternoon and had made her
+first acquaintance with Rome, the Forum, the Pincio. She talked to the
+German ladies and to the English one, who was always so tired with her
+sight-seeing; and the Germans, a <i lang="de">Baronin</i> and the
+<i lang="de">Baronesse</i> her daughter, laughed with her at the two
+&aelig;sthetes whom Corn&eacute;lie had come upon that morning in the
+drawing-room. The two were sitting some distance away, lank and
+angular, grimy-haired, in curiously cut evening-dress, which showed the
+breast and arms warmly covered with a Jaeger undervest, on which, in
+their turn, lay strings of large blue beads. Their eyes browsed over
+the long table, as though they were pitying everybody who had come to
+Rome to learn about art, because they two alone knew what art was.
+While eating, which they did unpleasantly, almost with their fingers,
+they read &aelig;sthetic books, wrinkling their brows and now and then
+looking up angrily, because the people about them were talking. With
+their self-conceit, their impossible manners, their worse than
+tasteless dress and their great air of superiority, they represented
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb16" href="#pb16" name=
+"pb16">16</a>]</span>types of travelling Englishwomen that are never
+met except in Italy. They were unanimously criticized at the table.
+They came to the Pension Belloni every winter and made drawings in
+water-colours in the Forum or the Via Appia. And they were so
+remarkable in their unprecedented originality, in their grimy
+angularity, with their evening-dresses, their Jaegers, their strings of
+blue beads, their &aelig;sthetic books and their meat-picking fingers,
+that all eyes were constantly wandering in their direction, as though
+under the influence of a Medusa spell.</p>
+<p>The young baroness, a type out of the <i lang="de">Fliegende
+Bl&auml;tter</i>, witty and quick, with her little round, German face
+and arched, pencilled eyebrows, was laughing with Corn&eacute;lie and
+showing her a thumb-nail caricature which she had made of the two
+&aelig;sthetic ladies in her sketch-book, when Giuseppe conducted a
+young lady to the end of the table where Corn&eacute;lie and Rudyard
+sat opposite each other. She had evidently just arrived, said
+&ldquo;Evening&rdquo; to everybody near her and sat down with a great
+rustling. It was at once apparent that she was <span class="corr" id=
+"xd21e569" title="Source: a">an</span> American, almost too
+good-looking, too young, to be travelling alone like that, with a
+smiling self-possession, as if she were at home: a very white
+complexion, very fine dark eyes, teeth like a dentist&rsquo;s
+advertisement, her full breast moulded in mauve cloth plentifully
+decorated with silver braid, on her heavily-waved hair a large mauve
+hat with a cascade of black ostrich-feathers, fastened by an over-large
+paste buckle. At every movement the silk of her petticoat rustled, the
+feathers nodded, the paste buckle gleamed. And, notwithstanding all
+this showiness, she was child-like: she was perhaps just twenty, with
+an ingenuous expression in her eyes. She at once spoke to
+Corn&eacute;lie, to Rudyard; said that she was tired, that she had come
+from Naples, that she had <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb17" href=
+"#pb17" name="pb17">17</a>]</span>been dancing last night at Prince
+Cibo&rsquo;s, that her name was Miss Urania Hope, that her father lived
+in Chicago, that she had two brothers who, in spite of her
+father&rsquo;s money, were working on a farm in the Far West, but that
+she had been brought up as a spoilt child by her father, who, however,
+wanted her to be able to stand on her own feet and was therefore making
+her travel by herself in the Old World, in dear old Italy. She was
+delighted to hear that Corn&eacute;lie was also travelling alone; and
+Rudyard chaffed the ladies about their modern views, but the Baronin
+and the Baronesse applauded them. Miss Hope at once took a liking to
+her Dutch fellow-traveller and wanted to arrange joint excursions; but
+Corn&eacute;lie, withdrawing into herself, made a tactful excuse, said
+that her time was fully engaged, that she wanted to study in the
+museums.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So serious?&rdquo; asked Miss Hope, respectfully.</p>
+<p>And the petticoat rustled, the plumes nodded, the paste buckle
+gleamed.</p>
+<p>She made on Corn&eacute;lie the impression of a gaudy butterfly,
+which, sportive and unthinking, might easily one day dash itself to
+pieces against the hot-house windows of our cabined existence. She felt
+no attraction towards this strange, pretty little creature, who looked
+like a child and a <i>cocotte</i> in one; but she felt sorry for her,
+she did not know why.</p>
+<p>After dinner, Rudyard proposed to take the two German ladies for a
+little walk. The younger baroness came to Corn&eacute;lie and asked if
+she would come too, to see Rome by moonlight, quite close, from the
+Villa Medici. She felt grateful for the kindly suggestion and was just
+going to put on her hat, when Miss Hope ran after her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stay and sit with me in the drawing-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am going for a walk with the Baronin,&rdquo;
+Corn&eacute;lie replied. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb18" href=
+"#pb18" name="pb18">18</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;That German lady?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she a noblewoman?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I presume so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are there many titled people in the house?&rdquo; asked Miss
+Hope, eagerly.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I only arrived this morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe there are. I heard that there were many titled
+people here. Are you one?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was!&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie laughed. &ldquo;But I had to
+give up my title.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What a shame!&rdquo; Miss Hope exclaimed. &ldquo;I love
+titles. Do you know what I&rsquo;ve got? An album with the coats of
+arms of all sorts of families and another album with patterns of silk
+and brocade from each of the Queen of Italy&rsquo;s ball-dresses. Would
+you care to see it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very much indeed!&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie laughed. &ldquo;But
+I must put on my hat now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She went and returned in a hat and cloak; the German ladies and
+Rudyard were waiting in the hall and asked what she was laughing at.
+She caused great merriment by telling them about the album with the
+patterns of the queen&rsquo;s ball-dresses.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo; she asked the Baronin, as she walked in
+front with her, along the Via Sistina, while the Baronesse and Rudyard
+followed.</p>
+<p>She thought the Baronin a charming person, but she was surprised to
+find, in this German woman, who belonged to the titled military-class,
+a coldly cynical view of life which was not exactly that of her Berlin
+environment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; the Baronin answered, with an air
+of indifference. &ldquo;We travel a great deal. We have no house in
+Berlin at present. We want to make the most of our stay abroad. Mr.
+Rudyard <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb19" href="#pb19" name=
+"pb19">19</a>]</span>is very pleasant. He helps us in all sorts of
+ways: tickets for a papal mass, introductions here, invitations there.
+He seems to have plenty of influence. What do I care who or what he is!
+Else agrees with me. I accept what he <span class="corr" id="xd21e624"
+title="Source: give">gives</span> us and for the rest I don&rsquo;t try
+to fathom him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They walked on. The Baronin took Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s arm:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear child, don&rsquo;t think us more cynical than we are.
+I hardly know you, but I&rsquo;ve felt somehow drawn towards you.
+Strange, isn&rsquo;t it, when one&rsquo;s abroad like this and has
+one&rsquo;s first talk at a <i lang="fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i>,
+over a skinny chicken? Don&rsquo;t think us shabby or cynical. Oh,
+dear, perhaps we are! Our cosmopolitan, irresponsible, unsettled life
+makes us ungenerous, cynical and selfish. Very selfish. Rudyard shows
+us many kindnesses. Why should I not accept them? I don&rsquo;t care
+who or what he is. I am not committing myself in any way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie looked round involuntarily. In the nearly dark
+street she saw Rudyard and the young Baronesse, almost whispering and
+mysteriously intimate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And does your daughter think so too?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes! We are not committing ourselves in any way. We do
+not even particularly like him, with his pock-marked face and his dirty
+finger-nails. We merely accept his introductions. Do as we do. Or ...
+don&rsquo;t. Perhaps it will be better form if you don&rsquo;t. I ... I
+have become a great egoist, through travelling. What do I
+care?...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The dark street seemed to invite confidences; and Corn&eacute;lie to
+some extent understood this cynical indifference, particularly in a
+woman reared in narrow principles of duty and morality. It was
+certainly not good form; but was it not weariness brought about by the
+wear and tear of life? In any case she <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb20" href="#pb20" name="pb20">20</a>]</span>vaguely understood it:
+that tone of indifference, that careless shrugging of the
+shoulders....</p>
+<p>They turned the corner of the Hotel Massier and approached the Villa
+Medici. The full moon was pouring down its flood of white radiance and
+Rome lay in the flawless blue glamour of the night. Overflowing the
+brimming basin of the fountain, beneath the black ilexes, whose leafage
+held the picture of Rome in an ebony frame, the waste water splashed
+and clattered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rome must be very beautiful,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie,
+softly.</p>
+<p>Rudyard and the Baronesse had come nearer and heard what she
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rome <i>is</i> beautiful,&rdquo; he said, earnestly.
+&ldquo;And Rome is more. Rome is a great consolation to many
+people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His words, spoken in the blue moonlit night, impressed her. The city
+seemed to lie in mystical billows at her feet. She looked at him, as he
+stood before her in his black coat, showing but little linen, the same
+stout, civil gentleman. His voice was very penetrating, with a rich
+note of conviction in it. She looked at him long, uncertain of herself
+and vaguely conscious of an approaching intimation, but still
+antipathetic.</p>
+<p>Then he added, as though he did not wish her to meditate too deeply
+the words which he had uttered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A great consolation to many ... because beauty
+consoles.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she thought his last words an &aelig;sthetic commonplace; but he
+had meant her to think so. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb21" href=
+"#pb21" name="pb21">21</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Those first days in Rome tired Corn&eacute;lie
+greatly. She did too much, as every one does who has just arrived in
+Rome; she wanted to take in the whole city at once; and the distances,
+although covered in a carriage, and the endless galleries in the
+museums resulted in producing physical exhaustion. Moreover she was
+constantly experiencing disappointments, in respect of pictures,
+statues or buildings. At first she dared not own to these
+disappointments; but one afternoon, feeling dead-tired, after she had
+been painfully disappointed in the Sistine Chapel, she owned up to
+herself. Everything that she saw that was already known to her from her
+previous studies disappointed her. Then she resolved to give
+sight-seeing a rest. And, after those fatiguing days, when every
+morning and every afternoon was spent out of doors, it was a luxury to
+surrender herself to the unconscious current of daily life. She
+remained at home in the mornings, wrapped in a tea-gown, in her cosy
+little bird-cage of a sitting-room, writing letters, dreaming a little,
+with her arms folded behind her head; she read Ovid and Petrarch, or
+listened to a couple of street-musicians, who, with their quavering
+tenors, to the shrill whining of their guitars, filled the silent
+street with a sobbing passion of music. At lunch she considered that
+she had been lucky in her <i>pension</i>, in her little corner at the
+table. She was interested in Baronin von Rothkirch, with her
+indifferent, aristocratic condescension towards Rudyard, because she
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb22" href="#pb22" name=
+"pb22">22</a>]</span>saw how residence abroad can draw a person out of
+the narrow ring of caste principles. The young Baronesse, who cared
+nothing about life and merely sketched and painted, interested her
+because of her whispering intimacy with Rudyard, which she failed to
+understand. Miss Hope was so ingenious, so childishly irrational, that
+Corn&eacute;lie could not imagine how old Hope, the rich
+stockinet-manufacturer over in Chicago, allowed this child to travel
+about alone, with her far too generous monthly allowance and her total
+ignorance of the world and people; and Rudyard himself, though she
+sometimes felt an aversion for him, attracted her in spite of that
+aversion. Although she had so far formed no deeper friendship with any
+of her fellow-boarders, at any rate they were people to whom she was
+able to talk; and the conversation at table was a diversion amid the
+solitude of the rest of the day.</p>
+<p>For in the afternoons, during this period of fatigue and
+disappointment, she would merely go for a short walk by herself down
+the Corso or on the Pincio and then return home, make her own tea in
+her little silver tea-pot and sit dreaming by the log fire, in the
+dusk, until it was time to dress for dinner.</p>
+<p>And the brightly-lit dining-room with the Guercino ceiling was gay
+and cheerful. The <i>pension</i> was crammed: the marchesa had given up
+her own room and was sleeping in the bath-room. A hum of voices buzzed
+around the tables; the waiters rushed to and fro; spoons and forks
+clattered. There was none of the melancholy spirit of so many <i lang=
+"fr">tables-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i>. The people knew one another; and
+the excitement of Roman life, the oxygen in the Roman air seemed to
+lend an added vivacity to the gestures and conversation. Amidst this
+vivacity the two grimy &aelig;sthetic ladies attracted attention by
+their unvarying <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb23" href="#pb23" name=
+"pb23">23</a>]</span>pose, with their eternal evening-dress, their
+Jaegers, their beads, the fat books which they read, their angry looks
+because people were talking.</p>
+<p>After dinner they sat in the drawing-room or in the hall, made
+friends here and there and talked about Rome, Rome, Rome. There was
+always a great fuss about the music in the different churches: they
+consulted the <i>Herald</i>; they asked Rudyard, who knew everything,
+and gathered round him; and he, fat and polite as ever, smiled and
+distributed tickets and named the day and hour at which an important
+service would be held in this church or in that. To English ladies, who
+were not fully informed, he would now and then, as it were casually,
+impart details about the complexities of Catholic ritual and the
+Catholic hierarchy; he explained the nationalities denoted by the
+various colours of the seminarists whom you met in shoals of an
+afternoon on the Pincio, staring at St. Peter&rsquo;s, in ecstasy over
+St. Peter&rsquo;s, the mighty symbol of their mighty religion; he set
+forth the distinction between a church and a basilica; he related
+anecdotes of the private life of Leo XIII. His manner of speaking of
+all these things possessed an insinuating charm: the English ladies,
+greedy for information, hung on his lips, thought him <i>too</i>
+awfully nice, asked him for a thousand particulars.</p>
+<p>These days were a great rest for Corn&eacute;lie. She recovered from
+her fatigue and felt indifferent towards Rome. But she did not think of
+leaving any the sooner. Whether she was here or elsewhere was all the
+same to her: she had to be somewhere. Besides, the <i>pension</i> was
+good, her fellow-boarders pleasant and cheerful. She no longer read
+Hare&rsquo;s <i>Walks in Rome</i> or Ovid&rsquo;s <i>Metamorphoses</i>,
+but she read Ouida&rsquo;s <i>Ariadne</i> over again. She did not care
+for the book as much as she had done three years <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb24" href="#pb24" name="pb24">24</a>]</span>before,
+at the Hague; and after that she read nothing. But she amused herself
+with the von Rothkirch ladies for a whole evening, looking over Miss
+Hope&rsquo;s album of seals and collection of patterns. How mad those
+Americans were on titles and royalties! The Baronin good-naturedly
+contributed an impression of her own arms to the album. And the
+patterns were greatly admired: gold brocades; silks heavily interwoven
+with silver; spangled tulles. Miss Hope related how she had come by
+them: she knew one of the queen&rsquo;s waiting-women, who had formerly
+been in service with an American; and this waiting-woman was now able
+to procure the patterns for her at a high price: a precious bit of
+material picked up while the queen was trying on, or sometimes even cut
+out of a broad seam. The child was prouder of her collection of
+patterns than an Italian prince of his paintings, said Baronin von
+Rothkirch. But, notwithstanding this absurdity, this vanity,
+Corn&eacute;lie came to like the pretty American girl because of her
+candid and unsophisticated nature. She looked most attractive in the
+evening, in a black low-cut dress, or in a rose chiffon blouse. For
+that matter, it was a different frock every night. She possessed a
+kaleidoscopic collection of dresses, blouses and jewels. She would walk
+through the ruins of the Forum in a tailor-made suit of cream cloth,
+lined with orange silk; and her white lace petticoat flitted airily
+over the foundations of the Basilica Julia or the Temple of Vesta. Her
+gaily-trimmed hats introduced patches of colour from Regent Street or
+the Avenue de l&rsquo;Op&eacute;ra into the tragic seriousness of the
+Colosseum or the ruined palace of the Palatine. The young Baronesse
+teased her about her orange silk lining, so in harmony with the Forum,
+about her hats, so in keeping with the seriousness <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb25" href="#pb25" name="pb25">25</a>]</span>of a
+place of Christian martyrdom, but she was never angry:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice hat anyway!&rdquo; she would say, in her
+Yankee drawl, which always afforded a good view of her pretty teeth but
+made her strain her mouth as though she were cracking filberts.</p>
+<p>And the child enjoyed everything, enjoyed the Baronin and the
+Baronesse, enjoyed being at a <i>pension</i> kept by a decayed Italian
+marchioness. And, as soon as she caught sight of the Marchesa
+Belloni&rsquo;s grey, leonine head, she would make a rush for
+her&mdash;because a marchioness is higher than a baroness, said Madame
+von Rothkirch&mdash;drag her into a corner and if possible monopolize
+her throughout the evening. Rudyard would then join them; and
+Corn&eacute;lie, seeing this, wondered what Rudyard was, who he was and
+what he was about. But this did not interest the Baronin, who had just
+received a card for a mass in the papal chapel; and the young Baronesse
+merely said that he told legends of the saints so nicely, when
+explaining the pictures to her in the Doria and the Corsini.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb26" href="#pb26" name=
+"pb26">26</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">One evening Corn&eacute;lie made the acquaintance of
+the Dutch family beside whom the Marchesa had first wished to place her
+at table: Mrs. van der Staal and her two daughters. They too were
+spending the whole winter in Rome: they had friends there and went out
+visiting. The conversation flowed smoothly; and mevrouw invited
+Corn&eacute;lie to come and have a chat in her sitting-room. Next day
+she accompanied her new acquaintances to the Vatican and heard that
+mevrouw was expecting her son, who was coming to Rome from Florence to
+continue his arch&aelig;ological studies.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was glad to meet at the hotel a Dutch element that
+was not antipathetic. She thought it pleasant to talk Dutch again and
+she confessed as much. In a day or two she had become intimate with
+Mrs. van der Staal and the two girls; and on the evening when young Van
+der Staal arrived she opened her heart more than she had ever thought
+that she could do to strangers whom she had known for barely a few
+days.</p>
+<p>They were sitting in the Van der Staal&rsquo;s sitting-room,
+Corn&eacute;lie in a low chair by the blazing log-fire, for the evening
+was chilly. They had been talking about the Hague, about her divorce;
+and she was now speaking of Italy, of herself:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I no longer see anything,&rdquo; she confessed. &ldquo;Rome
+has quite bewildered me. I can&rsquo;t distinguish a colour, an
+outline. I don&rsquo;t recognize people. They all seem to whirl round
+me. Sometimes I feel a need to sit alone for hours in my bird-cage
+upstairs, to recollect myself. This morning, <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb27" href="#pb27" name="pb27">27</a>]</span>in the
+Vatican, I don&rsquo;t know: I remember nothing. It is all grey and
+fuzzy around me. Then the people in the boarding-house: the same faces
+every day. I see them and yet I don&rsquo;t see them. I see ... I see
+Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair Urania ... and
+Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor, who is always so
+tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything most exquisite. But
+my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have to think to myself:
+Madame von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with the smile of the German
+Empress&mdash;she is rather like her&mdash;talking fast and yet with
+indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently from her
+lips....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a good observer,&rdquo; said Van der Staal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t say that!&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie, almost
+vexed. &ldquo;I see nothing and I can&rsquo;t remember. I receive no
+impressions. Everything around me is colourless. I really don&rsquo;t
+know why I have come abroad.... When I am alone, I think of the people
+whom I meet. I know Madame von Rothkirch now and I know Else. Such a
+round, merry face, with arched eyebrows, and always a joke or a
+witticism: I find it tiring sometimes, she makes me laugh so. Still
+they are very nice. And the fair Urania. She tells me everything. She
+is as communicative ... as I am at this moment. And Rudyard: I see him
+before me too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudyard!&rdquo; smiled mevrouw and the girls.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is he?&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie asked, inquisitively.
+&ldquo;He is so civil, he ordered my wine for me, he can always get one
+all sorts of cards.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know what Rudyard is?&rdquo; asked Mrs. van
+der Staal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No; and Mrs. von Rothkirch doesn&rsquo;t know either.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb28" href="#pb28" name=
+"pb28">28</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you had better be careful,&rdquo; laughed the girls.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you a Catholic?&rdquo; asked mevrouw.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nor the fair Urania either? Nor Mrs. von
+Rothkirch?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, that is why la Belloni put Rudyard at your table.
+Rudyard is a Jesuit. Every <i>pension</i> in Rome has a Jesuit who
+lives there free of charge, if the proprietor is a good friend of the
+Church, and who tries to win souls by making himself especially
+agreeable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie refused to believe it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can take my word for it,&rdquo; mevrouw continued,
+&ldquo;that in a <i>pension</i> like this, a first-class
+<i>pension</i>, a <i>pension</i> with a reputation, a great deal of
+intrigue goes on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;La Belloni?&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie enquired.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our marchesa is a thorough-paced <i>intrigante</i>. Last
+winter, three English sisters were converted here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By Rudyard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, by another priest. Rudyard is here for the first time
+this winter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudyard walked quite a long way with me in the street this
+morning,&rdquo; said young Van der Staal. &ldquo;I let him talk, I
+heard all he had to say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie fell back in her chair:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am tired of people,&rdquo; she said, with the strange
+sincerity which was hers. &ldquo;I should like to sleep for a month,
+without seeing anybody.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, after a short pause, she got up, said goodnight and went to
+bed, while everything swam before her eyes. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb29" href="#pb29" name="pb29">29</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She remained indoors for a day or two and had her
+meals served in her room. One morning, however, she was going for a
+stroll in the Villa Borghese, when she met young Van der Staal, on his
+bicycle.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you ride?&rdquo; he asked, jumping off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is an exercise which doesn&rsquo;t suit my style,&rdquo;
+Corn&eacute;lie replied, vexed at meeting any one who disturbed the
+solitude of her stroll.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May I walk with you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He gave his machine into the charge of the porter at the gate and
+walked on with her, quite naturally, without saying very much:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s beautiful here,&rdquo; he remarked.</p>
+<p>His words seemed to convey a simple meaning. She looked at him, for
+the first time, attentively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re an arch&aelig;ologist?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, deprecatingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you, then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing. Mamma says that, just to excuse me. I am nothing and
+a very useless member of society at that. And I am not even well
+off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you are studying, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. I do a little casual reading. My sisters call it
+studying.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you like going about, as your sisters do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I hate it. I never go with them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like meeting and studying people?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. I like pictures, statues and trees.&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb30" href="#pb30" name="pb30">30</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;A poet?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. Nothing. I am nothing, really.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him, with increased attention. He was walking very
+simply by her side, a tall, thin fellow of perhaps twenty-six, more of
+a boy than a man in face and figure, but endowed with a certain
+assurance and restfulness that made him seem older than his years. He
+was pale; he had dark, cool, almost reproachful eyes; and his long,
+lean figure, in his badly-kept cycling-suit, betrayed a slight
+indifference, as though he did not care what his arms and legs looked
+like.</p>
+<p>He said nothing but walked on pleasantly, unembarrassed, without
+finding it necessary to talk. Corn&eacute;lie, however, grew fidgety
+and sought for words:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It <i>is</i> beautiful here,&rdquo; she stammered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s very beautiful!&rdquo; he replied, calmly,
+without seeing that she was constrained. &ldquo;So green, so spacious,
+so peaceful: those long avenues, those vistas of avenues, like an
+antique arch, over yonder; and, far away in the distance, look, St.
+Peter&rsquo;s, always St. Peter&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s a pity about those
+queer things lower down: that restaurant, that milk-tent. People spoil
+everything nowadays.... Let us sit down here: it is so lovely
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They sat down on a bench.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is such a joy when a thing is beautiful,&rdquo; he
+continued. &ldquo;People are never beautiful. Things are beautiful:
+statues and paintings. And then trees and clouds!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you paint?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes,&rdquo; he confessed, grudgingly. &ldquo;A little.
+But really everything has been painted already; and I can&rsquo;t
+really say that I paint.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you write too?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There has been even more written than painted, much more.
+Perhaps everything has not yet been <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb31"
+href="#pb31" name="pb31">31</a>]</span>painted, but everything has
+certainly been written. Every new book that is not of absolute
+scientific importance is superfluous. All the poetry has been written
+and every novel too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you read much?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hardly at all. I sometimes dip into an old author.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what do you do then?&rdquo; she asked, suddenly,
+querulously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; he answered, calmly, with a glance of
+humility. &ldquo;I do nothing, I exist.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think that a good mode of existence?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you adopt another?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As I might buy a new coat or a new bicycle?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not speaking seriously,&rdquo; she said,
+crossly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why are you so vexed with me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because you annoy me,&rdquo; she said, irritably.</p>
+<p>He rose, bowed civilly and said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I had better go for a turn on my bicycle.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he walked slowly away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What a stupid fellow!&rdquo; she thought, peevishly.</p>
+<p>But she thought it tiresome that she had wrangled with him, because
+of his mother and his sisters. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb32"
+href="#pb32" name="pb32">32</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">At the hotel, however, he spoke to Corn&eacute;lie
+politely, as though there had been no embarrassment, no wrangling
+interchange of words between them, and he even asked her quite
+simply&mdash;because his mother and sisters had some calls to pay that
+afternoon&mdash;whether they should go to the Palatine together.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I passed it the other day,&rdquo; she said,
+indifferently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you intend to see the ruins?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They don&rsquo;t interest me. I can&rsquo;t see the past in
+them. I merely see ruins.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But then why did you come to Rome?&rdquo; he asked,
+irritably.</p>
+<p>She looked at him and could have burst into sobs:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; she said, meekly. &ldquo;I could
+just as well have gone somewhere else. But I had formed a great idea of
+Rome; and Rome disappoints me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I find it hard and inexorable and devoid of feeling. I
+don&rsquo;t know why, but that&rsquo;s the impression it makes upon me.
+And I am in a mood at present which somehow makes me want something
+less insensible and imperturbable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Come with me to the
+Palatine. I must show you Rome. It is so beautiful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She felt too much depressed to remain alone; and <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb33" href="#pb33" name="pb33">33</a>]</span>so she
+put on her things and left the hotel with him. The cabmen outside
+cracked their whips:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Vole? Vole?</i>&rdquo; they shouted.</p>
+<p>He picked out one:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is Gaetano,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I always take him. He
+knows me, don&rsquo;t you, Gaetano?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Si, signorino. Cavallo di sangue,
+signorina!</i>&rdquo; said Gaetano, pointing to his horse.</p>
+<p>They drove away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am always frightened of these cabmen,&rdquo; said
+Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know them,&rdquo; he answered, smiling.
+&ldquo;I like them. I like the people. They&rsquo;re nice
+people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You approve of everything in Rome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you submit without reserve to a mistaken
+impression.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why mistaken?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because that first impression of Rome, as hard and unfeeling,
+is always the same and always mistaken.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s that. Look, we are driving by the Forum.
+Whenever I see the Forum, I think of Miss Hope and her orange
+lining.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He felt annoyed and did not answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is the Palatine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They alighted and passed through the entrance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This wooden staircase takes us to the Palace of Tiberius.
+Above the palace, on the top of the arches, is a garden from which we
+look down on the Forum.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me about Tiberius. I know that there were good and bad
+emperors. We were taught that at school. Tiberius was a bad emperor,
+wasn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He was a dismal brute. But why do you want me to tell you
+about him?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb34" href="#pb34"
+name="pb34">34</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because otherwise I can take no interest in those arches and
+chambers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let us go up to the top and sit in the
+garden.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They did so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you feel Rome here?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel the same everywhere,&rdquo; she replied.</p>
+<p>But he seemed not to hear her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the atmosphere around you,&rdquo; he continued.
+&ldquo;You should try to forget our hotel, to forget Belloni and all
+our fellow-visitors and yourself. When anybody first arrives here, he
+has all the usual trouble about the hotel, his rooms, the <i lang=
+"fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i>, the vaguely likable or dislikable
+people. You&rsquo;ve got over that now. Clear your mind of it. And try
+to feel only the atmosphere of Rome. It&rsquo;s as if the atmosphere
+had remained the same, notwithstanding that the centuries lie piled up
+one above the other. First the middle ages covered the antiquity of the
+Forum and now it is hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century craze
+for travel. There you have Miss Hope&rsquo;s orange lining. But the
+atmosphere has always remained the same. Unless I imagine
+it....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I do,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;But what does that
+matter to me? Our whole life is imagination; and imagination is a
+beautiful thing. The beauty of our imagination is the consolation of
+our lives, to those of us who are not men of action. The past is
+beauty. The present is not, does not exist. And the future does not
+interest me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you never think about modern problems?&rdquo; she
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The woman question? Socialism? Peace?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, yes, for instance.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb35" href="#pb35" name="pb35">35</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he smiled. &ldquo;I think of them sometimes, but
+not about them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I get no further. That is my nature. I am a dreamer by
+nature; and my dream is the past.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you dream of yourself?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. Of my soul, my inner self? No. It interests me very
+little.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you ever suffered?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Suffered? Yes, no. I don&rsquo;t know. I feel sorry for my
+utter uselessness as a human being, as a son, as a man; but, when I
+dream, I am happy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you come to speak to me so openly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her in surprise:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I be reticent about myself?&rdquo; he asked.
+&ldquo;I either don&rsquo;t talk or I talk as I am doing now. Perhaps
+it is a little odd.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you talk to every one so intimately?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, hardly to anybody. I once had a friend ... but he&rsquo;s
+dead. Tell me, I suppose you consider me morbid?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t mind if you did. Oh, how beautiful it is
+here! Are you drinking Rome in with your very breath?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Which Rome?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Rome of antiquity. Under where we are sitting is the
+Palace of Tiberius. I see him walking about there, with his tall,
+strong figure, with his large, searching eyes: he was very strong, he
+was very dismal and he was a brute. He had no ideals. Farther down,
+over there, is the Palace of Caligula, a madman of genius. He built a
+bridge across the Forum to speak to Jupiter in the Capitol.
+That&rsquo;s a thing one couldn&rsquo;t do nowadays. He was a genius
+and a madman. When a man&rsquo;s like that, there&rsquo;s a good deal
+about him to admire.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb36" href=
+"#pb36" name="pb36">36</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can you admire an age of emperors who were brutes and
+mad?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I see their age before my eyes, in the past, like a
+dream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How is it possible that you don&rsquo;t see the present
+before you, with the problems of our own time, especially the eternal
+problem of poverty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I know. That is my sin, my
+wickedness. The eternal problem of poverty doesn&rsquo;t affect
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him contemptuously:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t belong to your period,&rdquo; she said,
+coldly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you ever felt hungry?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you ever pictured yourself leading the life of a
+labourer, of a factory-girl who works until she&rsquo;s worn out and
+old and half-dead for a bare crust of bread?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, those things are so horrible and so ugly: don&rsquo;t
+talk about them!&rdquo; he entreated.</p>
+<p>The expression of her eyes was cold; the corners of her lips were
+depressed as though by a feeling of distaste; and she rose from her
+seat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you angry?&rdquo; he asked, humbly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, gently, &ldquo;I am not
+angry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you despise me, because you consider me a useless
+creature, an &aelig;sthete and a dreamer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. What am I myself, that I should reproach you with your
+uselessness?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, if we could only find something!&rdquo; he exclaimed,
+almost in ecstasy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An aim. But mine would always remain beauty. And the
+past.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb37" href="#pb37" name=
+"pb37">37</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;And, if <i>I</i> had the strength of mind to devote myself to
+an aim, it would above all be this: bread for the future.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How abominable that sounds!&rdquo; he said, rudely but
+sincerely. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you go to London, or Manchester, or
+one of those black manufacturing towns?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I hadn&rsquo;t the strength of mind and because I
+think too much of myself and of a sorrow that I have had lately. And I
+expected to find distraction in Italy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And that is where your disappointment lies. But perhaps you
+will gradually acquire greater strength and then devote yourself to
+your aim: bread for the future. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t envy you,
+however: bread for the Future!...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+<p>Then she said, coldly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is getting late. Let us go home....&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb38" href="#pb38" name="pb38">38</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Duco van der Staal had taken a large, vault-like
+studio, with a chilly north light, up three flights of stairs in the
+Via del Babuino. Here he painted, modelled and studied and here he
+dragged all the beautiful and antique objects that he succeeded in
+picking up in the little shops along the Tiber or in the Mercato dei
+Fiori. That was his passion: to hunt through Rome for a panel of an old
+triptych or a fragment of ancient sculpture. In this way his studio had
+not remained the large, chilly, vault-like workroom bearing witness to
+zealous and serious study, but had become a refuge for dim-coloured
+remnants of antiquity and ancient art, a museum for his dreaming
+spirit. Already as a child, as a boy, he had felt that passion for
+antiquity developing; he learnt how to rummage through the stocks of
+old Jewish dealers; he taught himself to haggle when his purse was not
+full; and he collected first rubbish and afterwards, gradually, objects
+of artistic and financial value. And it was his great hobby, his one
+vice: he spent all his pocket-money on it and, later, without reserve,
+the little that he was able to earn. For sometimes, very seldom, he
+would finish something and sell it. But generally he was too
+ill-satisfied with himself to finish anything; and his modest notion
+was that everything had already been created and that <i>his</i> art
+was useless.</p>
+<p>This idea sometimes paralysed him for months together, without
+making him unhappy. When he had the money to keep himself
+going&mdash;and his personal needs were very small&mdash;he felt rich
+and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb39" href="#pb39" name=
+"pb39">39</a>]</span>was content in his studio or would wander,
+perfectly content, through the streets of Rome. His long, careless,
+lean, slender body was at such times clad in his oldest suit, which
+afforded an unostentatious glimpse of an untidy shirt with a soft
+collar and a bit of string instead of a tie; and his favourite headgear
+was a faded hat, battered out of shape by the rain. His mother and
+sisters as a rule found him unpresentable, but had given up trying to
+transform him into the well-groomed son and brother whom they would
+have liked to take to the drawing-rooms of their Roman friends. Happy
+to breathe the atmosphere of Rome, he would wander for hours through
+the ruins and see, in a dazzling vision of phantom columns, ethereal
+temples and translucent marble palaces looming up in a shimmering
+sunlit twilight; and the tourists going by with their Baedekers, who
+passed this long lean young man seated carelessly on the foundations of
+the Temple of Saturn, would never have believed in his architectural
+illusions of harmonious ascending lines, crowned by an array of statues
+in noble and god-like attitudes, high in the blue sky.</p>
+<p>But he saw them before him. He raised the shafts of the pillars, he
+fluted the severe Doric columns, he bent and curved the cushioned Ionic
+capitals and unfurled the leaves of the Corinthian acanthuses; the
+temples rose in the twinkling of an eye, the basilicas shot up as by
+magic, the graven images stood white against the elusive depths of the
+sky and the Via Sacra became alive. He, in his admiration, lived his
+dream, his past. It was as though he had known preexistence in ancient
+Rome; and the modern houses, the modern Capitol and all that stood
+around the tomb of his Forum were invisible to his eyes.</p>
+<p>He would sit like this for hours, or wander about <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb40" href="#pb40" name="pb40">40</a>]</span>and sit
+down again and be happy. In the intensity of his imagination, he
+conjured up history from the clouds of the past, first of all as a
+mist, a miraculous haze, whence the figures stepped out against the
+marble background of ancient Rome. The gigantic dramas were enacted
+before his dreaming eyes as on an ideal stage which stretched from the
+Forum to the hazy, sun-shot azure of the Campagna, with slips that lost
+themselves in the depths of the sky. Roman life came into being, with a
+toga&rsquo;d gesture, a line of Horace, a sudden vision of an
+emperor&rsquo;s murder or a contest of gladiators in the arena. And
+suddenly also the vision paled and he saw the ruins, the ruins only, as
+the tangible shadow of his unreal illusion: he saw the ruins as they
+were, brown and grey, eaten up with age, crumbled, martyred, mutilated
+with hammers, till only a few occasional pillars lifted and bore a
+trembling architrave, that threatened to come crashing to the ground.
+And the browns and greys were so richly and nobly gilded by splashes of
+sunlight, the ruins were so exquisitely beautiful in decay, so
+melancholy in their unwitting fortuitousness of broken lines, of
+shattered arches and mutilated sculpture, that it was as though he
+himself, after his airy vision of radiant dream-architecture, had
+tortured and mutilated them with an artist&rsquo;s hand and caused them
+to burst asunder and shake and tremble, for the sake of their wistful
+aftermath of beauty. Then his eyes grew moist, his heart became more
+full than he could bear and he went away, through the Arch of Titus by
+the Colosseum, through the Arch of Constantine, on and on, and hurried
+past the Lateran to the Via Appia and the Campagna, where his smarting
+eyes drank in the blue of the distant Alban Hills, as though that would
+cure them of their excessive gazing and dreaming.... <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb41" href="#pb41" name="pb41">41</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Neither in his mother nor in his sisters did he find a strain that
+sympathized with his eccentric tendencies; and, since that one friend
+who died, he had never found another and had always been lonely within
+and without, as though the victim of a predestination which would not
+allow him to meet with sympathy. But he had peopled his loneliness so
+densely with his dreams that he had never felt unhappy because of it;
+and, even as he loved roaming alone among the ruins and along the
+country-roads, so he cherished the privacy of his lonely studio, with
+the many silent figures on an old panel of some triptych, on a
+tapestry, or on the many closely hung sketches, all around him, all
+with the charm of their lines and colours, all with the silent gesture
+of their movement and emotion and all blending together in twilit
+corners or a shadowy antique cabinet. And in between all this lived his
+china and bronze and old silver, while the faded gold embroidery of an
+ecclesiastical vestment gleamed faintly and the old leather bindings of
+his books stood in comfortable brown rows, ready to give forth, when
+his hands opened them, images which mistily drifted upwards, living
+their loves and their sorrows in the tempered browns and reds and golds
+of the soundless atmosphere of the studio.</p>
+<p>Such was his simple life, without much inward doubting, because he
+made no great demands upon himself, and without the modern
+artist&rsquo;s melancholy, because he was happy in his dreams. He had
+never, despite his hotel life with his mother and sisters&mdash;he
+slept and took his meals at Belloni&rsquo;s&mdash;met many people or
+concerned himself with strangers, being by nature a little shy of
+Baedekered tourists, of short-skirted English ladies, with their
+persistent little exclamations of uniform admiration, and feeling
+entirely impossible in the half-Italian, half-cosmopolitan <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb42" href="#pb42" name="pb42">42</a>]</span>set of
+his rather worldly mother and smart little sisters, who spent their
+time dancing and cycling with young Italian princes and dukes.</p>
+<p>And, now that he had met Corn&eacute;lie de Retz, he had to confess
+to himself that he possessed but little knowledge of human nature and
+that he had never learnt to believe in the reality of such a woman, who
+might have existed in books, but not in actual life. Her very
+appearance&mdash;her pallor, her drooping charm, her
+weariness&mdash;had astonished him; and her conversation astonished him
+even more: her positiveness mingled with hesitation; her artistic
+feeling modified by the endeavour to take part in her period, a period
+which he failed to appreciate as artistic, enamoured as he was of Rome
+and of the past. And her conversation astonished him, attractive though
+the sound of it was and offended as he often was by a recurrent
+bitterness and irony, followed again by depression and discouragement,
+until he thought it over again and again, until in his musing he seemed
+to hear it once more on her own lips, until she joined the busts and
+torsos in his studio and appeared before him in the lily-like frailness
+of her visible actuality, against the preraphaelite stiffness of line
+and the Byzantine gold and colour of the angels and madonnas on canvas
+and tapestry.</p>
+<p>His soul had never known love; and he had always looked on love as
+imagination and poetry. His life had never known more than the natural
+virile impulse and the ordinary little love-affair with a model. And
+his ideas on love swayed in a too wide and unreal balance between a
+woman who showed herself in the nude for a few lire and
+Petrarch&rsquo;s Laura; between the desire roused by a beautiful body
+and the exaltation inspired by Dante&rsquo;s Beatrice; between the
+flesh and the dream. He had never contemplated an encounter of kindred
+souls, never longed for <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb43" href=
+"#pb43" name="pb43">43</a>]</span>sympathy, for love in the full and
+pregnant sense of the word. And, when he began to think and to think
+long and often of Corn&eacute;lie de Retz, he could not understand it.
+He had pondered and dreamed for days, for a week about a woman in a
+poem; on a woman in real life never.</p>
+<p>And that he, irritated by some of her sayings, had nevertheless seen
+her stand with her lily-like outline against his Byzantine triptych,
+like a wraith in his lonely dreams, almost frightened him, because it
+had made him lose his peace of mind. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb44" href="#pb44" name="pb44">44</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">It was Christmas Day, on which occasion the Marchesa
+Belloni entertained her boarders with a Christmas-tree in the
+drawing-room, followed by a dance in the old Guercino dining-room. To
+give a ball and a Christmas-tree was a custom with many hotel-keepers;
+and the <i>pensions</i> that gave no dance or Christmas-tree were known
+and numbered and were greatly blamed by the foreigners for this breach
+of tradition. There were instances of very excellent <i>pensions</i> to
+which many travellers, especially ladies, never went, because there was
+neither a dance nor a Christmas-tree at Christmas.</p>
+<p>The marchesa realized that her tree was expensive and that her dance
+cost money too and she would gladly have found an excuse for avoiding
+both, but she dared not: the reputation of her <i>pension</i>, as it
+happened, depended on its worldliness and smartness, on the <i lang=
+"fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i> in the handsome dining-room, where
+people dressed for dinner, and also on the brilliant party given at
+Christmas. And it was amusing to see how keen all the ladies were to
+receive gratis in their bill for a whole winter&rsquo;s stay a trashy
+Christmas present and the opportunity of dancing without having to pay
+for a glass of <i>orgeade</i> and a bit of pastry, a sandwich and a cup
+of soup. Giuseppe, the old nodding major-domo, looked down
+contemptuously on this festivity: he remembered the gala pomp of his
+archducal evenings and considered the dance inferior and the tree
+paltry. Antonio, the limping porter, accustomed to his comparatively
+quiet life&mdash;fetching a visitor or taking him to the station;
+sorting the post twice a day at <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb45"
+href="#pb45" name="pb45">45</a>]</span>his ease; and for the rest
+pottering around his lodge and the lift&mdash;hated the dance, because
+of all the guests of the boarders, each of whom was entitled to invite
+two or three friends, and because of all that tiring fuss about
+carriages, when a good many of the visitors skipped into their <i lang=
+"it">vettura</i> without tipping him. Round about Christmas, therefore,
+relations between the marchesa and her two principal dignitaries became
+far from harmonious; and a hail of orders and abuse would patter down
+on the backs of the old <i lang="it">cameriere</i>, crawling wearily up
+and downstairs with their hot-water-cans in their trembling hands, and
+of the young greenhorns of waiters, colliding with one another in their
+undisciplined zeal and smashing the plates. And it was only now, when
+the whole staff was put to work that people saw how old the <i lang=
+"it">cameriere</i> were and how young the waiters and qualified as
+disgraceful and shocking the thrifty method of the marchesa in
+employing none but wrecks and infants in her service. The one muscular
+<i lang="it">facchino</i>, who was essential for hauling the luggage,
+cut an unexpected figure of virile maturity and robustness. But above
+everything the visitors detested the marchesa because of the great
+number of her servants, reflecting that now, at Christmas-time, they
+would have to tip every one of them. No, they never imagined that the
+staff was so large! Quite unnecessarily large too! Why couldn&rsquo;t
+the marchesa engage a couple of strong young maids and waiters instead
+of all those old women and little boys? And there was much hushed
+plotting and confabulating in the corners of the passages and at meals,
+to decide on the tips to be given: they didn&rsquo;t want to spoil the
+servants, but still they were staying all the winter; and therefore one
+lira was hardly enough and they hesitated between one lira twenty-five
+and one lira fifty. But, when they counted on <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb46" href="#pb46" name="pb46">46</a>]</span>their
+fingers that there were fully five-and-twenty servants and that
+therefore they were close on forty lire out of pocket, they thought it
+an awful lot and they got up subscription-lists. Two lists went round,
+one of one lira and one of twelve lire a visitor, the latter
+subscription covering the whole staff. On this second list some, who
+had arrived a month before and who had arranged to leave, entered their
+names for ten lire and some for six lire. Five lire was by general
+consent considered too little; and, when it became known that the grimy
+&aelig;sthetic ladies intended to give five lire, they were regarded
+with the greatest contempt.</p>
+<p>It all meant a lot of trouble and excitement. As Christmas drew
+nearer, people streamed to the <i lang="it">presepii</i> set up by
+painters in the Palazzo Borghese: a panorama of Jerusalem and the
+shepherds, the angels, the Magi and Mary and the Child in the manger
+with the ox and the ass. They listened in the Ara C&oelig;li to the
+preaching of little boys and girls, who by turns climbed the platform
+and told the story of the Nativity, some shyly reciting a little poem,
+prompted by an anxious mother; others, girls especially, declaiming and
+rolling their eyes with the dramatic fervour of little Italian
+actresses and ending up with a religious moral. The people and
+countless tourists stood and listened to the preaching; a pleasant
+spirit prevailed in the church, where the shrill young children&rsquo;s
+voices were lifted up in oratory; there was laughter at a gesture or a
+point driven home; and the priests strolling round the church wore an
+unctuous smile because it was all so pretty and so satisfactory. And in
+the chapel of the Santo Bambino the miraculous wooden doll was bright
+with gold and jewels; and the close-packed multitude thronged to gaze
+at it.</p>
+<p>All the visitors at Belloni&rsquo;s bought bunches of <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb47" href="#pb47" name="pb47">47</a>]</span>holly in
+the Piazza di Spagna to adorn their rooms with; and some, such as the
+Baronin van Rothkirch, set up a private Christmas-tree in their own
+rooms. On the evening before the great party one and all went to admire
+these private trees, going in and out of one another&rsquo;s rooms; and
+all the boarders wore a kind, festive smile and welcomed everybody,
+however much at other times they might quarrel and intrigue against one
+another. It was universally agreed that the Baronin had taken great
+pains and that her tree was magnificent. Her bedroom had been cleverly
+metamorphosed into a boudoir, the beds draped to look like divans, the
+wash-hand-stands concealed; and the tree was radiant with candles and
+tinsel. And the Baronin, a little sentimentally inclined, for the
+season reminded her of Berlin and her lost domesticity, opened her
+doors wide to everybody and was even offering the two &aelig;sthetic
+ladies sweets, when the marchesa, also smiling, appeared at the door,
+with her bosom moulded in sky-blue satin and with even larger crystals
+than usual in her ears. The room was full: there were the Van der
+Staals, Corn&eacute;lie, Rudyard, Urania Hope and other guests going in
+and out, so that it became impossible to move and they stood packed
+together or sat on the draped beds of the mother and daughter. The
+marchesa led in beside her an unknown young man, short, slender, with a
+pale olive complexion and with dark, bright, witty, lively eyes. He
+wore dress-clothes and displayed the vague good manners of a beloved
+and careless <i lang="fr">viveur</i>, distinguished and yet conceited.
+And she proudly went up to the Baronin, who kept prettily wiping her
+moist eyes, and with a certain arrogance presented:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My nephew, Duca di San Stefano, Principe di
+Forte-Braccio....&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb48" href=
+"#pb48" name="pb48">48</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The well-known Italian name sounded from her lips in the small,
+crowded room with deliberate distinctness; and all eyes went to the
+young man, who bowed low before the Baronin and then looked round the
+room with a vague, ironical glance. The marchesa&rsquo;s nephew had not
+yet been seen at the hotel that winter, but everybody knew that the
+young Duke of San Stefano, Prince of Forte-Braccio, was a nephew of the
+marchesa&rsquo;s and one of the advertisements for her <i>pension</i>.
+And, while the prince talked to the Baronin and her daughter, Urania
+Hope stared at him as a miraculous being from another world. She clung
+tight to Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s arm, as though she were in danger of
+fainting at the sight of so much Italian nobility and greatness. She
+thought him very good-looking, very imposing, short and slender and
+pale, with his carbuncle eyes and his weary distinction and the white
+orchid in his button-hole. She would have loved to ask the marchioness
+to introduce her to her <i>chic</i> nephew, but she dared not, for she
+thought of her father&rsquo;s stockinet-factory at Chicago.</p>
+<p>The Christmas-tree party and the dance took place the following
+night. It became known that the marchesa&rsquo;s nephew was coming that
+evening too; and a great excitement reigned throughout the day. The
+prince arrived after the presents had been taken down from the tree and
+distributed and made a sort of state entry by the side of his aunt, the
+marchesa, into the drawing-room, where the dancing had not yet begun,
+though the guests were sitting about the room, all fixing their eyes on
+the ducal and princely apparition.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was strolling with Duco van der Staal, who to his
+mother&rsquo;s and sisters&rsquo; great surprise had fished out his
+dress-clothes and appeared in the big hall; and they both observed the
+triumphant entry <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb49" href="#pb49" name=
+"pb49">49</a>]</span>of la Belloni and her nephew and laughed at the
+fanatically upturned eyes of the English and American ladies. They,
+Corn&eacute;lie and Duco, sat down in the hall on two chairs, in front
+of a clump of palms, which concealed one of the doors of the
+drawing-room, while the dance began inside. They were talking about the
+statues in the Vatican, which they had been to see two days before,
+when they heard, as though close to their ears, a voice which they
+recognized as the marchesa&rsquo;s commanding organ, vainly striving to
+sink into a whisper. They looked round in surprise and perceived the
+hidden door, which was partly open, and through the open space they
+faintly distinguished the slim hand and black sleeve of the prince and
+a piece of the blue bosom of la Belloni, both seated on a sofa in the
+drawing-room. They were therefore back to back, separated by the
+half-open door. They listened for fun to the marchesa&rsquo;s Italian;
+the prince&rsquo;s answers were lisped so softly that they could
+scarcely catch them. And of what the marchesa said they heard only a
+few words and scraps of sentences. They were listening quite
+involuntarily, when they heard Rudyard&rsquo;s name clearly pronounced
+by the marchesa.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who besides?&rdquo; asked the prince, softly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An English miss,&rdquo; said the marchesa. &ldquo;Miss
+Taylor: she&rsquo;s sitting over there, by herself in the corner. A
+simple little soul.... The Baronin and her daughter.... The Dutchwoman:
+a <i>divorc&eacute;e</i>.... And the pretty American.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And those two very attractive Dutch girls?&rdquo; asked the
+prince.</p>
+<p>The music boom-boomed louder; and Corn&eacute;lie and Duco did not
+catch the reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the divorced Dutchwoman?&rdquo; the prince asked
+next.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No money,&rdquo; the marchesa answered, curtly. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb50" href="#pb50" name="pb50">50</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the young baroness?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No money,&rdquo; la Belloni repeated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So there&rsquo;s no one except the stocking-merchant?&rdquo;
+asked the prince, wearily.</p>
+<p>La Belloni became cross, but Corn&eacute;lie and Duco could not
+understand the sentences which she rattled out through the boom-booming
+music. Then, during a lull, they heard the marchesa say:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She is very pretty. She has tons and tons of money. She could
+have gone to a first-class hotel but preferred to come here because, as
+a young girl travelling by herself, she was recommended to me and finds
+it pleasanter here. She has the big sitting-room to herself and pays
+fifty lire a day for her two rooms. She does not care about money. She
+pays three times as much as the others for her wood; and I also charge
+her for the wine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She sells stockings,&rdquo; muttered the prince,
+obstinately.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; said the marchesa. &ldquo;Remember that
+there&rsquo;s nobody at the moment. Last winter we had rich English
+titled people, with a daughter, but you thought her too tall.
+You&rsquo;re always discovering some objection. You mustn&rsquo;t be so
+difficult.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think those two little Dutch dolls attractive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They have no money. You&rsquo;re always thinking what you
+have no business to think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How much did Papa promise you if you....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The music boomed louder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo; ... makes no difference.... If Rudyard talks to her.... Miss
+Taylor is easy.... Miss Hope....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want so many stockings as all that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo; ... very witty, I dare say.... If you don&rsquo;t care
+to....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb51" href="#pb51"
+name="pb51">51</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo; ... then I retire.... I&rsquo;ll tell Rudyard so.... How
+much?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sixty or seventy thousand: I don&rsquo;t know
+exactly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are they urgent?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Debts are never urgent!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you agree?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well. But mind, I won&rsquo;t sell myself for less than
+ten millions.... And then you get....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They both laughed; and again the names of Rudyard and Urania were
+pronounced.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Urania,&rdquo; replied la Belloni. &ldquo;Those little
+Americans are very tactful. Look at the Comtesse de Castellane and the
+Duchess of Marlborough: how well they bear their husbands&rsquo;
+honours! They cut an excellent figure. They are mentioned in every
+society column and always with respect.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo; ... All right then. I am tired of these wasted winters. But
+not less than ten millions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Five.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, ten.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince and the marchesa had stood up to go. Corn&eacute;lie
+looked at Duco. He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite understand them,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a joke, of course.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was startled:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A joke, you think, Mr. van der Staal?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, they&rsquo;re humbugging.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you any knowledge of human nature?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, none at all!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting it, gradually. I believe that Rome can be
+dangerous and that an hotel-keeping marchesa, a prince and a
+Jesuit....&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb52" href="#pb52"
+name="pb52">52</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What about them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can be dangerous, if not to your sisters, because they have
+no money, but at any rate to Urania Hope.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it for a moment. It was all chaff. And
+it doesn&rsquo;t interest me. What do you think of Praxiteles&rsquo;
+<i>Eros</i>? I think it the most divine statue that I ever saw. Oh, the
+<i>Eros</i>, the <i>Eros</i>! That is love, the real love, the
+predestined, fatal love, begging forgiveness for the suffering which it
+causes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you ever been in love?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. I have no knowledge of human nature and I have never been
+in love. You are always so definite. Dreams are beautiful, statues are
+delightful and poetry is everything. The <i>Eros</i> expresses love
+completely. The love of the <i>Eros</i> is so beautiful! I could never
+love so beautifully as that.... No, it does not interest me to
+understand human nature; and a dream of Praxiteles, lingering in a
+mutilated marble torso, is nobler than anything that the world calls
+love.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She knitted her brows; her eyes were sombre.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us go to the dancers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;We are so
+out of it all here.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb53" href=
+"#pb53" name="pb53">53</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The day after the dance, at table, Corn&eacute;lie
+received a strange impression: suddenly, as she sipped her delicious
+Genzano, ordered for her by Rudyard, she became aware that it was not
+by accident that she was sitting with the Baronin and her daughter,
+with Urania and Miss Taylor; she saw that the marchesa had an intention
+behind this arrangement. Rudyard, always civil, polite, thoughtful,
+always full of attentions, his pockets always filled with cards of
+introduction very difficult to obtain&mdash;or so at least he
+contended&mdash;talked without ceasing, lately more particularly to
+Miss Taylor, who went faithfully to hear all the best church music and
+always returned home in ecstasy. The pale, simple, thin little
+Englishwoman, who at first used to go into raptures over museums, ruins
+and the sunsets on the Aventine or the Monte Mario and who was always
+tired by her rambles through Rome, now devoted herself exclusively to
+the hundreds of churches, visited and studied them all and above all
+faithfully attended the musical services and spoke ecstatically of the
+choir in the Sistine Chapel and the quavering <i>Glorias</i> of the
+male <i lang="it">soprani</i>.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie spoke to Mrs. van der Staal and the Baronin von
+Rothkirch of the conversation between the marchesa and her nephew which
+she had heard through the half-open door; but neither of them, though
+interested and curious, took the marchesa&rsquo;s words seriously,
+regarding them only as so much thoughtless talk between a foolish,
+match-making aunt and an unwilling nephew. Corn&eacute;lie was struck
+by seeing how unable people are to take things seriously; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb54" href="#pb54" name="pb54">54</a>]</span>but the
+Baronin was quite indifferent, saying that Rudyard could do her no harm
+and was still supplying her with tickets; and Mrs. van der Staal, who
+had been in Rome a long time and was accustomed to little
+boarding-house conspiracies, considered that Corn&eacute;lie was making
+herself too uneasy about the fair Urania&rsquo;s fate.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, however, Miss Taylor disappeared from the table. They
+thought that she was ill, until it came to light that she had left the
+Pension Belloni. Rudyard said nothing; but, a few days later, the whole
+<i>pension</i> knew that Miss Taylor had been converted to the Catholic
+faith and had moved to a <i>pension</i> recommended by Rudyard, a
+<i>pension</i> frequented by <i lang="it">monsignori</i> and noted for
+its religious tone. Her disappearance produced a certain constraint in
+the conversation between Rudyard, the German ladies and
+Corn&eacute;lie; and the latter, in the course of a week which the
+Baronin was spending at Naples, changed her seat and joined her
+fellow-countrywomen the Van der Staals. The Von Rothkirches also
+changed, because of the draught, said the Baronin; their seats were
+taken by new arrivals; and Urania was left alone with Rudyard at lunch
+and dinner, amid those foreign elements.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie reproached herself and one day spoke seriously to
+the American girl and warned her. But she dared not repeat what she had
+overheard at the dance; and her warning made no impression on Urania.
+And, when Rudyard had obtained for Miss Hope the privilege of a private
+audience of the Pope, Urania would not hear a word against Rudyard and
+considered him the kindest man whom she had ever met, Jesuit or no
+Jesuit.</p>
+<p>But Rudyard continued to appear through a haze of mystery; and
+people were not agreed as to whether he was a priest or a layman.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb55" href="#pb55" name=
+"pb55">55</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">&ldquo;What do those strangers matter to you?&rdquo;
+asked Duco.</p>
+<p>They were sitting in his studio: Mrs. van der Staal, Corn&eacute;lie
+and the girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie was pouring out the tea; and
+they were discussing Miss Taylor and Urania.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am a stranger to you too!&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are not a stranger to me, to us. But Miss Taylor and
+Urania don&rsquo;t matter. Hundreds of shadows pass through our lives:
+I don&rsquo;t see them and don&rsquo;t feel for them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And am I not a shadow?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have talked to you too much in the Borghese and on the
+Palatine to look upon you as a shadow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudyard is a dangerous shadow,&rdquo; said Annie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has no hold over us,&rdquo; Duco replied.</p>
+<p>Mrs. van der Staal looked at Corn&eacute;lie. She understood the
+enquiring glance and said, laughing:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he has no hold over me either. Still, if I felt the need
+of a religion, I mean an ecclesiastical religion, I would rather be a
+Roman Catholic than a Protestant. But, as things are ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She did not complete her sentence. She felt safe in this studio, in
+this soft, many-coloured profusion of beautiful things, in the
+affection of her friends; she felt in harmony with them all: with the
+worldly charm of that somewhat superficial mother and her two pretty
+girls, a little doll-like and vaguely cosmopolitan and a trifle vain of
+the little marquises with whom they danced and bicycled; and with that
+son, that brother so very different from the three <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb56" href="#pb56" name="pb56">56</a>]</span>of them
+and yet obviously related to them, as a movement, a gesture, a single
+word would show. It also struck Corn&eacute;lie that they accepted each
+other affectionately as they were: Duco, his mother and sisters, with
+their stories about the Princesses Colonna and Odescalchi; mevrouw and
+the girls and him, with his worn jacket and his unkempt hair. And, when
+he began to speak, especially about Rome, when he put his dream into
+words, in almost bookish sentences, which however flowed easily and
+naturally from his lips, Corn&eacute;lie felt in harmony with her
+surroundings, secure and interested and to some extent lost that
+longing to contradict him which his artistic indolence sometimes
+aroused in her. And, besides, his indolence suddenly seemed to her
+merely apparent and perhaps an affection, for he showed her sketches
+and water-colour drawings, not one of them finished, but every
+water-colour alive with light before all things, alive with all that
+light of Italy: the pearl sunsets over the molten emerald of Venice;
+the <i lang="it">campanili</i> of Florence drawn vaguely and dreamily
+against tender tea-rose skies; Siena fortress-like, blue-black in the
+bluish moonlight; the blazing sunshine behind St. Peter&rsquo;s; and,
+above all, the ruins, in every kind of light: the Forum in the bright
+sunlight, the Palatine by twilight, the Colosseum mysterious in the
+night; and then the Campagna: all the dream-like skies and luminous
+haze of the glad and sad Campagna, with pale-pink mauves, dewy blues,
+dusky violets or the swaggering ochres of pyrotechnical sunsets and
+clouds flaring like the crimson pinions of the ph&oelig;nix. And, when
+Corn&eacute;lie asked him why nothing was finished off, he answered
+that nothing was right. He saw the skies as dreams, visions and
+apotheoses; and on his paper they became water and paint; and paint was
+not a thing to be finished off. Besides, he lacked the self-confidence.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb57" href="#pb57" name=
+"pb57">57</a>]</span>And then he laid his skies aside, he said, and sat
+down to copy Byzantine madonnas.</p>
+<p>When he saw that his water-colours interested her nevertheless, he
+went on talking about himself: how he had at first raved over the noble
+and ingenuous Primitives, Giotto and especially Lippo Memmi; how, after
+that, spending a year in Paris, he had found nothing that excelled
+Forain: cold, dry satire in two or three lines; how, next, in the
+Louvre, Rubens had become revealed to him, Rubens whose own talent and
+whose own brush he used to trace amid all the prentice-work and
+imitations of his pupils, until he was able to tell which cherub was by
+Rubens himself in a sky full of cherubs painted by four or five
+disciples.</p>
+<p>And then, he said, he would pass weeks without giving a thought to
+painting or taking up a brush and would go daily to the Vatican, lost
+in contemplation of the magnificent marbles.</p>
+<p>Once he had sat dreaming a whole morning in front of the
+<i>Eros</i>; once he had dreamt a poem there, to a very gentle,
+melodious, monotonous accompaniment, like an inward incantation. On
+coming home he had tried to put both poem and music on paper, but he
+had failed. Now he could no longer look at Forain, thought Rubens
+coarse and disgusting, but remained faithful to the Primitives:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And suppose for a moment that I painted a lot and sent a lot
+of pictures to exhibitions? Should I be any the happier? Should I feel
+satisfied in having done something? I doubt it. Sometimes I do finish a
+water-colour and sell it; and then I can go on living for a month
+without troubling Mamma. Money I don&rsquo;t care about. Ambition is
+quite foreign to my nature.... But don&rsquo;t let us talk about
+myself. Do you still think of the future and ... bread?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb58" href="#pb58" name=
+"pb58">58</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; she said, with a melancholy laugh, while the
+studio around her grew dusk and dim and the figures of his mother and
+sisters, sitting silent, languid and uninterested in their easy-chairs,
+gradually faded away and every colour slowly paled. &ldquo;But I am so
+weak-minded. You say that you are not an artist; and I ... I am not an
+apostle.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To give one&rsquo;s life a course: that is the difficulty.
+Every life has a line, an appointed course, a road, a path: life has to
+flow along that line to death and what comes after death; and that line
+is difficult to find. I shall never find my line.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see my line before me either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know, a restlessness has come over me. Mamma, listen,
+a restlessness has come over me. I used to dream in the Forum, I was
+happy and didn&rsquo;t think about my line, my appointed course. Mamma,
+do you think about your line? Do you, girls?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His sisters giggled in the dark, sunk in their low chairs, like two
+pussy-cats. Mamma got up:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Duco dear, you know I can&rsquo;t follow you. I admire
+Corn&eacute;lie for liking your water-colours and understanding what
+you mean by that line. My line is to go home at once, for it&rsquo;s
+very late.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the line of the next two seconds. But there is a
+restlessness about my line that affects it for days and weeks to come.
+I am not leading the right life. The past is very beautiful and so
+peaceful, because it has been. But I have lost that peace. The present
+is very small. But the future! ... Oh, if we could only find an aim ...
+for the future!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They no longer listened; they went down the dark stairs, groping
+their way.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bread?&rdquo; he asked himself, wonderingly. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb59" href="#pb59" name="pb59">59</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">One morning when Corn&eacute;lie stayed indoors she
+went through the books that lay scattered about her room. And she found
+that it was useless for her to read Ovid, in order to study something
+of Roman manners, some of which had alarmed and shocked her; she found
+that Dante and Petrarch were too difficult to learn Italian from,
+whereas she had only to pick up a word or two in order to make herself
+understood in a shop or by the servants; she found Hare&rsquo;s
+<i>Walks</i> a too wearisome guide, because every cobble-stone in Rome
+did not inspire her with the same interest that Hare evidently derived
+from it. Then she confessed to herself that she could never see Italy
+and Rome as Duco van der Staal did. She never saw the light of the
+skies or the drifting of the clouds as he had seen them in his
+unfinished water-colour sketches. She had never seen the ruins
+transfigured in glory as he did in his hours of dreaming on the
+Palatine or in the Forum. She saw a picture merely with a
+layman&rsquo;s eye; a Byzantine madonna made no appeal to her. She was
+very fond of statues; but to fall head over ears in love with a
+mutilated marble torso, in the spirit in which he loved the
+<i>Eros</i>, seemed to her sickly ... and yet it seemed to be the right
+spirit in which to see the <i>Eros</i>. Well, not sickly, she admitted
+... but morbid: the word, though she herself smiled at it expressed her
+opinion better; not sickly, but morbid. And she looked upon an olive as
+a tree rather like a willow, whereas Duco had told her that an olive
+was the most beautiful tree in the world.</p>
+<p>She did not agree with him, either about the olive <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb60" href="#pb60" name="pb60">60</a>]</span>or about
+the <i>Eros</i>; and yet she felt that he was right from a certain
+mysterious standpoint on which there was no room for her, because it
+was like a mystic eminence amid impassable sensitive spheres which were
+not hers, even as the eminence was to her an unknown vantage-point of
+sensitiveness and vision. She did not agree with him and yet she was
+convinced of his greater rightness, his truer view, his nobler insight,
+his deeper feeling; and she was certain that her way of seeing Italy,
+in the disappointment of her disillusion, in the grey light of a
+growing indifference, was neither noble nor good; and she knew that the
+beauty of Italy escaped her, whereas to him it was like a tangible and
+comprehensible vision. And she cleared away Ovid and Petrarch and
+Hare&rsquo;s guidebook and locked them up in her trunk and took out the
+novels and pamphlets which had appeared that year about the woman
+movement in Holland. She took an interest in the problem and thought
+that it made her more modern than Duco, who suddenly seemed to her to
+belong to a bygone age, not modern, not modern. She repeated the words
+with enjoyment and suddenly felt herself stronger. To be modern: that
+should be her strength. One phrase of Duco&rsquo;s had struck her
+immensely, that exclamation:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, if we could only find an aim! Our life has a line, a
+path, which it must follow....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>To be modern: was that not a line? To find the solution of a modern
+problem: was that not an aim in life? He was quite right, from his
+point of view, from which he saw Italy; but was not the whole of Italy
+a past, a dream, at least that Italy which Duco saw, a dreamy paradise
+of nothing but art? It could not be right to stand like that, see like
+that a dream like that. The present was here: on the grey horizon
+muttered an approaching storm; and the <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb61" href="#pb61" name="pb61">61</a>]</span>latter-day problems
+flashed like lightning. Was that not what she had to live for? She felt
+for the woman, she felt for the girl: she herself had been the girl,
+brought up only as a social ornament, to shine, to be pretty and
+attractive and then of course to get married; she had shone and she had
+married; and now she was three-and-twenty, divorced from the husband
+who at one time had been her only aim and, for her sake, the aim of her
+parents; now she was alone, astray, desperate and utterly disconsolate:
+she had nothing to cling to and she suffered. She still loved him, cad
+and scoundrel though he was; and she had thought that she was doing
+something very clever, when she went abroad, to Italy, to study art.
+But she did not understand art, she did not feel Italy. Oh, how clearly
+she saw it, after those talks with Duco, that she would never
+understand art, even though she used to sketch a bit, even though she
+used to have a biscuit-group after Canova in her boudoir, <i>Cupid and
+Psyche</i>: so nice for a young girl! And with what certainty she now
+knew that she would never grasp Italy, because she did not think an
+olive-tree so very beautiful and had never seen the sky of the Campagna
+as a <span class="corr" id="xd21e1470" title=
+"Source: ttering">fluttering</span> ph&oelig;nix-wing! No, Italy would
+never be the consolation of her life....</p>
+<p>But what then? She had been through much, but she was alive and very
+young. And once again, at the sight of those pamphlets, at the sight of
+that novel, the desire arose in her soul: to be modern, to be modern!
+And to take part in the problem of to-day! To live for the future! To
+live for her fellow-women, married or unmarried!...</p>
+<p>She dared not look deep down into herself, lest she should waver. To
+live for the future!... It separated her a little more from Duco, that
+new ideal. Did she mind? Was she in love with him? <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb62" href="#pb62" name="pb62">62</a>]</span>No, she
+thought not. She had been in love with her husband and did not want to
+fall in love at once with the first agreeable young man whom she
+chanced to meet in Rome....</p>
+<p>And she read the pamphlets, about the feminine problem and love.
+Then she thought of her husband, then of Duco. And wearily she dropped
+the pamphlets and reflected how sad it all was: people, women, girls.
+She, a woman, a young woman, an aimless woman: how sad her life was!
+And Duco: he was happy. And yet he was seeking the line of his life,
+yet he was looking out for his aim. A new restlessness had entered into
+him. And she wept a little and anxiously twisted herself on her
+cushions and clasped her hands and prayed, unconsciously, without
+knowing to whom she was praying:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;O God, tell me what to do!&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb63" href="#pb63" name="pb63">63</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">It was then, after a few days, that Corn&eacute;lie
+conceived the idea of leaving the boarding-house and going to live in
+rooms. The hotel-life disturbed her budding thoughts, like a wind of
+vanity that was constantly blighting very vague and fragile blossoms;
+and, despite a torrent of abuse from the marchesa, who reproached her
+with having engaged to stay the whole winter, she moved into the rooms
+which she had found with Duco van der Staal, after much hunting and
+stair-climbing. They were in the Via dei Serpenti, up any number of
+stairs: a set of two roomy, but almost entirely unfurnished apartments,
+containing only the absolute essentials; and, though the view extended
+far and wide above the house-tops of Rome to the circular ruin of the
+Colosseum, the rooms were rough and uncomfortable, bare and uninviting.
+Duco had not approved of them and said that they made him shiver,
+although they faced the sun; but there was something about the
+ruggedness of the place that harmonized with Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s
+new mood.</p>
+<p>When they parted that day, he thought how inartistic she was and she
+how unmodern he was. They did not meet again for several days; and
+Corn&eacute;lie was very lonely, but did not feel her loneliness,
+because she was writing a pamphlet on the social position of divorced
+women. The idea was suggested to her by a few sentences in a tract on
+the feminist problem; and at once, without wasting much time in
+thought, she flung off her sentences in a succession of impulses and
+intuitions, rough-hewn, cold and clear; she wrote in an epistolary
+style, without <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb64" href="#pb64" name=
+"pb64">64</a>]</span>literary art, as though to warn girls against
+cherishing too many illusions about marriage.</p>
+<p>She had not made her rooms comfortable; she sat there, high up over
+Rome, with her view across the house-tops to the Colosseum, writing,
+writing and writing, absorbed in her sorrow, uttering herself in her
+stubborn sentences, feeling intensely bitter, but pouring the wormwood
+of her soul into her pamphlet. Mrs. van der Staal and the girls, who
+came to see her, were surprised by her untidy appearance, her
+rough-looking rooms, with a dying fire in the little grate and with no
+flowers, no books, no tea and no cushions; and, when they went away
+after fifteen minutes, pleading urgent errands, they looked at each
+other, tripping down the endless stairs, with eyes of amazement,
+utterly at a loss to understand this transformation of an interesting,
+elegant little woman, surrounded by an aura of poetry and a tragic
+past, into an &ldquo;independent woman,&rdquo; working furiously at a
+pamphlet full of bitter invective against society. And, when Duco
+looked her up again in a week&rsquo;s time and came to sit with her a
+little, he remained silent, stiff and upright in his chair, without
+speaking, while Corn&eacute;lie read the beginning of her pamphlet to
+him. He was touched by the glimpses which it revealed to him of
+personal suffering and experience, but he was irritated by a certain
+discord between that slender, lily-like woman, with her drooping
+movements, and the surroundings in which she now felt at her ease,
+entirely absorbed in her hatred for the society&mdash;Hague
+society&mdash;which had become hostile to her because she refused to go
+on living with a cad who ill-treated her. And while she was reading,
+Duco thought:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She would not write like that if she were not writing it all
+down from her own suffering. Why <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb65"
+href="#pb65" name="pb65">65</a>]</span>doesn&rsquo;t she make a novel
+of it? Why generalize from one&rsquo;s personal sorrows and why that
+admonishing voice?...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not like it. He thought the sound of that voice was hard,
+those truths so personal, that bitterness unattractive and that hatred
+of convention so small. And, when she put a question to him, he did not
+say much, nodded his head in vague approval and remained sitting in his
+stiff, uncomfortable attitude. He did not know what to answer, he was
+unable to admire, he thought her inartistic. And yet a great compassion
+welled up within him when he saw, in spite of it all, how charming she
+would be and what charm and womanly dignity would be hers could she
+find the line of her life and moved harmoniously along that line with
+the music of her own movement. He now saw her taking a wrong road, a
+path pointed out to her by the fingers of others and not entered upon
+from the impulse of her own soul. And he felt the deepest pity for her.
+He, an artist, but above all a dreamer, sometimes saw vividly, despite
+his dreaming, despite his sometimes all-embracing love of line and
+colour and atmosphere; he, the artist and dreamer, sometimes very
+clearly saw the emotion looming through the outward actions of his
+fellow-creatures, saw it like light shining through alabaster; and he
+suddenly saw her lost, seeking, straying: seeking she herself knew not
+what, straying she herself knew not through what labyrinth, far from
+her line, the line of her life and the course of her soul&rsquo;s
+journey, which she had never yet found.</p>
+<p>She sat before him excitedly. She had read her last pages with a
+flushed face, in a resonant voice, her whole being in a fever. She
+looked as if she would have liked to fling those bitter pages at the
+feet of her Dutch sisters, at the feet of all <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb66" href="#pb66" name="pb66">66</a>]</span>women.
+He, absorbed in his speculations, melancholy in his pity for her, had
+scarcely listened, nodding his head in vague approval. And suddenly she
+began to speak of herself, revealed herself wholly, told him her life:
+her existence as a young girl at the Hague, her education with a view
+to shining a little and being attractive and pretty, with not one
+serious glance at her future, only waiting for a good match, with a
+flirtation here and a little love-affair there, until she was married:
+a good match, in her own circle; her husband a first lieutenant of
+hussars, a fine, handsome fellow, of a good, distinguished family, with
+a little money. She had fallen in love with him for his handsome face
+and his fine figure, which his uniform showed to advantage, and he with
+her as he might have done with any other girl who had a pretty face.
+Then came the revelation of those very early days: the discord between
+their characters manifesting itself luridly at once. She, spoilt at
+home, dainty, delicate, fastidious, but selfishly fastidious and flying
+out against any offence to her own spoilt little <i>ego</i>; he no
+longer the lover but immediately and brutally the man with rights to
+this and rights to that, with an oath here and a roar there; she with
+neither the tact nor the patience to make of their foundering lives
+what could still be made of them, nervous, quick-tempered, quick to
+resent coarseness, which made his savagery flare up so violently that
+he ill-treated her, swore at her, struck her, shook her and banged her
+against the wall.</p>
+<p>The divorce followed. He had not consented at first, content, in
+spite of all, to have a house and in that house a wife, female to him,
+the male, and declining to return to the discomfort of life in
+chambers, until she simply ran away, first to her parents, then to
+friends in the country, protesting loudly <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb67" href="#pb67" name="pb67">67</a>]</span>against the law, which
+was so unjust to women. He had yielded at last and allowed himself to
+be accused of infidelity, which was not beside the truth. She was now
+free, but stood as it were alone, looked at askance by all her
+acquaintances, refusing to yield to their conventional demand for that
+sort of half-mourning which, according to their conventional ideas,
+should surround a divorced woman and at once returning to her former
+life, the gay life of an unmarried girl. But she had felt that this
+could not go on, both because of her acquaintances and because of
+herself: her acquaintances looking at her askance and she loathing her
+acquaintances, loathing their parties and dinners, until she felt
+profoundly unhappy, lonely and forlorn, without anything or anybody to
+cling to, and had felt all the depression that weighs down on the
+divorced woman. Sometimes, in her heart of hearts, she reflected that
+by dint of great patience and great tact she might have managed that
+man, that he was not wicked, only coarse, that she was still fond of
+him, or at least of his handsome face and his sturdy figure. Love, no,
+it was not love; but had she ever thought of love as she now sometimes
+pictured it? And did not nearly everybody live more or less so-so, with
+a good deal of give and take?</p>
+<p>But this regret she hardly confessed to herself, did not now confess
+to Duco; and what she did confess was her bitterness, her hatred of her
+husband, of marriage, of convention, of people, of the world, of all
+the great generalities, generalizing her own feelings into one great
+curse against life. He listened to her, with pity. He felt that there
+was something noble in her, which, however, had been stifled from the
+beginning. He forgave her for not being artistic, but he was sorry that
+she had never found herself, that she did not know what she was, who
+she <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb68" href="#pb68" name=
+"pb68">68</a>]</span>was, what her life should be, or where the line of
+her life wound, the only path which she ought to tread, as every life
+follows one path. Oh, how often, if a person would but let herself go,
+like a flower, like a bird, like a cloud, like a star which so
+obediently ran its course, she would find her happiness and her life,
+even as the flower or the bird finds them, even as the cloud drifts
+before the sun, even as the star follows its course through the
+heavens. But he told her nothing of his thoughts, knowing that,
+especially in her present mood of bitterness, she would not understand
+them and could derive no comfort from them, because they would be too
+vague for her and too far removed from her own manner of thinking. She
+thought of herself, but imagined that she was thinking of women and
+girls and their movement towards the future. The lines of the women ...
+but had not every woman a line of her own? Only, how few of them knew
+it: their direction, their path, their line of life, their wavering
+course in the twilight of the future. And perhaps, because they did not
+know it for themselves, they were now all seeking together a broad
+path, a main road, along which they would march in troops, in a
+threatening multitude of women, in regiments of women, with banners and
+mottoes and war-cries, a broad path, parallel with the movement of the
+men, until the two paths would melt into one, until the troops of women
+would mingle with the troops of men, with equal rights and equal
+fullness of life....</p>
+<p>He said nothing to her. She noticed his silence and did not see how
+much was going on within him, how earnestly he was thinking of her, how
+profoundly he pitied her. She thought that she had bored him. And
+suddenly, around her, she saw the dim, barren room, saw that the fire
+was out; and her zeal subsided, her fever cooled and she <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb69" href="#pb69" name="pb69">69</a>]</span>thought
+her pamphlet bad, lacking strength and conviction. What would she not
+have given for a word from him! But he sat silent, seemed to take no
+interest, probably did not admire her style of writing. And she felt
+sad, deserted, lonely, estranged from him and bitter because of the
+estrangement; she felt ready to weep, to sob; and, strange to say, in
+her bitterness she thought of <i>him</i>, of her husband, with his
+handsome face. She could not restrain herself, she wept. Duco came up
+to her, put his hand on her shoulder. Then she felt something of what
+was going on within him and that his silence was not due to coldness.
+She told him that she could not remain alone that evening: she was too
+wretched, too wretched. He comforted her, said that there was much that
+was good, much that was true in her pamphlet; that he was not a good
+judge of these modern questions; that he was never clever except when
+he talked about Italy; that he felt so little for people and so much
+for statues, so little for what was newly building for a coming century
+and so much for what lay in ruins and remained over from earlier
+centuries. He said it as though apologizing. She smiled through her
+tears but repeated that she could not stay alone that evening and that
+she was coming with him to Belloni&rsquo;s, to his mother and sisters.
+And they went together, they walked round together; and, to divert her
+mind, he spoke to her of his own thoughts, told her anecdotes of the
+Renascence masters. She did not hear what he said, but his voice was
+sweet to her ears. There was something so gentle about his indifference
+to the modern things that interested her, he had so much calmness,
+healing as balsam, in the restfulness of his soul, which allowed itself
+to move along the golden thread of his dreams, as though that thread
+was the line of his life, so much calmness and gentleness <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb70" href="#pb70" name="pb70">70</a>]</span>that she
+too grew calmer and gentler and looked up to him with a smile.</p>
+<p>And, however far removed they might be from each other&mdash;he
+going along a dreamy path, she lost in an obscure maze&mdash;they
+nevertheless felt each other approaching, felt their souls drawing
+nearer to each other, while their bodies moved beside each other in the
+actual street, through Rome, in the evening. He put his arm through
+hers to guide her steps.</p>
+<p>And, when they came in sight of Belloni&rsquo;s, she thanked him,
+she did not know exactly for what: for the look in his eyes, for his
+voice, for the walk, for the consolation which she felt inexplicably
+yet clearly radiating from him; and she was glad to have come with him
+this evening and to feel the distraction of the Belloni <i lang=
+"fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i> around her.</p>
+<p>But at night, alone, alone in her bare rooms, she was overcome by
+her wretchedness as by a sea of blackness; and, looking out at the
+Colosseum, which showed faintly as a black arc in the black night, she
+sobbed until she felt herself sinking to the point of death, derelict,
+lonely and forlorn, high up above Rome, above the roofs, above the pale
+lights of Rome by night, under the clouds of the black night, sinking
+and derelict, as though she were drifting, a shipwrecked waif on an
+ocean which drowned the world and roared its plaints to the inexorable
+heavens. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb71" href="#pb71" name=
+"pb71">71</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Nevertheless Corn&eacute;lie recovered her calmness
+when her pamphlet was finished. She unpacked her trunks, arranged her
+rooms a little more snugly and, now more at her ease, rewrote the
+pamphlet and, in the revision, improved her style and even her ideas.
+When she had done working in the morning, she usually lunched at a
+small <i>osteria</i>, where she nearly always met Duco van der Staal
+and had her meal with him at a little table. As a rule she dined at
+Belloni&rsquo;s, beside the Van der Staals, in order to obtain a little
+diversion. The marchesa had not bowed to her at first, though she
+suffered her to attend her <i lang="fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i>,
+at three lire an evening; but after a time she bowed to Corn&eacute;lie
+again, with a bitter-sweet little smile, for she had relet her two
+rooms at a higher price. And Corn&eacute;lie, in her calmer mood, found
+it pleasant to change in the evening, to see Mrs. van der Staal and the
+girls, to listen to their little stories about the Roman <i>salons</i>
+and to cast a glance over the long tables. And they saw that the guests
+were ever again different, as in a kaleidoscope of fleeting
+personalities. Rudyard had disappeared, owing money to the marchesa, no
+one knew whither; the Von Rothkirches had gone to Greece; but Urania
+Hope was still there and sat next to the Marchesa Belloni. On her other
+side was the nephew, the Prince of Forte-Braccio, Duke of San Stefano,
+who dined at Belloni&rsquo;s every night. And Corn&eacute;lie saw that
+a sort of conspiracy was in progress, the marchesa and the prince
+laying siege to the vain little American from either side. And next day
+she saw two <i lang="it">monsignori</i> seated in eager conversation
+with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb72" href="#pb72" name=
+"pb72">72</a>]</span>Urania at the marchesa&rsquo;s table, while the
+marchesa and the prince nodded their heads. All the visitors commented
+on it, every eye was turned in that direction, everybody watched the
+man&oelig;uvres and delighted in the romance.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was the only one who was not amused. She would have
+liked to warn Urania against the marchesa, the prince and the <i lang=
+"it">monsignori</i> who had taken Rudyard&rsquo;s place, but especially
+against marriage, even marriage with a prince and duke. And, growing
+excited, she spoke to Mrs. van der Staal and the girls, repeated
+phrases out of her pamphlet, glowing with her red young hatred against
+society and people and the world.</p>
+<p>Dinner was over; and, still eagerly talking, she went with the Van
+der Staals&mdash;mevrouw and the girls and Duco&mdash;to the
+drawing-room, sat down in a corner, resumed her conversation, flew out
+at mevrouw, who had contradicted her, and then suddenly saw a fat
+lady&mdash;the girls had already nick-named her the Satin
+Frigate&mdash;come towards her with a smile and say, while still at
+some distance:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon, but there&rsquo;s something I want to say.
+Look here, I have been to Belloni&rsquo;s regularly every winter for
+the last ten years, from November to Easter; and every evening after
+dinner&mdash;but <i>only</i> after dinner&mdash;I sit in <i>this</i>
+corner, at <i>this</i> table, on <i>this</i> sofa. I hope you
+won&rsquo;t mind, but I should be glad to have my own seat
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the Satin Frigate smiled amiably; but, when the Van der Staals
+and Corn&eacute;lie rose in mute amazement, she dumped herself down
+with a rustle on the sofa, bobbed up and down for a moment on the
+springs, laid her crochet-work on the table with a gesture as though
+she were planting the Union Jack in a new colony and said, with her
+most amiable smile: <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb73" href="#pb73"
+name="pb73">73</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very much obliged. So many thanks.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Duco roared, the girls giggled, but the Satin Frigate merely nodded
+to them good-humouredly. And, not even yet realizing what had happened,
+astounded but gay, they sat down in another corner, the girls still
+seized with an irrepressible giggle. The two &aelig;sthetic ladies,
+with the evening-dress and the Jaegers, who sat reading at the table in
+the middle of the room, closed their two books with one slam, rose and
+indignantly went away, because people were laughing and talking in the
+drawing-room:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame!&rdquo; they said, aloud.</p>
+<p>And, angular, arrogant and grimy, they stalked out through the
+door.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What strange people!&rdquo; thought Duco, smiling.
+&ldquo;Shadows of people!... Their lines curl like arabesque through
+ours. Why do they cross our lines with their petty movements and why
+are ours never crossed by those which perhaps would be dearest to our
+souls?...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He always took Corn&eacute;lie back to the Via dei Serpenti. They
+walked slowly through the silent, deserted streets. Sometimes it was
+late in the evening, but sometimes it was immediately after dinner and
+then they would go through the Corso and he would generally ask her to
+come and sit at Aragno&rsquo;s for a little. She agreed and they drank
+their coffee amid the gaiety of the brightly-lit caf&eacute;, watching
+the bustle on the pavement outside. They exchanged few words,
+distracted by the passers-by and the visitors to the caf&eacute;; but
+they both enjoyed this moment and felt at one with each other. Duco
+evidently did not give a thought to the unconventionality of their
+behaviour; but Corn&eacute;lie thought of Mrs. van der Staal and that
+she would not approve of it or consent to it in one of her daughters,
+to sit <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb74" href="#pb74" name=
+"pb74">74</a>]</span>alone with a gentleman in a caf&eacute; in the
+evening. And Corn&eacute;lie also remembered the Hague and smiled at
+the thought of her Hague friends. And she looked at Duco, who sat
+quietly, pleased to be sitting with her, and drank his coffee and spoke
+a word now and again or pointed to a queer type or a pretty woman
+passing....</p>
+<p>One evening, after dinner, he suggested that they should all go to
+the ruins. It was full moon, a wonderful sight. But mevrouw was afraid
+of malaria, the girls of foot-pads; and Duco and Corn&eacute;lie went
+by themselves. The streets were quite empty, the Colosseum rose
+menacingly like a fortress in the night; but they went in and the
+moonlight blue of the night shone through the open arches: the round
+pit of the arena was black on one side with shadow, while the stream of
+moonlight poured in on the other side, like a white flood, like a
+cascade; and it was as though the night were haunted, as though the
+Colosseum were haunted by all the dead past of Rome, emperors,
+gladiators and martyrs; shadows prowled like lurking wild animals, a
+patch of light suggested a naked woman and the galleries seemed to
+rustle with the sound of the multitude. And yet there was nothing and
+Duco and Corn&eacute;lie were alone, in the depths of the huge,
+colossal ruin, half in shadow and half in light; and, though she was
+not afraid, she was obsessed by that awful haunting of the past and
+pushed closer to him and clutched his arm and felt very, very small. He
+just pressed her hand, with his simple ease of manner, to reassure her.
+And the night oppressed her, the ghostliness of it all suffocated her,
+the moon seemed to whirl giddily in the sky and to expand to a gigantic
+size and spin round like a silver wheel. He said nothing, he was in one
+of his dreams, seeing the past before him. And silently they went away
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb75" href="#pb75" name=
+"pb75">75</a>]</span>and he led her through the Arch of Titus into the
+Forum. On the left rose the ruins of the imperial palaces; and all
+around them stood the black fragments, with a few pillars soaring on
+high and the white moonlight pouring down like a ghostly sea out of the
+night. They met no one, but she was frightened and clung tighter to his
+arm. When they sat down for a moment on a fragment of the foundation of
+some ancient building, she shivered with cold. He started up, said that
+she must be careful not to catch a chill; and they walked on and left
+the Forum. He took her home and she went upstairs alone, striking a
+match to see her way up the dark staircase. Once in her room, she
+perceived that it was dangerous to wander about the ruins at night. She
+reflected how little Duco had spoken, not thinking of danger, lost in
+his nocturnal dream, peering into the awful ghostliness. Why ... why
+had he not gone alone? Why had he asked her to go with him? She fell
+asleep after a chaos of whirling thoughts: the prince and Urania, the
+fat satin lady, the Colosseum and the martyrs and Duco and Mrs. van der
+Staal. His mother was so ordinary, his sisters charming but commonplace
+and he ... so strange! So simple, so unaffected, so unreserved; and for
+that very reason so strange. He would be impossible at the Hague, among
+her friends. And she smiled as she thought of what he had said and how
+he had said it and how he could sit quietly silent, for minutes on end,
+with a smile about his lips, as though thinking of something
+beautiful....</p>
+<p>But she must warn Urania....</p>
+<p>And she wearily fell asleep. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb76"
+href="#pb76" name="pb76">76</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s premonition regarding Mrs. van
+der Staal&rsquo;s opinion of her intercourse with Duco was confirmed:
+mevrouw spoke to her seriously, saying that she would compromise
+herself if she went on like that and adding that she had spoken to Duco
+in the same sense. But Corn&eacute;lie answered rather haughtily and
+nonchalantly, declared that, after always minding the conventions and
+becoming very unhappy in spite of it, she had resolved to mind them no
+longer, that she valued Duco&rsquo;s conversation and that she was not
+going to be deprived of it because of what people thought or said. And
+then, she asked Mrs. van der Staal, who were &ldquo;people?&rdquo;
+Their three or four acquaintances at Belloni&rsquo;s? Who knew her
+besides? Where else did she go? Why should she care about the Hague?
+And she gave a scornful laugh, loftily parrying Mrs. van der
+Staal&rsquo;s arguments.</p>
+<p>The conversation caused a coolness between them. Wounded in her
+touchy over-sensitiveness, she did not come to dinner at
+Belloni&rsquo;s that evening. Next day, meeting Duco at their little
+table in the <i>osteria</i>, she asked him what he thought of his
+mother&rsquo;s rebuke. He smiled vaguely, raising his eyebrows,
+obviously not realizing the commonplace truth of his mother&rsquo;s
+words, saying that those were just Mamma&rsquo;s ideas, which of course
+were all very well and current in the set in which Mamma and his
+sisters lived, but which he didn&rsquo;t enter into or bother about,
+unless Corn&eacute;lie thought that Mamma was right. And
+Corn&eacute;lie blazed out contemptuously, <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb77" href="#pb77" name="pb77">77</a>]</span>shrugged
+her shoulders, asked who or what there was for whose sake she should
+allow herself to break off their friendly intercourse. They ordered a
+<i>mezzo-fiasco</i> between them and had a long, chatty lunch like two
+comrades, like two students. He said that he had been thinking over her
+pamphlet; he talked, to please her, about the modern woman, modern
+marriage, the modern girl. She condemned the way in which Mrs. van der
+Staal was bringing up her daughters, that light, frivolous education
+and that endless going about, on the look for a husband. She said that
+she spoke from experience.</p>
+<p>They walked along the Via Appia that afternoon and went to the
+Catacombs, where a Trappist showed them round. When Corn&eacute;lie
+returned home she felt pleasantly light and cheerful. She did not go
+out again; she piled up the logs on her fire against the evening, which
+was turning chilly, and supped off a little bread and jelly, so as not
+to go out for her dinner. Sitting in her tea-gown, with her hands
+folded over her head, she stared into the briskly burning logs and let
+the evening speed past her. She was satisfied with her life, so free,
+independent of everything and everybody. She had a little money, she
+could go on living like this. She had no great needs. Her life in
+rooms, in little restaurants was not expensive. She wanted no clothes.
+She felt satisfied. Duco was an agreeable friend: how lonely she would
+be without him! Only her life must acquire some aim. What aim? The
+feminist movement? But how, abroad? It was such a different movement to
+work at.... She would send her pamphlet now to a newly founded
+women&rsquo;s paper. But then? She wasn&rsquo;t in Holland and she
+didn&rsquo;t want to go to Holland; and yet there would certainly be
+more scope there for her activity, for exchanging views with others.
+Whereas here, in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb78" href="#pb78" name=
+"pb78">78</a>]</span>Rome.... An indolence overcame her, in the
+drowsiness of her cosy room. For Duco had helped her to arrange her
+sitting-room. He certainly was a cultivated fellow, even though he was
+not modern. What a lot he knew about history, about Italy; and how
+cleverly he told it all! The way he explained Italy to her, she was
+interested in the country after all.</p>
+<p>Only, he wasn&rsquo;t modern. He had no insight into Italian
+politics, into the struggle between the Quirinal and the Vatican, into
+anarchism, which was showing its head at Milan, into the riots in
+Sicily.... An aim in life: what a difficult thing it was! And, in her
+evening drowsiness after a pleasant day, she did not feel the absence
+of an aim and enjoyed the soft luxury of letting her thoughts glide on
+in unison with the drowsy evening hours, in a voluptuous
+self-indulgence. She looked at the sheets of her pamphlet, scattered
+over her big writing-table, a real table to work at: they lay yellow
+under the light of her reading-lamp; they had not all been recopied,
+but she was not in the mood now; she threw a log into the little grate
+and the fire smoked and blazed. So pleasant, that foreign habit of
+burning wood instead of coal....</p>
+<p>And she thought of her husband. She missed him sometimes. Could she
+not have managed him, with a little tact and patience? After all, he
+was very nice during the period of their engagement. He was rough, but
+not bad. He might have sworn at her sometimes, but perhaps he did not
+mean any great harm. He waltzed divinely, he swung you round so
+firmly.... He was good-looking and, she had to confess, she was in love
+with him, if only for his handsome face, his handsome figure. There was
+something about his eyes and mouth that she was never able to resist.
+When he spoke, she <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb79" href="#pb79"
+name="pb79">79</a>]</span>had to look at his mouth. However, that was
+all over and done with....</p>
+<p>After all, perhaps the life at the Hague was too monotonous for her
+temperament. She liked travelling, seeing new people, developing new
+ideas; and she had never been able to settle down in her little set.
+And now she was free, independent of all ties, of all people. If Mrs.
+van der Staal was angry, she didn&rsquo;t care.... And, all the same,
+Duco <i>was</i> rather modern, in his indifference to convention. Or
+was it merely the artistic side in him? Or was he, as a man who was not
+modern, indifferent to it even as she, a modern woman, was? A man could
+allow himself more. A man was not so easily compromised.... A modern
+woman. She repeated the words proudly. Her drowsiness acquired a
+certain arrogance. She drew herself up, stretching out her arms, looked
+at herself in the glass: her slender figure, her delicate little face,
+a trifle pale, with the eyes big and grey and bright under their
+remarkably long lashes, her light-brown hair in a loose, tangled coil,
+the lines of her figure, like those of a drooping lily, very winsome in
+the creased folds of her old tea-gown, pale-pink and faded.... What was
+her path in life? She felt herself to be something more than a worker
+and fighter, to be very complex, felt that she was a woman too, felt a
+great womanliness inside her, like a weakness which would hamper her
+energy. And she wandered through the room, unable to decide to go to
+bed, and, staring into the gloomy ashes of the expiring fire, she
+thought of her future, of what she would become and how, of how she
+would go and whither, along which curve of life, wandering through what
+forests, winding through what alleys, crossing which other curves of
+which other, seeking souls.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb80"
+href="#pb80" name="pb80">80</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The idea had long fixed itself in
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s mind that she must speak to Urania Hope; and
+one morning she sent her a note asking for an appointment that
+afternoon. Miss Hope wrote back assenting; and at five o&rsquo;clock
+Corn&eacute;lie found her at home in her handsome and expensive
+sitting-room at Belloni&rsquo;s: many lights, many flowers; Urania
+hammering on the piano in an indoor gown of Venetian lace; the table
+decked with a rich tea, with cut bread-and-butter, cakes and sweets.
+Corn&eacute;lie had said that she wanted to see Miss Hope alone, on a
+matter of importance, and at once asked if she would be alone, feeling
+a doubt of it, now that Urania was receiving her so formally. But
+Urania reassured her: she had said that she was at home to no one but
+Mrs. de Retz and was very curious to know what Corn&eacute;lie had come
+to talk about. Corn&eacute;lie reminded Urania of her former warning
+and, when Urania laughed, she took her hand and looked at her with such
+serious eyes that she made an impression of the American girl&rsquo;s
+frivolous nature and Urania became puzzled. Urania now suddenly thought
+it very momentous&mdash;a secret, an intrigue, a danger, in
+Rome!&mdash;and they whispered together. And Corn&eacute;lie, no longer
+feeling anxious amid this increasing intimacy, confessed to Urania what
+she had heard through the half-open door: the marchesa&rsquo;s
+machinations with her nephew, whom she was absolutely bent on marrying
+to a rich heiress at the behest of the prince&rsquo;s father, who
+seemed to have promised her so much for putting the match through. Then
+she spoke of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb81" href="#pb81" name=
+"pb81">81</a>]</span>Miss Taylor&rsquo;s conversion, effected by
+Rudyard: Rudyard, who did not seem able to achieve his purpose with
+Urania, failing to obtain a hold on her confiding, but frivolous,
+butterfly nature, and who, as Corn&eacute;lie suspected, had for that
+reason incurred the disfavour of his ecclesiastical superiors and
+vanished without settling his debt to the marchesa. His place appeared
+to have been taken by the two <i lang="it">monsignori</i>, who looked
+more dignified and worldly and displayed great unctuousness, were more
+lavish in smiles. And Urania, staring at this danger, at these
+pit-falls under her feet which Corn&eacute;lie had suddenly revealed to
+her, now became really frightened, turned pale and promised to be on
+her guard. Really she would have liked to tell her maid to pack up at
+once, so that they might leave Rome as soon as possible, for another
+town, another <i>pension</i>, one with lots of titled people: she
+adored titles! And Corn&eacute;lie, seeing that she had made an
+impression, continued, spoke of herself, spoke of marriage in general,
+said that she had written a pamphlet against marriage and on <i>The
+Social Position of Divorced Women</i>. And she spoke of the suffering
+which she had been through and of the feminist movement in Holland.
+And, once in the vein, she abandoned all restraint and talked more and
+more emphatically, until Urania thought her exceedingly clever, a very
+clever girl, to be able to argue and write like that on a <i lang=
+"fr">ques-tion br&ucirc;-lante</i>, laying a fine stress on the first
+syllables of the French words. She admitted that she would like to have
+the vote and, as she said this, spread out the long train of her lace
+tea-gown. Corn&eacute;lie spoke of the injustice of the law which
+leaves the wife nothing, takes everything from her and forces her
+entirely into the husband&rsquo;s power; and Urania agreed with her and
+passed the little dish of chocolate-creams. And to the accompaniment of
+a second cup <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb82" href="#pb82" name=
+"pb82">82</a>]</span>of tea they talked excitedly, both speaking at
+once, neither listening to what the other was saying; and Urania said
+that it was a shame. From the general discussion they relapsed to the
+consideration of their particular interests: Corn&eacute;lie depicted
+the character of her husband, unable, in the coarseness of his nature,
+to understand a woman or to consent that a woman should stand beside
+him and not beneath him. And she once more returned to the Jesuits, to
+the danger of Rome for rich girls travelling alone, to that virago of a
+marchesa and to the prince, that titled bait which the Jesuits flung to
+win a soul and to improve the finances of an impoverished Italian house
+which had remained faithful to the Pope and refused to serve the king.
+And both of them were so vehement and excited that they did not hear
+the knock and looked up only when the door slowly opened. They started,
+glanced round and both turned pale when they saw the Prince of
+Forte-Braccio enter the room. He apologized with a smile, said that he
+had seen a light in Miss Urania&rsquo;s sitting-room, that the porter
+had told him she was engaged, but that he had ventured to disobey her
+orders. And he sat down; and, in spite of all that they had been
+saying, Urania thought it delightful to have the prince sitting there
+and accepting a cup of tea at her hands and graciously consenting to
+eat a piece of cake.</p>
+<p>And Urania showed her album of coats of arms&mdash;the prince had
+already contributed an impression of his&mdash;and next the album with
+patterns of the queen&rsquo;s ball-dresses. Then the prince laughed and
+felt in his pocket for an envelope; he opened it and carefully produced
+a cutting of blue brocade embroidered with silver and seed-pearls.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Urania, in ecstasy.</p>
+<p>And he said that he had brought her a pattern <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb83" href="#pb83" name="pb83">83</a>]</span>of her
+majesty&rsquo;s last dress; his cousin&mdash;not a Black, like himself,
+but a White, belonging not to the papal but to the court party and a
+lady-in-waiting to the queen&mdash;had procured this cutting for him
+for Urania&rsquo;s album. Urania would see it herself: the queen would
+wear the dress at next week&rsquo;s court ball. He was not going, he
+did not even go to his cousin&rsquo;s officially, not to her parties;
+but he saw her sometimes, because of the family relationship, out of
+friendship. And he begged Urania not to give him away: it might injure
+him in his career&mdash;&ldquo;What career?&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie
+wondered to herself&mdash;if people knew that he saw much of his
+cousin; but he had called on her pretty often lately, for
+Urania&rsquo;s sake, to get her that pattern.</p>
+<p>And Urania was so grateful that she forgot all about the social
+position of girls and women, married or unmarried, and would gladly
+have sacrificed her right to the franchise for such a charming Italian
+prince. Corn&eacute;lie became vexed, rose, bowed coldly to the prince
+and drew Urania with her to the door:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget what we have been saying,&rdquo; she
+warned her. &ldquo;Be on your guard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she saw the prince look at her sarcastically, as they whispered
+together, suspecting that she was talking about him, but proud of the
+power of his personality and his title and his attentions over the
+daughter of an American stockinet-manufacturer. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb84" href="#pb84" name="pb84">84</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">A coolness had arisen between Mrs. van der Staal and
+Corn&eacute;lie; and Corn&eacute;lie no longer went to dine at
+Belloni&rsquo;s. She did not see mevrouw and the girls again for weeks;
+but she saw Duco daily. Notwithstanding the essential differences in
+their characters, they had grown so accustomed to being together that
+they missed each other if a day passed without their meeting; and so
+they had gradually come to lunch and dine together every day, almost as
+a matter of course: in the morning at the <i>osteria</i> and in the
+evening at some small restaurant or other, usually very simply. To
+avoid dividing the bill, Duco would pay one time and Corn&eacute;lie
+the next. Generally they had much to talk about: he taught her Rome,
+took her after lunch to all manner of churches and museums; and under
+his guidance she began to understand, appreciate and admire. By
+unconscious suggestion he inspired her with some of his ideas. She
+found painting very difficult, but understood sculpture much more
+readily. And she began to look upon him as not merely morbid; she
+looked up to him, he spoke quite simply to her, as from his exalted
+standpoint of feeling and knowledge and understanding, of very exalted
+matters which she, as a girl and later as a young married woman, had
+never seen in the glorious apotheosis which he caused to rise before
+her like the first gleam of a dawn, of a new day in which she beheld
+new types of life, created of all that was noblest in the
+artist&rsquo;s soul. He regretted that he could not show her Giotto in
+the Santa Croce at Florence and the Primitives in the <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb85" href="#pb85" name="pb85">85</a>]</span>Uffizi
+and that he had to teach her Rome straight away; but he introduced her
+to all the exuberant art-life of the Papal Renascence, until, under the
+influence of his speech, she shared that life for a single intense
+second and until Michael Angelo and Raphael stood out before her, also
+living. After a day like that, he would think that after all she was
+not so hopelessly inartistic; and she thought of him with respect, even
+after the suggestion was interrupted and when she reflected on what she
+had seen and heard and really, deep down in herself, no longer
+understood things so well as she had that morning, because she was
+lacking in love for them. But so much glamour of colour and the past
+remained whirling before her eyes in the evening that it made her
+pamphlet seem drab and dull; and the feminist movement ceased to
+interest her and she did not care about Urania Hope.</p>
+<p>He admitted to himself that he had quite lost his peace of mind,
+that Corn&eacute;lie stood before him in his thoughts, between him and
+his old triptychs, that his lonely, friendless, ingenuous, simple life,
+content with wandering through and outside Rome, with reading, dreaming
+and now and then painting a little, had changed entirely in habit and
+in line, now that the line of his life had crossed that of hers and
+they both seemed to be going one way, he did not really know why. Love
+was not exactly the word for the feeling that drew him towards her. And
+just very vaguely, inwardly and unconsciously he suspected, though he
+never actually said or even thought as much, that it was the line of
+her figure, which was marked by something almost Byzantine, the
+slenderness of the frame, the long arms, the drooping lily-line of the
+woman who suffered, with the melancholy in her grey eyes, overshadowed
+by their almost too-long lashes; that it was the noble shape of her
+hand, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb86" href="#pb86" name=
+"pb86">86</a>]</span>small and pretty for a tall woman; that it was a
+movement of her neck, as of a swaying stalk, or a tired swan trying to
+glance backwards. He had never met many women and those whom he had met
+had always seemed very ordinary; but she was unreal to him, in the
+contradictions of her character, in its vagueness and intangibility, in
+all the half-tints which escaped his eye, accustomed to half-tints
+though it was.... What was she like? What he had always seen in her
+character was a woman in a novel, a heroine in a poem. What was she as
+a living woman of flesh and blood? She was not artistic and she was not
+inartistic; she had no energy and yet she did not lack energy; she was
+not precisely cultivated; and yet, obeying her impulse and her
+intuition, she wrote a pamphlet on one of the most modern questions and
+worked at it and revised and copied it, till it became a piece of
+writing no worse than another. She had a spacious way of thinking,
+loathing all the pettiness of the cliques, no longer feeling at home,
+after her suffering, in her little Hague set; and here, in Rome, at a
+dance she listened behind a door to a nonsensical conspiracy, hardly
+worthy of the name, he thought, and had gone to Urania Hope to mingle
+with the confused curves of smaller lives, curves without importance,
+of people whom he despised for their lack of line, of colour, of
+vision, of haze, of everything that was dear as life to him and made up
+life for him.... What was she like? He did not understand her. But her
+curve was of importance to him. She was not without a line: a line of
+art and line of life; she moved in the dream of her own indefiniteness
+before his gazing eyes; and she loomed up out of the haze, as out of
+the twilight of his studio atmosphere, and stood before him like a
+phantom. He would not call that love; but she was dear to him like a
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb87" href="#pb87" name=
+"pb87">87</a>]</span>revelation that constantly veiled itself in
+secrecy. And his life as a lonely wanderer was, it was true, changed;
+but she had introduced no inharmonious habit into his life: he enjoyed
+taking his meals in a little caf&eacute; or <i>osteria</i>; and she
+took them with him easily and simply, not squalidly but pleasantly and
+harmoniously, with an adaptability and with just as much natural grace
+as when she used to dine of an evening at the <i lang=
+"fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i> at Belloni&rsquo;s. All
+this&mdash;that contradictory admixture of unreality, of inconsistency;
+that living vision of indefiniteness; that intangibility of her
+individual essence; that self-concealment of the soul; that blending of
+her essential characteristics&mdash;had become a charm to him: a
+restlessness, a need, a nervous want in his life, otherwise so restful,
+so easily contented and calm, but above all a charm, an indispensable
+every-day charm.</p>
+<p>And, without troubling about what people might think, about what
+Mrs. van der Staal thought, they would one day go to Tivoli together,
+or another day walk from Castel Gandolfo to Albano and drive to the
+Lago di Nemi and picnic at the Villa Sforza-Cesarini, with the broken
+capital of a classic pillar for a table. They rested side by side in
+the shadow of the trees, admired the camellias, silently contemplated
+the glassy clearness of the lake, Diana&rsquo;s looking-glass, and
+drove back over Frascati. They were silent in the carriage; and he
+smiled as he reflected how they had been taken everywhere that day for
+man and wife. She also thought of their increasing intimacy and at the
+same time thought that she would never marry again. And she thought of
+her husband and compared him with Duco, so young in the face but with
+eyes full of depth and soul, a voice so calm and even, with everything
+that he said much to the point, so accurately informed; and then his
+calmness, his simplicity, his lack of passion, <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb88" href="#pb88" name="pb88">88</a>]</span>as
+though his nerves had schooled themselves only to feel the calmness of
+art in the dreamy mist of his life. And she confessed to herself,
+there, in the carriage beside him, amid the softly shelving hills,
+purpling away in the evening, while before her faded the rose-mallow of
+a pale gold sunset, that he was dear to her because of that cleverness,
+that absence of passion, that simplicity and that accuracy of
+information&mdash;a clear voice sounding up out of the dreamy
+twilight&mdash;and that she was happy to be sitting beside him, to hear
+that voice and by chance to feel his hand, happy in that her line of
+life had crossed his, in that their two lines seemed to form a path
+towards the increasing brightness, the gradual daily elucidation of
+their immediate future.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb89" href=
+"#pb89" name="pb89">89</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Corn&eacute;lie now saw no one except Duco. Mrs. van
+der Staal had broken with her and would not allow her daughters to have
+any further intercourse with her. A coolness had arisen even between
+the mother and the son. Corn&eacute;lie saw no one now except Duco and,
+at times, Urania Hope. The American girl came to her pretty often and
+told her about Belloni&rsquo;s, where the people talked about
+Corn&eacute;lie and Duco and commented on their relations. Urania was
+glad to think herself above that hotel gossip, but still she wanted to
+warn Corn&eacute;lie. Her words displayed a simple spontaneity of
+friendship that appealed to Corn&eacute;lie. When Corn&eacute;lie,
+however, asked after the prince, she became silent and confused and
+evidently did not wish to say much. Then, after the court ball, at
+which the queen had really worn the dress embroidered with seed-pearls,
+Urania came and looked Corn&eacute;lie up again and admitted, over a
+cup of tea, that she had that morning promised to go and see the prince
+at his own place. She said this quite simply, as though it was the most
+natural thing in the world. Corn&eacute;lie was horrified and asked her
+how she could have promised such a thing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; Urania replied. &ldquo;What is there in it? I
+receive his visits. If he asks me to come and see his rooms&mdash;he
+lives in the Palazzo Ruspoli and wants to show me his pictures and
+miniatures and old lace&mdash;why should I refuse to go? Why should I
+make a fuss about it? I am above any such narrow-mindedness. We
+American girls <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb90" href="#pb90" name=
+"pb90">90</a>]</span>go about freely with our men friends. And what
+about yourself? You go for walks with Mr. van der Staal, you lunch with
+him, you go for trips with him, you go to his studio....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been married,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie. &ldquo;I am
+responsible to no one. You have your parents. What you are thinking of
+doing is imprudent and high-handed. Tell me, does the prince think of
+... marrying you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I become a Catholic.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And ...?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think ... I shall. I have written to Chicago,&rdquo; she
+said, hesitatingly.</p>
+<p>She closed her beautiful eyes for a second and went pale, because
+the title of princess and duchess flashed before her sight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Only ...&rdquo; she began.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Only what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t have a cheerful life. The prince
+belongs to the Blacks. They are always in mourning because of the Pope.
+They have hardly anything in their set: no dances, no parties. If we
+got married, I should like him to come to America with me. Their home
+in the Abruzzi is a lonely, tumbledown castle. His father is a very
+proud, stand-offish, silent person. I have been told so by ever so many
+people. What am I to do, Corn&eacute;lie? I&rsquo;m very fond of Gilio:
+his name is Virgilio. And then, you know, the title is an old Italian
+title: Principe di Forte-Braccio, Duca di San Stefano.... But then, you
+see, that&rsquo;s all there is to it. San Stefano is a hole.
+That&rsquo;s where his papa lives. They sell wine and live on that. And
+olive-oil; but they don&rsquo;t make any money. My father manufactures
+stockinet; but he has grown rich on it. They haven&rsquo;t many
+family-jewels. I have made enquiries.... His cousin, the Contessa di
+Rosavilla, the lady in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb91" href="#pb91"
+name="pb91">91</a>]</span>waiting to the queen, is nice ... but we
+shouldn&rsquo;t see her officially. I shouldn&rsquo;t be able to go
+anywhere. It does strike me as rather boring.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie spoke vehemently, blazed out and repeated her
+phrases: against marriage in general and now against this marriage in
+particular, merely for the sake of a title. Urania assented: it was
+merely for the title; but then there was Gilio too, of course: he was
+so nice and she was fond of him. But Corn&eacute;lie didn&rsquo;t
+believe a word of it and told her so straight out. Urania began to cry:
+she did not know what to do.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And when were you to go to the prince?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This evening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, you&rsquo;re right, I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t
+go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you promise me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go, Urania.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t go. You&rsquo;re a dear girl.
+You&rsquo;re quite right: I won&rsquo;t go. I swear to you I
+won&rsquo;t.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb92" href="#pb92"
+name="pb92">92</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The undertaking which Urania had given was so vague,
+however, that Corn&eacute;lie felt uneasy and spoke of it to Duco that
+evening, when she met him at the restaurant. But he was not interested
+in Urania, in what she did or didn&rsquo;t do; and he shrugged his
+shoulders indifferently. Corn&eacute;lie, on the other hand, was silent
+and absent-minded and did not listen to what he was talking about: a
+side-panel of a triptych, undoubtedly by Lippo Memmi, which he had
+discovered in a little shop by the Tiber; the angel of the
+Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling
+with the stir of his last flight yet about him, with the lily-stem in
+his hands. But the dealer asked two hundred lire for it and he did not
+want to give more than fifty. And yet the dealer had not mentioned
+Memmi&rsquo;s name, did not suspect that the angel was by Memmi.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was not listening; and suddenly she said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am going to the Palazzo Ruspoli.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked up in surprise:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What for?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To ask for Miss Hope.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was dumb with amazement and continued to look at her
+open-mouthed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If she&rsquo;s not there,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie went on,
+&ldquo;it&rsquo;s all right. If she is, if she has gone after all,
+I&rsquo;ll ask to speak to her on urgent business.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not know what to say, thinking her sudden idea so strange, so
+eccentric, thinking it so unnecessary that her curve should cross the
+curves of insignificant, indifferent people, that he did not know
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb93" href="#pb93" name=
+"pb93">93</a>]</span>how to choose his words. Corn&eacute;lie glanced
+at her watch:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s past half-past nine. If she does go, she will go
+about this time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She called the waiter and paid the bill. And she buttoned her coat
+and stood up. He followed after her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t what you
+are doing rather strange? It&rsquo;ll mean all sorts of worries for
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If one always objected to being worried, one would never do a
+good action.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They walked on in silence, he moving irritably by her side. They did
+not speak: he thought her intention simply crazy; she thought him
+wanting in chivalry, not to wish to protect Urania. She was thinking of
+her pamphlet, of her fellow-women; and she wanted to protect Urania
+from marriage, from that prince. And they walked through the Corso to
+the Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made another attempt to
+restrain her; but she had already asked the porter:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is <i lang="it">il signore principe</i> at home?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The man looked at her suspiciously:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, curtly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe he is. If so, ask if Miss Hope is with his
+excellency. Miss Hope was not at home; I believe that she was coming to
+see the prince this evening; and I want to speak to her urgently ... on
+a matter which will not brook delay. Here: la Signora de
+Retz....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She handed him her card. She spoke with the greatest self-possession
+and referred to Urania&rsquo;s visit calmly and simply, as though it
+were an every-day occurrence for American girls to call on Italian
+princes in the evening and as though she were persuaded that the porter
+knew of this custom. The <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb94" href=
+"#pb94" name="pb94">94</a>]</span>man was disconcerted by her attitude,
+bowed, took the card and went away. Corn&eacute;lie and Duco waited in
+the portico.</p>
+<p>He admired her calmness. He considered her behaviour eccentric; but
+she carried out her eccentricity with a self-assurance which once more
+showed her in a new light. Would he never understand her, would he
+never grasp anything or know anything for certain of that changeful and
+intangible vagueness of hers? He could never have spoken those few
+words to that porter in just that tone! Where had she got that tact
+from, that dignified, serious attitude towards that imposing janitor,
+with his long cane and his cocked hat? She did it all as easily as she
+ordered their simple dinner, with a pleasant familiarity, of the waiter
+at their little restaurant.</p>
+<p>The porter returned:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Hope and his excellency beg that you will come
+upstairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at Duco with a triumphant smile, amused at his
+confusion:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you come too?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, no,&rdquo; he stammered. &ldquo;I can wait for you
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She followed the footman up the stairs. The wide corridor was hung
+with family-portraits. The drawing-room door was open and the prince
+came out to meet her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please forgive me, prince,&rdquo; she said, calmly, putting
+out her hand.</p>
+<p>His eyes were small and pinched and gleamed like carbuncles; he was
+white with rage; but he controlled himself and pressed his lips to the
+hand which she gave him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;I want to speak to
+Miss Hope on an urgent matter.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb95" href="#pb95" name="pb95">95</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing and
+embarrassed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You understand,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie said, with a smile,
+&ldquo;that I would not have disturbed you if it had not been
+important. A question between women ... and still important!&rdquo; she
+continued, jestingly; and the prince made an insipid, gallant reply.
+&ldquo;May I speak to Miss Hope alone for a moment?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince looked at her. He suspected unfriendliness in her and
+more, hostility. But he bowed, with his insipid smile, and said that he
+would leave the ladies to themselves. He went to another room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it, Corn&eacute;lie?&rdquo; asked Urania, in
+agitation.</p>
+<p>She took Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s two hands and looked at her
+anxiously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie, severely. &ldquo;I have
+nothing to say to you. Only I had my suspicions and felt sure that you
+would not keep your promise. I wanted to make certain if you were here.
+Why did you come?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Urania began to weep.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry!&rdquo; whispered Corn&eacute;lie,
+mercilessly. &ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake don&rsquo;t start crying.
+You&rsquo;ve done the most thoughtless thing imaginable....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know I have!&rdquo; Urania confessed, nervously, drying her
+tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why did you do it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Alone, with him, in the evening! A man well-known to be a bad
+lot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you see in him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m fond of him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You only want to marry him for his title. For <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb96" href="#pb96" name="pb96">96</a>]</span>the sake
+of his title you&rsquo;re compromising yourself. What if he
+doesn&rsquo;t respect you this evening as his future wife? What if he
+compels you to be his mistress?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie! Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a child, a thoughtless child. And your father
+lets you travel by yourself ... to see &lsquo;dear old Italy!&rsquo;
+You&rsquo;re an American and broad-minded: that&rsquo;s all right; to
+travel through the world pluckily on your own is all right; but
+you&rsquo;re not a woman, you&rsquo;re a baby!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come away with me; say that you&rsquo;re going with me ...
+for an urgent reason. Or no ... better say nothing. Stay. But
+I&rsquo;ll stay too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you stay too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll send for him now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie rang the bell. A footman appeared.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell his excellency that we are ready.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The man went away. In a little while the prince entered. He had
+never been treated like that in his own house. He was seething with
+rage, but he remained very polite and outwardly calm:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is the important matter settled?&rdquo; he asked, with his
+small eyes and his hypocritical smile.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; thank you very much for your discretion in leaving us to
+ourselves,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie. &ldquo;Now that I have spoken
+to Miss Hope, I am greatly relieved by what she has told me. Aha, you
+would like to know what we were talking about!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince raised his eyebrows. Corn&eacute;lie had spoken archly,
+holding up her finger as though in threat, smiling; and the prince
+looked at her and saw that she was handsome. Not with the striking
+beauty and freshness of Urania Hope, but with a more complex
+attractiveness, that of a married <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb97"
+href="#pb97" name="pb97">97</a>]</span>woman, divorced, but very young;
+that of a <i lang="fr">fin-de-si&egrave;cle</i> woman, with a faintly
+perverse expression in her deep grey eyes, moving under very long
+lashes; that of a woman of peculiar grace in the drooping lines of her
+tired, lax, morbid charm: a woman who knew life; a woman who saw
+through him: he was certain of it; a woman who, though disliking him,
+nevertheless spoke to him coquettishly in order to attract him, to win
+him, unconsciously, from sheer womanly perversity. And he saw her, in
+her perverse beauty, and admired her, sensitive as he was to various
+types of women. He suddenly thought her handsomer and less commonplace
+than Urania and much more distinguished and not so ingenuously
+susceptible to his title, a thing which he thought so silly in Urania.
+He was suddenly at his ease with her, his anger subsided: he thought it
+fun to have two good-looking women with him instead of one; and he
+jested in return, saying that he was consumed with curiosity, that he
+had been listening at the door but had been unable to catch a word,
+alas!</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie laughed with coquettish gaiety and looked at her
+watch. She said something about going, but sat down at the same time,
+unbuttoned her coat and said to the prince:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have heard so much about your miniatures. Now that I have
+the chance, may I see them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince was willing, charmed by the look in her eyes, by her
+voice; he was all fire and flame in a second.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie, &ldquo;my escort is waiting
+outside in the portico. He would not come up: he doesn&rsquo;t know
+you. It is Mr. van der Staal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince laughed as he glanced at her. He knew of the gossip at
+Belloni&rsquo;s. He did not for a moment doubt the existence of a
+<i>liaison</i> between Van <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb98" href=
+"#pb98" name="pb98">98</a>]</span>der Staal and Signora de Retz. He
+knew that they did not care for the proprieties. And he began to like
+Corn&eacute;lie very much.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I will send to Mr. van der Staal at once to ask him to
+come up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is waiting in the portico,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie.
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t like to....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go myself,&rdquo; said the prince, with obliging
+vivacity.</p>
+<p>He left the room. The ladies stayed behind. Corn&eacute;lie took off
+her coat, but kept on her hat, because her hair was sure to be untidy.
+She looked into the glass:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you your powder on you?&rdquo; she asked Urania.</p>
+<p>Urania took her little ivory powder-box from her bag and handed it
+to Corn&eacute;lie. And, while Corn&eacute;lie powdered her face,
+Urania looked at her friend and did not understand. She remembered the
+impression of seriousness which Corn&eacute;lie had made on her at
+their first meeting: studying Rome; afterwards, writing a pamphlet on
+the woman question and the position of divorced women. Then her
+warnings against marriage and the prince. And now she suddenly saw her
+as a most attractive, frivolous woman, irresistibly charming, even more
+bewitching than actually beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of
+her grey eyes, which glanced up and down under the curling lashes,
+simply dressed in a dark-silk blouse and a cloth skirt, but with so
+much distinction and so much coquetry, with so much dignity and yet
+with a touch of yielding winsomeness, that she hardly knew her.</p>
+<p>But the prince had returned, bringing Duco with him. Duco was
+nervously reluctant, not knowing what had happened, not grasping how
+Corn&eacute;lie had <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb99" href="#pb99"
+name="pb99">99</a>]</span>acted. He saw her sitting quietly, smiling;
+and she at once explained that the prince was going to show her his
+miniatures.</p>
+<p>Duco declared flatly that he did not care for miniatures. The prince
+suspected from his irritable tone that he was jealous. And this
+suspicion incited the prince to pay attentions to Corn&eacute;lie. And
+he behaved as though he were showing his miniatures only to <i>her</i>,
+as though he were showing <i>her</i> his old lace. She admired the lace
+in particular and rolled it between her delicate fingers. She asked him
+to tell her about his grandmothers, who used to wear the lace: had they
+had any adventures? He told her one, which made her laugh very much;
+then he told an anecdote or two, vivaciously, flaming up under her
+glance, and she laughed. Amid the atmosphere of that big drawing-room,
+his study&mdash;it contained his writing-table&mdash;with the candles
+lighted and flowers everywhere for Urania, a certain perverse gaiety
+began to reign, an airy <i lang="fr">joie de vivre</i>. But only
+between Corn&eacute;lie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent; and
+Duco did not speak a word. Corn&eacute;lie was a revelation to him
+also. He had never seen her like that: not at the dance on Christmas
+Day, nor at the <i lang="fr">table-d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te</i>, nor in his
+studio, nor on their excursions, nor in their restaurant. Was she a
+woman, or was she ten women?</p>
+<p>And he confessed to himself that he loved her, that he loved her
+more at each revelation, more with each woman that he saw in her, like
+a new facet which she made to gleam and glitter. But he could not
+speak, could not join in their pleasantry, feeling strange in that
+atmosphere, strange in that atmosphere of buoyant animal spirits,
+caused by nothing but aimless words, as though the French and Italian
+which they mixed up together were dropping so <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb100" href="#pb100" name="pb100">100</a>]</span>many
+pearls, as though their jests shone like so much tinsel, as though
+their equivocal playing upon words had the iridescence of a
+rainbow....</p>
+<p>The prince regretted that his tea was no longer fit to drink, but he
+rang for some champagne. He thought that his plans had partly failed
+that evening, for, fearing to lose Urania, he had intended to compel
+her; seeing her hesitation, he had resolved to force the irreparable.
+But his nature was so devoid of seriousness&mdash;he was marrying to
+please his father and the Marchesa Belloni rather than himself; he
+enjoyed his life quite as well with a load of debts and no wife as he
+could hope to do with a wife and millions of money&mdash;that he began
+to consider the failure of his plans highly amusing and had to laugh
+within himself when he thought of his father, of his aunt, the
+marchesa, and of their machinations, which had no effect on Urania,
+because a pretty, flirtatious woman had objected.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why did she object?&rdquo; he wondered, as he poured out the
+foaming Monopole, spilling it over the glasses. &ldquo;Why does she put
+herself between me and the American stocking-seller? Is she herself in
+Italy hunting for a title?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But he did not care: he thought the intruder charming, pretty, very
+pretty, coquettish, seductive, bewitching. He fussed around her,
+neglecting Urania, almost forgetting to fill her glass. And, when it
+grew late and Corn&eacute;lie at last rose to go and drew
+Urania&rsquo;s arm through hers and looked at the prince with a glance
+of triumph which they mutually understood, he whispered in her ear:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am ever so grateful to you for visiting me in my humble
+abode. You have defeated me: I acknowledge myself defeated.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The words appeared to be merely an allusion to their jesting
+discussion about nothing; but, uttered <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb101" href="#pb101" name="pb101">101</a>]</span>between him and her,
+between the prince and Corn&eacute;lie, they sounded full of meaning;
+and he saw the smile of victory in her eyes....</p>
+<p>He remained behind in his room and poured himself out what remained
+of the champagne. And, as he raised the glass to his lips, he said,
+aloud:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">O, che occhi! Che belli occhi!... Che belli
+occhi!...</i>&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb102" href="#pb102"
+name="pb102">102</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Next day, when Duco met Corn&eacute;lie at the
+<i>osteria</i>, she was very cheerful and excited. She told him that
+she had already received a reply from the woman&rsquo;s paper to which
+she had sent her pamphlet the week before and that her work was not
+only accepted but would be paid for. She was so proud at earning money
+for the first time that she was as merry as a little child. She did not
+speak of the previous evening, seemed to have forgotten Urania, but
+felt an exuberant need to talk.</p>
+<p>She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a
+journalist, to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to
+pursue every reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate
+to congresses and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning
+already made her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a
+lot of money and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought
+her simply adorable: in the half light of the <i>osteria</i>, as she
+sat at the little table eating her <i lang="it"><span class="corr" id=
+"xd21e1969" title="Source: grocchi">gnocchi</span></i>, with in front
+of her the <i lang="it">mezzofiasco</i> of pale-yellow wine of the
+country, her usual languor acquired a new vivacity which astonished
+him; her outline, half-dark on the left, lighted on the right by the
+sunshine in the street, acquired a modern grace of drawing which
+reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the rather pale face with the
+delicate features, lit up by her smile, faintly indicated under the
+sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes; the hair, touched with gold,
+or a dark light-brown; the white veil raised into a rumpled mist above;
+her figure, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb103" href="#pb103" name=
+"pb103">103</a>]</span>slender and gracious in the simple, unbuttoned
+coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.</p>
+<p>The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she
+addressed the <i lang="it">cameriere</i>&mdash;the only one, who knew
+them well, from seeing them daily&mdash;with a pleasant familiarity;
+the vivacity replacing her languor; her great plans, her gay phrases:
+all this seemed to shine upon him, unconstrained and yet distinguished,
+free and yet womanly and, above all, easy, as she was at her ease
+everywhere, with an assimilative tact which for him constituted a
+peculiar harmony. He thought of the evening before, but she did not
+speak of it. He thought of that revelation of her coquetry, but she was
+not thinking of coquetry. She was never coquettish with him. She looked
+up to him, regarded him as clever and exceptional, though not belonging
+to his time; she respected him for the things which he said and
+thought; and she was as matter of fact towards him as one chum towards
+another, who happened to be older and cleverer. She felt for him a
+sincere friendship, an indescribable something that implied the need of
+being together, of living together, as though the lines of their two
+lives should form one line. It was not a sisterly feeling and it was
+not passion and to her mind it was not love; but it was a great sense
+of respectful tenderness, of longing admiration and of affectionate
+delight at having met him. If she never saw him again, she would miss
+him as she would never miss any one in her life. And that he took no
+interest in modern questions did not lower him in the eyes of this
+young modern Amazon, who was about to wave her first banner. It might
+vex her for an instant, but it did not carry weight in her estimation
+of him. And he saw that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without
+coquetry. Yet he would never forget what she had <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb104" href="#pb104" name="pb104">104</a>]</span>been
+like yesterday, with the prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in
+Urania also. But she herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with
+her nature that she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince,
+of Urania, of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on
+their side.</p>
+<p>He paid the bill&mdash;it was his turn&mdash;and she gaily took his
+arm and said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he
+would be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a
+very handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was
+going to receive for her article. But she hadn&rsquo;t got it yet ...
+as though that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to
+give him his present now.</p>
+<p>He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and
+whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it
+be? But she refused to tell him yet.</p>
+<p>The <i lang="it">vetturino</i> drove them through the Borgo to the
+Tiber and stopped outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the
+wares lay heaped up right out into the street.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie!&rdquo; Duco exclaimed, guessing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your Lippo Memmi angel. I&rsquo;m getting it for you. Not a
+word!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ask him how much he wants for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was too much moved to speak; and Corn&eacute;lie had to ask the
+price and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a
+hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.</p>
+<p>And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the
+stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness
+into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb105" href="#pb105" name=
+"pb105">105</a>]</span>noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with
+long, almond-shaped eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last
+stir of his flight; and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak
+fluttered in the air while his long wings quivered straight above him.
+Duco stared at his Memmi, filled with a two-fold emotion, because of
+the angel and because of her.</p>
+<p>And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May I thank you, Corn&eacute;lie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb106" href="#pb106" name="pb106">106</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">When she came home she found the prince&rsquo;s card.
+It was an ordinary civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected
+visit to the Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a second thought.
+She was in a pleasant frame of mind, pleased with herself, glad that
+her work would appear first as an article in <i lang="nl">Het Recht der
+Vrouw</i><a class="noteref" id="xd21e2022src" href="#xd21e2022" name=
+"xd21e2022src">1</a>&mdash;she would publish it as a pamphlet
+afterwards&mdash;and glad that she had made Duco happy with the Memmi.
+She changed into her tea-gown and sat down by the fire in her musing
+attitude and thought of how she could carry out her great plans. To
+whom ought she to apply? There was an International Women&rsquo;s
+Congress sitting in London; and <i lang="nl">Het Recht der Vrouw</i>
+had sent her a prospectus. She turned over the pages. Different
+feminist leaders were to speak; there would be numbers of social
+questions discussed: the psychology of the child; the responsibility of
+the parents; the influence on domestic life of women&rsquo;s admission
+to all the professions; women in art, women in medicine; the
+fashionable woman; the woman at home, on the stage; marriage- and
+divorce-laws.</p>
+<p>In addition the prospectus gave concise biographies of the speakers,
+with their portraits. There were American, Russian, English, Swedish,
+Danish women; nearly every nationality was represented. There were old
+women and young women; some pretty, some ugly; some masculine, some
+womanly; some hard and energetic, with sexless boys&rsquo; faces; one
+or two only were elegant, with low-cut dresses and waved hair. It was
+not easy to divide them <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb107" href=
+"#pb107" name="pb107">107</a>]</span>into groups. What impulse in their
+lives had prompted them to join in the struggle for women&rsquo;s
+rights? In some, no doubt, inclination, nature; in an occasional case,
+vocation; in another, the desire to be in the fashion. And, in her own
+case, what was the impulse?... She dropped the prospectus in her lap
+and stared into the fire and reflected. Her drawing-room education
+passed before her once more, followed by her marriage, by her
+divorce....</p>
+<p>What was the impulse? What was the inducement?... She had come to it
+gradually, to go abroad, to extend her sphere of vision, to reflect, to
+learn about art, about the modern life of women. She had glided
+gradually along the line of her life, with no great effort of will or
+striving, without even thinking much or feeling much.... She glanced
+into herself, as though she were reading a modern novel, the psychology
+of a woman. Sometimes she seemed to will things, to wish to strive, as
+just now, to pursue her great plans. Sometimes she would sit thinking,
+as she often did in these days, beside her cosy fire. Sometimes she
+felt, as she now did, for Duco. But mostly her life had been a gradual
+gliding along the line which she had to follow, urged by the gentle
+pressure of the finger of fate.... For a moment she saw it clearly.
+There was a great sincerity in her: she never posed either to herself
+or to others. There were contradictions in her, but she recognized them
+all, in so far as she could see herself. But the open landscape of her
+soul became clear to her at that moment. She saw the complexity of her
+being gleam with its many facets.... She had taken to writing, out of
+impulse and intuition; but was her writing any good? A doubt rose in
+her mind. A copy of the code lay on her table, a survival of the days
+of her divorce; but had she understood the law correctly? Her
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb108" href="#pb108" name=
+"pb108">108</a>]</span>article was accepted; but was the judgement of
+the editress to be trusted? As her eyes wandered once again over those
+women&rsquo;s portraits and biographies, she became afraid that her
+work would not be good, would be too superficial, and that her ideas
+were not directed by study and knowledge. But she could also imagine
+her own photograph appearing in that prospectus, with her name under it
+and a brief comment: writer of <i>The Social Position of Divorced
+Women</i>, with the name of the paper, the date and so on. And she
+smiled: how highly convincing it sounded!</p>
+<p>But how difficult it was to study, to work and understand and act
+and move in the modern movement of life! She was now in Rome: she would
+have liked to be in London. But it did not suit her at the moment to
+make the journey. She had felt rich when she bought Duco&rsquo;s Memmi,
+thinking of the payment for her article; and now she felt poor. She
+would much have liked to go to London. But then she would have missed
+Duco. And the congress lasted only a week. She was pretty well at home
+here now, was beginning to love Rome, her rooms, the Colosseum lying
+yonder like a dark oval, like a sombre wing at the end of the city,
+with the hazy-blue mountains behind it.</p>
+<p>Then the prince came into her mind and for the first time she
+thought of yesterday, saw that evening again, an evening of jesting and
+champagne: Duco silent and sulky, Urania depressed and the prince
+small, lively, slender, roused from his slackness as an aristocratic
+man-about-town and with his narrow carbuncle eyes. She thought him
+really pleasant; once in a way she liked that atmosphere of coquetry
+and flirtation; and the prince had understood her. She had saved
+Urania, she was sure of that; and she felt the content of her good
+action.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb109" href="#pb109" name=
+"pb109">109</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She was too lazy to dress and go to the restaurant. She was not very
+hungry and would stay at home and sup on what was in her cupboard: a
+couple of eggs, bread, some fruit. But she remembered Duco and that he
+would certainly be waiting for her at their little table and she wrote
+him a note and sent it by the hall-porter&rsquo;s boy....</p>
+<p>Duco was just coming down, on his way out to the restaurant, when he
+met the little fellow on the stairs. He read the note and felt as if he
+was suffering a grievous disappointment. He felt small and unhappy,
+like a child. And he went back to his studio, lit a single lamp, threw
+himself on a broad couch and lay staring in the dusk at Memmi&rsquo;s
+angel, who, still standing on the chair, glimmered vaguely gold in the
+middle of the room, sweet as comfort, with his gesture of annunciation,
+as though he sought to announce all the mystery that was about to be
+fulfilled.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb110" href="#pb110" name=
+"pb110">110</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
+"xd21e2022" href="#xd21e2022src" name="xd21e2022">1</a></span>
+<i>Woman&rsquo;s Rights.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">A few days later, Corn&eacute;lie was expecting a
+visit from the prince, who had asked her for an appointment. She was
+sitting at her writing-table, correcting proofs of her article. A lamp
+on the writing-table cast a soft glow over her through a yellow silk
+shade; and she wore her tea-gown of white <i lang="fr">cr&ecirc;pe de
+Chine</i>, with a bunch of violets at her breast. Another lamp, on a
+pedestal, cast a second gleam from a corner; and the room flickered in
+cosy intimacy with the third light from the log-fire, falling over
+water-colours by Duco, sketches and photographs, white anenomes in
+vases, violets everywhere and one tall palm. The writing-table was
+littered with books and printed sheets, bearing witness to her
+work.</p>
+<p>There was a knock at the door; and, at her &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo;
+the prince entered. She remained seated for a moment, laid down her pen
+and rose. She went up to him with a smile and held out her hand. He
+kissed it. He was very smartly dressed in a frock-coat, with a silk hat
+and pale-grey gloves; he wore a pearl pin in his tie. They sat down by
+the fire and he paid her compliments in quick succession, on her
+sitting-room, her dress and her eyes. She made a jesting reply; and he
+asked if he was disturbing her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you were writing an interesting letter to some one
+near your heart?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I was revising some proofs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Proofs?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you write?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb111"
+href="#pb111" name="pb111">111</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have just begun to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A story?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, an article.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An article? What about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave him the long title. He looked at her open-mouthed. She
+laughed gaily:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You would never have believed it, would you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Santa Maria!&rdquo; he murmured in surprise, unaccustomed in
+his own world to &ldquo;modern&rdquo; women, taking part in a feminist
+movement. &ldquo;Dutch?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Dutch.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Write in French next time: then I can read it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed and gave her promise, poured him out a cup of tea,
+handed the chocolates. He nibbled at them:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you so serious? Have you always been? You were not
+serious the other day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes I am very serious.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So am I.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I gathered that. If I had not come that time, you might have
+become very serious.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He gave a fatuous laugh and looked at her knowingly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a wonderful woman!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Very
+interesting and very clever. What you want to happen
+happens.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes what I want also. Sometimes I also am very clever.
+When I want a thing. But generally I don&rsquo;t want it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You did the other day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes! You were cleverer than I then. To-morrow perhaps I shall
+be cleverer than you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who knows!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They both laughed. He nibbled the chocolates in the dish, one after
+the other, and asked if he <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb112" href=
+"#pb112" name="pb112">112</a>]</span>might have a glass of port instead
+of tea. She poured him out a glass.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May I give you something?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A souvenir of our first acquaintance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is very charming of you. What is it to be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took something wrapped in tissue-paper from his pocket and handed
+it to her. She opened the little parcel and saw a strip of old Venetian
+lace, worked in the shape of a flounce, for a low bodice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do accept it,&rdquo; he besought her. &ldquo;It is a lovely
+piece. It is such a pleasure to me to give it to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him with all her coquetry in her eyes, as though she
+were trying to see through him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must wear it like this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He stood up, took the lace and draped it over her white tea-gown
+from shoulder to shoulder. His fingers fumbled with the folds, his lips
+just touched her hair.</p>
+<p>She thanked him for his gift. He sat down again:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad that you will accept it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you given Miss Hope something too?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed, with his little laugh of conquest:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Patterns are all she wants, patterns of the queen&rsquo;s
+ball-dresses. I wouldn&rsquo;t dare to give you patterns. To you I give
+old lace.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you nearly ruined your career for the sake of that
+pattern?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; he laughed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Which career?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; he said, evasively. &ldquo;Tell me,
+what do you advise me to do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shall I marry her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am against all marriage, between cultivated people.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb113" href="#pb113" name=
+"pb113">113</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She wanted to repeat some of her phrases, but thought to herself,
+why? He would not understand them. He looked at her profoundly, with
+his carbuncle eyes:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you are in favour of free love?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes. Not always. Between cultivated people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was certain now, had any doubt still lingered in his mind, that a
+<i>liaison</i> existed between her and Van der Staal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And do you think me ... cultivated?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed provocatively, with a touch of scorn in her voice:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Listen. Shall I speak to you seriously?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I consider neither you nor Miss Hope suited for free
+love.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I am not cultivated?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean it in the sense of being civilized. I mean
+modern culture.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I am not modern.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, slightly irritated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Teach me to be modern.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave a nervous laugh:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t let us talk like this! You want to know my
+advice. I advise you <i>not</i> to marry Urania.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because you would both of you have a wretched life. She is a
+dear little American <i>parvenue</i>....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am offering her what I possess; she is offering me what she
+possesses....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He nibbled at the chocolates. She shrugged her shoulders:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then marry her,&rdquo; she said, with indifference.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me that you don&rsquo;t want me to and I
+won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And your father? And the marchesa?&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb114" href="#pb114" name="pb114">114</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you know about them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh ... everything and nothing!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a demon!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;An angel and a
+demon! Tell me, what do you know about my father and the
+marchesa?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For how much are you selling yourself to Urania? For not less
+than ten millions?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her in bewilderment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the marchesa thinks five enough. And a very handsome sum
+it is: five millions. Which is it, dollars or lire?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He clapped his hands together:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a devil!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You are an angel and
+a devil! How do you know? How <i>do</i> you know? Do you know
+everything?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She flung herself back in her chair and laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But how?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him and shook her head tantalizingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No. It&rsquo;s my secret.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd21e2258" title=
+"Not in source">&ldquo;</span>And you think that I ought not to sell
+myself?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dare not advise you as regards your own
+interest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And as regards Urania?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I advise her not to do it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you done so already?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Once in a way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you are my enemy?&rdquo; he exclaimed, angrily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, gently, wishing to conciliate him.
+&ldquo;I am a friend.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A friend? To what length?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To the length to which <i>I</i> wish to go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not the length to which <i>I</i> wish?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, never!&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb115"
+href="#pb115" name="pb115">115</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;But perhaps we both wish to go to the same length?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He had stood up, with his blood on fire. She remained seated calmly,
+almost languidly, with her head thrown back. She did not reply. He fell
+on his knees, seized her hand and was kissing it before she could
+prevent him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, angel, angel. Oh, demon!&rdquo; he muttered, between his
+kisses.</p>
+<p>She now withdrew her hand, pushed him away from her gently and
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How quick an Italian is with his kisses!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed at him. He rose from his knees:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Teach me what Dutchwomen are like, though they are slower
+than we.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She pointed to his chair, with an imperious gesture:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am not a typical
+Dutchwoman. If I were, I should not have come to Rome. I pride myself
+on being a cosmopolitan. But we were not discussing that, we were
+speaking of Urania. Are you thinking seriously of marrying
+her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What can I do, if <i>you</i> thwart me? Why not be on my
+side, like a dear friend?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She hesitated. Neither of these two, Urania or he, was ripe for her
+ideas. She despised them both. Very well, let them get married: he in
+order to be rich; she to become a princess and duchess.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Listen to me,&rdquo; she said, bending towards him.
+&ldquo;You want to marry her for the sake of her millions. But your
+marriage will be unhappy from the beginning. She is a frivolous little
+thing; she will want to cut a dash ... and you belong to the
+Blacks.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We can live at Nice: then she can do as she pleases. We will
+come to Rome now and again, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb116" href=
+"#pb116" name="pb116">116</a>]</span>go to San Stefano now and again.
+And, as for unhappiness,&rdquo; he continued, pulling a tragic face,
+&ldquo;what do I care? I am not happy as it is. I shall try to make
+Urania happy. But my heart ... will be elsewhere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With the feminist movement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, shall I be nice to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And promise to help you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>What did she care, when all was said?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, angel, demon!&rdquo; he cried. He nibbled at a chocolate.
+&ldquo;And what does Mr. van der Staal think of it?&rdquo; he asked,
+mischievously.</p>
+<p>She raised her eyebrows:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t think about it. He thinks only of his
+art.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And of you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him and bowed her head in queenly assent:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You often dine with him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come and dine with me one day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be delighted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To-morrow evening? And where?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wherever you like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the Grand-H&ocirc;tel?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ask Urania to come too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not you and I alone?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it better that you should invite your future wife. I
+will chaperon her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are right. You are quite right. And will you ask Mr. van
+der Staal also to give me the pleasure of his company?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb117" href=
+"#pb117" name="pb117">117</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Until to-morrow then, at half-past eight?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Until half-past eight to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He rose to take his leave:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Propriety demands that I should go,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Really I should prefer to stay.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then stay ... or stay another time, if you have to go
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are so cold.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you don&rsquo;t think enough of Urania.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think of the feminist movement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He sat down.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you must go,&rdquo; she said, laughing with
+her eyes. &ldquo;I have to dress ... to go and dine with Mr. van der
+Staal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He kissed her hand:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are an angel and a demon. You know everything. You can do
+anything. You are the most interesting woman I ever met.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I correct proofs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because you are what you are.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, very seriously, still holding her hand he said, almost
+threateningly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall never be able to forget you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he went away. As soon as she was alone, she opened all her
+windows. She realized, it was true, that she was something of a
+coquette, but that lay in her nature: she was like that of herself, to
+some men. Certainly not to all. Never to Duco. Never to men whom she
+respected. Whereas she despised that little prince, with his blazing
+eyes and his habit of kissing people.... But he served to amuse
+her....</p>
+<p>And she dressed and went out and reached the restaurant long after
+the appointed hour, found Duco waiting for her at their little table,
+with his head in his hands, and at once told him that the prince had
+detained her. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb118" href="#pb118" name=
+"pb118">118</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Duco had at first wished to decline the invitation,
+but Corn&eacute;lie said that she would think it pleasanter if he came.
+And it was an exquisite dinner in the restaurant of the
+Grand-H&ocirc;tel and Corn&eacute;lie had enjoyed herself exceedingly
+and looked most charming in an old yellow ball-dress, dating back to
+the first days of her marriage, which she had altered quickly here and
+there and draped with the prince&rsquo;s old lace. Urania had looked
+very handsome, with her clear, fresh complexion, her shining eyes and
+gleaming teeth, clad in a close-fitting frock in the latest fashion,
+blue-black spangles on black tulle, as though she were moulded in a
+cuirass: the prince said, a siren with a mermaid&rsquo;s tail. And the
+people at the other tables had stared across at theirs, for everybody
+knew Virgilio di Forte-Braccio; everybody knew that he was going to
+marry a rich American heiress; and everybody had noticed that he was
+paying great attention to the slender, fair-haired woman whom nobody
+knew. She had been married, they thought; she was chaperoning the
+future princess; and she was very intimate with that young man, a Dutch
+painter, who was studying art in Italy. They had soon found out all
+that there was to know.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie had thought it pleasant that they all looked at her;
+and she had flirted so obviously with the prince that Urania had become
+angry. And early next morning, while Corn&eacute;lie was still in bed,
+no longer thinking of last night but pondering over a sentence in her
+pamphlet, the maid knocked, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb119" href=
+"#pb119" name="pb119">119</a>]</span>brought in her breakfast and
+letters and said that Miss Hope was asking to speak to her.
+Corn&eacute;lie had Urania shown in, while she remained in bed and
+drank her chocolate. And she looked up in surprise when Urania at once
+overwhelmed her with reproaches, burst into sobs, scolded and raved,
+made a violent scene, said that she now saw through her and admitted
+that the marchesa had urged her to be careful of Corn&eacute;lie, whom
+she described as a dangerous woman. Corn&eacute;lie waited until she
+had had her say and replied coolly that she had nothing on her
+conscience, that on the contrary she had saved Urania and been of
+service to her as a chaperon, though she did not tell her that the
+prince had wanted her, Corn&eacute;lie, to dine with him alone. But
+Urania refused to listen and went on ranting. Corn&eacute;lie looked at
+her and thought her vulgar in that rage of hers, talking her American
+English, as though she were chewing filberts; and at last she answered,
+calmly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear girl, you&rsquo;re upsetting yourself about nothing.
+But, if you like, I will write to the prince that he must pay me no
+more attentions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, don&rsquo;t do that: it&rsquo;ll make Gilio think
+I&rsquo;m jealous!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you monopolize Gilio? Why do you flirt with him? Why
+do you make yourself conspicuous with him, as you did yesterday, in a
+restaurant full of people?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, if you dislike it, I won&rsquo;t flirt with Gilio again
+or make myself conspicuous with him again. I don&rsquo;t care twopence
+about your prince.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s an extra reason.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, dear, that&rsquo;s settled.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her coolness calmed Urania, who asked:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And do we remain good friends?&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb120" href="#pb120" name="pb120">120</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, of course, my dear girl. Is there any occasion for us to
+quarrel? I don&rsquo;t see it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Both of them, the prince and Urania, were quite indifferent to her.
+True, she had preached to Urania in the beginning, but about a general
+idea: when afterwards she perceived Urania&rsquo;s insignificance, she
+withdrew the interest which she took in her. And, if the girl was
+offended by a little gaiety and innocent flirtation, very well, there
+should be no more of it. Her thoughts were more with the proofs which
+the post had brought her.</p>
+<p>She got out of bed and stretched herself:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go into the sitting-room, Urania dear, and just let me have
+my bath.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Presently, all fresh and smiling, she joined Urania in the
+sitting-room. Urania was crying.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear child, why are you upsetting yourself like this?
+You&rsquo;ve achieved your ideal. Your marriage is as good as certain.
+You&rsquo;re waiting for an answer from Chicago? You&rsquo;re
+impatient? Then cable out. I should have cabled at once in your place.
+You don&rsquo;t imagine, do you, that your father has any objection to
+your becoming Duchess di San Stefano?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know yet what I myself want,&rdquo; said
+Urania, weeping. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, I don&rsquo;t
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie shrugged her shoulders:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re more sensible than I thought,&rdquo; she
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you really my friend? Can I trust you? Can I trust your
+advice?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t advise you again. I have advised you. You must
+know your own mind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Urania took her hand:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Which would you prefer, that I accepted Gilio ... or
+not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie looked her straight in the eyes:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re making yourself unhappy about nothing.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb121" href="#pb121" name=
+"pb121">121</a>]</span>You think&mdash;and the marchesa probably thinks
+with you&mdash;that I want to take Gilio from you? No, darling, I
+wouldn&rsquo;t marry Gilio if he were king and emperor. I have a bit of
+the socialist in me: I don&rsquo;t marry for the sake of a
+title.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No more would I.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, darling, no more would you. I never dreamt of
+suggesting that you would. But you ask me which I should prefer. Well,
+I tell you in all sincerity: I don&rsquo;t prefer either. The whole
+business leaves me cold.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you call yourself my friend!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I am, dear, and I will remain your friend. Only
+don&rsquo;t come overwhelming me with reproaches on an empty
+stomach!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a flirt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes. It comes natural to me. But, honestly, I
+won&rsquo;t be so again with Gilio.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, of course. What do I care? He amuses me; but, if it
+offends you, I&rsquo;ll gladly sacrifice my amusement for your sake. I
+don&rsquo;t value it so much.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you fond of Mr. van der Staal?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you going to marry him, Corn&eacute;lie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, dear. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t marry again. I know what
+marriage means. Are you coming for a little walk with me? It&rsquo;s a
+fine day; and you have upset me so with your little troubles that I
+can&rsquo;t do any work this morning. It&rsquo;s lovely weather: come
+along and buy some flowers in the Piazza di Spagna.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They went and bought the flowers. Corn&eacute;lie took Urania back
+to Belloni&rsquo;s. As she walked away, on the road to the
+<i>osteria</i> for lunch, she heard somebody following her. It was the
+prince. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb122" href="#pb122" name=
+"pb122">122</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I caught sight of you from the corner of the Via
+Aurora,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Urania was just going home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; she said at once, &ldquo;there must be no more
+of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No more visits, no more joking, no more presents, no more
+dinners at the Grand-H&ocirc;tel, no more champagne.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The future princess won&rsquo;t have it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she jealous?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie described the scene to him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you mayn&rsquo;t even walk with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I may.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall, for all that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By the right of the man, of the strongest?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My vocation is to fight against it. But to-day I am untrue to
+my vocation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are charming ... as always.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t say that any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania&rsquo;s a bore.... Tell me, what do you advise me to
+do? Shall I marry her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie gave a peal of laughter:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You both of you keep asking <i>my</i> advice!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, what do you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Marry her by all means!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not observe her contempt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exchange your escutcheon for her purse,&rdquo; she continued
+and laughed and laughed.</p>
+<p>He now perceived it:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You despise me, perhaps both of us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me that you don&rsquo;t despise me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ask me my opinion. Urania is a very <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb123" href="#pb123" name=
+"pb123">123</a>]</span>sweet, dear child, but she ought not to travel
+by herself. And you ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a delightful boy. Buy me those violets, will
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Subito, subito!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He bought her the bunch of violets:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re crazy over violets, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. This must be your second ... and your last present. And
+here we say good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I shall take you home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To the <i>osteria</i>. Mr. van der Staal is waiting for
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a lucky man!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He needs must be!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why. Good-bye, prince.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ask me to come too,&rdquo; he entreated. &ldquo;Let me lunch
+with you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, seriously. &ldquo;Really not. It&rsquo;s
+better not. I believe....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That Duco is just like Urania.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Jealous?... When shall I see you again?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Really, believe me, it&rsquo;s better not.... Good-bye,
+prince. And thank you ... for the violets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He bent over her hand. She went into the <i>osteria</i> and saw that
+Duco had witnessed their leave-taking through the window. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb124" href="#pb124" name="pb124">124</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Duco was silent and nervous at table. He played with
+his bread; and his fingers trembled. She felt that he had something on
+his mind:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she asked, kindly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he said, excitedly, &ldquo;I want to
+speak to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not behaving properly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In what respect?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With the prince. You&rsquo;ve seen through him and yet ...
+yet you go on putting up with him, yet you&rsquo;re always meeting him.
+Let me finish,&rdquo; he said, looking around him: there was no one in
+the restaurant save two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they
+could speak without being overheard. &ldquo;Let me finish,&rdquo; he
+repeated, when she tried to interrupt him. &ldquo;Let me say what I
+have to say. You of course are free to act as you please. But I am your
+friend and I want to advise you. What you are doing is not right. The
+prince is a cad, a low, common cad. How can you accept presents from
+him and invitations? Why did you compel me to come yesterday? The
+dinner was one long torture to me. You know how fond I am of you: why
+shouldn&rsquo;t I confess it? You know how high I hold you. I
+can&rsquo;t bear to see you lowering yourself with him. Let me speak.
+Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your shoe-strings. And you
+play with him, you jest with him, you flirt&mdash;let me
+speak&mdash;you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like
+that? What part can he play <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb125" href=
+"#pb125" name="pb125">125</a>]</span>in your life? Let him marry Miss
+Hope: what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people
+matter to you, Corn&eacute;lie? I despise them and so do you. I know
+you do. Then why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity
+of their titles and money: what is it all to you? I don&rsquo;t
+understand you. Oh, I know, you&rsquo;re not to be understood, all the
+woman part of you! And I love everything that I see of you: I love you
+in everything. It doesn&rsquo;t matter whether I understand you. But I
+do feel that <i>this</i> isn&rsquo;t right. I ask you not to see the
+prince any more. Have nothing more to do with him. Cut him.... That
+dinner, last night, was a torture to me....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My poor boy,&rdquo; she said, gently, filling his glass from
+their <i>fiasco</i>, &ldquo;but why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why? Why? Because you&rsquo;re lowering yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not stand so high. No, let <i>me</i> speak now. I do not
+stand high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which
+are broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an
+ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No,
+Duco, I&rsquo;m speaking now. I don&rsquo;t consider the prince a cad.
+I may think him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know
+that I too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty.
+Now don&rsquo;t get angry. You are much more than that. I&rsquo;m not
+even comparing <i lang="it">il nostro Gilio</i> with you. I won&rsquo;t
+say anything more about you, or you will become conceited, but cheerful
+and witty you are not. And my poor nature sometimes feels a need for
+these qualities. What have I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I
+am very glad to possess your friendship, very happy in having met you.
+But why may I not sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb126" href="#pb126" name=
+"pb126">126</a>]</span>little light-heartedness in me, a little
+frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco, am I
+wicked?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did not
+answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can fight, if necessary,&rdquo; she resumed. &ldquo;But is
+this a thing to fight against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I
+forget it the next minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you
+I do not forget.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was looking at her radiantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don&rsquo;t
+flirt and fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her
+fingers:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he said, softly. &ldquo;Yes, I feel
+that you are loyal. Corn&eacute;lie, will you be my wife?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked straight in front of her and drooped her head a little
+and stared before her earnestly. They were no longer eating. The two
+Italians stood up, bowed and went away. They were alone. The waiter set
+some fruit before them and withdrew.</p>
+<p>They both sat silent for a moment. Then she spoke in a gentle voice;
+and her whole being displayed so tender a melancholy that he could have
+burst into sobs and worshipped her where she sat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was
+in the nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead
+to that question. But it can&rsquo;t be, dearest Duco. It can&rsquo;t
+be, my dear, dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it&rsquo;s not that.
+I am against marriage ... but it&rsquo;s not that. In some cases a
+woman is unfaithful to all her ideas in a single second.... Then what
+<i>is</i> it?...&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb127" href=
+"#pb127" name="pb127">127</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She stared wide-eyed and passed her hand over her forehead, as
+though she did not see clearly. Then she continued:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through
+it, I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see that
+habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual
+characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit, a
+groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I think
+passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can be noble
+and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based upon our
+petty human morality and calculation. And I have become frightened of
+those prudent moral ties. I promised myself&mdash;and I believe that I
+shall keep my promise&mdash;never to marry again. My whole nature has
+become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl going to parties
+and dinners and looking out for a husband, together with her
+parents.... My love for <i>him</i> was passion. And in my marriage he
+wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I
+rebelled.... I&rsquo;d rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too
+short a time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow,
+<i>etcetera</i>? One needn&rsquo;t marry for that. I can feel esteem
+just as well without being married. Of course there is the question of
+the children, there <i>are</i> many difficulties. I can&rsquo;t think
+it all out now. I merely feel now, very seriously and calmly, that I am
+not fit to marry and that I never will marry again. I should not make
+you happy.... Don&rsquo;t be sad, Duco. I am fond of you, I love you.
+And perhaps ... had I met you at the right moment. Had I met you
+before, in my Hague life ... you would certainly have stood too high
+for me. I could not have grown fond of you. Now I can understand you,
+respect <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb128" href="#pb128" name=
+"pb128">128</a>]</span>you and look up to you. I tell you this quite
+simply, that I love you and look up to you, look up to you, in spite of
+all your gentleness, as I never looked up to my husband, however much
+he made his manly privilege prevail. And you are to believe that, very
+firmly and with great certainty, and you must believe that I am true. I
+am coquettish ... only with Gilio.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her through his silent tears. He stood up, called the
+waiter, paid the bill absent-mindedly, while everything swam and
+flashed before his eyes. They went out of the door and she hailed a
+carriage and told the man to drive to the Villa Doria-Pamphili. She
+remembered that the gardens were open. They drove there in silence,
+steeped in their thoughts of the future that was opening tremulously
+before them. Sometimes he heaved a deep breath and quivered all over
+his body. Once she fervently squeezed his hand. At the gate of the
+villa they alighted and walked up the majestic avenues. Rome lay in the
+depths below; and they suddenly saw St. Peter&rsquo;s. But they did not
+speak; and she suddenly sat down on an ancient bench and began to weep
+softly and feebly. He put his arm round her and comforted her. She
+dried her tears, smiled and embraced him and returned his kiss....
+Twilight fell; and they went back. He gave the address of his studio.
+She accompanied him. And she gave herself to him, in all her truthful
+sincerity and with a love so violent and so great that she thought she
+would swoon in his arms. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb129" href=
+"#pb129" name="pb129">129</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">They did not alter their mode of life. Duco, however,
+after a scene with his mother, no longer slept at Belloni&rsquo;s but
+in a little room adjoining his studio and at first filled with trunks
+and lumber. Corn&eacute;lie was sorry about the scene: she had always
+had a liking for Mrs. van der Staal and the girls. But a certain pride
+arose in her; and Corn&eacute;lie despised Mrs. van der Staal because
+she was unable to understand either her or Duco. Still, she would have
+been pleased to prevent this coolness. At her advice Duco went to see
+his mother again, but she remained cool and sent him away. Thereupon
+Corn&eacute;lie and Duco went to Naples. They did not do this by way of
+an elopement, they did it quite simply: Corn&eacute;lie told Urania and
+the prince that she was going to Naples for a little while and that Van
+der Staal would probably follow her. She did not know Naples and would
+appreciate it greatly if Van der Staal showed her over the town and the
+surrounding country. Corn&eacute;lie kept on her rooms in Rome. And
+they spent a fortnight of sheer, careless and immense happiness. Their
+love grew spacious and blossoming in the golden sunlight of Naples, on
+the blue gulfs of Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and Castellamare, simply,
+irresistibly and restfully. They glided gradually along the purple
+thread of their lives, they walked hand in hand down their lines now
+fused into one path, heedless of the laws and ideas of men; and their
+attitude was so lofty, their action so serene and so certain of their
+happiness, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb130" href="#pb130" name=
+"pb130">130</a>]</span>that their relations did not degenerate into
+insolence, although within themselves they despised the world. But this
+happiness softened all that pride in their soaring souls, as if their
+happiness were strewing blossoms all around it. They lived in a dream,
+first among the marbles in the museum, then on the flower-strewn cliffs
+of Amalfi, on the beach of Capri or on the terrace of the hotel at
+Sorrento, with the sea roaring at their feet and, in a pearly haze,
+yonder, vaguely white, as though drawn in white chalk, Castellamare and
+Naples and the ghost of Vesuvius, with its hazy plume of smoke.</p>
+<p>They held aloof from everybody, from all the people and
+excursionists; they had their meals at a small table; and it was
+generally thought that they were newly married. If others looked up
+their names in the visitors&rsquo; book, they read two names and made
+whispered comments. But the lovers did not hear, did not see; they
+lived their dream, looking into each other&rsquo;s eyes or at the opal
+sky, the pearly sea and the hazy, white mountain-vistas, studded with
+towns like little specks of chalk.</p>
+<p>When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to
+Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now, in
+his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued their
+dream among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati,
+beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the
+gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their
+happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found love
+with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of him. And
+because of that charm they were surrounded by a sort of aura, through
+which they did not see ordinary life or meet ordinary people.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb131" href="#pb131" name=
+"pb131">131</a>]</span></p>
+<p>At last, one afternoon, Urania found them both at home, in
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s room, the fire lighted, she smiling and gazing
+into the fire, he sitting at her feet and she with her arm round his
+neck. And they were evidently thinking of so little besides their own
+love that neither of them heard her knock and both suddenly saw her
+standing before them, like an unexpected reality. Their dream was over
+for that day. Urania laughed, Corn&eacute;lie laughed and Duco pushed
+an easy-chair closer. And Urania, blithe, beautiful and brilliant, told
+them that she was engaged. Where on earth had they been hiding, she
+asked, inquisitively. She was engaged. She had been to San Stefano, she
+had seen the old prince. And everything was lovely and good and dear:
+the old castle a dear old house, the old man a dear old man. She saw
+everything through the glitter of her future princess&rsquo; title.
+Princess and duchess! The wedding-day was fixed: immediately after
+Easter, in a little more than three months therefore. It was to be
+celebrated at San Carlo, with all the splendour of a great wedding. Her
+father was coming over for it with her youngest brother. She was
+obviously not looking forward to their arrival. And she never finished
+talking: she gave a thousand details about her bridal outfit, with
+which the marchesa was helping her. They were going to live at Nice, in
+a large flat. She raved about Nice: that was a first-rate idea of
+Gilio&rsquo;s. And incidentally she remembered and told them that she
+had become a Catholic. That was a great nuisance! But the <i lang=
+"it">monsignori</i> saw to everything and she allowed herself to be
+guided by them. And the Pope was to receive her in private audience,
+together with Gilio. The difficulty was what to wear at the audience:
+black, of course, but ... velvet, satin? What did Corn&eacute;lie
+advise her? She had such excellent <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb132"
+href="#pb132" name="pb132">132</a>]</span>taste. And a black-lace veil
+on her head, with brilliants. She was going to Nice next day, with the
+marchesa and Gilio, to see their flat.</p>
+<p>When she was gone, after begging Corn&eacute;lie to come and admire
+her <i lang="fr">trousseau</i>, Corn&eacute;lie said, with a smile:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She is happy. After all, happiness is something different for
+everybody. A <i lang="fr">trousseau</i> and a title would not make me
+happy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These are the small people,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;who cross
+our lives now and again. I prefer to get out of their way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And they did not say so, but they both thought&mdash;with their
+fingers interlaced, her eyes gazing into his&mdash;that they also were
+happy, but with a loftier, better and nobler happiness; and pride arose
+within them; and they beheld as in a vision the line of their life
+winding up a steep hill. But happiness snowed blossoms down upon it;
+and amid the snowing blossoms, holding high their proud heads, with
+smiles and eyes of love, they walked on in their dream remote from
+mankind and reality. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb133" href="#pb133"
+name="pb133">133</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The months dreamed past. And their happiness caused
+such a summer to bloom in them that she ripened in beauty and he in
+talent; the pride in them broke into expression: in her it was the
+blossoming of her being, in him it was energy; her languid charm became
+transformed into a proud slenderness; her contour increased in
+fullness; a light illumined her eyes, a gladness shone about her mouth.
+His hands quivered with nervous emotion when he took up his brushes;
+and the skies of Italy arched firmaments before his eyes like a canopy
+of love and fervid colour. He drew and completed a series of
+water-colours: hazes of dreamy atmosphere which suggested
+Turner&rsquo;s noblest creations; natural monuments of sheer haze; all
+the milky blue and pearly mistiness of the Bay of Naples, like a goblet
+filled with light in which a turquoise is melted into water; and he
+sent them to Holland, to London, found that he had suddenly discovered
+his vocation, his work and his fame: courage, strength, aim and
+conquest.</p>
+<p>She too achieved a certain success with her article: it was
+discussed, contested; her name was mentioned. But she felt a certain
+indifference when she read her name in connection with the feminist
+movement. She preferred to live with him his life of observation and
+emotion; and she often imparted to all the haze of his vision, to the
+excessive haziness of his colour-dream a lustre of light, a definite
+horizon, a streak of actuality which gave realism to the mist of his
+ideal. She learnt with him to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb134"
+href="#pb134" name="pb134">134</a>]</span>distinguish and to feel
+nature, art, all Rome; and, when a symbolic impulse overmastered him,
+she surrendered herself to it entirely. He planned a large sketch of a
+procession of women, mounting along a line of life that wound up a
+hill: they seemed to be moving out of a crumbling city of antiquity,
+whose pillars, joined by a single architrave, quivered on high in a
+violet haze of evening dusk; they seemed to be releasing themselves
+from the shadow of the ruins fading away on the horizon into the void
+of night; and they thronged upwards, calling to one another aloud,
+beckoning to one another with great waving gestures of their hands,
+under a mighty fluttering of streamers and pennants; they grasped
+hammer and pick-axe with sinewy arms; and the throng of them moved up
+and up, along the line, where the light grew whiter and whiter, until
+in the hazy air there dimly showed the distant vista of a new city,
+whose iron buildings, like central stations and Eiffel towers in the
+white glimmer of the distance, gleamed up very faintly with a
+reflection of glass arches and glass roofs and, high in the air, the
+musical staves of the threads of sound and accompaniment....</p>
+<p>And to so great an extent did their influences work upon each
+other&rsquo;s souls that she learnt to see and he learnt to think: she
+saw beauty, art, nature, haze and emotion and no longer imagined them
+but felt them; he, as in his sketch, a very vague, modern city of glass
+and iron, saw a modern city rising out of his dream-haze and thought of
+a modern question, in accordance with his own nature and aptitudes. She
+learnt above all to see and feel like a woman in love, with the eyes
+and heart of the man she loves; he thought out the question
+plastically. But whatever the imperfection in the absoluteness of their
+new spheres of feeling and thought, the reciprocal <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb135" href="#pb135" name=
+"pb135">135</a>]</span>influence, through their love, gave them a
+happiness so great, so united, that at that moment they could not
+contemplate it or apprehend it: it was almost ecstasy, a faint
+unreality, in which they dreamed, whereas it was all pure truth and
+tangible actuality. Their manner of thinking, feeling and living was an
+ideal of reality, an ideal entered and attained, along the gradual line
+of their life, along the golden thread of their love; and they scarcely
+apprehended or contemplated it, because the every-day life still clung
+to them. But only to the smallest, inevitable extent. They lived apart;
+but in the morning she went to him and found him working at his sketch;
+and she sat down beside him and leant her head on his shoulder; and
+they thought it out together. He sketched each figure in his procession
+of women separately and sought for the features and the modelling of
+the figures: some had the Mongolian aspect of Memmi&rsquo;s angel of
+the Annunciation, others Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s slenderness and her
+later, fuller wholesomeness; he sought for the folds of the costumes:
+the women escaped from the violet dusk of the ruined city in pleated
+pepli; and farther on their garments altered as in a masquerade of the
+ages: the long trains of the medieval ladies, the veils of the
+sultanas, the homespun of the workwomen, the caps of the nursing
+sisters, the attire becoming more modern as the wearer personified a
+more modern age. And in this grouping the draughtsmanship was so
+unsubstantial and sober, the transition from drooping folds to
+practical stiffness so careful and so gradual, that Corn&eacute;lie
+hardly perceived the transition, that she appeared to be contemplating
+one style, one fashion in dress, whereas each figure nevertheless was
+clad in a different stuff, of different cut, falling into different
+lines.... The drawing displayed an old-mastery purity, a simplicity
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb136" href="#pb136" name=
+"pb136">136</a>]</span>of outline, which was nevertheless modern,
+nervous and morbid, but without the conventional ideal of symbolical
+human forms; the grouping showed a Raphaelite harmony, the water-colour
+tints of the first studies the haze of Italy: the ruined city loomed in
+the dusk as he saw the Forum looming; the city of iron and glass
+gleamed up with its architecture of light, such as he had seen from
+Sorrento shining around Naples. She felt that he was creating a great
+work and had never taken so lively an interest in anything as she now
+did in his idea and his sketches. She sat behind him silent and still
+and followed his drawing of the waving banners and fluttering pennants;
+and she did not breathe when she saw him, with a few dabs of white and
+touches of light&mdash;as though light were one of the colours on his
+palette&mdash;make the glass city emerge as from a dream on the
+horizon. Then he would ask her something about one of the figures and
+put his arm around her and draw her to him; and they would long sit
+scrutinizing and thinking out lines and ideas, until evening fell and
+the evening chill shuddered through the studio and they rose slowly
+from their seats. Then they went out and in the Corso they returned to
+real life: silently, sitting at Aragno&rsquo;s, they watched the bustle
+outside; and in their little restaurant, with their eyes absorbing each
+other&rsquo;s glance, they ate their simple dinner and looked so
+obviously and harmoniously happy, that the Italians, the two who also
+always sat at the far table, at that same hour, smiled as they bowed to
+them on entering.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb137" href="#pb137"
+name="pb137">137</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">At the same time Duco developed great powers of work:
+so much thought dimly took shape before him that he was constantly
+discovering another motive and symbolizing it in another figure. He
+sketched a life-size woman walking, with that admixture of child, woman
+and goddess which characterized his figures, and she walked slowly down
+a descending line towards a sombre depth, without seeing or
+understanding; her eyes towards the abyss in magnetic attraction; vague
+hands hovered around her like a cloud and softly pushed and guided her;
+on the hill-top, on high rocks, in the bright light, other figures,
+holding harps, called to her; but she went towards the depth, pushed by
+hands; in the abyss blossomed strange purple orchids, like mouths of
+love....</p>
+<p>When Corn&eacute;lie came to his studio one morning, he had suddenly
+sketched this idea. It came upon her as a surprise, for he had not
+mentioned it to her: the idea had sprung up suddenly; the quick,
+spontaneous execution had not taken him an hour. He was almost
+apologizing to her when he saw her surprise. She certainly admired it,
+but shuddered at it and preferred <i>The Banners</i>, the great
+water-colour, the procession of the women marching to the battle of
+life.</p>
+<p>And to please her he put the straying woman aside and worked on
+solely at the striving women. But constantly a fresh thought came and
+disturbed him in his work; and in her absence he would sketch some new
+symbol, until the sketches accumulated and <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb138" href="#pb138" name="pb138">138</a>]</span>lay
+spread on every side. She put them away in portfolios; she removed them
+from easel and board; she saved him from wandering too far from <i>The
+Banners</i>; and this was the one thing that he completed.</p>
+<p>Thus smoothly did their life seem willing to run, along a gracious
+line, in one golden direction, while his symbols blossomed like flowers
+on either side, while the azure of their love seemed to form the sky
+overhead; but she plucked away the superfluous flowers and only <i>The
+Banners</i> waved above their path, in the firmament of their ecstasy,
+even as they waved above the militant women.</p>
+<p>They had but one distraction, the wedding of the prince and Urania:
+a dinner, a ball and the ceremony at San Carlo, attended by all the
+Roman aristocracy, who however welcomed the wealthy American bride with
+a certain reserve. But, when the Prince and Princess di Forte-Braccio
+left for Nice, all distraction was at an end; and the days once more
+glided along the same gracious golden line. And Corn&eacute;lie
+retained only one unpleasant recollection: her meeting during those
+festive days with Mrs. van der Staal, who cut her persistently, turned
+her back on her and succeeded in conveying to her that the friendship
+was over. She had accepted the position; she had realized how difficult
+it was&mdash;even if Mrs. van der Staal had been willing to speak to
+her&mdash;to explain to a woman like this, rooted in her social and
+worldly conventions, her own proud ideas of freedom, independence and
+happiness. And she had avoided the girls also, understanding that Mrs.
+van der Staal wished it. She was not angry at all this nor hurt; she
+could understand it in Duco&rsquo;s mother: she was only a little sad
+about it, because she liked Mrs. van der Staal and liked the two girls.
+But she quite understood: it <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb139" href=
+"#pb139" name="pb139">139</a>]</span>had to be so; Mrs. van der Staal
+knew or suspected everything. Duco&rsquo;s mother could not act
+differently, though the prince and Urania, for friendship&rsquo;s sake,
+overlooked any <i>liaison</i> between Duco and Corn&eacute;lie; though
+the Roman world during the wedding-festivities accepted them simply as
+friends, as acquaintances, as fellow-countrymen, whatever they might
+whisper, smiling, behind their fans. But now those festivities were
+over, now they had passed that point of contact with the world and
+people, now their golden line once more sloped gently and evenly before
+them....</p>
+<p>Then Corn&eacute;lie, not thinking of the Hague at all, received a
+letter from the Hague. The letter was from her father and consisted of
+several sheets, which surprised her, for he never wrote. What she read
+startled her greatly, but did not at first dishearten her altogether,
+perhaps because she did not realize the full import of her
+father&rsquo;s news. He implored her forgiveness. He had long been in
+financial difficulties. He had lost a great deal of money. They would
+have to move into a smaller house. The atmosphere at home was
+unpleasant: Mamma cried all day; the sisters quarrelled; the family
+proffered advice; the acquaintances were disagreeable. And he implored
+her forgiveness. He had speculated and lost. And he had also lost her
+own little capital, which he managed for her, her godmother&rsquo;s
+legacy. He asked her not to think too hardly of him. Things might have
+turned out differently; and then she would have been three times as
+well off. He admitted it, he had done wrong; but still he was her
+father and he asked her, his child, to forgive him and requested her to
+come home.</p>
+<p>She was at first greatly startled, but soon recovered her calmness.
+She was in too happy a mood <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb140" href=
+"#pb140" name="pb140">140</a>]</span>of vital harmony to be depressed
+by the news. She received the letter in bed, did not get up at once,
+reflected a little, then dressed, breakfasted as usual and went to
+Duco. He received her with enthusiasm and showed her three new
+sketches. She reproached him gently for allowing himself to be
+distracted from his main idea, said that these distractions would
+exhaust his activity, his perseverance. She urged him to keep on
+working at <i>The Banners</i>. And she inspected the great water-colour
+intently, with the ancient, crumbling Forum-like city and the
+procession of the women towards the metropolis of the future, standing
+high in the dawn. And suddenly it was borne in upon her that her future
+also had fallen into ruins and that its crumbling arches hung
+menacingly over her head. Then she gave him her father&rsquo;s letter
+to read. He read it twice, looked at her aghast and asked what she
+proposed to do. She said that she had already thought it over, but so
+far decided only upon the most immediate thing to be done: to give up
+her rooms and come to him in his studio. She had just enough left to
+pay the rent of her rooms. But, after that, she had no money, no money
+at all. She had never consented to accept alimony from her husband. All
+that was still due to her was the payment for her article.</p>
+<p>He at once put out his hands to her, kissed her and said that this
+had been also his idea at once, that she should come to him and live
+with him. He had enough: a tiny patrimony; he made a little money in
+addition: there would be enough for the two of them. And they laughed
+and kissed and glanced round the studio. Duco slept in a small
+adjoining den, a sort of long wall-cupboard. And they glanced round to
+see what they could do. Corn&eacute;lie knew: here, a curtain draped
+over a cord, with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb141" href="#pb141"
+name="pb141">141</a>]</span>her wash-hand-stand behind it. That was all
+she needed, only that little corner: otherwise Duco would not have a
+good light. They were very merry and thought it a jolly, a capital
+idea. They went out at once, bought a little iron bedstead and a
+dressing-table and themselves hung up the curtain. Then they both went
+to pack the trunks in the Via di Serpenti ... and dined at the
+<i>osteria</i>. Corn&eacute;lie suggested that they should dine at home
+now and then: it was cheaper. When they returned home, she was
+enchanted that her installation took up so little room, hardly six feet
+by six, with that little bed behind the curtain. They were very
+cheerful that evening. The bohemianism of it all amused them. They were
+in Italy, the land of sunshine, of beauty, of <i lang=
+"it">lazzaroni</i>, of beggars who slept on the steps of a cathedral;
+and they felt akin to that sunny poverty. They were happy, they wanted
+for nothing. They would live on nothing, or at any rate on very little.
+And they saw the future bright, smiling. They were closer together now,
+they would live more closely linked together. They loved each other and
+were happy in a land of beauty, in an ideal of noble symbolism and
+life-embracing art.</p>
+<p>Next morning he worked zealously, without a word, absorbed in his
+dream, in his work; and she, likewise, silent, contented, happy,
+examined her blouses and skirts attentively and reflected that she
+would need nothing more for quite another year and that her old clothes
+were amply sufficient for their life of happiness and simplicity.</p>
+<p>And she answered her father&rsquo;s letter very briefly, saying that
+she forgave him, that she was sorry for all of them, but that she was
+not coming back to the Hague. She would provide for her own
+maintenance, by writing. Italy was cheap. That was <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb142" href="#pb142" name="pb142">142</a>]</span>all
+she wrote. She did not mention Duco. She cut herself off from her
+family, in thought and in fact. She had met with no sympathy from any
+of them during her unhappy marriage, during the painful days of her
+divorce; and now, in her turn, she felt no affection for them. And her
+happiness made her partial and selfish. She wanted nothing but Duco,
+nothing but their harmonious life in common. He sat working, laughing
+to her now and then as she lay on the couch and reflected. She looked
+at the women marching to battle; she too could not remain lying on a
+couch, she too would have to sally forth and fight. She foresaw that
+she would have to fight ... for him. He was at present in the first
+fine frenzy of his art; but, if this slackened, momentarily, after a
+result of some kind, after a success for himself and the world, that
+would be commonplace and logical; and then <i>she</i> would have to
+fight. He was the noble element in their two lives; his art could never
+become her bread-winner. His little fortune amounted to hardly
+anything. She would have liked to work and make money for both of them,
+so that he need not depart from the pure principle of his art. But how
+was she to strive, how to work, how to work for their lives and their
+bread? What could she do? Write? It brought in so little. What else?
+She was overcome by a slight melancholy, because she could do so
+little. She possessed minor talents and accomplishments: she wrote a
+good style, she sang, she played the piano, she could make a blouse and
+she knew something about cooking. She would herself do the cooking now
+and then and would make her own clothes. But that was all so small, so
+little. Strive? Work? In what way? However, she would do what she
+could. And suddenly she took up a Baedeker, turned over the pages and
+sat down <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb143" href="#pb143" name=
+"pb143">143</a>]</span>to write at Duco&rsquo;s writing-table. She
+thought for a moment and began a casual article, a travel-picture for a
+newspaper, about the environs of Naples: that was easier than at once
+beginning about Rome. And in the studio, filled with a faint warmth of
+the fire, because the room faced north and was chilly, everything
+became still and silent, save for the occasional scratching of her pen
+or the noise made by him when fumbling among his chalks and
+paint-brushes. She wrote a few pages but could not hit upon an ending.
+Then she got up; he turned round and smiled at her, with his smile of
+friendly happiness.</p>
+<p>And she read to him what she had written. It was not in the style of
+her pamphlet. It contained no invective; it was a pleasant
+traveller&rsquo;s sketch.</p>
+<p>He thought it very nice, but nothing out of the way. But that
+wasn&rsquo;t necessary, she said, defending herself. And he kissed her,
+for her industry and her pluck. It was raining that day and they did
+not go out for their lunch; there were eggs and tomatoes and she made
+an omelette on an oil-stove. They drank water, ate quantities of bread.
+And, while the rain outside lashed the great curtain-less window of the
+studio, they enjoyed their repast, sitting like two birds that huddle
+side by side, against each other, so as not to get wet. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb144" href="#pb144" name="pb144">144</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">It was a couple of months after Easter, in the spring
+days of May. The flood of tourists had ebbed away immediately after the
+great church festivities; and Rome was already very hot and growing
+very quiet. One morning, when Corn&eacute;lie was crossing the Piazza
+di Spagna, where the sunshine streamed along the cream-coloured front
+of the Trinita de&rsquo; Monti and down the monumental staircase, where
+only a few beggars and the very last flower-boy sat dreaming with
+blinking eye-lids in a shady corner, she saw the prince coming towards
+her. He bowed to her with a smile of gladness and hastened up to speak
+to her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How glad I am to meet you! I am in Rome for a day or two, on
+my way to San Stefano, to see my father on business. Business is always
+a bore; and this is more so than usual. Urania is at Nice. But it is
+too hot there and we are going away. We have just returned from a trip
+on the Mediterranean. Four weeks on board a friend&rsquo;s yacht. It
+was delightful! Why did you never come to see us at Nice, as Urania
+asked you to?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I really wasn&rsquo;t able to come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I went to call on you yesterday in the Via dei Serpenti. They
+told me you had moved.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her with a touch of mocking laughter in his small,
+glittering eyes. She did not speak.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After that I did not like to commit a further
+indiscretion,&rdquo; he said, meaningly. &ldquo;Where are you
+going?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To the post-office.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb145" href="#pb145" name="pb145">145</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;May I come with you? Isn&rsquo;t it too hot for
+walking?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, I love the heat! Come by all means, if you like. How
+is Urania?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, capital. She&rsquo;s capital. She&rsquo;s
+splendid, simply splendid. I should never have thought it. I should
+never have dared to think it. She plays her part to perfection. So far
+as she is concerned, I don&rsquo;t regret my marriage. But, for the
+rest, <i lang="it">Gesu mio</i>, what a disappointment, what a
+disillusion!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You knew, did you not&mdash;I even now don&rsquo;t know
+how&mdash;you knew for how many millions I sold myself? Not five
+millions but ten millions. Ah, <i lang="it">signora mia</i>, what a
+take in! You saw my father-in-law at the time of our wedding. What a
+Yankee, what a stocking-merchant and what a tradesman! We&rsquo;re no
+match for him: I, Papa, or the marchesa. First promises, contracts: oh,
+rather! But then haggling here, haggling there. We&rsquo;re no good at
+that: neither Papa nor I. Aunt alone was able to haggle. But she was no
+match for the stocking-merchant. She had not learnt that, in all the
+years during which she kept a boarding-house. Ten millions? Five
+millions? Not three millions! Or yes, perhaps we did get something like
+that, <i>plus</i> a heap of promises, for our children&rsquo;s
+children, when everybody&rsquo;s dead. Ah, signora, signora, I was
+better off before I was married! True, I had debts then and not now.
+But Urania is so economical, so practical! I should never have thought
+it of her. It has been a disappointment to everybody: Papa, my aunt,
+the <i lang="it">monsignori</i>. You should have seen them together.
+They could have scratched one another&rsquo;s eyes out. Papa almost had
+a stroke, my aunt nearly came to blows with the <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb146" href="#pb146" name=
+"pb146">146</a>]</span><i lang="it">monsignori</i>.... Ah, signora,
+signora, I don&rsquo;t like it! I am a victim. Winter after winter,
+they angled with me. But I didn&rsquo;t want to be the bait, I
+struggled, I wouldn&rsquo;t let the fish bite. And then this came of
+it. Not three millions. Lire, not dollars. I was so stupid, I thought
+at first it would be dollars. And Urania&rsquo;s economy! She allows me
+my pocket-money. She controls everything, does everything. She knows
+exactly how much I lose at the club. Yes, you may laugh, but it&rsquo;s
+sad. Don&rsquo;t you see that I sometimes feel as if I could cry? And
+she has such queer notions. For instance, we have our flat <span class=
+"corr" id="xd21e2870" title="Source: a">at</span> Nice and we keep on
+my rooms in the Palazzo Ruspoli, as a <i lang=
+"fr">pied-&agrave;-terre</i> in Rome. That&rsquo;s enough: we
+don&rsquo;t come often to Rome, because we are &lsquo;black&rsquo; and
+Urania thinks it dull. In the summer, we were to go here or there, to
+some watering-place. That was all right, that was settled. But now
+Urania suddenly conceives the notion of selecting San Stefano as a
+summer residence. San Stefano! I ask you! I shall never be able to
+stand it. True, it&rsquo;s high up, it&rsquo;s cool: it&rsquo;s a
+pleasant climate, good, fresh mountain air. But I need more in my life
+than mountain air. I can&rsquo;t live on mountain air. Oh, you
+wouldn&rsquo;t know Urania! She can be so awfully obstinate. It&rsquo;s
+settled now, beyond recall: in the summer, San Stefano. And the worst
+of it is that she has won Papa&rsquo;s heart by it. I have to suffer.
+They&rsquo;re two to one against me. And the worst of it is that Urania
+says we shall have to be very economical, in order to do San Stefano up
+a bit. It&rsquo;s a famous historical place, but fallen into grisly
+disrepair. It&rsquo;s not our fault: we never had any luck. There was
+once a Forte-Braccio pope; after that our star declined and we never
+had another stroke of luck again. San Stefano is the type of ruined
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb147" href="#pb147" name=
+"pb147">147</a>]</span>greatness. You ought to see the place. To
+economize, to renovate San Stefano! That&rsquo;s Urania&rsquo;s ideal.
+She has taken it into her head to do that honour to our ancestral
+abode. However, she has won Papa&rsquo;s heart by it and he has
+recovered from his stroke. But can you understand now that <i lang=
+"it">il povero Gilio</i> is poorer than he was before he acquired
+shares in a Chicago stocking-factory?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was no checking his flow of words. He felt profoundly unhappy,
+small, beaten, tamed, conquered, destroyed; and he had a need to ease
+his heart. They had passed the post-office and now retraced their
+steps. He looked for sympathy from Corn&eacute;lie and found it in the
+smiling attention with which she listened to his grievances. She
+replied that, after all, it showed that Urania had a real feeling for
+San Stefano.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; he admitted, humbly. &ldquo;She is very good.
+I should never have thought it. She is every inch a princess and
+duchess. It&rsquo;s splendid. But the ten millions: gone, an
+illusion!... But tell me: how well you&rsquo;re looking! Each time I
+see you, you&rsquo;ve grown lovelier and lovelier. Do you know that
+you&rsquo;re a very lovely woman? You must be very happy, I&rsquo;m
+certain! You&rsquo;re an exceptional woman, I always said so. I
+don&rsquo;t understand you.... May I speak frankly? Are we good
+friends, you and I? I don&rsquo;t understand. I think what you have
+done such a terrible thing. I have never heard of anything like it in
+our world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t live in your world, prince.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, but all the same your world must have much the
+same ideas about it. And the calmness, the pride, the happiness with
+which you do, just quietly, as you please! I think it perfectly awful.
+I stand aghast at it.... And yet ... it&rsquo;s a pity. People in my
+world are very easy-going. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb148" href=
+"#pb148" name="pb148">148</a>]</span>But that sort of thing is not
+allowed!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince, once more, I have no world. My world is my own
+sphere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand that. Tell me, how am I to tell
+Urania? For I should think it delightful if you would come and stay at
+San Stefano. Oh, do come, do: come to keep us company. I entreat you.
+Be charitable, do a good work.... But first tell me, how shall I tell
+Urania?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What they told me in the Via dei Serpenti, that your address
+was now Signor van der Staal&rsquo;s studio, Via del
+Babuino.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Laughing, she looked at him almost pityingly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is too difficult for you to tell her,&rdquo; she replied,
+a little condescendingly. &ldquo;I will myself write to Urania and
+explain my conduct.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was evidently relieved:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s delightful, capital! And ... will you come to
+San Stefano?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I can&rsquo;t really.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can no longer move in the circle in which you live, after
+my change of address,&rdquo; she said, half laughing, half
+seriously.</p>
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You know our Roman society. So
+long as certain conventions are observed ... everything&rsquo;s
+permitted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly; but it&rsquo;s just those conventions which I
+don&rsquo;t observe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s where you are wrong. Believe me, I am saying
+it as your friend.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I live according to my own laws and I don&rsquo;t want to
+move in your world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He folded his hands in entreaty: <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb149" href="#pb149" name="pb149">149</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, I know. You are a &lsquo;new woman.&rsquo; You have
+your own laws. But I beseech you, take pity on me. Be an angel of mercy
+and come to San Stefano.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She seemed to hear a note of seduction in his voice and therefore
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince, even if it agreed with the conventions of your world
+... even then I shouldn&rsquo;t wish to. For I will not leave Van der
+Staal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You come first and let him come a little later. Urania will
+be glad to have his advice on some artistic questions, concerning the
+&lsquo;doing up&rsquo; of San Stefano. We have a lot of pictures there.
+And old things generally. Do let&rsquo;s arrange that. I am going to
+San Stefano to-morrow. Urania will follow me in a week. I will suggest
+to her to ask you down soon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Really, prince ... it can&rsquo;t happen just yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him for some time before answering:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shall I be candid with you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But of course!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They had already passed the post-office twice. The street was quite
+silent and deserted. He looked at her enquiringly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we are in great financial
+difficulties. We have no money at present. I have lost my little
+capital; and the small sum which I earned by writing an article is
+spent. Duco is working hard, but he is engaged on a big work and making
+nothing in the meantime. He expects to receive a bit of money in a
+month or so. But at the moment we have nothing, nothing at all. That is
+why I went to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much a dealer
+would give for a couple of old pictures which Duco wants to sell. He
+doesn&rsquo;t <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb150" href="#pb150" name=
+"pb150">150</a>]</span>like parting with them, but there&rsquo;s no
+help for it. So you see that I can&rsquo;t come. I should not care to
+leave him; besides, I should not have the money for the journey or a
+decent wardrobe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her. The first thing that he had noticed was her new
+and blooming loveliness; now he noticed that her skirt was a little
+worn and her blouse none too fresh, though she wore a couple of roses
+in the waist-band.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Gesu mio!</i>&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;And
+you tell me that so calmly, so quietly!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She smiled and shrugged her shoulders:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you have me do? Moan and groan about
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you are a woman ... a woman to revere and respect!&rdquo;
+he cried. &ldquo;How does Van der Staal take it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is a bit depressed, of course. He has never known money
+trouble. And it hinders him from employing his full talent. But I hope
+to help him bear up during this difficult time. So you see, prince,
+that I can&rsquo;t come to San Stefano.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why didn&rsquo;t you write to us? Why not ask us for
+money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is very nice of you to say that, but the idea never even
+occurred to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Too proud?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, too proud.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what a position to be in! What can I do for you? May I
+give you two hundred lire? I have two hundred lire on me. And I will
+tell Urania that I gave it to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, thank you, prince. I am very grateful to you, but I
+can&rsquo;t accept it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not from <i>me</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not from Urania?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb151"
+href="#pb151" name="pb151">151</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not from her either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to earn my money and I can&rsquo;t accept
+alms.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A fine principle. But for the moment ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remain true to it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you allow me to tell you something?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I admire you. More than that: I love you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She made a gesture with her hand and wrinkled her brows.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why mayn&rsquo;t I tell you so? An Italian does not keep his
+love concealed. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and
+superior to anything that I could ever imagine any woman to be....
+Don&rsquo;t be angry with me: I am not asking anything of you. I am a
+bad lot, but at this moment I really feel the sort of thing that you
+see in our old family-portraits, an atom of chivalry which has survived
+by accident. I ask for nothing from you. I merely tell you&mdash;and I
+say it in Urania&rsquo;s name as well as my own&mdash;that you can
+always rely on us. Urania will be angry that you haven&rsquo;t written
+to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They now entered the post-office and she bought a few stamps:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There go my last soldi,&rdquo; she said, laughing and showing
+her empty purse. &ldquo;We wanted the stamps to write to the secretary
+of an exhibition in London. Are you seeing me home?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She saw suddenly that he had tears in his eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do accept two hundred lire from me!&rdquo; he entreated.</p>
+<p>She smilingly shook her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you dining at home?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>She gave him a quizzing look:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb152"
+href="#pb152" name="pb152">152</a>]</span></p>
+<p>He was unwilling to ask any further questions, was afraid lest he
+should wound her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be kind,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and dine with me this
+evening. I&rsquo;m bored. I have no friends in Rome at the moment.
+Everybody is away. Not at the Grand-H&ocirc;tel, but in a snug little
+restaurant, where they know me. I&rsquo;ll come and fetch you at seven
+o&rsquo;clock. Do be nice and come! For my sake!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He could not restrain his tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be delighted,&rdquo; she said, softly, with her
+smile.</p>
+<p>They were standing in the porch of the house in the Via del Babuino
+where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a
+fervent kiss upon it. Then he took off his hat and hurried away. She
+went slowly up the stairs, mastering her emotion before she entered the
+studio. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb153" href="#pb153" name=
+"pb153">153</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She found Duco lying listlessly on the sofa. He had a
+bad headache and she sat down beside him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man offered me eighty lire for the Memmo,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;but he declared that the panel was not by Gentile da
+Fabriano: he remembered having seen it here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man&rsquo;s crazy,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Or else he
+is trying to get my Gentile for nothing.... Corn&eacute;lie, I really
+can&rsquo;t sell it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Duco, then we&rsquo;ll think of something else,&rdquo;
+said she, laying her hand on his aching forehead.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps one or two smaller things, a knickknack or
+two,&rdquo; he moaned.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps. Shall I go back to him this afternoon?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, I&rsquo;ll go. But, really it is easier to buy that
+sort of thing than to sell it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is so, Duco,&rdquo; she agreed, laughing. &ldquo;But I
+asked yesterday what I should get for a pair of bracelets; and
+I&rsquo;ll dispose of those to-day. And that will keep us going for
+quite a month. But I have some news for you. Do you know whom I
+met?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prince.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He gave a scowl:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like that cad,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you before, Duco. I don&rsquo;t consider him
+a cad. And I don&rsquo;t believe he is one either. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb154" href="#pb154" name="pb154">154</a>]</span>He
+asked us to dine with him this evening, quite quietly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t care about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She said nothing. She stood up, boiled some water on a spirit-stand
+and made tea:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Duco dear, I&rsquo;ve been careless about lunch. A cup of tea
+and some bread-and-butter is all I can give you. Are you very
+hungry?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, evasively.</p>
+<p>She hummed a tune while she poured out the tea into an antique cup.
+She cut the bread-and-butter and brought it to him on the sofa. Then
+she sat down beside him, with her own cup in her hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie, hadn&rsquo;t we better lunch at the
+<i>osteria</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed and showed him her empty purse:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here are the stamps,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>Disheartened, he flung himself back on the cushions.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear boy,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t be so
+down. I shall have some money this afternoon, for the bracelets. I
+ought to have sold them sooner. Really, Duco, it&rsquo;s not of any
+importance. Why haven&rsquo;t you been working? It would have cheered
+you up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t feel inclined and I had a headache.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She waited a moment and then said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prince was angry that we didn&rsquo;t write and ask him
+to help us. He wanted to give me two hundred lire....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You refused, surely?&rdquo; he asked, fiercely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, of course,&rdquo; she answered, calmly. &ldquo;He
+invited us to stay at San Stefano, where they will be spending the
+summer. I refused that too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the clothes.... But you wouldn&rsquo;t care
+to go, would you?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb155" href=
+"#pb155" name="pb155">155</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, dully.</p>
+<p>She drew his head to her and stroked his forehead. A wide patch of
+reflected afternoon light fell through the studio-window from the blue
+sky outside; and the studio was like a confused swirl of dusty colour,
+in which the outlines stood forth with their arrested action and
+changeless emotion. The raised embroideries of the chasubles and
+stoles, the purples and sky-blues of Gentile&rsquo;s panel, the mystic
+luxury of Memmi&rsquo;s angel in his cloak of heavily-pleated brocade,
+with the golden lily-stem between his fingers, were like a hoard of
+colour and flashed in that reflected light like so many handfuls of
+jewels. On the easel stood the water-colour of <i>The Banners</i>, with
+its noble refinement. And, as they sat on the sofa, he leaning his head
+against her, both drinking their tea, they harmonized in their
+happiness with that background of art. And it seemed incredible that
+they should be worried about a couple of hundred lire, for they were
+surrounded by colour as of precious stones and her smile was still
+radiant. But his eyes were dejected and his hand hung limply by his
+side.</p>
+<p>She went out again that afternoon for a little while, but soon
+returned again, saying that she had sold the bracelets and that he need
+not worry any longer. And she sang and moved gaily about the studio.
+She had made a few purchases: an almond-tart, biscuits and a small
+bottle of port. She had carried the things home herself, in a little
+basket, and she sang as she unpacked them. Her liveliness cheered him;
+he stood up and suddenly sat down to <i>The Banners</i>. He looked at
+the light and thought that he would be able to work for an hour longer.
+He was filled with transport as he contemplated the drawing: he saw a
+great deal that was good in it, a great deal that was beautiful. It was
+both spacious <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb156" href="#pb156" name=
+"pb156">156</a>]</span>and delicate; it was modern and yet free of any
+modern <i>trucs</i>; there was thought in it and yet purity of line and
+grouping. And the colours were restful and dignified: purple and grey
+and white; violet and pale-grey and bright white; dusk, twilight,
+light; night, dawn, day. The day especially, the day dawning high up
+yonder, was a day of white, self-conscious sunlight: a bright
+certitude, in which the future became clear. But as a cloud were the
+streamers, pennants, flags, banners, waving in heraldic beauty above
+the heads of the militant women uplifted in ecstasy.... He selected his
+colours, chose his brushes, worked zealously, until there was no light
+left. Then he sat down beside her, happy and contented. In the falling
+dusk they drank some of the port, ate some of the tart. He felt like
+it, he said; he was hungry....</p>
+<p>At seven o&rsquo;clock there was a knock. He started up and opened
+the door; the prince entered. Duco&rsquo;s forehead clouded over; but
+the prince did not perceive it, in the twilit studio. Corn&eacute;lie
+lit a lamp:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Scusi</i>, prince,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am
+positively distressed: Duco does not care to go out&mdash;he has been
+working and is tired&mdash;and I had no one to send and tell you that
+we could not accept your invitation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t mean that, surely! I had reckoned so
+absolutely on having you both to dinner! What shall I do with my
+evening if you don&rsquo;t come!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, bursting into a flow of language, the complaints of a spoiled
+child, the entreaties of an indulged boy, he began to persuade Duco,
+who remained unwilling and sullen. At last Duco rose, shrugged his
+shoulders, but, with a compassionate, almost insulting smile, yielded.
+But he was unable to suppress his sense of unwillingness; his jealousy
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb157" href="#pb157" name=
+"pb157">157</a>]</span>because of the quick repartees of
+Corn&eacute;lie and the prince remained unassuaged, like an inward
+pain. At the restaurant he was silent at first. Then he made an effort
+to join in the conversation, remembering what Corn&eacute;lie had said
+to him on that momentous day at the <i>osteria</i>: that she loved him,
+Duco; that she did not even compare the prince with him; but ... that
+he was not cheerful or witty. And, conscious of his superiority because
+of that recollection, he displayed a smiling superciliousness towards
+the prince, for all his jealousy, condescending slightly and suffering
+his pleasantry and his flirtation, because it amused Corn&eacute;lie,
+that clashing interplay of swift words and short, parrying phrases,
+like the dialogue in a French comedy. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb158" href="#pb158" name="pb158">158</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">The prince was to leave for San Stefano next day; and
+early in the morning Corn&eacute;lie sent him the following letter:</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="first salute">&ldquo;<span class="sc">My dear
+Prince</span>,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have a favour to ask of you. Yesterday you were so good as
+to offer me help. I thought then that I was in a position to decline
+your kind offer. But I hope that you will not think me very changeable
+if I come to you to-day with this request: lend me what you offered
+yesterday to give me.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lend me two hundred lire. I hope to be able to repay you as
+soon as possible. Of course it need not be a secret from Urania; but
+don&rsquo;t let Duco know. I tried to sell my bracelets yesterday, but
+sold only one and received very little for it. The goldsmith offered me
+far too little, but I had to let him have one at forty lire, for I had
+not a soldo left! And so I am writing to appeal to your friendship and
+to ask you to put the two hundred lire in an envelope and let me come
+and fetch it myself from the porter. Pray receive my sincere thanks in
+advance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What a pleasant evening you gave us yesterday! A couple of
+hours&rsquo; cheerful talk like that, at a well-chosen dinner, does me
+good. However happy I may be, our present position of financial anxiety
+sometimes depresses me, though I keep up my spirits <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb159" href="#pb159" name="pb159">159</a>]</span>for
+Duco&rsquo;s sake. Money worries interfere with his work and impair his
+energy. So I discuss them with him as little as I can; and I
+particularly beg you not to let him into our little secret.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Once more, my best and most sincere thanks.</p>
+<p class="signed">&ldquo;<span class="sc">Corn&eacute;lie de
+Retz.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+<p>When she left the house that morning, she went straight to the
+Palazzo Ruspoli:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Has his excellency gone?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The porter bowed respectively and confidentially:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An hour ago, signora. His excellency left a letter and a
+parcel for me to give you if you should call. Permit me to fetch
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He went away and soon returned; he handed Corn&eacute;lie the parcel
+and the letter.</p>
+<p>She walked down a side-street turning out of the Corso, opened the
+envelope and found a few bank-*notes and this letter:</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="first salute">&ldquo;<span class="sc">Most honoured
+Lady</span>,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am so glad that you have applied to me at last; and Urania
+also will approve. I feel I am acting in accordance with her wishes
+when I send you not two hundred but a thousand lire, with the most
+humble request that you will accept it and keep it as long as you
+please. For of course I dare not ask you to take it as a present.
+Nevertheless I am making so bold as to send you a keepsake. When I read
+that you were compelled to sell a bracelet, I hated the idea so that,
+without stopping to think, I ran round to Marchesini&rsquo;s and, as
+best I could, picked you out a bracelet which, at your feet, I entreat
+you to accept. You must not refuse your friend this. Let my bracelet be
+a secret from Urania as well as from Van der Staal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Once more receive my sincere thanks for deigning <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb160" href="#pb160" name="pb160">160</a>]</span>to
+apply to me for aid and be assured that I attach the highest value to
+this mark of favour.</p>
+<p class="signed">&ldquo;Your most humble servant,<br>
+&ldquo;<span class="sc">Virgilio di F. B.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie opened the parcel and found a velvet case containing
+a bracelet in the Etruscan style: a narrow gold band set with pearls
+and sapphires. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb161" href="#pb161" name=
+"pb161">161</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">In those hot May days, the big studio facing north was
+cool while the town outside was scorching. Duco and Corn&eacute;lie did
+not go out before nightfall, when it was time to think of dining
+somewhere. Rome was quiet: Roman society had fled; the tourists had
+migrated. They saw nobody and their days glided past. He worked
+diligently; <i>The Banners</i> was finished: the two of them, with
+their arms around each other&rsquo;s waists and her head on his
+shoulder, would sit in front of it, proudly smiling, during the last
+days before the drawing was to be sent to the International Exhibition
+in Knightsbridge. Their feeling for each other had never contained such
+pure harmony, such unity of concord, as now, when his work was done. He
+felt that he had never worked so nobly, so firmly, so unhesitatingly,
+never with the same strength, yet never so tenderly; and he was
+grateful to her for it. He confessed to her that he could never have
+worked like that if she had not thought with him and felt with him in
+their long hours of sitting and gazing at the procession, the pageant
+of women, as it wound out of the night of crumbling pillars to the city
+of sheer increasing radiance and gleaming palaces of glass. There was
+rest in his soul, now that he had worked so greatly and nobly. There
+was pride in them both: pride because of their life, their
+independence, because of that work of noble and stately art. In their
+happiness there was much that was arbitrary; they looked down upon
+people, the multitude, the world; and this was especially true of him.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb162" href="#pb162" name=
+"pb162">162</a>]</span>In her there was more of quietude and humility,
+though outwardly she showed herself as proud as he. Her article on
+<i>The Social Position of Divorced Women</i> had been published in
+pamphlet form and made a success. But her own performance did not make
+her proud as Duco&rsquo;s art made her proud, proud of him and of their
+life and their happiness.</p>
+<p>While she read in the Dutch papers and magazines the reviews of her
+pamphlet&mdash;often displaying opposition but never any slight and
+always acknowledging her authority to speak on the question&mdash;while
+she read her pamphlet through again, a doubt arose within her of her
+own conviction. She felt how difficult it was to fight with a single
+mind for a cause, as those symbolic women in the drawing marched to the
+fight. She felt that what she had written was inspired by her own
+experience, by her own suffering and by these only; she saw that she
+had generalized her own sense of life and suffering, but without deeper
+insight into the essence of those things: not from pure conviction, but
+from anger and resentment; not from reflection, but after melancholy
+musing upon her own fate; not from her love of her fellow-women, but
+from a petty hatred of society. And she remembered Duco&rsquo;s silence
+at that time, his mute disapproval, his intuitive feeling that the
+source of her excitement was not pure, but the bitter and turbid spring
+of her own experience. She now respected his intuition; she now
+perceived the essential purity of his character; she now felt that
+he&mdash;because of his art&mdash;was high, noble, without ulterior
+motives in his actions, creating beauty for its own sake. But she also
+felt that she had roused him to it. That was her pride and her
+happiness; and she loved him more dearly for it. But about herself she
+was humble. She was conscious of her femininity, of all the complexity
+of her soul, which <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb163" href="#pb163"
+name="pb163">163</a>]</span>prevented her from continuing to fight for
+the objects of the feminist movement. And she thought again of her
+education, of her husband, her short but sad married life ... and she
+thought of the prince. She felt herself so complex and she would gladly
+have been homogeneous. She swayed between contradiction and
+contradiction and she confessed to herself that she did not know
+herself. It gave a tinge of melancholy to her days of happiness.</p>
+<p>The prince ... was not her pride only apparent that she had asked
+him not to tell Urania that she was living with Duco, because she would
+tell her so herself? In reality, she feared Urania&rsquo;s opinion....
+She was troubled by the dishonesty of the life: she called the
+intersections of the line with the lines of other small people the
+petty life. Why, so soon as she crossed one of these intersections, did
+she feel, as though by instinct, that honesty was not always wise? What
+became of her pride and her dignity&mdash;not apparently, but
+actually&mdash;from the moment that she feared Urania&rsquo;s
+criticism, from the moment that she feared lest this criticism might be
+unfavourable to her in one respect or another? And why did she not
+speak of Virgilio&rsquo;s bracelet to Duco? She did not speak of the
+thousand lire because she knew that money matters depressed him and
+that he did not want to borrow from the prince, because, if he knew
+about it, he would not be able to work free from care; and her
+concealment had been for a noble object. But why did she not speak of
+Gilio&rsquo;s bracelet?...</p>
+<p>She did not know. Once or twice she had tried to say, just naturally
+and casually:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look, I&rsquo;ve had this from the prince, because I sold
+that one bracelet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But she was not able to say it, she did not know why. Was it because
+of Duco&rsquo;s jealousy? She <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb164"
+href="#pb164" name="pb164">164</a>]</span>didn&rsquo;t know, she
+didn&rsquo;t know. She felt that it would make for peace and
+tranquillity if she said nothing about the bracelet and did not wear
+it. Really she would have been glad to send it back to the prince. But
+she thought that unkind, after all his readiness to assist her.</p>
+<p>And Duco ... he thought that she had sold the bracelets for a good
+sum, he knew that she had received money from the publisher, for her
+pamphlet. He asked no further questions and ceased to think about
+money. They lived very simply.... But still she disliked his not
+knowing, even though it had been good for his work that he had not
+known.</p>
+<p>These were little things. These were little clouds in the golden
+skies of their great and noble life, their life of which they were
+proud. And she alone saw them. And, when she saw his eyes, radiant with
+the pride of life; when she heard his voice, vibrating with his new
+assured energy and pride; and when she felt his embrace, in which she
+felt the thrill of his delight in the happiness which she brought him,
+then she no longer saw the little clouds, then she felt her own thrill
+of delight in the happiness which he had brought her and she loved him
+so passionately that she could have died in his arms.... <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb165" href="#pb165" name="pb165">165</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Urania wrote most charmingly. She said that they were
+having a very quiet time with the old prince at San Stefano, as they
+were not inviting visitors because the castle was too gloomy, too
+shabby, too lonely, but that she would think it most delightful if
+Corn&eacute;lie would come and spend a few weeks with them. She added
+that she would send Mr. van der Staal an invitation as well. The letter
+was addressed to the Via dei Serpenti and forwarded to Corn&eacute;lie
+from there. She understood from this that Gilio had not mentioned that
+she was living in Duco&rsquo;s studio and she understood also that
+Urania accepted their <i>liaison</i> without criticizing it....</p>
+<p><i>The Banners</i> had been dispatched to London; and, now that Duco
+was no longer working, a slight indolence and a vague boredom hung
+about the studio, which was still cool, while the town was scorching.
+And Corn&eacute;lie wrote to Urania that she was very glad to accept
+and promised to come in a week&rsquo;s time. She was pleased that she
+would meet no other guests at the castle, for she had no dresses for a
+country-house visit. But with her usual tact she freshened up her
+wardrobe, without spending much money. This took up all the intervening
+days; and she sat sewing while Duco lay on the sofa and smoked
+cigarettes. He also had accepted, because of Corn&eacute;lie and
+because the district around the Lake of San Stefano, which was
+overlooked by the castle, attracted him. He promised Corn&eacute;lie
+with a smile not to be so stiff. He would do his best to make himself
+agreeable. He looked down rather haughtily <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb166" href="#pb166" name="pb166">166</a>]</span>on
+the prince. He considered him a scallywag, but no longer a bounder or a
+cad. He thought him childish, but not base or ignoble.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie went off. He took her to the station. In the cab she
+kissed him fondly and told him how much she would miss him during those
+few days. Would he come soon? In a week? She would be longing for him:
+she could not do without him. She looked deep into his eyes, which she
+loved. He also said that he would be terribly bored without her.
+Couldn&rsquo;t he come earlier, she asked. No, Urania had fixed the
+date.</p>
+<p>When he helped her into a second-class compartment, she felt sad to
+be going without him. The carriage was full; she occupied the last
+vacant seat. She sat between a fat peasant and an old peasant-woman;
+the man civilly helped her to put her little portmanteau in the rack
+and asked whether she minded if he smoked his pipe. She civilly
+answered no. Opposite them sat two priests in frayed cassocks. An
+unimportant-looking little brown wooden box was lying between their
+feet: it was the supreme unction, which they were taking to a dying
+person.</p>
+<p>The peasant entered into conversation with Corn&eacute;lie, asked if
+she was a foreigner: English, no doubt? The old peasant-woman offered
+her a tangerine orange.</p>
+<p>The remainder of the compartment was occupied by a middle-class
+family: father, mother, a small boy and two little sisters. The slow
+train shook, rattled and wound its way along, stopping constantly. The
+little girls kept on humming tunes. At one station a lady stepped out
+of a first-class carriage with a little girl of five, in a white frock
+and a hat with white ostrich-feathers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Oh, che bellezza!</i>&rdquo; cried the small
+boy. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb167" href="#pb167" name=
+"pb167">167</a>]</span>&ldquo;Mamma, mamma, look! Isn&rsquo;t she
+beautiful? Isn&rsquo;t she lovely? <i lang="it">Divinamente!</i> Oh ...
+mamma!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He closed his black eyes, lovelorn, dazzled by the little white girl
+of five. The parents laughed, the priests laughed, everybody laughed.
+But the boy was not at all confused:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Era una bellezza!</i>&rdquo; he repeated once
+more, casting a glance of conviction all around him.</p>
+<p>It was very hot in the train. Outside, the mountains gleamed white
+on the horizon and glittered like a fire with opal reflections. Close
+to the railway stood a row of eucalyptus-trees, sickle-leaved, brewing
+a heavy perfume. On the dry, sun-scorched plain, the wild cattle
+grazed, lifting their black curly heads with indifference to the train.
+In the stifling, stewing heat, the passengers&rsquo; drowsy heads
+nodded up and down, while a smell of sweat, tobacco-smoke and
+orange-peel mingled with the scent of the eucalyptuses outside. The
+train swung round a curve, rattling like a toy-train of tin coaches
+almost tumbling over one another. And a level stretch of unruffled
+lazulite&mdash;metallic, crystalline, sky-blue&mdash;came into view,
+spreading into an oval goblet between slopes of mountain-land, like a
+very deep-set vase in which a sacred fluid was kept very blue and pure
+and motionless by a wall of rocky hills, which rose higher and higher
+until, as the train swung and rattled round the clear goblet, at one
+lofty point a castle stood, coloured like the rocks, broad, massive and
+monastic, with the cloisters running down the slope. It rose in noble
+and sombre melancholy; and from the train one could hardly distinguish
+what was rock and what was building-stone, as though it were all one
+barbaric growth, as though the castle had grown naturally out of the
+rock and, in growing, had assumed something of the shape of a human
+dwelling of the earliest <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb168" href=
+"#pb168" name="pb168">168</a>]</span>times. And, as though the oval
+with its divine blue water had been a sacred reservoir, the mountains
+hedged in the Lake of San Stefano and the castle rose as its gloomy
+guardian.</p>
+<p>The train wound along a curve by the water-side, swung round a bend,
+then round another and stopped: San Stefano. It was a small, quiet
+town, lying sleepily in the sun, without life or traffic, and visited
+only in the winter by day-trippers, who came from Rome to see the
+cathedral and the castle and tasted the wine of the country at the
+<i>osteria</i>.</p>
+<p>When Corn&eacute;lie alighted, she at once saw the prince.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How sweet of you to come and look us up in our eyrie!&rdquo;
+he cried, in rapture, eagerly pressing her two hands.</p>
+<p>He led her through the station to his little basket-carriage, with
+two little horses and a tiny groom. A porter would bring her luggage to
+the castle.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s delightful of you to come!&rdquo; he repeated.
+&ldquo;You have never been to San Stefano before? You know the
+cathedral is famous. We shall go right through the town: the road to
+the castle runs behind it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was smiling with pleasure. He started the horses with a click of
+his tongue, with a repeated shake of the reins, like a child. They flew
+along the road, between the low, sleepy little houses, across the
+square, where in the glowing sunlight the glorious cathedral rose,
+Lombardo-Romanesque in style, begun in the eleventh and added to in
+every succeeding century, with the <i lang="it">campanile</i> on the
+left and the <i lang="it">battisterio</i> on the right: marvels of
+architecture in red, black and white marble, one vast sculpture of
+angels, saints and prophets and all as it were covered with a thick
+dust of ages, which had long since tempered the colours of the marble
+to rose, grey <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb169" href="#pb169" name=
+"pb169">169</a>]</span>and yellow and which hovered between the groups
+as the one and only thing that had been left over of all those
+centuries, as though they had sunk into dust in every crevice.</p>
+<p>The prince drove across a long bridge, whose arches were the remains
+of an ancient aqueduct and now stood in the river, the bed of which was
+quite dried up, with children playing in it. Then he let the little
+horses climb at a foot&rsquo;s pace. The road led steeply, winding,
+barren and rocky, up to the castle, while valleys of olives sank
+beneath them, affording an ever wider view over the ever wider panorama
+of blue-white mountains and opal horizons gleaming in the sun, with
+suddenly a glimpse of the lake, the oval goblet, now sunk deeper and
+deeper, as in a fluted brim of sun-scorched hills, its blue growing
+deeper and more precipitous, a mystic blue that caught all the blue of
+the sky, until the air shimmered between lake and sky as in long
+spirals of light that whirled before the eyes. Until suddenly there
+drifted an intoxication of orange-blossom, a heavy, sensual breath as
+of panting love, as though thousands of mouths were exhaling a perfumed
+breath that hung stiflingly in the windless atmosphere of light,
+between the lake and the sky.</p>
+<p>The prince, happy and vivacious, talked a great deal, pointed this
+way and that with his whip, clicked at the horses, asked
+Corn&eacute;lie questions, asked if she did not admire the landscape.
+Slowly, straining the muscles of their hind-legs, the horses drew the
+carriage up the ascent. The castle lay massive, huddling close to the
+ground. The lake sank lower and lower. The horizons became wider, like
+a world; a fitful breeze blew away some of the orange-blossom breath.
+The road became broad, easy and level. The castle lay extended like a
+fortress, like a town, behind its pinnacled walls, with gate within
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb170" href="#pb170" name=
+"pb170">170</a>]</span>gate. They drove in, across a courtyard, under
+an archway into a second courtyard, under a second archway with a third
+courtyard. And Corn&eacute;lie received a sensation of awe, a vision of
+pillars, arches, statues, arcades and fountains. They alighted.</p>
+<p>Urania ran out to meet her, embraced her, welcomed her
+affectionately and took her up the stairs and through the passages to
+her room. The windows were open; she looked out at the lake and the
+town and the cathedral. And Urania kissed her again and made her sit
+down. And Corn&eacute;lie was struck by the fact that Urania had grown
+thin and had lost her former brilliant beauty of an American girl, with
+the unconscious look of a <i lang="it">cocotte</i> in her eyes, her
+smile and her clothes. She was changed. She had &ldquo;gone off&rdquo;
+a little and was no longer so pretty, as though her good looks had been
+a short-lived pretence, consisting of freshness rather than line. But,
+if she had lost her bloom, she had gained a certain distinction, a
+certain style, something that surprised Corn&eacute;lie. Her gestures
+were quieter, her voice was softer, her mouth seemed smaller and was
+not always splitting open to display her white teeth; her dress was
+exceedingly simple: a blue skirt and a white blouse. Corn&eacute;lie
+found it difficult to realize that the young Princess di Forte-Braccio,
+Duchess di San Stefano, was Miss Urania Hope of Chicago. A slight
+melancholy had come over her, which became her, even though she was
+less pretty. And Corn&eacute;lie reflected that she must have some
+sorrow, which had smoothed her angles, but that she was also tactfully
+accommodating herself to her entirely novel environment. She asked
+Urania if she was happy. Urania said yes, with her sad smile, which was
+so new and so surprising. And she told her story. They had had a
+pleasant winter at Nice, but among a cosmopolitan circle of
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb171" href="#pb171" name=
+"pb171">171</a>]</span>friends, for, though her new relations were very
+kind, they were exceedingly condescending and Virgilio&rsquo;s friends,
+especially the ladies, kept her at arm&rsquo;s length in an almost
+insolent fashion. Already during the honeymoon she had perceived that
+the aristocracy were prepared to tolerate her, but that they could
+never forget that she was the daughter of Hope the Chicago
+stockinet-manufacturer. She had seen that she was not the only one who,
+though she was now a princess and duchess, was accepted on sufferance
+and only for her millions: there were others like herself. She had
+formed no friendships. People came to her parties and dances: they were
+<i lang="fr">fr&egrave;re et compagnon</i> and hand and glove with
+Gilio; the women called him by his Christian name, laughed and flirted
+with him and seemed quite to approve of him for marrying a few
+millions. To Urania they were just barely civil, especially the women:
+the men were not so difficult. But the whole thing saddened her,
+especially with all these women of the higher nobility&mdash;bearers of
+the most famous names in Italy&mdash;who treated her with condescension
+and always managed to exclude her from every intimacy, from all private
+gatherings, from all cooperation in the matter of parties or charities.
+When everything had been discussed, then they asked the Princess di
+Forte-Braccio to take part and offered her the place to which she was
+entitled and even did so with scrupulous punctiliousness. They
+manifestly treated her as a princess and an equal in the eyes of the
+world, of the public. But in their own set she remained Urania Hope.
+And the few other, middle-class millionaire elements of course ran
+after her, but she kept these at a distance; and Gilio approved. And
+what had Gilio said when she once complained of her grievance to him?
+That she, by displaying tactfulness, would certainly conquer her
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb172" href="#pb172" name=
+"pb172">172</a>]</span>position, but with great patience and after
+many, many years. She was now crying, with her head on
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s shoulder: oh, she reflected, she would never
+conquer them, those haughty women! What after all was she, a Hope,
+compared with all those celebrated families, which together made up the
+ancient glory of Italy and which, like the Massimos, traced back their
+descent to the Romans of old?</p>
+<p>Was Gilio kind? Yes, but from the beginning he had treated her as
+&ldquo;his wife.&rdquo; All his pleasantness, all his cheerfulness was
+kept for others: he never talked to her much. And the young princess
+wept: she felt lonely, she sometimes longed for America. She had now
+invited her brother to stay with her, a nice boy of seventeen, who had
+come over for her wedding and travelled about Europe a little before
+returning to his farm in the Far West. He was her darling, he consoled
+her; but he would be gone in a few weeks. And then what would she have
+left? Oh, how glad she was that Corn&eacute;lie had come! And how well
+she was looking, prettier than she had ever seen her look! Van der
+Staal had accepted: he would be here in a week. She asked, in a
+whisper, were they not going to get married? Corn&eacute;lie answered
+positively no; she was not marrying, she would never marry again. And,
+in a sudden burst of candour, unable to conceal things from Urania, she
+told her that she was no longer living in the Via dei Serpenti, that
+she was living in Duco&rsquo;s studio. Urania was startled by this
+breach of every convention; but she regarded her friend as a woman who
+could do things which another could not. So it was only their happiness
+and friendship, she whispered, as though frightened, and without the
+sanction of society? Urania remembered Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s
+imprecations against marriage and, formerly, against the prince. But
+she did like Gilio a little now, didn&rsquo;t <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb173" href="#pb173" name="pb173">173</a>]</span>she?
+Oh, she, Urania, would not be jealous again! She thought it delightful
+that Corn&eacute;lie had come; and Gilio, who was bored, had also
+looked forward so to her arrival. Oh, no, Urania was no longer
+jealous!</p>
+<p>And, with her head on Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s shoulder and her eyes
+still full of tears, she seemed merely to ask for a little friendship,
+a little affection, a few kind words and caresses, this wealthy
+American child who now bore the title of an ancient Italian house. And
+Corn&eacute;lie felt for her because she was suffering, because she was
+no longer a small insignificant person, whose line of life happened to
+cross her own. She took her in her arms, comforted her, the weeping
+little princess, as with a new friendship; she accepted her in her life
+as a friend, no longer as a small insignificant person. And, when
+Urania, staring wide-eyed, remembered Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s warning,
+Corn&eacute;lie treated that warning lightly and said that Urania ought
+to show more courage. Tact, she possessed, innate tact. But she must be
+courageous and face life as it came....</p>
+<p>They stood up and, clasped in each other&rsquo;s arms, looked out of
+the open window. The bells of the cathedral were pealing through the
+air; the cathedral rose in noble pride from out of a very low huddle of
+roofs, a gigantic cathedral for so small a town, an immense symbol of
+ecclesiastical dominion over the roof-tops of the little town kneeling
+in reverence. And the awe which had filled Corn&eacute;lie in the
+courtyard, among the arcades, statues and fountains, inspired her anew,
+because glory and grandeur, dying but not dead, mouldering but not
+spent, seemed to loom dimly from the mystic blue of the lake, from the
+age-old architecture of the cathedral, up the orange-clad hills to the
+castle, where at an open window stood a young foreign woman,
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb174" href="#pb174" name=
+"pb174">174</a>]</span>discouraged, although that phantom of glory and
+grandeur needed her millions in order to endure for a few more
+generations....</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is beautiful and stately, all this past,&rdquo; thought
+Corn&eacute;lie. &ldquo;It is great. But still it is no longer
+anything. It is a phantom. For it is gone, it is all gone, it is but a
+memory of proud and arrogant nobles, of narrow souls that do not look
+towards the future.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the future, with a confusion of social problems, with the waving
+of new banners and streamers, now whirled before her in the long
+spirals of light, which, like blue notes of interrogation, shimmered
+before her eyes, between the lake and the sky. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb175" href="#pb175" name="pb175">175</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Corn&eacute;lie had changed her dress and now left her
+room. She went down the corridor and saw nobody. She did not know the
+way, but walked on. Suddenly a wide staircase fell away before her,
+between two rows of gigantic marble candelabra; and Corn&eacute;lie
+came to an <i>atrio</i> which opened over the lake. The walls, with
+frescoes by Mantegna, representing feats of bygone San Stefanos,
+supported a cupola which, painted with sky and clouds, appeared as
+though it were open to the outer air and which was surrounded by groups
+of cupids and nymphs looking down from a balustrade.</p>
+<p>She stepped outside and saw Gilio. He was sitting on the balustrade
+of the terrace, smoking a cigarette and gazing at the lake. He came up
+to her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was almost sure that you would come this way,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you tired? May I show you round? Have you
+seen our Mantegnas? They have suffered badly. They were restored at the
+beginning of the century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3359src" href=
+"#xd21e3359" name="xd21e3359src">1</a> They look rather dilapidated,
+don&rsquo;t they? Do you see that little mythological scene up there,
+by Giulio Romano? Come here, through this door. But it&rsquo;s locked.
+Wait....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He called out an order to some one below. Presently an old
+serving-man arrived with a heavy bunch of keys, which he handed to the
+prince.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can go, Egisto. I know the keys.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The man went away. The prince opened a heavy bronze door. He showed
+her the bas-reliefs: <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb176" href="#pb176"
+name="pb176">176</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Giovanni da Bologna,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>They went on, through a room hung with tapestries; the prince
+pointed to a ceiling by Ghirlandajo: the apotheosis of the only pope of
+the house of San Stefano. Next through a hall of mirrors, painted by
+Mario de&rsquo; Flori. The dusty, musty smell of an ill-kept museum,
+with its atmosphere of neglect and indifference, stifled the breath;
+the white-silk window-curtains were yellow with age, soiled by flies;
+the red curtains of Venetian damask hung in moth-eaten rags and
+tatters; the painted mirrors were dull and tarnished; the arms of the
+Venetian glass chandeliers were broken. Pushed aside anyhow, like so
+much rubbish in a lumber-room, stood the most precious cabinets, inlaid
+with bronze, mother-of-pearl and ebony panels, and mosaic tables of
+lapis-lazuli, malachite and green, yellow, black and pink marble. In
+the tapestries&mdash;Saul and David, Esther, Holofernes,
+Salome&mdash;the vitality of the figures had evaporated, as though they
+were suffocated under the grey coat of dust that lay thick upon their
+worn textures and neutralized every colour.</p>
+<p>In the immense halls, half-dark in their curtained dusk, a sort of
+sorrow lingered, like a melancholy of hopeless, conquered exasperation,
+a slow decline of greatness and magnificence; between the masterpieces
+of the most famous painters mournful empty spaces yawned, the witnesses
+of pinching penury, spaces once occupied by pictures that had once and
+even lately been sold for fortunes. Corn&eacute;lie remembered
+something about a law-suit some years ago, an attempt to send some
+Raphaels across the frontier, in defiance of the law, and to sell them
+in Berlin.... And Gilio led her hurriedly through the spectral halls,
+gay as a boy, light-hearted as a child, glad to have his diversion,
+mentioning without affection or interest names which he had heard
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb177" href="#pb177" name=
+"pb177">177</a>]</span>in his childhood, but making mistakes and
+correcting himself and at last confessing that he had forgotten:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And here is the <i lang="it">camera degli
+sposi</i>....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He fumbled at the bunch of keys, read the brass labels till he found
+the right one and opened the door, which grated on its hinges; and they
+went in.</p>
+<p>And suddenly there was something like an intense and exquisite
+stateliness of intimacy: a huge bedroom, all gold, with the dim gold of
+tenderly faded golden tissues. On the walls were gold-coloured
+tapestries: Venus rising from the gilt foam of a golden ocean, Venus
+and Mars, Venus and Cupid, Venus and Adonis. The pale-pink nudity of
+these mythological beings stood forth very faintly against the sheer
+gold of sky and atmosphere, in golden woodlands, amid golden flowers,
+with golden cupids and swans and doves and wild boars; golden peacocks
+drank from golden fountains; water and clouds were of elemental gold;
+and all this had tenderly faded into a languorous sunset of expiring
+radiance. The state bed was gold, under a canopy of gold brocade, on
+which the armorial bearings of the family were embroidered in heavy
+relief; the bedspread was gold; but all this gold was lifeless, had
+lapsed into the melancholy of all but grey lustre: it was effaced,
+erased, obliterated, as though the dusty ages had cast a shadow over
+it, had woven a web across it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How beautiful!&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our famous bridal chamber,&rdquo; said the prince, laughing.
+&ldquo;It was a strange idea of those old people, to spend the first
+night in such a peculiar apartment. When they married, in our family,
+they slept here on the bridal night. It was a sort of superstition. The
+young wife remained faithful only provided it was here that she spent
+the first night <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb178" href="#pb178"
+name="pb178">178</a>]</span>with her husband. Poor Urania! We did not
+sleep here, <i lang="it">signora mia</i>, among all these indecent
+goddesses of love. We no longer respect the family tradition. Urania is
+therefore doomed by fate to be unfaithful to me. Unless I take that
+doom on my own shoulders....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose the fidelity of the husbands is not mentioned in
+this family tradition?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, we attached very little importance to that ... nor do we
+nowadays....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s glorious,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie repeated, locking
+around her. &ldquo;Duco will think it perfectly glorious. Oh, prince, I
+never saw such a room! Look at Venus over there, with the wounded
+Adonis, his head in her lap, the nymphs lamenting! It is a
+fairy-tale.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s too much gold for my taste.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It may have been so before, too much gold....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Masses of gold denoted wealth and abundant love. The wealth
+is gone....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the gold is softened now, so beautifully toned
+down....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The abundant love has remained: the San Stefanos have always
+loved much.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He went on jesting, called attention to the wantonness of the design
+and risked an allusion.</p>
+<p>She pretended not to hear. She looked at the tapestries. In the
+intervals between the panels golden peacocks drank from golden
+fountains and cupids played with doves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am so fond of you!&rdquo; he whispered in her ear, putting
+his arm round her waist. &ldquo;Angel! Angel!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She pushed him away:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Call me Gilio!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t we be just good friends?&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb179" href="#pb179" name="pb179">179</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I want something more than friendship.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She now released herself entirely:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; she answered, coldly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you only love one then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not possible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because, if so, you would marry him. If you loved nobody but
+Van der Staal, you would marry him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am opposed to marriage.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense! You&rsquo;re not marrying him, so that you may be
+free. And, if you want to be free, I also am entitled to ask for my
+moment of love.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave him a strange look. He felt her scorn.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ... you don&rsquo;t understand me at all,&rdquo; she
+said, slowly and compassionately.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You understand me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes! You are so very simple!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I haven&rsquo;t that feeling for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; he insisted; and his hands clenched as he
+spoke.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Because I think you a
+cheerful and pleasant companion with whom to take things lightly, but
+in other respects your temperament is not in tune with mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you know about my temperament?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can see you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are not a doctor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, but I am a woman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I a man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But not for me.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb180"
+href="#pb180" name="pb180">180</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Furiously, with a curse, he caught her in his quivering arms. Before
+she could prevent him, he had kissed her fiercely. She struggled out of
+his grasp and slapped his face. He gave another curse and flung out his
+arms to seize her again, but she drew herself up:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince!&rdquo; she cried, screaming with laughter. &ldquo;You
+surely don&rsquo;t think that you can compel me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I do!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave a disdainful laugh:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can not,&rdquo; she said, aloud. &ldquo;For I refuse and
+I will not be compelled.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He saw red, he was furious. He had never before been defied and
+thwarted; he had always conquered.</p>
+<p>She saw him rushing at her, but she quietly flung back the door of
+the room.</p>
+<p>The long galleries and apartments stretched out before them, as
+though endlessly. There was something in that vista of ancestral
+spaciousness that restrained him. He was an impetuous rather than a
+deliberate ravisher. She walked on very slowly, looking attentively to
+right and left.</p>
+<p>He came up with her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You struck me!&rdquo; he panted, furiously. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+never forgive it, never!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; she said, with her sweetened voice
+and smile. &ldquo;I had to defend myself, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; she said, persuasively, &ldquo;why all this
+anger and passion and exasperation? You can be so nice; when I saw you
+last in Rome you were so charming. We were always such good friends. I
+enjoyed your conversation and your wit and your good-nature. Now
+it&rsquo;s all spoilt.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb181"
+href="#pb181" name="pb181">181</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he entreated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it is. You won&rsquo;t understand me. Your temperament
+is not in harmony with mine. Don&rsquo;t you understand? You force me
+to speak coarsely, because you are coarse yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. You don&rsquo;t believe in the sincerity of my
+independence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that courteous, towards a woman?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am courteous only up to a certain point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have left that point behind. So be courteous again as
+before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are playing with me. I shall never forget it; I will be
+revenged.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So it&rsquo;s a struggle for life and death?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, a struggle for victory, for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They had reached the <i>atrio</i>:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks for showing me round,&rdquo; she said, a little
+mockingly. &ldquo;The <i lang="it">camera degli sposi</i>, above all,
+was splendid. Don&rsquo;t let us be angry any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she offered him her hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you struck me here, in the face.
+My cheek is still burning. I won&rsquo;t accept your hand.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor cheek!&rdquo; she said, teasingly. &ldquo;Poor prince!
+Did I hit hard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can I extinguish that burning?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He looked at her, still breathing hard, and flushed, with glittering
+carbuncle eyes:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a bigger coquette than any Italian
+woman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With a kiss?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Demon!&rdquo; he muttered, between his teeth. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb182" href="#pb182" name="pb182">182</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;With a kiss?&rdquo; she repeated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There, in our <i lang="it">camera
+degli sposi</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Demon!&rdquo; he muttered, still more softly.</p>
+<p>She kissed him quickly. Then she gave him her hand:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now that&rsquo;s over. The incident is closed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Angel! She-devil!&rdquo; he hissed after her.</p>
+<p>She looked over the balustrade at the lake. Evening had fallen and
+the lake lay shimmering in mist. She regarded him as a young boy, who
+sometimes amused her and had now been naughty. She was no longer
+thinking of him; she was thinking of Duco:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How lovely he will think it here!&rdquo; she thought.
+&ldquo;Oh, how I long for him!...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a rustle of women&rsquo;s skirts behind her. It was Urania
+and the Marchesa Belloni. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb183" href=
+"#pb183" name="pb183">183</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
+"xd21e3359" href="#xd21e3359src" name="xd21e3359">1</a></span> The
+nineteenth century.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Urania asked Corn&eacute;lie to come in, because it
+was not healthy out of doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations
+from the lake. The marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinched her eyes
+together and pretended not to remember Corn&eacute;lie very well.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can understand that,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie, smiling
+acidly. &ldquo;You see different boarders at your <i>pension</i> every
+day and I stayed for a much shorter time than you reckoned on. I hope
+that you soon disposed of my rooms again, marchesa, and that you
+suffered no loss through my departure?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Marchesa Belloni looked at her in mute amazement. She was here,
+at San Stefano, in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law
+of the old prince, never spoke here of her foreigners&rsquo;
+boarding-house; she never met her Roman guests here: they sometimes
+visited the castle, but only at fixed hours, whereas she spent the
+weeks of her summer <i lang="it">villeggiatura</i> here. And here she
+laid aside her plausible manner of singing the praises of a chilly
+room, her commercial habit of asking the most that she dared. She here
+carried her curled, leonine head with a lofty dignity; and, though she
+still wore her crystal brilliants in her ears, she also wore a
+brand-new spencer around her ample bosom. She could not help it, that
+she, a countess by birth, she, the Marchesa Belloni&mdash;the late
+marquis was a brother of the defunct princess&mdash;possessed no
+personal distinction, despite all her quarterings; but she felt herself
+to be, as indeed she was, an aristocrat. The friends, the <i lang=
+"it">monsignori</i> whom she did <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb184"
+href="#pb184" name="pb184">184</a>]</span>sometimes meet at San
+Stefano, promoted the Pension Belloni in their conversation and called
+it the Palazzo Belloni.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she said, at last, very coolly, blinking her
+eyes with an aristocratic air, &ldquo;I remember you now ... although
+I&rsquo;ve forgotten your name. A friend of the Princess Urania, I
+believe? I am glad to see you again, very glad.... And what do you
+think of your friend&rsquo;s marriage?&rdquo; she asked, as she went up
+the stairs beside Corn&eacute;lie, between Mino da Fiesole&rsquo;s
+marble candelabra.</p>
+<p>Gilio, still angry and flushed and not at all calmed by the kiss,
+had moved away. Urania had run on ahead. The marchesa knew of
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s original opposition, of her former advice to
+Urania; and she was certain that Corn&eacute;lie had acted in this way
+because she herself had had views on Gilio. There was a note of
+triumphant irony in her question.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it was made in Heaven,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie
+replied, in a bantering tone. &ldquo;I believe there is a blessing on
+their marriage.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The blessing of his holiness,&rdquo; said the marchesa,
+na&iuml;vely, not understanding.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of
+Heaven.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you were not religious?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very
+religious. What peace for the Princess Urania&rsquo;s soul when she
+became a Catholic! What happiness in life, to marry <i lang="it">il
+caro Gilio</i>! There is still peace and happiness left in
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The marchesa had a vague suspicion that she was mocking and thought
+her a dangerous woman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you, has our religion no charm for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches
+and pictures. But that is an artistic conception. You will not
+understand it perhaps, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb185" href=
+"#pb185" name="pb185">185</a>]</span>for I don&rsquo;t think you are
+artistic, marchesa? And marriage also has charms for me, a marriage
+like Urania&rsquo;s. Couldn&rsquo;t you help me too some time,
+marchesa? Then I will spend a whole winter in your <i>pension</i>
+and&mdash;who knows?&mdash;perhaps I too shall become a Catholic. You
+might give Rudyard another chance, with me; and, if that didn&rsquo;t
+succeed, the two <i lang="it">monsignori</i>. Then I should certainly
+become converted.... And it would of course be lucrative.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lucrative?...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you get me an Italian title, but accompanied by money, of
+course it would be lucrative.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, ask the old prince, marchesa, or the two <i lang=
+"it">monsignori</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you know about it? What are you thinking
+of?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I? Nothing!&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie answered, coolly.
+&ldquo;But I have second sight. I sometimes suddenly see a thing. So
+keep on friendly terms with me and don&rsquo;t pretend again to forget
+an old boarder.... Is this the Princess Urania&rsquo;s room? You go in
+first, marchesa; after you....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The marchesa entered all aquiver: she had thoughts of witchcraft.
+How did that woman know <i>anything</i> of her transactions with the
+old prince and the <i lang="it">monsignori</i>? How did she come to
+suspect that Urania&rsquo;s marriage and her conversion had enriched
+the marchesa to the tune of a few ten thousand lire?</p>
+<p>She had not only had a lesson: she was shuddering, she was
+frightened. Was that woman a witch? Was she the devil? Had she the
+<i lang="it">mal&rsquo;occhio</i>? And the marchesa made the sign of
+the <i lang="it">jettatura</i> with <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb186" href="#pb186" name="pb186">186</a>]</span>her little finger and
+fore-finger in the folds of her dress and muttered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Vade retro, Satanas....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In her own drawing-room, Urania poured out tea. The three pointed
+windows of the room overlooked the town and the ancient cathedral,
+which in the orange reflection of the last gleams of sunset shot up for
+yet a moment out of its grey dust of ages with the dim huddle of its
+saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with handsome
+tapestries&mdash;an allegory of <i>Abundance</i>: nymphs outpouring the
+contents of their cornucopias&mdash;was half old, half modern, not
+always perfect in taste or pure in tone, with here and there a few
+hideously commonplace modern ornaments, here and there some modern
+comfort that clashed with the rest, but still cosy, inhabited and
+Urania&rsquo;s home. A young man rose from a chair and Urania
+introduced him to Corn&eacute;lie as her brother. Young Hope was a
+strongly-built, fresh-looking boy of eighteen; he was still in his
+bicycling-suit: it didn&rsquo;t matter, said his sister, just to drink
+a cup of tea. Laughing, she stroked his close-clipped round head and,
+with the ladies&rsquo; permission, gave him his tea first: then he
+would go and change. He looked so strange, so new and so healthy as he
+sat there with his fresh, pink complexion, his broad chest, his strong
+hands and muscular calves, with the youthfulness of a young Yankee
+farmer who, notwithstanding the millions of &ldquo;old man Hope,&rdquo;
+worked on his farm, way out in the Far West, to make his own fortune;
+he looked so strange in this ancient San Stefano, within view of that
+severely symbolical cathedral, against this background of old
+tapestries. And suddenly Corn&eacute;lie was impressed still more
+strangely by the new young princess. Her name&mdash;her American name
+of Urania&mdash;had a first-rate sound: &ldquo;the Princess
+Urania&rdquo; sounded <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb187" href=
+"#pb187" name="pb187">187</a>]</span>unexpectedly well. But the little
+young wife, a trifle pale, a trifle sad, with her clipping American
+accent, suddenly struck Corn&eacute;lie as somewhat out of place amid
+the faded glories of San Stefano. Corn&eacute;lie was continually
+forgetting that Urania was Princess di Forte-Braccio: she always
+thought of her as Miss Hope. And yet Urania possessed great tact, great
+ease of manner, a great power of assimilation. Gilio had entered; and
+the few words which she addressed to her husband were, quite naturally,
+almost dignified ... and yet carried, to Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s ears,
+a sound of resigned disillusionment which made her pity Urania. She had
+from the beginning felt a vague liking for Urania; now she felt a
+fonder affection. She was sorry for this child, the Princess Urania.
+Gilio behaved to her with careless coolness, the marchesa with
+patronizing condescension. And then there was that awful loneliness
+around her, of all that ruined magnificence. She stroked her young
+brother&rsquo;s head. She spoilt him, she asked him if his tea was all
+right and stuffed him with sandwiches, because he was hungry after his
+bicycle-ride. She had him with her now as a reminder of home, a
+reminder of Chicago; she almost clung to him. But for the rest she was
+surrounded by the depressing gloom of the immense castle, the neglected
+glory of its ancient stateliness, the conceit of that aristocratic
+pride, which could do without her but not without her millions. And for
+Corn&eacute;lie she had lost all her absurdity as an American
+<i>parvenue</i> and, on the contrary, had acquired an air of tragedy,
+as of a young sacrificial victim. How alien they were as they sat
+there, the young princess and her brother, with his muscular
+calves!</p>
+<p>Urania displayed her portfolio of drawings and designs: the ideas of
+a young Roman architect for restoring the castle. And she became
+excited, with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb188" href="#pb188" name=
+"pb188">188</a>]</span>a flush in her cheeks, when Corn&eacute;lie
+asked her if so much restoration would really be beautiful. Urania
+defended her architect. Gilio smoked cigarettes with an air of
+indifference; he was in a bad temper. The marchesa sat like an idol,
+with her leonine head and the crystals sparkling in her ears. She was
+afraid of Corn&eacute;lie and promised herself to be on her guard. A
+major-domo came and announced to the princess that dinner was served.
+And Corn&eacute;lie recognized old Giuseppe from the Pension Belloni,
+the old archducal major-domo, who had once dropped a spoon, according
+to Rudyard&rsquo;s story. She looked at Urania with a laugh and Urania
+blushed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor man!&rdquo; she said, when Giuseppe was gone.
+&ldquo;Yes, I took him over from my aunt. He was so hard-worked at the
+Palazzo Belloni! Here he has very little to do and he has a young
+butler under him. The number of servants had to be increased in any
+case. He is enjoying a pleasant old age here, poor dear old
+Giuseppe.... There, Bob, now you haven&rsquo;t dressed!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a dear child,&rdquo; thought Corn&eacute;lie,
+while they all rose and Urania gently reproached her brother, as she
+would a spoiled boy, for coming down to dinner in his knickerbockers.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb189" href="#pb189" name=
+"pb189">189</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">They were in the great sombre dining-room, with the
+almost black tapestries, with the almost black panels of the ceiling,
+with the almost black oak carvings, with the black, monumental
+chimney-piece and, above it, the arms of the family in black marble.
+The light of two tall silver candle-sticks on the table merely cast a
+gleam over the damask and crystal, but left the remainder of the too
+large room in a gloomy obscurity of shadow, piled in the corners into
+masses of densest shadow, with a fainter shadow descending from the
+ceiling like a haze of dark velvet that floated in atoms above the
+candlelight. The ancestral antiquity of San Stefano hovered above them
+in this room like a palpable sense of awe, blended with a melancholy of
+black silence and black pride. Here their words sounded muffled. This
+still remained as it always had been, retaining as it were the
+sacrosanctity of their aristocratic traditions, in which Urania would
+never dare to alter anything, even as she hardly ventured to open her
+mouth to speak or eat. They waited for a moment. Then a double door was
+opened. And there entered like a spectral shade an old, grey man, with
+his arm in the arm of the priest walking beside him. Old Prince Ercole
+approached with very slow and stately steps, while the chaplain
+regulated his pace by that stately slowness. He wore a long black coat
+of an old-fashioned, roomy cut, which hung about him in folds,
+something like a cassock, and on his silvery grey hair, which waved
+over his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb190" href="#pb190" name=
+"pb190">190</a>]</span>neck, a black-velvet skull-cap. And the others
+approached him with the greatest respect: first the marchesa; then
+Urania, whom he kissed on the forehead, very slowly, as though he were
+consecrating her; then Gilio, who submissively kissed his
+father&rsquo;s hand. The old man nodded to young Hope, who bowed, and
+glanced towards Corn&eacute;lie. Urania presented her. And the prince
+said a few amiable words to her, as though he were granting an
+audience, and asked her if she liked Italy. When Corn&eacute;lie had
+replied, Prince Ercole sat down and handed his skull-cap to Giuseppe,
+who took it with a deep bow. Then they all sat down: the marchesa and
+the chaplain opposite Prince Ercole, who sat between Corn&eacute;lie
+and Urania; Gilio next to Corn&eacute;lie; Bob Hope next to his
+sister:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My legs don&rsquo;t show,&rdquo; he whispered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ssh!&rdquo; said Urania.</p>
+<p>Giuseppe, revivified in his former dignity, standing at a sideboard,
+solemnly filled the plates with soup. He was back in his element; he
+was obviously grateful to Urania; he wore a distinguished air, as of
+one whose mind is at peace, and looked like an elderly diplomatist in
+his dress-coat. He amused Corn&eacute;lie, who thought of
+Belloni&rsquo;s, where he used to become impatient when the visitors
+were late at meals and to rail at the young greenhorns of waiters whom
+the marchesa engaged for economy&rsquo;s sake. When the two footmen had
+handed round the soup, the chaplain stood up and said grace. Not a word
+had been spoken yet. They ate the soup in silence, while the three
+servants stood motionless. The spoons clinked against the plates and
+the marchesa smacked her lips. The candles flickered now and again; and
+the shadow fell more oppressively, like a haze of black velvet. Then
+Prince Ercole addressed the marchesa. And turn by turn he addressed
+them <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb191" href="#pb191" name=
+"pb191">191</a>]</span>all, with a kindly, condescending dignity, in
+French and Italian. The conversation became a little more general, but
+the old prince continued to lead it. And Corn&eacute;lie noticed that
+he was very civil to Urania. But she remembered Gilio&rsquo;s
+words:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Papa nearly had a stroke, because old Hope haggled over
+Urania&rsquo;s dowry. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions!
+Dollars? No, lire!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the prince suddenly struck her as the grey-haired egoism of San
+Stefano&rsquo;s glory and aristocratic pride, struck her as the living
+shade of the past that loomed behind him, as she had felt it that
+afternoon, when she stood gazing with Urania into the deep, blue lake:
+an exacting shade; a shade demanding millions; a shade demanding a new
+increment of vitality; a spectral parasite who had sold his depreciated
+symbols to gratify the vanity of a new commercial house, but who, in
+his distinction, had been no match for the merchant&rsquo;s cunning.
+Their title of princess and duchess for less than three million lire!
+Papa had almost had a stroke, Gilio had said. And Corn&eacute;lie,
+during the measured, affable stiffness of the conversation led by
+Prince Ercole, looked from the old prince and duke, seventy years of
+age, to the breezy young Far-Westerner, aged eighteen, and from him to
+Prince Gilio, the hope of the old house, its only hope. Here, in the
+gloom of this dining-room, where he was bored and moreover still out of
+temper, he seemed small, insignificant, shrunken, a paltry,
+distinguished little <i lang="fr">viveur</i>; and his carbuncle eyes,
+which could sparkle merrily with wit and depravity, now looked dully,
+from under their drooping lids, upon his plate, at which he picked
+without appetite.</p>
+<p>She felt sorry for him; and her mind went back to the golden bridal
+chamber. She despised him a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb192" href=
+"#pb192" name="pb192">192</a>]</span>little. She looked upon him not so
+much as a man who could not obtain what he wanted but rather as a
+naughty boy. And he must feel jealous of Bob, she reflected: jealous of
+his young blood, which tingled in his cheeks, of his broad shoulders
+and his broad chest. But still he amused her. He could be very
+agreeable, gay and witty and vivacious, when in the mood, vivacious in
+his words and in his wits. She liked him, when all was said. And then
+he was good-hearted. She thought of the bracelet and especially the
+thousand lire, always remembered, with a certain emotion, how touched
+she had been during that walk up and down past the post-office, how
+touched by his letter and his generous assistance. He had no backbone,
+he was not a man to her; but he was witty and he had a very good heart.
+She liked him as a friend and a pleasant companion. How dejected and
+moody he was! But then why would he venture on those silly
+enterprises?...</p>
+<p>She spoke to him now and again, but could not succeed in rousing him
+from his depression. For the rest, the conversation dragged on stiffly
+and affably, always led by Prince Ercole. The dinner came to an end;
+and Prince Ercole rose from his chair. Giuseppe handed him his
+skull-cap; every one said good-night to him; the doors were opened and
+Prince Ercole withdrew, leaning on his chaplain&rsquo;s arm. Gilio,
+still angry, disappeared. The marchesa, still terrified of
+Corn&eacute;lie, also disappeared, making the <i lang=
+"it">jettatura</i> at her in the folds of her dress. And Urania took
+Corn&eacute;lie and Bob back with her to her own drawing-room. They all
+three breathed again. They all talked freely, in English: the boy said
+in despair that he wasn&rsquo;t getting enough to eat, that he dared
+not eat enough to stay his hunger; and Corn&eacute;lie laughed,
+thinking him jolly, because of his wholesomeness, while Urania hunted
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb193" href="#pb193" name=
+"pb193">193</a>]</span>out some biscuits for him and a piece of cake
+left over from tea and promised that he should have some cold meat and
+bread before they went to bed. And they relaxed their minds after the
+pompous, stately meal. Urania said that the old prince never appeared
+except at dinner, but that she always looked him up in the morning and
+sat talking to him for an hour or playing chess with him. At other
+times he played chess with the chaplain. She was very busy, Urania. The
+reorganizing of the housekeeping, which used to be left to a poor
+relation, who now lived at a <i>pension</i> in Rome, took up a lot of
+her time. In the mornings, she discussed a host of details with Prince
+Ercole, who, notwithstanding his secluded life, knew about everything.
+Then she had consultations with her architect from Rome about the
+restorations to be effected in the castle: these consultations were
+sometimes held in the old prince&rsquo;s study. Then she was having a
+big hostel built in the town, an <i lang="it">albergo dei poveri</i>, a
+hostel for old men and women, for which old Hope had given her a
+separate endowment. When she first came to San Stefano she had been
+struck by the ruinous, tumbledown houses and cottages of the poorer
+quarters, leprous and scabby with filth, eaten up by their own poverty,
+in which a whole population vegetated like toadstools. She was now
+building the hostel for the old people, finding work on the estate for
+the young and healthy and looking after the neglected children; she had
+built a new school-house. She talked about all this very simply, while
+cutting cake for her brother Bob, who was tucking in after his formal
+dinner. She asked Corn&eacute;lie to come with her one morning to see
+how the <i lang="it">albergo</i> was progressing, to see the new
+school, run by two priests who had been recommended to her by the
+<i lang="it">monsignori</i>. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb194" href=
+"#pb194" name="pb194">194</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Through the pointed windows the town loomed faintly in the depths
+below; and the lines of the cathedral rose high into the sultry,
+star-spangled night. And Corn&eacute;lie thought to herself:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was not only for a shadow and an unsubstantial shade that
+she came here, the rich American who thought titles &lsquo;so
+nice,&rsquo; the child who used to collect patterns of the
+queen&rsquo;s ball-dresses&mdash;she hides the album now that she is a
+&lsquo;black&rsquo; princess&mdash;the girl who used to trip through
+the Forum in her white-serge tailor-made, without understanding either
+ancient Rome or the dawn of the new future.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, as Corn&eacute;lie went to her own room through the silent
+heavy darkness of the Castle of San Stefano, she thought:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I write, but she acts. I dream and think; but she teaches the
+children, though it be with the aid of a priest; she feeds and houses
+old men and women.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then, in her room, looking out at the lake under the summer night
+all dusted with stars, she reflected that she too would like to be rich
+and to have a wide field of labour. For now she had no field, now she
+had no money and now ... now she longed only for Duco; and he must not
+leave her too long alone in this castle, amid all this sombre
+greatness, which oppressed her as with the weight of the centuries.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb195" href="#pb195" name=
+"pb195">195</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Next morning Urania&rsquo;s maid was showing
+Corn&eacute;lie through a maze of galleries to the garden, where
+breakfast was to be served, when she met Gilio on the stairs. The maid
+turned back.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I still need a guide to find my way,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie
+laughed.</p>
+<p>He grunted some reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How did you sleep, prince?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He gave another grunt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look here, prince, there must be an end of this ill-temper of
+yours. Do you hear? It&rsquo;s <i>got</i> to finish. I insist. I
+won&rsquo;t have any more sulking to-day; and I hope that you&rsquo;ll
+go back to your cheerful, witty style of conversation as soon as
+possible, for that&rsquo;s what I like in you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He mumbled something.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye, prince,&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie, curtly.</p>
+<p>And she turned to go away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To my room. I shall breakfast in my room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t care for you as a host.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you. Yesterday you insult me. I defend myself, you go on
+being rude, I at once become as amiable as ever, I give you my hand, I
+even give you a kiss. At dinner you sulk with me in the most uncivil
+fashion. You go to bed without bidding me good-night. This morning you
+meet me without a word of greeting. You grunt, sulk and mumble like a
+naughty child. Your eyes are blazing with anger, you are yellow with
+spleen. Really, you&rsquo;re <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb196" href=
+"#pb196" name="pb196">196</a>]</span>looking very bad. It doesn&rsquo;t
+suit you at all. You are most unpleasant, rough, rude and petty. I have
+no inclination to breakfast with you in that mood. And I&rsquo;m going
+to my room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he implored.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then be different. Make an effort, don&rsquo;t think any more
+about your defeat and be nice to me. You&rsquo;re behaving as the
+offended party, whereas it is I who ought to take offence. But I
+don&rsquo;t know how to sulk and I am not petty. I can&rsquo;t behave
+pettily. I forgive you; do you forgive me too. Say something nice, say
+something pleasant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am mad about you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t show it. If you&rsquo;re mad about me, be
+pleasant, civil, gay and witty. I demand it of you as my
+host.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t sulk any longer ... but I do love you so! And
+you struck me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you never forget that act of self-defence?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, never!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She turned to go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, don&rsquo;t go back. Come to breakfast in the
+pergola. I apologize, I beg your pardon. I won&rsquo;t be rude again, I
+won&rsquo;t be petty. You are not petty. You are the most wonderful
+woman I ever met. I worship you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then worship in silence and amuse me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His eyes, his black carbuncle eyes, began to light up again, to
+laugh; his face lost its wrinkles and cheered up.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am too sad to be amusing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe a word of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Honestly, I am full of sorrow and suffering....&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb197" href="#pb197" name=
+"pb197">197</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor prince!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You just won&rsquo;t believe me. You never take me seriously.
+I have to be your clown, your buffoon. And I love you and have nothing
+to hope for. Tell me, mayn&rsquo;t I hope?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not much.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are inexorable ... and so severe!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have to be severe with you: you are just like a naughty
+boy.... Oh, I see the pergola! Do you promise to improve?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be good.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And amusing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He heaved a sigh:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Gilio!&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;Poor buffoon!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She laughed. In the pergola were Urania and Bob Hope. The pergola,
+overgrown with creeping vine and rambler roses hanging in crimson
+clusters, displayed a row of marble caryatides and hermes&mdash;nymphs,
+satyrs and fauns&mdash;whose torsos ended in slender, sculptured
+pedestals, while their raised hands supported the flat roof of leaves
+and flowers. In the middle was an open rotunda like an open temple; the
+circular balustrade was also supported by caryatides; and an ancient
+sarcophagus had been adapted to serve as a cistern. A table was laid
+for breakfast in the pergola; and they breakfasted without old Prince
+Ercole or the marchesa, who broke her fast in her room. It was eight
+o&rsquo;clock; a morning coolness was still wafted from the lake; a
+haze of blue gossamer floated over the hills, in the heart of which, as
+though surrounded by a gently fluted basin, the lake was sunk like an
+oval goblet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how beautiful it is here!&rdquo; cried Corn&eacute;lie,
+delightedly.</p>
+<p>Breakfast was a sunny and cheerful meal, after yesterday&rsquo;s
+dark and gloomy dinner. Urania talked <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb198" href="#pb198" name="pb198">198</a>]</span>vivaciously about her
+<i>albergo</i>, which she was going to visit presently with
+Corn&eacute;lie, Gilio recovered his amiability and Bob ate heartily.
+And, when Bob went off bicycling, Gilio even accompanied the ladies to
+the town. They drove at a foot-pace in a landau down the castle road.
+The sun grew hotter and the little old town lit up, with whitish-grey
+and creamy-white houses like stone mirrors, in which the sun reflected
+itself, and little open spaces like walls, into which the sun poured
+its light. The coachman pulled up outside the partly-finished
+<i>albergo</i>. They all alighted; the contractor approached
+ceremoniously; the perspiring masons looked round at the prince and
+princess. The heat was stifling. Gilio kept on wiping his forehead and
+sheltered under Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s parasol. But Urania was all
+vivacity and interest; quick and full of energy in her
+white-piqu&eacute; costume, with her white sailor-hat under her white
+sun-shade, she tripped along planks, past heaps of bricks and cement
+and tubs full of mortar, accompanied by her contractor. She made him
+explain things, proffered advice, disagreed with him at times and
+pulled a wise face, saying that she did not like certain measurements
+and refused to accept the contractor&rsquo;s assurance that she would
+like the measurements as the building progressed; she shook her head
+and impressed this and that upon him, all in a quick, none too correct,
+broken Italian, which she chewed between her teeth. But Corn&eacute;lie
+thought her charming, attractive, every inch the Princess di
+Forte-Braccio. There was not a doubt about it. While Gilio, fearful of
+dirtying his light flannel suit and brown shoes with the mortar,
+remained in the shadow of her parasol, puffing and blowing with the
+heat and taking no interest whatever, his wife was untiring, did not
+trouble to think that her white skirt was becoming soiled at the hem
+and spoke to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb199" href="#pb199" name=
+"pb199">199</a>]</span>the contractor with a lively and dignified
+certainty which compelled respect. Where had the child learnt that?
+Where had she acquired her powers of assimilation? Where did she get
+this love for San Stefano, this love for its poor? How had the American
+girl picked up this talent for filling her new and exalted position so
+worthily? Gilio thought her <i lang="it">admirabile</i> and whispered
+as much to Corn&eacute;lie. He was not blind to her good qualities. He
+thought Urania splendid, excellent; she always astounded him. No
+Italian woman of his own set would have been like that. And they liked
+her. The servants at the castle loved her. Giuseppe would have gone
+through fire and water for her; that contractor admired her; the masons
+followed her respectfully with their eyes, because she was so clever
+and knew so much and was so good to them in their poverty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Admirabile!</i>&rdquo; said Gilio.</p>
+<p>But he puffed and blowed. He knew nothing about bricks, beams and
+measurements and did not understand where Urania had got that technical
+sense from. She was indefatigable. She went all over the works, while
+he cast up his eyes to Corn&eacute;lie in entreaty. And at last,
+speaking in English, he begged his wife in Heaven&rsquo;s name to come
+away. They went back to the carriage; the contractor took off his hat,
+the workmen raised their caps with an air of mingled gratitude and
+independence. And they drove to the cathedral, which Corn&eacute;lie
+wanted to see. Urania showed her round. Gilio asked to be excused and
+went and sat on the steps of the altar, with his hands hanging over his
+knees, to cool himself. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb200" href=
+"#pb200" name="pb200">200</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">A week had passed. Duco had arrived. After the solemn
+dinner in the gloomy dining-room, where Duco had been presented to
+Prince Ercole, the summer evening, when Corn&eacute;lie and Duco went
+outside, was like a dream. The castle was already wrapped in heavy
+repose; but Corn&eacute;lie had made Giuseppe give her a key. And they
+went out, to the pergola. The stars dusted the night sky with a pale
+radiance; and the moon crowned the hill-tops and shimmered faintly in
+the mystic depths of the lake. A breath of sleeping roses was wafted
+from the flower-garden beyond the pergola; and below, in the
+flat-roofed town, the cathedral, standing in its moonlit square, lifted
+its gigantic fabric to the stars. And sleep hung everywhere, over the
+lake, over the town and behind the windows of the castle; the
+caryatides and hermes&mdash;the satyrs and nymphs&mdash;slept, as they
+bore the leafy roof of the pergola, in the enchanted attitudes of the
+servants of the Sleeping Beauty. A cricket chirped, but fell silent the
+moment that Duco and Corn&eacute;lie approached. And they sat down on
+an antique bench; and she flung her arms about his body and nestled
+against him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A week!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;A whole week since I saw
+you, Duco, my darling. I cannot do so long without you. At everything
+that I thought and saw and admired I thought of you, of how lovely you
+would think it here. You have been here once before on an excursion.
+Oh, but that is so different! It is so beautiful just to stay here, not
+just to go on, but to remain. That lake, that cathedral, those
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb201" href="#pb201" name=
+"pb201">201</a>]</span>hills! The rooms indoors: neglected but so
+wonderful! The three courtyards are dilapidated, the fountains are
+crumbling to pieces ... but the style of the <i>atrio</i>, the sombre
+gloom of the dining-room, the poetry of this pergola!... Duco,
+doesn&rsquo;t the pergola remind you of a classic ode? You know how we
+used to read Horace together: you translated the verses so well, you
+improvised so delightfully. How clever you are! You know so much, you
+feel things so beautifully. I love your eyes, your voice, I love you
+altogether, I love everything that is you ... I can&rsquo;t tell you
+how much, Duco. I have gradually surrendered myself to every word of
+you, to every sensation of you, to your love for Rome, to your love for
+museums, to your manner of seeing the skies which you put into your
+drawings. You are so deliriously calm, almost like this lake. Oh,
+don&rsquo;t laugh, don&rsquo;t make a jest of it: it&rsquo;s a week
+since I saw you, I feel such a need to talk to you! Is it exaggerated?
+I don&rsquo;t feel quite normal here either: there is something in that
+sky, in that light, that makes me talk like this. It is so beautiful
+that I can hardly believe that all this is ordinary life, ordinary
+reality.... Do you remember, at Sorrento, on the terrace of the hotel,
+when we looked out over the sea, over that pearl-grey sea, with Naples
+lying white in the distance? I felt like this then; but then I dared
+not speak like this: it was in the morning; there were people about,
+whom we didn&rsquo;t see but who saw us and whom I suspected all around
+me; but now we are alone and now I want to tell you, in your arms,
+against your breast, how happy I am! I love you so! All my soul, all
+that is finest in me is for you. You laugh, but you don&rsquo;t believe
+me. Or do you? Do you believe me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I believe you, I am not laughing at you, I am only just
+laughing.... Yes, it is beautiful here.<span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb202" href="#pb202" name="pb202">202</a>]</span>... I also feel
+happy. I am so happy in you and in my art. You taught me to work, you
+roused me from my dreams. I am so happy about <i>The Banners</i>: I
+have heard from London; I will show you the letters to-morrow. I have
+you to thank for everything. It is almost incredible that this is
+ordinary life. I have been so quiet too in Rome. I saw nobody; I just
+worked a bit, not very much; and I had my meals alone in the
+<i>osteria</i>. The two Italians&mdash;you know the men I
+mean&mdash;felt sorry for me, I think. Oh, it was a terrible week! I
+can no longer do without you.... Do you remember our first walks and
+talks in the Borghese and on the Palatine? How strange we were to each
+other then, not a bit in unison. But I believe I felt at once that all
+would be well and beautiful between us....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was silent and lay against his breast. The cricket chirped
+again, with a long quaver. But everything else slept....</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Between us,&rdquo; she repeated, as though in a fever; and
+she embraced him passionately.</p>
+<p>The whole night slept; and, while they breathed their life in each
+other&rsquo;s arms, the enchanted caryatides&mdash;fauns and
+nymphs&mdash;lifted the leafy roof of the pergola above their heads,
+between them and the star-spangled sky. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb203" href="#pb203" name="pb203">203</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Gilio hated the <i lang="it">villeggiatura</i> at San
+Stefano. Every morning he had to be up and dressed by six
+o&rsquo;clock, with Prince Ercole, Urania and the marchesa, to hear
+mass said by the chaplain in the private chapel of the castle. After
+that, he did not know what to do with his time. He had gone bicycling
+once or twice with Bob Hope, but the young Far-Westerner had too much
+energy for him, like Bob&rsquo;s sister, Urania. He flirted and argued
+a little with Corn&eacute;lie, but secretly he was still offended and
+angry with himself and her. He remembered her first arrival that
+evening at the Palazzo Ruspoli, when she came and disturbed his
+<i lang="fr">rendez-vous</i> with Urania. And in the <i lang=
+"it">camera degli sposi</i> she had for the second time been too much
+for him! He seethed with fury when he thought of it and he hated her
+and swore by all his gods to be revenged. He cursed his own lack of
+resolution. He had been too weak to use violence or force and there
+ought never to have been any need to resort to force: he was accustomed
+to a quick surrender. And he had to be told by her, that Dutchwoman,
+that his temperament did not respond to hers! What was there about that
+woman? What did she mean by it? He was so unaccustomed to thinking, he
+was such a thoughtless, easy-going, Italian child of nature, so
+accustomed to let his life run on according to his every whim and
+impulse, that he hardly understood her&mdash;though he suspected the
+meaning of her words&mdash;hardly understood that reserve of hers. Why
+should she behave so to him, this foreigner <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb204" href="#pb204" name="pb204">204</a>]</span>with
+her demoniacal new ideas, who cared nothing about the world, who would
+have nothing to do with marriage, who lived with a painter as his
+mistress! She had no religion and no morals&mdash;<i>he</i> knew about
+religion and morals&mdash;she belonged to the devil; demoniacal was
+what she was: didn&rsquo;t she know all about Aunt Lucia
+Belloni&rsquo;s man&oelig;uvres? And hadn&rsquo;t Aunt Lucia warned him
+lately that she was a dangerous woman, an uncanny woman, a woman of the
+devil? She was a witch! Why should she refuse? Hadn&rsquo;t he plainly
+seen her figure last night going through the courtyard in the
+moonlight, beside Van der Staal&rsquo;s figure, and hadn&rsquo;t he
+seen them opening the door that led to the terrace by the pergola? And
+hadn&rsquo;t he waited an hour, two hours, without sleeping, until he
+saw them come back and lock the door after them? And why did she love
+only him, that painter? Oh, he hated him, with all the blazing hatred
+of his jealousy; he hated her, for her exclusiveness, for her disdain,
+for all her jesting and flirting, as though he were a buffoon, a clown!
+What was it that he asked? A favour of love, such as she granted her
+lover! He was not asking for anything serious, any oath or lifelong
+tie; he asked for so little: just one hour of love. It was of no
+importance: he had never looked upon that as of much importance. And
+she, she refused it to him! No, he did not understand her, but what he
+did understand was that she disdained him; and he, he hated the pair of
+them. And yet he was enamoured of her with all the violence of his
+thwarted passion. In the boredom of that <i lang=
+"it">villeggiatura</i>, to which his wife forced him in her new love
+for their ruined eyrie, his hatred and the thought of his revenge
+formed an occupation for his empty brains. Outwardly he was the same as
+usual and flirted with Corn&eacute;lie, flirted even more than usual,
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb205" href="#pb205" name=
+"pb205">205</a>]</span>to annoy Van der Staal. And, when his cousin,
+the Countess di Rosavilla&mdash;his &ldquo;white&rdquo; cousin, the
+lady-in-waiting to the queen&mdash;came to spend a few days with them,
+he flirted with her too and tried to provoke Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s
+jealousy. He failed in this, however, and consoled himself with the
+countess, who made up to him for his disappointment. She was no longer
+a young woman, but represented the cold, sculptured Juno type, with a
+rather foolish expression; she had Juno eyes, protruding from their
+sockets; she was a leader of fashion at the Quirinal and in the
+&ldquo;white&rdquo; world; and her reputation for gallantry was
+generally known. She had never had a <i>liaison</i> with Gilio that
+lasted for longer than an hour. She had very simple ideas on love,
+without much variety. Her light-hearted depravity amused Gilio. And,
+flirting in the corners, with his foot on hers under her skirt, Gilio
+told her about Corn&eacute;lie, about Duco and about the adventure in
+the <i lang="it">camera degli sposi</i> and asked his cousin whether
+<i>she</i> understood. No, the Countess di Rosavilla did not understand
+it any too well either. Temperament? Oh, yes, perhaps
+she&mdash;<i lang="it">questa Cornelia</i>&mdash;preferred fair men to
+dark: there <i>were</i> women who had a preference! And Gilio laughed.
+It was so simple, <i lang="it">l&rsquo;amore</i>; there wasn&rsquo;t
+very much to be said about it.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was glad that Gilio had the countess to amuse him.
+She and Duco interested themselves in Urania&rsquo;s plans; Duco had
+long talks with the architect. And he was indignant and advised them
+not to rebuild so much in that undistinguished restoration manner: it
+was lacking in style, cost heaps of money and spoilt everything.</p>
+<p>Urania was disconcerted, but Duco went on, interrupted the
+architect, advised him to build up only what was actually falling to
+pieces, and, so far as <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb206" href=
+"#pb206" name="pb206">206</a>]</span>possible, to confine himself to
+underpinning, reinforcing and preserving. And one morning Prince Ercole
+deigned to walk through the long rooms with Duco, Urania and
+Corn&eacute;lie. There was a great deal to be done, Duco considered, by
+merely repairing and artistically arranging what at present stood
+thoughtlessly huddled together.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The curtains?&rdquo; asked Urania.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let them be,&rdquo; Duco considered. &ldquo;At the most, new
+window-curtains; but the old red Venetian damask; oh, let it be, let it
+be!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was so beautiful; here and there it might be patched, very
+carefully. He was horrified at Urania&rsquo;s notion: new curtains! And
+the old prince was enraptured, because in this way the restoration of
+San Stefano would cost thousands less and be much more artistic. He
+regarded his daughter-in-law&rsquo;s money as his own and preferred it
+to her. He was enraptured: he took Duco with him to his library, showed
+him the old missals, the old family books and papers, charters and
+deeds of gift, showed him his coins and medals. It was all out of order
+and neglected, first from lack of money and then from slighting
+indifference; but now Urania wanted to reorganize the family museum
+with the aid of experts from Rome, Florence and Bologna. The old
+prince&rsquo;s interest revived, now that there was money. And the
+experts came and stayed at the castle and Duco spent whole mornings in
+their company. He enjoyed every moment of it. He lived in his
+enchantment of the past, no longer in the days of antiquity, but in the
+middle ages and the Renascence. The days were too short. And his love
+for San Stefano became such that one day an archivist took him for the
+young prince, for Prince Virgilio. At dinner that evening Prince Ercole
+told the story. And everybody laughed, but Gilio <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb207" href="#pb207" name=
+"pb207">207</a>]</span>thought the joke beyond price, whereas the
+archivist, who was there at dinner, did not know how to apologize
+sufficiently. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb208" href="#pb208" name=
+"pb208">208</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Gilio had followed the advice of his cousin, the
+Countess di Rosavilla. Immediately after dinner, he had stolen outside;
+and he walked along the pergola to the rotunda, into which the
+moonlight fell as into a white beaker. But there was shadow behind a
+couple of caryatides; and here he hid. He waited for an hour. But the
+night slept, the caryatides slept, standing motionless and supporting
+the leafy roof. He uttered a curse and stole indoors again. He walked
+down the corridors on tiptoe and listened at Van der Staal&rsquo;s
+door. He heard nothing, but perhaps Van der Staal was asleep?...</p>
+<p>Gilio, however, crept along another corridor and listened at
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s door. He held his breath.... Yes, there was a
+sound of voices. They were together! Together! He clenched his fists
+and walked away. But why did he excite himself? He knew all about their
+relations. Why should they not be together here? And he went on and
+tapped at the countess&rsquo; door....</p>
+<p>Next evening he again waited in the rotunda. They did not come. But,
+a few evenings later, as he sat waiting, choking with annoyance, he saw
+them come. He saw Duco lock the terrace-door behind him: the rusty lock
+grated in the distance. Slowly he saw them walk along and approach in
+the light, disappearing from view in the shadow, reappearing in the
+moonlight. They sat down on the marble bench....</p>
+<p>How happy they seemed! He was jealous of their happiness, jealous
+above all of him. And <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb209" href=
+"#pb209" name="pb209">209</a>]</span>how gentle and tender she was, she
+who considered him, Gilio, only good enough for her amusement, to flirt
+with, a clown: she, the devilish woman, was angelic to the man she
+loved! She bent towards her lover with a smiling caress, with a curve
+of her arm, with a proffering of her lips, with something intensely
+alluring, with a velvety languor of love which he would never have
+suspected in her, after her cold, jesting flirtation with him, Gilio.
+She was now leaning on Duco&rsquo;s arms, on his breast, with her face
+against his.... Oh, how her kiss filled Gilio with flame and fury! This
+was no longer her icy lack of sensuous response towards him, Gilio, in
+the <i lang="it">camera degli sposi</i>. And he could restrain himself
+no longer: he would at least disturb their moment of happiness. And,
+quivering in every nerve, he stepped from behind the caryatides and
+went towards them, through the rotunda. Lost in each other&rsquo;s
+eyes, they did not see him at once. But, suddenly, simultaneously, they
+both started; their arms fell apart then and there; they sprang up in
+one movement; they saw him approaching but evidently did not at once
+recognize him. Not until he was closer did they perceive who he was;
+and they looked at him in startled silence, wondering what he would
+say. He made a satirical bow:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A delightful evening, isn&rsquo;t it? The view is lovely,
+like this, at night, from the pergola. You are right to come and enjoy
+it. I hope that I am not disturbing you with my unexpected
+company?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His tremulous voice sounded so spiteful and aggressive that they
+could not doubt the violence of his anger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all, prince!&rdquo; replied Corn&eacute;lie,
+recovering her composure. &ldquo;Though I can&rsquo;t imagine what you
+are doing here, at this hour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what are you doing here, at this hour?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb210" href="#pb210" name=
+"pb210">210</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I doing? I am sitting with Van der
+Staal....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At this hour?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At this hour! What do you mean, prince, what are you
+suggesting?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I suggesting? That the pergola is closed at
+night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; said Duco, &ldquo;your tone is
+offensive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you are altogether offensive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you were not my host, I would strike you in the
+face....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie caught Duco by the arm; the prince cursed and
+clenched his fists.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you have obviously come to
+pick a quarrel with us. Why? What objection can you have to my meeting
+Van der Staal here in the evening? In the first place, our relation
+towards each other is no secret for you. And then I think it unworthy
+of you to come spying on us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Unworthy? Unworthy?&rdquo; He had lost all self-control.
+&ldquo;I am unworthy, am I, and petty and rude and not a man and my
+temperament doesn&rsquo;t suit you? <i>His</i> temperament seems to
+suit you all right! I heard the kiss you gave him! She-devil! Demon!
+Never have I been insulted as I have by you. I have never put up with
+so much from anybody. I will put up with no more. You struck me, you
+demon, you she-devil! And now he&rsquo;s threatening to strike me! My
+patience is at an end. I can&rsquo;t bear that in my own house you
+should refuse me what you give to him.... He&rsquo;s not your husband!
+He&rsquo;s not your husband! I have as much right to you as he; and, if
+he thinks he has a better right than I, then I hate him, I hate
+him!...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, blind with rage, he flew at Duco&rsquo;s throat. The attack was
+so unexpected that Duco stumbled. They both wrestled furiously. All
+their hidden <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb211" href="#pb211" name=
+"pb211">211</a>]</span>antipathy broke forth in fury. They did not hear
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s entreaties, they struck each other with their
+fists, they grappled with arms and legs, breast to breast. Then
+Corn&eacute;lie saw something flash. In the moonlight she saw that the
+prince had drawn a knife. But the very movement was an advantage to
+Duco, who gripped his wrist as in a vice, forced him to the ground and,
+pressing his knee on Gilio&rsquo;s chest, took him by the throat with
+his other hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let go!&rdquo; yelled the prince.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let go that knife!&rdquo; yelled Duco.</p>
+<p>The prince obstinately persisted:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let go!&rdquo; he yelled once more.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let go that knife.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The knife dropped from his fingers. Duco grasped it and rose to his
+feet:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Get up,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we can continue this fight, if
+you like, to-morrow, under less primitive conditions: not with a knife,
+but with swords or pistols.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The prince stood panting, blue in the face.... When he came to
+himself, he said, slowly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I will not fight a duel. Unless you want to. But I
+don&rsquo;t. I am defeated. She has a demoniacal force which would
+always make you win, whatever game we played. We&rsquo;ve had our duel.
+This struggle tells me more than a regular duel would. Only, if you
+want to fight me, I have no objection. But I now know for certain that
+you would kill me. <i>She</i> protects you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to fight a duel with you,&rdquo; said
+Duco.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let us look on this struggle as a duel and now give me
+your hand.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Duco put out his hand; Gilio pressed it:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; he said, bowing before Corn&eacute;lie.
+&ldquo;I have insulted you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I do not forgive you.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb212" href="#pb212" name=
+"pb212">212</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have to forgive each other. I forgive you the blow you
+struck me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I forgive you nothing. I shall never forgive you this
+evening&rsquo;s work: not your spying, nor your lack of self-control,
+nor the rights which you try to claim from me, an unmarried
+woman&mdash;whereas I allow you no rights whatever&mdash;nor your
+attack, nor your knife.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we enemies then, for good?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, for good. I shall leave your house to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have done wrong,&rdquo; he confessed, humbly.
+&ldquo;Forgive me. I am hot-blooded.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Until now I looked upon you as a gentleman....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am also an Italian.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not forgive you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I once proved to you that I could be a good
+friend.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is not the moment to remind me of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remind you of everything that might make you more gently
+disposed towards me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is no use.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Enemies then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. Let us go indoors. I shall leave your house
+to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will do any penance that you inflict upon me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I inflict nothing. I want this conversation to end and I want
+to go indoors.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will go ahead of you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They walked up the pergola. He himself opened the terrace-door and
+let them in before him.</p>
+<p>They went in silence to their rooms. The castle lay asleep in
+darkness. The prince struck a match to light the way. Duco was the
+first to reach his room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will light you to your room,&rdquo; said the prince,
+meekly. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb213" href="#pb213" name=
+"pb213">213</a>]</span></p>
+<p>He struck a second match and accompanied Corn&eacute;lie to her
+door. Here he fell on his knees:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; he whispered, with a sob in his
+throat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>And without more she locked the door behind her. He remained on his
+knees for another moment. Then he slowly rose to his feet. His throat
+hurt him. His shoulder felt as though it were dislocated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s over,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;I am defeated.
+She is stronger now than I, but not because she is a devil. I have seen
+them together. I have seen their embrace. She is stronger, he is
+stronger than I ... because of their happiness. I feel that, because of
+their happiness, they will always be stronger than I....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He went to his room, which adjoined Urania&rsquo;s bedroom. His
+chest heaved with sobs. Dressed as he was, he flung himself sobbing on
+his bed, swallowing his sobs in the slumbering night that hung over the
+castle. Then he got up and looked out of the window. He saw the lake.
+He saw the pergola, where they had been fighting. The night was
+sleeping there; the caryatides, sleeping, stood out white against the
+shadow. And his eyes sought the exact spot of their struggle and of his
+defeat. And, with his superstitious faith in their happiness, he became
+convinced that there would be no fighting against it, ever.</p>
+<p>Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if he were flinging a load off
+his back:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="it">Fa niente!</i>&rdquo; he said to console
+himself. &ldquo;<i lang="it">Domani megliore....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he meant that to-morrow he would achieve, if not this victory,
+another. Then, with eyes still moist, he fell asleep like a child.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb214" href="#pb214" name=
+"pb214">214</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XL</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Urania sobbed nervously in Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s
+arms when she told the young princess that she was leaving that
+morning. She and Duco were alone with Urania in Urania&rsquo;s own
+drawing-room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; she sobbed.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie told her of the previous evening:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania,&rdquo; she said, seriously, &ldquo;I know I am a
+coquette. I thought it pleasant to talk with Gilio; call it flirting,
+if you like. I never made a secret of it, either to Duco or to you. I
+looked upon it as an amusement, nothing more. Perhaps I did wrong; I
+know it annoyed you once before. I promised not to do it again; but it
+seems to be beyond my control. It&rsquo;s in my nature; and I shall not
+attempt to defend myself. I looked upon it as a trifle, as a diversion,
+as fun. But perhaps it was wrong. Do you forgive me? I have grown so
+fond of you: it would hurt me if you did not forgive me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Make it up with Gilio and stay on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s impossible, my dear girl. Gilio has insulted me,
+Gilio drew his knife against Duco; and those are two things which I can
+never forgive him. So it is impossible for us to remain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be so lonely!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;I also am so
+fond of you, I am fond of you both. Is there no way out of it? Bob is
+going to-morrow too. I shall be all alone. And I have nothing here,
+nobody who is fond of me....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You have a great deal left, Urania. You have an object in
+life; you can do any amount of good in <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb215" href="#pb215" name="pb215">215</a>]</span>your surroundings.
+You are interested in the castle, which is now your own.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all so empty!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;It means
+nothing to me. I need affection. Who is there that is fond of me? I
+have tried to love Gilio and I do love him, but he doesn&rsquo;t care
+for me. Nobody cares for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your poor are devoted to you. You have a noble aim in
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad of it, but I am too young to live only for an
+aim. And I have nothing else. Nobody cares for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Prince Ercole, surely?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he despises me. Listen. I told you once before what Gilio
+said ... that there were no family-jewels, that they were all sold: you
+remember, don&rsquo;t you? Well, there <i>are</i> family-jewels. I
+gathered that from something the Countess di Rosavilla said. There are
+family-jewels. But Prince Ercole keeps them in the Banco di Roma. They
+despise me; and I am not thought good enough to wear them. And to me
+they pretend that there are none left. And the worst of it is that all
+their friends, all their set know that the jewels are there, in the
+bank, and they all say that Prince Ercole is right. My money is good
+enough for them, but I am not good enough for their old jewels, the
+jewels of their grandmother!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a shame!&rdquo; said Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the truth!&rdquo; sobbed Urania. &ldquo;Oh, do
+make it up, stay a little longer, for my sake!...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Judge for yourself, Urania: we really can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;re right,&rdquo; she admitted, with a
+sigh.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all my fault.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, Gilio is sometimes so impetuous....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But his impetuousness, his anger, his jealousy <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb216" href="#pb216" name="pb216">216</a>]</span>are
+my fault. I am sorry about it, Urania, because of you. Forgive me. Come
+and look me up in Rome when you go back. Don&rsquo;t forget me; and
+write, won&rsquo;t you?... Now I must go and pack my trunk. What time
+is the train?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ten twenty-five,&rdquo; said Duco. &ldquo;We shall go
+together.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can I say good-bye to Prince Ercole? Send and ask if he can
+see me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I tell him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The first thing that comes into your head: that a friend of
+mine in Rome is ill, that I am going to look after her and that Van der
+Staal is taking me back because I am nervous travelling. I don&rsquo;t
+care what Prince Ercole thinks.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Darling, I really haven&rsquo;t another moment. Kiss me and
+forgive me. And think of me sometimes. Good-bye. We have had a
+delightful time together and I have grown very fond of you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She tore herself from Urania&rsquo;s embrace; Duco also said
+good-bye. They left the princess sobbing by herself. In the passage
+they met Gilio.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; he asked, in his humble
+voice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are going by the ten twenty-five.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am very, very sorry....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But they went on and left him standing there, while Urania sat
+sobbing in the drawing-room. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb217" href=
+"#pb217" name="pb217">217</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">In the train, in the scorching morning heat, they were
+silent; and they found Rome as it were bursting out of its houses in
+the blazing sunshine. The studio, however, was cool, solitary and
+peaceful.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; said Duco, &ldquo;tell me what
+happened between you and the prince. Why did you strike him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She pulled him down on the sofa, threw herself on his neck and told
+him the incident of the <i lang="it">camera degli sposi</i>. She told
+him of the thousand lire and the bracelet. She explained that she had
+said nothing about it before, so as not to speak to him of financial
+worries while he was finishing his water-colour for the exhibition in
+London:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Duco,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I was so frightened when I
+saw Gilio draw that knife yesterday. I felt as if I was going to faint,
+but I didn&rsquo;t. I had never seen him like that, so violent, so
+ready to do anything.... It was then that I really felt how much I
+loved you. I should have murdered him if he had wounded you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought not to have played with him,&rdquo; he said,
+severely. &ldquo;He loves you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, in spite of his stern voice, he drew her closer to him.</p>
+<p>Filled with a certain consciousness of guilt, she laid her head
+coaxingly on his chest:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is only a little in love,&rdquo; she said, defending
+herself feebly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is very passionately in love. You ought not to have played
+with him.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb218" href="#pb218"
+name="pb218">218</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She made no further reply, merely stroked his face with her hand.
+She liked him all the better for reproaching her as he did; she loved
+that stern, earnest voice, which he hardly ever adopted towards her.
+She knew that she had that need for flirting in her, that she had had
+it ever since she was a very young girl; it did not count with her, it
+was only innocent fun. She did not agree with Duco, but thought it
+unnecessary to go over the whole ground: it was as it was, she
+didn&rsquo;t think about it, didn&rsquo;t dispute it; it was like a
+difference of opinion, almost of taste, which did not count. She was
+lying against him too comfortably, after the excitement of last
+evening, after a sleepless night, after a precipitate departure, after
+a three hours&rsquo; railway-journey in the blazing heat, to argue to
+any extent. She liked the silent coolness of the studio, the sense of
+being alone with him, after her three weeks at San Stefano. There was a
+peacefulness here, a return to herself, which filled her with bliss.
+The tall window was open and the warm air poured in beneficently and
+was tempered by the natural chilliness of the north room. Duco&rsquo;s
+easel stood empty, awaiting him. This was their home, amid all that
+colour and form of art which surrounded them. She now understood that
+colour and form; she was learning Rome. She was learning it all in
+dreams of happiness. She gave little thought to the woman question and
+hardly glanced at the notices of her pamphlet, taking but a scanty
+interest in them. She admired Lippo&rsquo;s angel, admired the panel of
+Gentile da Fabriano and the resplendent colours of the old chasubles.
+It was very little, after the treasures at San Stefano, but it was
+theirs and it was home. She did not speak, felt happy and contented
+resting on Duco&rsquo;s breast and passing her fingers over his
+face.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>The Banners</i> is as good as sold,&rdquo; he said.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb219" href="#pb219" name=
+"pb219">219</a>]</span>&ldquo;For ninety pounds. I shall telegraph to
+London to-day. And then we shall soon be able to pay the prince back
+that thousand lire.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Urania&rsquo;s money,&rdquo; she said, feebly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I won&rsquo;t have that debt hanging on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She felt that he was a little angry, but she was in no mood to
+discuss money matters and she was filled with a blissful languor as she
+lay on his breast....</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you cross, Duco?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No ... but you oughtn&rsquo;t to have done it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He clasped her more tightly, to make her feel that he did not want
+to grumble at her, even though he thought that she had done wrong. She
+thought that she had done right not to mention the thousand lire to
+him, but she did not defend herself. It meant useless words; and she
+felt too happy to talk about money.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;let us get
+married.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him in dismay, startled out of her blissfulness:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not because of ourselves. We are just as happy unmarried. But
+because of the world, because of people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because of the world? Because of people?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. We shall be feeling more and more isolated. I discussed
+it once or twice with Urania. She was very sorry about it, but she
+sympathized with us and wasn&rsquo;t shocked. She thought it an
+impossible position. Perhaps she is right. We can&rsquo;t go anywhere.
+At San Stefano they still acted as though they did not know that we
+were living together; but that is over now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you care about the opinion of &lsquo;small,
+insignificant people, who chance to cross your path,&rsquo; as you
+yourself say?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb220" href="#pb220"
+name="pb220">220</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s different now. We owe the prince money; and Urania
+is the only friend you have.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have you: I don&rsquo;t want any one else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He kissed her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Really, Corn&eacute;lie, it is better that we should get
+married. Then nobody can insult you again as the prince dared to
+do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has narrow-minded notions: how can you want to get married
+for the sake of a world and people like San Stefano and the
+prince?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The whole world is like that, without exception, and we are
+in the world. We live in the midst of other people. It is impossible to
+isolate one&rsquo;s self entirely; and isolation brings its own
+punishment later. We have to attach ourselves to other people: it is
+impossible always to lead your own existence, without any sense of
+community.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Duco, how you&rsquo;ve changed! These are the ideas of
+ordinary society!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been reflecting more lately.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am just learning how not to reflect.... My darling, how
+grave you are this morning! And this while I&rsquo;m lying up against
+you so deliciously, to rest after all that excitement and the hot
+journey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Seriously, Corn&eacute;lie, let us get married.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She snuggled against him a little nervously, displeased because he
+persisted and because he was forcibly dissipating her blissful
+mood:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a horrid boy. Why need we get married? It would
+alter nothing in our position. We still shouldn&rsquo;t trouble about
+other people. We are living so delightfully here, living for your art.
+We want nothing more than each other and your art and Rome. I am so
+very fond of Rome now; I am quite altered. There is something here that
+is always attracting me afresh. At San Stefano I felt homesick for Rome
+and for our studio. You must <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb221" href=
+"#pb221" name="pb221">221</a>]</span>choose a new subject ... and get
+to work again. When you&rsquo;re doing nothing, you sit
+thinking&mdash;about social ethics&mdash;and that doesn&rsquo;t suit
+you at all. It makes you so different. And then such petty,
+conventional ideas. To get married! Why, in Heaven&rsquo;s name, should
+we, Duco? You know my views on marriage. I have had experience: it is
+better not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had risen and was mechanically looking through some
+half-finished sketches in a portfolio.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your experience,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;We know each
+other too well to be afraid of anything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She took the sketches from the portfolio: they were ideas which had
+occurred to him and which he had jotted down while he was working at
+<i>The Banners</i>. She examined them and scattered them abroad:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Afraid?&rdquo; she repeated, vaguely. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she
+suddenly resumed, more firmly. &ldquo;A person never knows himself or
+another. I don&rsquo;t know you, I don&rsquo;t know myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Something deep down within herself was warning her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t marry, don&rsquo;t give in. It&rsquo;s better
+not, it&rsquo;s better not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was barely a whisper, a shadow of premonition. She had not
+thought it out; it was unconscious and mysterious as the depths of her
+soul. For she was not aware of it, she did not think it, she hardly
+heard it within herself. It flitted through her; it was not a feeling;
+it only left a thwarting reluctance in her, very plainly. Not until
+years later would she understand that unwillingness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Duco, it is better not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Think it over, Corn&eacute;lie.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is better not,&rdquo; she repeated, obstinately.
+&ldquo;Please, don&rsquo;t let us talk about it any more. It is
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb222" href="#pb222" name=
+"pb222">222</a>]</span>better not, but I think it so horrid to refuse
+you, because you want it. I never refuse you anything, as you know. I
+would do anything else for you. But this time I feel ... it is better
+not!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She went to him, all one caress, and kissed him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask it of me again. What a cloud on your face! I
+can see that you mean to go on thinking of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She stroked his forehead as though to smooth away the wrinkles:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think of it any more. I love you, I love you! I
+want nothing but you. I am happy as we are. Why shouldn&rsquo;t you be
+too? Because Gilio was rude and Urania prim?... Come and look at your
+sketches: will you be starting work soon? I love it when you&rsquo;re
+working. Then I&rsquo;ll write something again: a chat about an old
+Italian castle. My recollections of San Stefano. Perhaps a short story,
+with the pergola for a background. Oh, that beautiful pergola!... But
+yesterday, that knife!... Tell me, Duco, are you going to work again?
+Let&rsquo;s look through them together. What a lot of ideas you had at
+that time! But don&rsquo;t become too symbolical: I mean, don&rsquo;t
+get into habits, into tricks; don&rsquo;t repeat yourself.... This
+woman here is very good. She is walking so unconsciously down that
+shelving line ... and all those hands pushing around her ... and those
+red flowers in the abyss.... Tell me, Duco, what had you in your
+mind?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know: it was not very clear to
+myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it very good, but I don&rsquo;t like this sketch. I
+can&rsquo;t say why. There&rsquo;s something dreary in it. I think the
+woman stupid. I don&rsquo;t like those shelving lines: I like lines
+that go up, as in <i>The Banners</i>. That all flowed out of darkness
+upwards, towards the sun! How beautiful that was! What a pity that we
+no longer have it, that it is being sold! <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb223" href="#pb223" name="pb223">223</a>]</span>If I were a painter,
+I should never be able to part with anything. I shall keep the
+sketches, to remind me of it. Don&rsquo;t you think it dreadful, that
+we no longer have it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He agreed; he also loved and missed his <i>Banners</i>. And he
+hunted with her among the other studies and sketches. But, apart from
+the unconscious woman, there was nothing that was clear enough to him
+to elaborate. And Corn&eacute;lie would not have him finish the
+unconscious woman: no, she didn&rsquo;t like those shelving lines....
+But after that he found some sketches of landscape-studies, of clouds
+and skies over the Campagna, Venice and Naples....</p>
+<p>And he set to work. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb224" href=
+"#pb224" name="pb224">224</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">They were very economical; they had a little money;
+and all through the scorching Roman summer the months passed as in a
+dream. They went on living their lonely, happy life, without seeing any
+one except Urania, who came to Rome now and again, looked them up,
+lunched with them at the studio and went back again in the evening.
+Then Urania wrote to them that Gilio could stand it no longer at San
+Stefano and that they were going abroad, first to Switzerland and then
+to Ostend. She came once more to say good-bye; and after that they saw
+nobody.</p>
+<p>In the old days Duco had known an artist here and there, a
+fellow-countryman painting in Rome; now he knew nobody, saw nobody. And
+their life in the cool studio was like life in a lonely oasis amid the
+torrid desert of Rome in August. For economy&rsquo;s sake, they did not
+go into the mountains, to a cooler spot. They spent no more than was
+absolutely necessary; and none the less this bohemian poverty, in its
+coloured setting of triptych and chasuble, spelt happiness.</p>
+<p>Money, however, remained scarce. Duco sold a water-colour once in a
+way, but at times they had to resort to the sale of a curio. And it
+always went to Duco&rsquo;s heart to part with anything that he had
+collected. They had few needs, but the time would come when the rent of
+the studio fell due. Corn&eacute;lie sometimes wrote an article or a
+sketch and bought out of the proceeds what she needed for her wardrobe.
+She possessed a certain knack of putting on her clothes, a talent for
+looking smart in an old, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb225" href=
+"#pb225" name="pb225">225</a>]</span>worn blouse. She was fastidious
+about her hair, her skin, her teeth, her nails. With a new veil she
+would wear an old hat, with an old walking-dress a pair of fresh
+gloves; and she wore everything with a certain air of smartness. At
+home, in her pink tea-gown, which had lost its colour, the lines of her
+figure were so charming that Duco was constantly sketching her. They
+hardly ever went to a restaurant now. Corn&eacute;lie cooked something
+at home, invented easy recipes, fetched a <i>fiasco</i> of wine from
+the nearest <i lang="it">olio e vino</i>, where the cab-drivers sat
+drinking at little tables; and they dined better and more cheaply than
+at the <i>osteria</i>. And Duco, now that he no longer bought things
+from the dealer in antiques on the Tiber, spent nothing at all. But
+money remained scarce. Once, when they had sold a silver crucifix for
+far less than it was worth, Corn&eacute;lie was so dejected that she
+sobbed on Duco&rsquo;s breast. He consoled her, caressed her and
+declared that he didn&rsquo;t care much about the crucifix. But she
+knew that the crucifix was a very fine piece of work by an unknown
+sixteenth-century artist and that he was very unhappy at losing it. And
+she said to him seriously that it could not go on like this, that she
+could not be a burden to him and that they had better part; that she
+would look about for something to do, that she would go back to
+Holland. He was alarmed by her despair and said that it was not
+necessary, that he was able to look after her as his wife, but that
+unfortunately he was such an unpractical fellow, who could do nothing
+but splash about a bit with water-colours and even that not well enough
+to live on. But she said that he must not talk like that; he was a
+great artist. It was just that he did not possess a facile,
+money-making fertility, but he ranked all the higher on that account.
+She said that she would not live on his <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb226" href="#pb226" name="pb226">226</a>]</span>money, that she
+wanted to keep herself. And she collected the scattered remnants of her
+feminist ideas. Once again he begged her to consent to their marriage;
+they would become reconciled with his mother; and Mrs. van der Staal
+would give him what she used to give him when he used to live with her
+at Belloni&rsquo;s. But she refused to hear either of marriage or of an
+allowance from his mother, even as he refused to take money from
+Urania. How often had Urania not offered to help them! He had never
+consented; he was even angry when Urania had given Corn&eacute;lie a
+blouse which Corn&eacute;lie accepted with a kiss.</p>
+<p>No, it couldn&rsquo;t go on like this: they had better part; she
+must go back to Holland and seek employment. It was easier in Holland
+than abroad. But he was so desperate, because of their happiness, which
+tottered before his eyes, that he held her tightly pressed to his
+breast; and she sobbed, with her arms round his neck. Why should they
+part, he asked. They would be stronger together. He could no longer do
+without her; his life, if she left him, would be no life. He used to
+live in his dreams; he now lived in the reality of their happiness.</p>
+<p>And things remained as they were: they <i>could</i> not alter
+anything; they lived as thriftily as possible, in order to keep
+together. He finished his landscapes and always sold them; but he sold
+them at once, much too cheaply, so as not to have to wait for the
+money. But then poverty threatened once more; and she thought of
+writing to Holland. As it happened, however, she received a letter from
+her mother, followed by one from one of her sisters. And they asked her
+in those letters if it was true, what people were saying at the Hague,
+that she was living with Van der Staal. She had always looked
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb227" href="#pb227" name=
+"pb227">227</a>]</span>upon herself as so far from the Hague and from
+Hague people that it had never occurred to her that her way of life
+might become known. She met nobody, she knew nobody with Dutch
+connections. Anyhow, her independent attitude was now known. And she
+answered the letters in a feminist tone, declared her dislike of
+marriage and admitted that she was living with Van der Staal. She wrote
+coldly and succinctly, so as to give those people at the Hague the
+impression that she was a free and independent woman. They knew her
+pamphlet there, of course. But she understood that she could now no
+longer think of Holland. She gave up her family as hopeless. Still it
+tore something in her, the unconscious family-tie. But that tie was
+already greatly loosened, through lack of sympathy, especially at the
+time of her divorce. And she felt all alone: she had only her
+happiness, her lover, Duco. Oh, it was enough, it was enough for all
+her life! If only she could make a little money! But how? She went to
+the Dutch consul, asked his advice; the visit led to nothing. She was
+not suited for a nurse: she wanted to earn money at once and had no
+time for training. She could serve in a shop, of course. And she
+applied, without saying anything to Duco; but, notwithstanding her worn
+cloak, they thought her too much of a lady wherever she went and she
+thought the salary too small for a whole day&rsquo;s work. And, when
+she felt that she hadn&rsquo;t it in her blood to work for her bread,
+despite all her ideas and all her logic, despite her pamphlet and her
+independent womanhood, she felt helpless to the point of despair and,
+as she went home, weary, exhausted by climbing many stairs and by
+useless conversations and appeals, the old plaint rose to her lips:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;O God, tell me what to do!&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb228" href="#pb228" name="pb228">228</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She wrote regularly to Urania, in Switzerland, at
+Ostend; and Urania always wrote back very kindly and offered her
+assistance. But Corn&eacute;lie always declined, afraid of hurting
+Duco. She, for herself, felt no such scruples, especially now that it
+was being borne in upon her that she would not be able to work. But she
+understood those scruples in Duco and respected them. For her own part,
+however, she would have accepted help, now that her pride was wavering,
+now that her ideas were falling to pieces, too weak to withstand the
+steady pressure of life&rsquo;s hardships. It was like a great finger
+that just passed along a house of cards: though built up with care and
+pride, everything fell flat at the least touch. The only things that
+stood firm and unshakable amid the ruins were her love and her
+happiness. Oh, how she loved him, how simple was their happiness! How
+dear he was to her for his gentleness, his calmness, his lack of
+irritability, as though his nerves were strung only to the finer
+sensibilities of the artist. She felt so deliciously that it was all
+imperturbable, that it was all settled for good. Without that happiness
+they could never have dragged their difficult life along from day to
+day. Now she did not feel that burden every day, as though they were
+dragging the load along from one day to the next. She now felt it only
+sometimes, when the future was quite dark and they did not know whither
+they were dragging the burden of their lives, in the dusk of that
+future. But they always triumphed again: they loved each other too
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb229" href="#pb229" name=
+"pb229">229</a>]</span>well to sink under the load. They always found a
+little more courage; smiling, they supported each other&rsquo;s
+strength.</p>
+<p>September came and October; and Urania wrote that they were coming
+back to San Stefano, to spend a couple of months there before going for
+the winter to Nice. And one morning Urania arrived unexpectedly in the
+studio. She found Corn&eacute;lie alone: Duco had gone to an
+art-dealer&rsquo;s. They exchanged affectionate greetings:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am so glad to see you again!&rdquo; Urania prattled, gaily.
+&ldquo;I am glad to be back in Italy and to put in a little more time
+at San Stefano. And is everything as it used to be, in your cosy
+studio? Are you happy? Oh, I need not ask!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she hugged and kissed Corn&eacute;lie, like a child, still
+lacking the strength of mind to condemn her friend&rsquo;s too free
+existence, especially now, after her own summer at Ostend. They sat
+beside each other on the couch, Corn&eacute;lie in her old tea-gown,
+which she wore with her own peculiar grace, and the young princess in
+her pale-grey tailor-made, which clung to her figure in a very
+up-to-date manner and rustled with heavy silk lining, and a hat with
+black feathers and silver spangles. Her jewelled fingers toyed with a
+very long watch-chain which she wore round her neck: the latest freak
+of fashion. Corn&eacute;lie was able to admire without feeling envious
+and made Urania stand up and turn round in front of her, approved of
+the cut of her skirt, said that the hat looked sweet on her and
+examined the watch-chain attentively. And she plunged into these
+matters of <i>chiffons</i>: Urania described the dresses at Ostend;
+Urania admired Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s old tea-gown; Corn&eacute;lie
+smiled:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Especially after Ostend, eh?&rdquo; she laughed, merrily.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb230" href="#pb230" name=
+"pb230">230</a>]</span></p>
+<p>But Urania meant it seriously: Corn&eacute;lie wore it with such
+<i>chic</i>! And, changing the topic, she said that she wanted to speak
+very seriously, that perhaps she knew of something for Corn&eacute;lie,
+now that Corn&eacute;lie would never accept her, Urania&rsquo;s,
+assistance. At Ostend she had made the acquaintance of an old American
+lady, Mrs. Uxeley, a regular type. She was ninety years of age and
+lived at Nice in the winter. She was fabulously rich: an
+oil-queen&rsquo;s fortune. She was ninety, but still behaved as if she
+were forty-five. She dined out, went into society, flirted. People
+laughed at her but accepted her because of her money and her splendid
+entertainments. All the cosmopolitan colony visited her at Nice. Urania
+produced an Ostend casino-paper and read out a journalistic account of
+a ball at Ostend, in which Mrs. Uxeley was called <i lang="fr">la femme
+la plus &eacute;l&eacute;gante d&rsquo;Ostende</i>. The journalist had
+been paid so much for it; everybody laughed and was amused by it. Mrs.
+Uxeley was a caricature, but with enough tact to get herself taken
+seriously. Well, Mrs. Uxeley was looking for somebody. She always had a
+lady companion with her, a girl, a young woman; and already numberless
+ladies had succeeded one another in her employ. She had had cousins
+living with her, distant cousins, very distant cousins and total
+strangers. She was tiresome, capricious, impossible; everybody knew
+that. Would Corn&eacute;lie care to try it? Urania had already
+discussed it with Mrs. Uxeley and recommended her friend.
+Corn&eacute;lie did not feel greatly attracted, but thought it worth
+thinking over. Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s companion was staying on till
+November, when the old thing went back through Paris to Nice. And at
+Nice they would see so much of each other, Corn&eacute;lie and Urania.
+But Corn&eacute;lie thought it terrible to leave Duco. She did not
+think that it would ever <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb231" href=
+"#pb231" name="pb231">231</a>]</span>work. They were so attached to
+each other, so used to each other. From the money point of view it
+would be excellent&mdash;an easy life which attracted her, after that
+blow to her moral pride&mdash;but she could not think of leaving Duco.
+And what would Duco do at Nice! No, she couldn&rsquo;t, she simply
+couldn&rsquo;t: she must stay with him.... She felt a reluctance to go,
+like a hand that withheld her. She told Urania to put the old lady off,
+to let her look out for somebody else. She could not do it. What use to
+her was such a life&mdash;socially dependent, though financially
+independent&mdash;without Duco?</p>
+<p>And, when Urania was gone&mdash;she was going on to San
+Stefano&mdash;Corn&eacute;lie was glad that she had at once declined
+that stupid, easy life of dependence as companion to a rich old dotard.
+She glanced round the studio. She loved it with its precious colours,
+its noble antiques and, behind that curtain, her bed, behind that
+screen, her oil-stove, making the space look like a little kitchen;
+with the Bohemianism of its precious <i>bibelots</i> and very primitive
+comforts, it had become indispensable to her, had become her home. And,
+when Duco came in, she kissed him and told him about Urania and Mrs.
+Uxeley. She was glad to be able to nestle in his arms. He had sold a
+couple of water-colours. There was no reason whatever to leave him. He
+didn&rsquo;t wish it either, he never would wish it. And they held each
+other tightly embraced, as though they were conscious of something that
+would be able to part them, an ineluctable necessity, as if hands
+hovered around them pushing them, guiding them, opposing and inhibiting
+them, a contest of hands, like a cloud around them both: hands that
+strove by main force to sunder their radiant path of life, their
+coalescent line of life, as if it were too narrow for the feet of the
+two of them and the hands were trying to wrench it <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb232" href="#pb232" name=
+"pb232">232</a>]</span>asunder, in order to let the broad track wind
+apart in two curves. They said nothing: clasped in each other&rsquo;s
+arms, they gazed at life, shuddered at the hands, felt the approaching
+constraint which already was clouding more closely around them. But
+they felt warm in each other&rsquo;s company; they locked up their
+little happiness tightly in their embrace and hid it between them, so
+that the hands might not point to it, touch it and thrust it
+aside....</p>
+<p>And under their fixed gaze life softly receded, the cloud dispersed,
+the hands faded away and disappeared and their breasts heaved a sigh of
+relief, while she still remained lying against him and closed her eyes,
+as though in sleep.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb233" href=
+"#pb233" name="pb233">233</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">But the life of constraint returned, the hovering
+hands reappeared, like a gentle mysterious force. Corn&eacute;lie wept
+bitterly and admitted to herself and admitted to Duco: it could not go
+on any longer. At one moment they had not enough to pay the rent of the
+studio and had to apply to Urania. Gaps showed in the studio, colours
+vanished, owing to the sale of things which Duco had collected with
+love and sacrifice. But Lippo Memmi&rsquo;s angel, whom he refused to
+sell, still shone as of old, still holding forth the lily, in his gown
+of gold brocade. Around him on every side yawned melancholy spaces,
+with bare nails showing in the walls. At first they tried to hang other
+things in the place of those which had gone; but they soon lost the
+inclination. And, as they sat side by side, in each other&rsquo;s arms,
+conscious of their little happiness, but also of the constraint of life
+with its pushing hands, they closed their eyes, that they might no
+longer see the studio which seemed to be crumbling about them, while in
+the first cooler days a sunless chill descended shivering from the
+ceiling, which seemed higher and farther away. The easel stood waiting,
+empty. And they both closed their eyes and thus remained, feeling that,
+despite the strength of their happiness and their love, they were
+gradually conquered by life, which persisted in its tyranny and day by
+day took something from them. Once, while they were sitting thus, their
+arms relaxed and their embrace fell away, as though hands were drawing
+them apart. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb234" href="#pb234" name=
+"pb234">234</a>]</span>They remained sitting for a long time, side by
+side, without touching each other. Then she sobbed aloud and flung
+herself with her face on his knees. There was no more to be done: life
+was too strong for them, speechless life, the life of the soft,
+persistent constraint, which surrounded them with so many hands. Their
+little happiness seemed to be escaping them, like an angelic child that
+was dying and sinking out of their embrace.</p>
+<p>She said that she would write to Urania: the Forte-Braccios were at
+Nice. He listlessly assented. And, as soon as she received a reply, she
+mechanically packed her trunk, packed up her old clothes. For Urania
+wrote and told her to come, said that Mrs. Uxeley wanted to see her.
+Mrs. Uxeley sent her the money for her journey. She was in a desperate
+state of constant nervous sobbing and she felt as if she were being
+torn from him, torn from that home which was dear to her and which was
+crumbling about her, all through her fault. When she received the
+registered letter with the money, she had a nervous attack, complaining
+to him like a child that she couldn&rsquo;t leave him, that she
+wouldn&rsquo;t leave him, that she could not live without him, that she
+loved him for ever, for ever, that she would die, so far away from him.
+She lay on the sofa, her arms stiff, her legs stiff, crying out with a
+mouth distorted as though by physical pain. He took her in his arms and
+soothed her, bathed her forehead, gave her ether to drink, comforted
+her, said that everything would be all right again later.... Later? She
+looked at him vacantly. She was half mad with grief. She tossed
+everything out of the trunk again, all about the
+room&mdash;underclothing, blouses&mdash;and laughed and laughed. He
+conjured her to control herself. When she saw his frightened face, when
+he too began to sob on her breast, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb235"
+href="#pb235" name="pb235">235</a>]</span>she drew him tightly to her,
+kissed him and comforted him in her turn. And everything in her became
+dulness and lethargy. Together they packed the trunk again. Then she
+looked round and, in a gust of energy, arranged the studio for him, had
+her bed taken away, pinned his own sketches to the walls, tried to
+build up something of what had gone to pieces around them, rearranged
+everything, did her best. She cooked their last meal; she made up the
+fire. But a desperate threat of loneliness and desertion reigned over
+everything. It was all wrong, it was all wrong.... Sobbing, they fell
+asleep, in each other&rsquo;s arms, close against each other.</p>
+<p>Next morning he took her to the station. And, when she had stepped
+into her compartment, they both of them lost all their self-control.
+They embraced each other sobbing, while the guard was waiting to lock
+the door. And she saw Duco run away like a madman, pushing his way
+through the crowd; and, broken with misery, she threw herself back in
+her seat. She was so ill and distressed, so near to fainting, that a
+lady beside her came to her aid and bathed her face in
+eau-de-Cologne....</p>
+<p>She thanked the lady, apologized for the trouble she had given and,
+seeing the other passengers staring at her with compassionate eyes, she
+mastered herself, sat huddled in her corner and gazed vacantly through
+the window. She went on, stopping nowhere, only alighting to change
+trains. Though hungry, she had not the energy to order food at the
+stations. She ate nothing and drank nothing. She travelled a day and a
+night and arrived at Nice late the following evening. Urania was at the
+station and was startled to see Corn&eacute;lie look grey and sallow,
+dead-tired, with hollow eyes. And she was most charming: she took
+Corn&eacute;lie home with her, looked after her for some days, made her
+stay in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb236" href="#pb236" name=
+"pb236">236</a>]</span>bed and went herself to tell Mrs. Uxeley that
+her friend was too unwell to report herself. Gilio came for a moment to
+pay Corn&eacute;lie his respects; and she could not do other than thank
+him for these days of hospitality and care under his roof. And the
+young princess was like a sister, was like a mother and fed
+Corn&eacute;lie up with milk and eggs and strengthening medicines.
+Corn&eacute;lie let her do as she liked, remained limp and indifferent
+and ate to please Urania. After a few days, Urania said that Mrs.
+Uxeley was coming to call that afternoon, being anxious to see her new
+companion. Mrs. Uxeley was alone now, but could wait until
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s recovery. Corn&eacute;lie dressed herself as
+well as she could and with Urania awaited the old lady&rsquo;s arrival.
+She entered gushingly, with a torrent of words; and, in the dim light
+of Urania&rsquo;s drawing-room, Corn&eacute;lie was unable to realize
+that she was ninety years old. Urania winked at Corn&eacute;lie, who
+only smiled faintly in return: she was afraid of this first interview.
+But Mrs. Uxeley, no doubt because Corn&eacute;lie was a friend of the
+Princess di Forte-Braccio, was very easy-mannered, very pleasant and
+free of all condescension towards her future companion; she enquired
+after Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s health in a wearisome profusion of little
+exclamations and sentences and bits of advice. Corn&eacute;lie, in the
+twilight of the lace-shaded standard-lamps, took her in with a glance
+and saw a woman of fifty, with the little wrinkles carefully powdered
+over, in a mauve-velvet gown embroidered with dull gold and spangles
+and beads. On the brown, waved chignon was a hat with a white aigrette.
+Her jewels kept on sparkling, because she was very fussy, very restless
+in her movements. She now took Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s hands and began
+to talk more confidentially. So Corn&eacute;lie would come the day
+after to-morrow. Very well. She <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb237"
+href="#pb237" name="pb237">237</a>]</span>was accustomed to pay a
+hundred dollars a month, or five hundred francs, never less, but also
+never more. But she could understand that Corn&eacute;lie would want
+something now, for new clothes: would she order what she wanted at this
+address and have it put down to Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s account? A couple
+of ball-dresses, two or three less dressy evening-frocks, in short,
+everything. The Princess Urania would tell her all about it and would
+go with her. And she rose, affecting the young woman, simpering through
+her long-handled lorgnette, but meanwhile leaning hard on her sunshade,
+working herself with a muscular effort along the stick of her sunshade,
+with a sudden twitch of rheumatism which uncovered all sorts of
+wrinkles. Urania saw her to the hall and came back shrieking with
+laughter; and Corn&eacute;lie also laughed, but only listlessly. She
+really didn&rsquo;t care: she was more amazed at Mrs. Uxeley than
+amused. Ninety years old! What an energy, worthy of a better object, to
+remain elegant: <i lang="fr">la femme la plus &eacute;l&eacute;gante
+d&rsquo;Ostende</i>!</p>
+<p>Ninety years old! How the woman must suffer, during the hours of her
+long toilet, while she was being made up into that caricature! Urania
+said that it was all false: the hair, the bust. And Corn&eacute;lie
+felt a loathing at having to live for the future beside this woman, as
+though beside an ignominy. In the happiness of her love, a great part
+of her energy had become relaxed, as though their dual
+happiness&mdash;Duco&rsquo;s and hers&mdash;had unfitted her for any
+further struggle for life and diminished her zest for life; but it had
+refined and purified something in her soul and she loathed the sight of
+so much show for so vain and petty an object. And it was only necessity
+itself&mdash;the inevitability of the things of life, which urged and
+pushed her with a guiding finger along a line of life now winding
+solitary <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb238" href="#pb238" name=
+"pb238">238</a>]</span>before her&mdash;that gave her the strength to
+hide within herself her sorrow, her longing, her nostalgia for
+everything that she had left behind. She did not talk about it to
+Urania. Urania was so glad to see her, looked upon her as a good
+friend, in the loneliness of her stately life, in her isolation among
+her aristocratic acquaintances. Urania accompanied her enthusiastically
+to dressmakers&rsquo; establishments and shops and helped her to choose
+her new outfit. She did not care about it all. She, an elegant woman, a
+woman of innate elegance, who in her outward appearance had always
+fought against poverty and who, in the days of her happiness, was able,
+with the aid of a fresh ribbon, to wear an old blouse gracefully, was
+utterly indifferent to everything that she was now buying on Mrs.
+Uxeley&rsquo;s account. To her it was as though these things were not
+for her. She let Urania ask and choose; she approved of everything. She
+allowed herself to be fitted as though she had been a doll. She greatly
+disliked having to spend money at a stranger&rsquo;s expense. She felt
+lowered and humiliated: all her haughty pride of life was gone. She was
+afraid of what they would say of her in the circle of Mrs.
+Uxeley&rsquo;s friends, afraid lest they knew of her independent ideas,
+of her cohabitation with Duco, afraid of Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s opinion.
+For Urania had had to be honest and tell everything. It was only on
+Urania&rsquo;s eager recommendation that she had been taken by Mrs.
+Uxeley. She felt out of place, now that she would once more dare to
+play her part among all those people; and she was afraid of giving
+herself away. She would have to make-believe, to conceal her ideas, to
+pick her words; and she was no longer accustomed to doing so. And all
+for that money. All because she had not had the energy, living with
+Duco, to earn her own bread and, gaily, independently, <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb239" href="#pb239" name="pb239">239</a>]</span>to
+cheer him in his work, in his art. Oh, if she could only have managed
+to do that, how happy she would have been! If only she had not allowed
+the wretched languor that was in her blood to increase within her like
+a morbid growth: the languor of her upbringing, her superficial, showy,
+drawing-room education, which had unfitted her for everything
+whatsoever! By temperament she was a creature of love as well as a
+woman of sensuousness and luxury, but there was more of love in her
+than of luxury: she would be happy under the simplest conditions if
+only she was able to love. And now life had torn her away from him,
+gradually but inexorably. And now her sensuous, luxurious nature was
+gratified, but in dependence; yet it no longer satisfied her cravings,
+because she could not satisfy her soul. In that lonely soul a miserable
+dissatisfaction sprang up like a riotous growth. Her only happiness was
+his letters, letters of longing but also letters of comfort. He wrote
+expressing his longing, but he also wrote enjoining courage and hope.
+He wrote to her every day. He was now at Florence, seeking his
+consolation in the Uffizi, in the Pitti Palace. He had found it
+impossible to stay in Rome; the studio was now locked up. At Florence
+he was a little nearer to her. And his letters were to her a
+love-story, the only novel that she read; and it was as though she saw
+his landscapes in his style, the same dim blending of colour and
+emotion, the pearly white, misty, dreamy distances filled with light,
+the horizon of his longing, as though his eyes were ever gazing at the
+vista in which she, on the night of departure, had vanished as in a
+mauve-grey sunset, a sky of the dreary Campagna. In those letters they
+still lived together. But she could not write to him in this strain.
+Though she wrote to him daily, she wrote briefly, telling him ever the
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb240" href="#pb240" name=
+"pb240">240</a>]</span>same things in other words: her longing, her
+weary indifference. But she wrote of the happiness which she derived
+from his letters, which were her daily bread.</p>
+<p>She was now with Mrs. Uxeley and occupied in the gigantic villa two
+charming rooms overlooking the sea and the Promenade des Anglais.
+Urania had helped her to arrange them. And she lived in an unreal dream
+of strangeness, of non-existence alone with her soul, of unlived
+actions and gestures, performed according to the will of others. In the
+mornings she went to Mrs. Uxeley in her boudoir and read her the French
+and American papers and sometimes a few pages of a French novel. She
+humbly did her best. Mrs. Uxeley thought that she read very nicely,
+only she said that Corn&eacute;lie must cheer up a bit, that her
+melancholy days were over now. Duco was never mentioned and Mrs. Uxeley
+behaved as though she knew nothing. The great boudoir looked through
+the open balcony-windows over the sea, where, on the Promenade, the
+morning stroll was already beginning, with the gaudy colours of the
+parasols striking a shrill note against the deep-blue sea, an expensive
+sea, a costly tide, waves that seemed to exact a mint of money before
+they would consent to roll up prettily. The old lady, already painted,
+bedizened and bewigged, with a white-lace wrap over her wig against the
+draught, lay in the black and white lace of her white-silk tea-gown on
+the piled-up cushions of her sofa. In her wrinkled hand she held the
+lorgnette, with her initials in diamonds, through which it amused her
+to peer at the shrill patches of the parasols outside. Now and then,
+when her rheumatism gave a twinge, she suddenly distorted her face into
+one great crease of wrinkles, under which the smooth enamel of her
+make-up almost cracked, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb241" href=
+"#pb241" name="pb241">241</a>]</span>like crackle-china. In the
+daylight she seemed hardly alive, looked like an automatic, jointed,
+stiff-limbed doll, which spoke and moved mechanically. She was always a
+trifle tired in the mornings, from never sleeping at night; after
+eleven she took a little nap. She observed a strict <i lang=
+"fr">r&eacute;gime</i>; and her doctor, who called daily, seemed to
+revive her a little every day, to enable her to hold out until the
+evening. In the afternoon she drove out, alighted at the Jet&eacute;e,
+paid her visits. But in the evening she revived with a trace of real
+life, dressed, put on her jewels and recovered her exuberance, her
+little exclamations and simpers. Then came the dances, the parties, the
+theatre. Then she was no more than fifty.</p>
+<p>But these were her good days. Sometimes, after a night of
+insufferable pain, she remained in her bedroom, with yesterday&rsquo;s
+enamelling untouched, her bald head wrapped in black lace, a
+black-satin bed-jacket hanging loosely around her like a sack; and she
+moaned and cried and shrieked and seemed to be begging for release from
+her torments. This lasted for a couple of days and occurred regularly
+every three weeks, after which she gradually revived again.</p>
+<p>Her fussy conversation was limited to a constantly recurrent
+discussion of all sorts of family-matters, with appropriate
+annotations. She explained to Corn&eacute;lie all the
+family-connections of her friends, American and European, but she
+enlarged more particularly upon the great European families which she
+numbered among her acquaintances. Corn&eacute;lie could never listen to
+what she was saying and forgot the pedigrees again at once. It was
+sometimes unendurably tedious to have to listen for so long; and only
+for this reason, as though she were forced to it, Corn&eacute;lie found
+the energy to talk a little herself, <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb242" href="#pb242" name="pb242">242</a>]</span>to relate an
+anecdote, to tell a story. When she saw that the old woman was very
+fond of anecdotes, riddles and puns, she collected as many as she could
+from the <i lang="fr">Vie parisienne</i> and the <i lang="fr">Journal
+pour rire</i> and kept them ready to hand. And Mrs. Uxeley thought her
+very entertaining. Once, as she noticed Duco&rsquo;s daily letter, she
+referred to it; and Corn&eacute;lie suddenly discovered that the old
+lady was devoured with curiosity. Then she quietly told her the truth:
+her marriage, her divorce, her independent ideas, her meeting and her
+life with Duco. The old woman was a little disappointed because
+Corn&eacute;lie spoke so simply about it all. She merely advised her to
+live discreetly and correctly now. What people said about former
+incidents did not matter so very much. But there must be no occasion
+for gossip now. Corn&eacute;lie promised meekly. And Mrs. Uxeley showed
+her her albums, with her own photographs, dating back to her young
+days, and the photographs of all sorts of men. And she told her about
+this friend and that friend and, vain-gloriously, allowed the
+suggestion of a very lurid past to peep through. But she had always
+lived discreetly and correctly. That was her pride. And what
+Corn&eacute;lie had done was wrong....</p>
+<p>The hour or so from eleven to half-past twelve was a relief. Then
+the old woman regularly went to sleep&mdash;her only sleep in the
+twenty-four hours&mdash;and Urania came to fetch Corn&eacute;lie for a
+drive or a walk along the Promenade or to sit in the Jardin Public. And
+it was the only moment when Corn&eacute;lie more or less appreciated
+her new-found luxury and took pleasure in the gratification of her
+vanity. The passers-by turned round to stare at the two young and
+pretty women in their exquisite serge frocks, with their fashionable
+headgear withdrawn in the twilight of their sunshades, and admired the
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb243" href="#pb243" name=
+"pb243">243</a>]</span>Princess di Forte-Braccio&rsquo;s glossy
+victoria, irreproachable liveries and spanking greys.</p>
+<p>Gilio maintained a reserved and respectful attitude towards
+Corn&eacute;lie. He was polite but kept a courteous distance when he
+joined the two ladies for a moment in the gardens or on the
+Jet&eacute;e. After the night in the pergola, after the sudden flash of
+his angry knife, she was afraid of him, afraid also because she had
+lost much of her courage and haughtiness. But she could not answer him
+more coldly than she did, because she was grateful to him as well as to
+Urania for the care shown her during the first few days, for their tact
+in not at once surrendering her to Mrs. Uxeley and in keeping her with
+them until she had recovered some of her strength.</p>
+<p>In the freedom of those mornings, when she felt herself released
+from the old woman&mdash;vain, selfish, insignificant,
+ridiculous&mdash;who was as the caricature of her life, she felt that
+in Urania&rsquo;s friendship she was finding herself again, she became
+conscious of being at Nice, she contemplated the garish bustle around
+her with clearer eyes and she lost the unreality of the first days. At
+such times it was as though she saw herself again for the first time,
+in her light serge walking-dress, sitting in the garden, her gloved
+fingers playing with the tassels of her sunshade. She could hardly
+believe in herself, but she saw herself. Deep down within herself,
+hidden even from Urania, she concealed her longing, her home-sickness,
+her stifling discontent. She sometimes felt ready to burst into sobs.
+But she listened to Urania and joined in her laughter and talk and
+looked up with a smile at Gilio, who stood in front of her, mincing to
+and fro on the tips of his shoes and swinging his walking-stick behind
+his back. Sometimes, suddenly&mdash;as a vision whirling through the
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb244" href="#pb244" name=
+"pb244">244</a>]</span>crowd&mdash;she saw Duco, the studio, the
+happiness of the past fading away for one brief moment. Then with her
+finger-tips she felt his letter of that morning, between the strips of
+gathered lace in front of her bolero, and just crushed the hard
+envelope against her breast, as something belonging to him that was
+caressing her.</p>
+<p>And it was not to be denied: she saw herself and Nice around her;
+she became sensible of new life: it was not unreal, even though it was
+not actual to her soul; it was a sorrowful comedy, in which
+she&mdash;dismally, feebly, listlessly&mdash;played her part.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb245" href="#pb245" name=
+"pb245">245</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there
+was no possibility of the least alteration: everything was done in
+accordance with a fixed law. The reading of the newspaper; her hour and
+a half to herself; then lunch. After lunch, the drive, the
+Jet&eacute;e, the visits; every day, those visits and afternoon teas.
+Once in a way, a dinner-party; and in the evening generally a dance, a
+reception or a theatre. She made new acquaintances by the score and
+forgot them again at once and no longer remembered, when she saw them
+again, whether she knew them or not. As a rule people were fairly
+pleasant to her in that cosmopolitan set, because they knew that she
+was an intimate friend of the Princess Urania&rsquo;s. But, like Urania
+herself, she was sometimes conscious, from the feminine bearers of the
+old Italian names and titles which sometimes glittered in that set, of
+an overwhelming pride and contempt. The men always asked to be
+introduced to her; but, whenever she asked to be introduced to their
+ladies, her only reward was a nod of vague surprise. She herself minded
+very little, but she felt sorry for Urania. For she saw at once, at
+Urania&rsquo;s own parties, that they hardly looked upon her as the
+hostess, that they surrounded and made much of Gilio, but accorded to
+his wife no more than the civility which was her due as Princess di
+Forte-Braccio, without ever forgetting that she was once Miss Hope. And
+for Urania this contempt was more difficult to put up with than for
+herself. For she accepted her <i>r&ocirc;le</i> as the companion. She
+always <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb246" href="#pb246" name=
+"pb246">246</a>]</span>kept an eye on Mrs. Uxeley, constantly joined
+her for a minute in the course of the evening, fetched a fan which Mrs.
+Uxeley had left in the next room or did her this or that trifling
+service. Then she would sit down, against the wall alone in the busily
+humming drawing-room, and gaze indifferently before her. She sat,
+always very smartly dressed, in an attitude of graceful indifference
+and weary boredom, tapping her little foot or unfolding her fan. She
+took no notice of anybody. Sometimes a couple of men would come up to
+her and she spoke to them, or danced with one of them, indifferently,
+as though conferring a favour. Once, when Gilio was talking to her, she
+sitting and he standing, and the Duchess di Luca and Countess Costi
+both came up to him and, standing, began to chaff him profusely,
+without honouring her with a word or a glance, she first stared at the
+ladies between her mocking lids, eyeing them from head to foot, and
+then rose slowly, took Gilio&rsquo;s arm and, with a glance which
+darted sharp as a needle from her narrowed eyes, said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon, but you must excuse me if I rob you of the
+Prince di Forte-Braccio, because I have to finish a private
+conversation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And with the pressure of her arm she made Gilio move on a few steps,
+then at once sat down again, made him sit down beside her and began to
+whisper with him very confidentially, while she left the duchess and
+countess standing two yards away, open-mouthed with stupefaction at her
+rudeness, and furthermore spread her train wide between herself and the
+two ladies and waved her fan to and fro, as though to preserve a
+distance. She could do this sort of thing so calmly, so tactfully and
+haughtily, that Gilio was tickled to death and sat and giggled with
+delight: <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb247" href="#pb247" name=
+"pb247">247</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish that Urania knew how to behave like that!&rdquo; he
+said, pleased as a child at the diversion which she had afforded
+him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania is too nice to do anything so odious,&rdquo; she
+replied.</p>
+<p>She did not make herself liked, but people became afraid of her,
+afraid of her quiet malice, and avoided offending her in future.
+Moreover, the men thought her pretty and agreeable and were also
+attracted by her haughty indifference. And, without really intending
+it, she achieved a position, apparently by using the greatest
+diplomacy, but in reality quite naturally and easily. While Mrs.
+Uxeley&rsquo;s egoism was flattered by her little
+attentions&mdash;always dutifully remembered and paid with a charming
+air of maternal solicitude, in contrast to which Mrs. Uxeley thought it
+delightful to simper like a young girl&mdash;Corn&eacute;lie gradually
+gathered a court of men around her in the evenings; and the women
+became insipidly civil. Urania often told her how clever she thought
+her, how much tact she displayed. Corn&eacute;lie shrugged her
+shoulders: it all happened of itself; and really she did not care. But
+still, gradually, she recovered some of her cheerfulness. When she saw
+herself standing in the glass, she had to confess to herself that she
+was better-looking than she had ever been, either as a girl or as a
+newly-married woman. Her tall, slender figure had a languorous line of
+pride that gave her a special grace; her throat was statelier, her
+bosom fuller; her waist was slimmer in these new dresses; her hips had
+become heavier, her arms more rounded; and, though her features no
+longer wore the look of radiant happiness which they had worn in Rome,
+her mocking smile and her negligent irony gave her a certain attraction
+for those unknown men, something more alluring and provoking than the
+greatest coquetry <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb248" href="#pb248"
+name="pb248">248</a>]</span>would have been. And Corn&eacute;lie had
+not wished for this; but, now that it came of itself, she accepted it.
+It was foreign to her nature to refuse it. And, besides, Mrs. Uxeley
+was pleased with her. Corn&eacute;lie had such a pretty way of
+whispering to her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear lady, you were in such pain yesterday. Don&rsquo;t you
+think you ought to go home a little earlier to-night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then Mrs. Uxeley would simper like a girl who was being
+admonished by her mother not to dance too much that evening. She loved
+these little ways of Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s; and Corn&eacute;lie, with
+careless indifference, gave her what she wanted. And those evenings
+amused her more than they did at first; only, the amusement was
+combined with self-reproach as soon as she thought of Duco, of their
+separation, of Rome, of the studio, of the happiness of those past
+days, which she had lost through her lack of fortitude. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb249" href="#pb249" name="pb249">249</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLVI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Two months had passed like this. It was January; and
+these were busy days for Corn&eacute;lie, because Mrs. Uxeley was soon
+to give one of her celebrated evenings and Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s free
+hours in the morning were now taken up with running all sorts of
+errands. Urania generally drove with her; and she came to rely upon
+Urania. They had to go to upholsterers, to pastry-cooks, to florists
+and to jewellers, where Corn&eacute;lie and Urania selected presents
+for the cotillon. Mrs. Uxeley never went out for this, but occupied
+herself with every trifling indoor detail; and there were endless
+discussions, followed by more drives to the shops, for the old lady was
+anything but easy to please, vain as she was of her fame as a hostess
+and afraid of losing it through the least omission.</p>
+<p>During one of these drives, as the victoria was turning into the
+Avenue de la Gare, Corn&eacute;lie started so violently that she
+clutched Urania&rsquo;s arm and could not restrain an exclamation.
+Urania asked her what she had seen, but she was unable to speak and
+Urania made her get out at a confectioner&rsquo;s to drink a glass of
+water. She was very nearly fainting and looked deathly pale. She was
+not able to continue her errands; and they drove back to Mrs.
+Uxeley&rsquo;s villa. The old lady was displeased at this sudden
+fainting-fit and grumbled so that Urania went off alone to complete the
+errands. After lunch, however, Corn&eacute;lie felt better, made her
+apologies and accompanied Mrs. Uxeley to an afternoon tea.</p>
+<p>Next day, when she was sitting with Mrs. Uxeley <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb250" href="#pb250" name="pb250">250</a>]</span>and
+a couple of friends on the Jet&eacute;e, she seemed to see the same
+thing again. She turned as white as a sheet, but retained her composure
+and laughed and talked merrily.</p>
+<p>These were the days of the preparations. The date of the
+entertainment drew nearer; and at last the evening arrived. Mrs. Uxeley
+was trembling with nervousness like a young girl and found the
+necessary strength to walk through the whole villa, which was all light
+and flowers. And with a sigh of satisfaction she sat down for a moment.
+She was dressed. Her face was smooth as porcelain, her hair was waved
+and glittered with diamond pins. Her gown of pale-blue brocade was cut
+very low; and she gleamed like a reliquary. A triple rope of priceless
+pearls hung down to her waist. In her hand&mdash;she was not yet
+gloved&mdash;she held a gold-knobbed cane, which was indispensable when
+she wanted to rise. And it was only when she rose that she showed her
+age, when she worked herself erect by muscular efforts, with that look
+of pain in her face, with that twinge of rheumatism which shot through
+her. Corn&eacute;lie, not yet dressed, after a last glance through the
+villa, blazing with light, swooning with flowers, hurried to her room
+and, already feeling tired, dropped into the chair in front of her
+dressing-table, to have her hair done quickly. She was irritable and
+told the maid to hurry. She was just ready when the first guests
+arrived and she was able to join Mrs. Uxeley. And the carriages rolled
+up. Corn&eacute;lie, at the top of the monumental staircase, looked
+down into the hall, where the people were streaming in, the ladies in
+their long evening-wraps&mdash;almost more expensive even than their
+dresses&mdash;which they carefully gave up in the crowded, buzzing
+cloakroom. And the first arrivals came up the stairs, waiting so as not
+to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb251" href="#pb251" name=
+"pb251">251</a>]</span>be the very first, and were beamed upon by Mrs.
+Uxeley. The drawing-rooms soon filled. In addition to the
+reception-rooms, the hostess&rsquo; own rooms were thrown open, forming
+in all a suite of twelve apartments. Whereas the corridors and stairs
+were adorned only with clumps of red and white and pink camellias, in
+the rooms the floral decorations were contained in hundreds of vases
+and bowls and dishes, which stood about on every hand and, with the
+light of the shaded candles, gave an intimate charm to the
+entertainment. That was the speciality of Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s
+decorations on great occasions: the electric light not used; instead,
+on every hand candles with little shades, on every hand glasses and
+bowls full of flowers, giving the effect of a fairy garden. Though
+perhaps the main outlines were broken, a most charming effect of
+cosiness was gained. Small groups and couples could find a place
+everywhere: behind a screen, in a loggia; you constantly found a spot
+for privacy; and this perhaps explained the <i>vogue</i> of Mrs.
+Uxeley&rsquo;s parties. The villa, suitable for giving a court ball,
+was used only for giving entertainments of a luxurious intimate
+character to hundreds of people who were quite unknown to one another.
+Each little set chose itself a little corner, where it made itself at
+home. A very tiny boudoir, all in Japanese lacquer and Japanese silk,
+was aimed at generally, but was at once captured by Gilio, the Countess
+di Rosavilla, the Duchess di Luca and Countess Costi. They did not even
+go to the music-room, where a concert formed the first item. Paderewski
+was playing, Sigrid Arnoldson was to sing. The music-room also was
+lighted by shaded candles; and everybody whispered that, in this soft
+light, Mrs. Uxeley did not look a day over forty. During the interval
+she simpered to two very young journalists who were to describe her
+party. Urania, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb252" href="#pb252" name=
+"pb252">252</a>]</span>sitting beside Corn&eacute;lie, was addressed by
+a Frenchman whom she introduced to her friend: the Chevalier de Breuil.
+Corn&eacute;lie knew that Urania had met him at Ostend and that his
+name was coupled with the Princess di Forte-Braccio&rsquo;s. Urania had
+never mentioned De Breuil to her, but Corn&eacute;lie now saw, by her
+smile, her blush and the sparkle in her eyes, that people were right.
+She left them to themselves, feeling sad when she thought of Urania.
+She understood that the little princess was consoling herself for her
+husband&rsquo;s neglect; and she suddenly thought this whole life of
+make-believe disgusting. She longed for Rome, for the studio, for Duco,
+for independence, love and happiness. She had had it all; but it had
+been fated not to endure. Everything around her was like one great lie,
+more brilliant than at the Hague, but even more false, brutal and
+depraved. People no longer even pretended to believe the lie: here they
+showed a brutal sincerity. The lie was respected, but nobody believed
+in it, nobody put forward the lie as a truth; the lie was nothing more
+than a form.</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie wandered through the rooms by herself, went up to
+Mrs. Uxeley for a moment, in accordance with her habit, whispered to
+ask how she felt, whether she wanted anything, if everything was going
+well, then continued on her way through the rooms. She was standing by
+a vase, rearranging some orchids, when a woman in black velvet,
+fair-haired, with a full throat and bosom, spoke to her in English:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am Mrs. Holt. I dare say you don&rsquo;t know my name, but
+I know yours. I very much want to make your acquaintance. I have often
+been to Holland and I read Dutch a little. I read your pamphlet on
+<i>The Social Position of Divorced <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb253"
+href="#pb253" name="pb253">253</a>]</span>Women</i> and I thought a
+good deal of what you wrote most interesting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are very kind. Shall we sit down? I remember your name
+too. You were one of the leaders of the Women&rsquo;s Congress in
+London, were you not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I spoke about the training of children. Weren&rsquo;t
+you able to come to London?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I did think about it, but I was in Rome at the time and I
+couldn&rsquo;t manage it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was a pity. The congress was a great step forward. If
+your pamphlet had been translated then and distributed, you would have
+had a great success.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I care very little for success of that kind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, I can understand that. But the success of your
+book is also for the good of the great cause.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you really mean that? Is there any merit in my little
+book?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you doubt it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very often.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How is that possible? It is written with such a sure
+touch.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps just for that reason.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand you. There&rsquo;s a vagueness
+sometimes about Dutch people which we English don&rsquo;t understand,
+something like a reflection of your beautiful skies in your
+character.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you never doubt? Do you feel sure of your ideas on the
+training of children?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have studied children in schools, in <i>cr&egrave;ches</i>
+and in their homes and I have acquired very decided ideas. And I work
+in accordance with these ideas for the people of the future. I will
+send you my pamphlet, containing the gist of my speeches at the
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb254" href="#pb254" name=
+"pb254">254</a>]</span>congress. Are you working on another pamphlet
+now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I regret to say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not? We must all fight shoulder to shoulder, if we are to
+conquer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe I have said all that I had to say. I wrote what I
+did on impulse, from personal experience. And then ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then things changed. All women are different and I never
+approved of generalizing. And do you believe that there are <i>many</i>
+women who can work for a universal object with a man&rsquo;s
+thoroughness, when they have found a lesser object for themselves, a
+small happiness, such as a love to satisfy their own <i>ego</i>, in
+which they can be happy? Don&rsquo;t you think that every woman has
+slumbering inside her a selfish craving for her own love and happiness
+and that, when she has found this, the outside world and the future
+cease to interest her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Possibly. But so few women find it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe there are not many. But that is another question.
+And I do believe that an interest in universal questions is a <i lang=
+"fr">pis-aller</i> with most women.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You have become an apostate. You speak quite differently from
+what you wrote a year ago.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I have become very humble, because I am more sincere. Of
+course I believe in certain women, in certain choice spirits. But would
+the majority not always remain feminine, just women and
+weak?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not with a sensible training.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I believe that it lies in that, in the
+training....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of the child, of the girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe that I have never been educated and that this
+constitutes my weakness.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb255"
+href="#pb255" name="pb255">255</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our girls should be told when still very young of the
+struggle that lies before them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are right. We&mdash;my friends, my sisters and
+I&mdash;had the &lsquo;safety&rsquo; of marriage impressed upon us at
+the earliest possible moment. Do you know whom I think the most to be
+pitied? Our parents! They honestly believed that they were having us
+taught all that was necessary. And now, at this moment, they must see
+that they did not divine the future correctly and that their training,
+their education was no education at all, because they failed to inform
+their children of the struggle which was being waged right before their
+eyes. It is our parents that are to be pitied. They can mend nothing
+now. They see us&mdash;girls, young women of twenty to
+thirty&mdash;overwhelmed by life; and they have not given us the
+strength for it. They kept us sheltered as long as possible under the
+paternal wing; and then they began to think of our marriage, not in
+order to get rid of us, but with a view to our happiness, our safety
+and our future. We are indeed unfortunate, we girls and women who were
+not, like our younger sisters, told of the struggle that lay just
+before us; but I believe that we may still have hope in our youth and
+that our parents are unhappier and more to be pitied than we, because
+they have nothing more to hope for and because they <i>must</i>
+secretly confess that they went astray in their love for their
+children. They were still educating us according to the past, while the
+future was already so near at hand. I pity our parents and I could
+almost love them better for that reason than I ever did before.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb256" href="#pb256" name=
+"pb256">256</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLVII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She had suddenly turned very pale, as though under the
+stress of a sudden emotion. She covered her face with her fluttering
+fan and her fingers trembled violently; her whole body shuddered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is well thought on your part,&rdquo; said Mrs. Holt.
+&ldquo;I am glad to have met you. I always find a certain charm in
+Dutch people: that vagueness, which we are unable to seize, and then
+all at once a light that flashes out of a cloud.... I hope to see you
+again. I am at home on Tuesdays, at five o&rsquo;clock. Will you come
+one day with Mrs. Uxeley?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Mrs. Holt pressed her hand and disappeared among the other guests.
+Corn&eacute;lie had risen from her chair, while her knees seemed to
+give way beneath her. She remained standing, half-turned towards the
+room, looking in the glass; and her fingers played with the orchids in
+a Venetian vase on the console-table. She was still rather pale, but
+controlled herself, though her heart was beating loudly and her breast
+heaving. And she looked in the glass. She saw first her own figure, her
+beautiful, slender outline, in her dress of white and black Chantilly,
+with the white-lace train, foaming with flounces, the black-lace tunic
+with the scalloped border and sprinkled with steel spangles and blue
+stones, a spray of orchids in the sleeveless <i>corsage</i>, which left
+her neck and arms and shoulders bare. Her hair was bound with three
+Greek fillets of pearls; and her fan of white feathers&mdash;a present
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb257" href="#pb257" name=
+"pb257">257</a>]</span>from Urania&mdash;was like foam against her
+throat. She saw herself first and then, in the mirror, she saw
+<i>him</i>. He was coming nearer to her. She did not move, only her
+fingers played with the flowers in the vase. She felt as though she
+wished to take flight, but her knees gave way and her feet were
+paralysed. She stood rooted to the floor, hypnotized. She was unable to
+stir. And she saw him come nearer and nearer, while her back remained
+half-turned to the room. He approached; and his appearance seemed to
+fling out a net in which she was caught. He was close by her now, close
+behind her. Mechanically she raised her eyes and looked in the glass
+and met his eyes in the mirror. She thought that she would faint. She
+felt squeezed between him and the glass. In the mirror the room went
+round and round, the candles whirled giddily, like a reeling firmament.
+He did not say anything yet. She only saw his eyes gazing and his mouth
+smiling under his moustache. And he still said nothing. Then, in that
+unendurable lack of space between him and the mirror, which did not
+even give shelter as a wall would have done, but which reflected him so
+that he held her twice imprisoned, behind and before, she turned round
+slowly and looked him in the eyes. But she did not speak either. They
+looked at each other without a word.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never expected this: that you would see me here one
+day,&rdquo; he said, at last.</p>
+<p>It was more than a year since she had heard his voice. But she felt
+his voice inside her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, at last, haughtily, coldly,
+distantly. &ldquo;Though I saw you once or twice, in the street, on the
+Jet&eacute;e.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Should I have bowed to you, do
+you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She shrugged her bare shoulders; and he looked <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb258" href="#pb258" name="pb258">258</a>]</span>at
+them. She felt for the first time that she was half-naked that
+evening.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she replied, still coldly and distantly.
+&ldquo;Any more than you need have spoken to me now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled at her. He stood before her as a wall. He stood before her
+as a man. His head, his shoulders, his chest, his legs, his whole
+stature rose before her as incarnate manhood.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I needn&rsquo;t have done so,&rdquo; he said; and
+she felt his voice inside her: she felt his voice sinking in her like
+molten bronze into a mould. &ldquo;If I had met you somewhere in
+Holland, I would only have taken off my hat and not spoken to you. But
+we are in a foreign country....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What difference does that make?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I felt I should like to speak to you.... I wanted to have a
+talk with you. Can&rsquo;t we do that as strangers?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As strangers?&rdquo; she echoed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, well, we&rsquo;re not strangers: we even know each other
+uncommonly intimately, eh?... Come and sit down and tell me about
+yourself. Did you like Rome?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>He had led her as though with his will to a couch behind a
+half-damask, half-glass, Louis-XV. screen; and she dropped down upon it
+in a rosy twilight of candles, with bunches of pink roses around her in
+all sorts of Venetian glasses. He sat on an ottoman, bending towards
+her slightly, with his arms on his knees and his hands folded
+together:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been gossiping about you finely at the Hague.
+First about your pamphlet ... and then about your painter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her eyes pierced him like needles. He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can look just as angry as ever.... Tell <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb259" href="#pb259" name="pb259">259</a>]</span>me,
+do you ever hear from the old people? They&rsquo;re in a bad
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now and then. I was able to send them some money
+lately.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s damned good of you. They don&rsquo;t deserve it.
+They said that you no longer existed for them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mamma wrote that they were so pushed for money. Then I sent
+them a hundred guilders. It was the most that I could do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, now that they find you sending them money, you&rsquo;ll
+begin to exist for them again!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind that. I was sorry for them ... and sorry I
+couldn&rsquo;t send more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, when you look so thundering smart....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pay for my clothes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m only stating a fact. I&rsquo;m not venturing to
+criticize. I think it damned handsome of you to send them money. But
+you do look thundering smart.... Look here, let me tell you something:
+you&rsquo;ve become a damned handsome girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He stared at her, with his smile, which compelled her to look at
+him.</p>
+<p>Then she replied, very calmly, waving her fan lightly in front of
+her bare neck, sheltering in the foam of her fan:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m damned glad to hear it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He gave a loud, throaty laugh:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There, I like that! You&rsquo;ve still got your witty sense
+of repartee. Always to the point. Damned clever of you!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She stood up strained and nervous:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I must leave you. I must go to Mrs. Uxeley.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He spread out his arms:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stay and sit with me a little longer. It does me good to talk
+to you.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb260" href="#pb260" name=
+"pb260">260</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then restrain yourself a bit and don&rsquo;t
+&lsquo;damn&rsquo; quite so much. I&rsquo;ve not been used to it
+lately.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do my best. Sit down.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She fell back and hid herself behind her fan.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me tell you that you have positively become a very ... a
+very beautiful woman. Now is that like a compliment?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It sounds more like one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s the best I can do, you know. So you must
+make the most of it. And now tell me about Rome. How were you living
+there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I tell you about it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I&rsquo;m interested.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You have no need to be interested.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say, but I happen to be. I&rsquo;ve never quite
+forgotten you. And I should be surprised if you had me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have, quite,&rdquo; she said, coolly.</p>
+<p>He looked at her with his smile. He said nothing, but she felt that
+he knew better. She was afraid to convince him further.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it true, what they say at the Hague? About Van der
+Staal?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked at him haughtily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, out with it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>are</i> a cheeky baggage! Do you no longer care a
+straw for the whole boiling of them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And how do you manage here, with this old hag?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do they just accept you here, at Nice?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t brag about my independence; and no one is able
+to comment on my conduct here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where is Van der Staal?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At Florence.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb261"
+href="#pb261" name="pb261">261</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why isn&rsquo;t he here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to answer any more questions. You are
+indiscreet. It has nothing to do with you and I won&rsquo;t be
+cross-examined.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was very nervous again and once more rose to her feet. He spread
+out his arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Really, Rudolph, you must let me go,&rdquo; she entreated.
+&ldquo;I have to go to Mrs. Uxeley. They are to dance a pavane in the
+ball-room and I have to ask for instructions and hand them on. Let me
+pass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll take you there. Let me offer you my
+arm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudolph, do go away! Don&rsquo;t you see how you&rsquo;re
+upsetting me? This meeting has been so unexpected. Do let me go, or I
+sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be able to control myself. I&rsquo;m going to
+cry.... Why did you speak to me, why did you speak to me, why did you
+come here, where you knew that you would meet me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I wanted to see one of Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s parties
+and because I wanted to meet you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must understand that it upsets me to see you again. What
+good does it do you? We are dead to each other. Why should you want to
+pester me like this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I wanted to know, whether we are dead
+to each other....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dead, dead, quite dead!&rdquo; she cried, vehemently.</p>
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t be so theatrical. You can understand that I
+was curious to see you again and talk to you. I used to see you in the
+street, in your carriage, on the Jet&eacute;e; and I was pleased to
+find you looking so well, so smart, so happy and so handsome. You know
+that good-looking women are my great hobby. You are much better-looking
+than you used to be when you were my wife. If you had <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb262" href="#pb262" name="pb262">262</a>]</span>been
+then what you are now, I should never have allowed you to divorce
+me.... Come, don&rsquo;t be a child. No one knows here. I think it
+damned jolly to meet you here, to have a good old yarn with you and to
+have you leaning on my arm. Take my arm. Don&rsquo;t make a fuss and
+I&rsquo;ll take you where you want to go. Where shall we find Mrs.
+Uxeley? Introduce me ... as a friend from Holland....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudolph....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I insist: don&rsquo;t bother! There&rsquo;s nothing in
+it! It amuses me and it&rsquo;s no end of a lark to walk about with
+one&rsquo;s divorced wife at a ball at Nice. A delightful town,
+isn&rsquo;t it? I go to Monte Carlo every day and I&rsquo;ve been
+damned lucky. Won three thousand francs yesterday. Will you come with
+me one day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re mad!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not mad at all. I want to enjoy myself. And
+I&rsquo;m proud to have you on my arm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She withdrew her arm:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you needn&rsquo;t be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now don&rsquo;t get spiteful. That&rsquo;s all rot:
+let&rsquo;s enjoy ourselves. There is the old girl: she&rsquo;s looking
+at you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had passed through some of the rooms on his arm; and they saw,
+near a tombola, round which people were crowding to draw presents and
+surprises, Mrs. Uxeley, Gilio and the Rosavilla, Costi and Luca ladies.
+They were all very gay round the pyramid of knickknacks, behaving like
+children when the number of one of them turned up on the
+roulette-wheel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Uxeley,&rdquo; Corn&eacute;lie began, in a trembling
+voice, &ldquo;may I introduce a fellow-countryman of mine? Baron
+Brox.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Mrs. Uxeley simpered, uttered a few amiable words and asked if he
+wouldn&rsquo;t draw a number. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb263"
+href="#pb263" name="pb263">263</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The roulette-wheel spun round and round.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A fellow-countryman, Corn&eacute;lie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Uxeley.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you say his name is?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Baron Brox.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A splendid fellow! A handsome fellow! An astonishingly
+handsome fellow!... What is he? What does he do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s in the army, a first lieutenant....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In which regiment?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the hussars.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At the Hague?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An amazingly good-looking fellow! I like those tall, fine
+men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Uxeley, is everything going as it should?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, darling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you feel all right?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have a little pain, but nothing to speak about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t it soon be time for the pavane?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, see that the girls go and get dressed. Has the
+hairdresser brought the wigs for the young men?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then go and collect them and tell them to hurry up. They must
+be ready within half an hour....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Rudolph Brox returned from the tombola, where he had drawn a silver
+match-box. He thanked Mrs. Uxeley, who simpered, and, when he saw that
+Corn&eacute;lie was moving away, he went after her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please, Rudolph, let me be. I have to collect the girls and
+the men for the pavane. I have a lot to do....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll help you....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She beckoned to a girl or two and sent a couple of footmen to hunt
+through the room for the young <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb264"
+href="#pb264" name="pb264">264</a>]</span>men and to ask them to go to
+the dressing-room. He saw that she was pale and trembling all over her
+body:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let&rsquo;s go and get something to drink.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was numb with nervousness. The music of the invisible band
+boom-boomed fiercely against her brain; and at times the innumerable
+candles whirled before her eyes like a reeling firmament. The rooms
+were choked with people. They crowded and laughed aloud and showed one
+another their presents; the men trod on the ladies&rsquo; trains. An
+intoxicating, suffocating fragrance of flowers, the atmosphere peculiar
+to crowded functions and the warm, perfumed odour of women&rsquo;s
+flesh hung in the rooms like a cloud. Corn&eacute;lie hunted hither and
+thither and at last collected all the girls. The ballet-master came to
+ask her something. A butler came to ask her something. And Brox did not
+budge from her side.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go now and get something to drink,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+<p>She mechanically took his arm; and her hand trembled on the sleeve
+of his dress-coat. He pushed his way with her through the crowd; they
+passed Urania and De Breuil. Urania said something which
+Corn&eacute;lie did not catch. The refreshment-room also was chock-full
+and buzzed with loud, laughing voices. Behind the long tables stood the
+butler, like a minister, supervising the whole service. There was no
+crowding, no fighting for a glass of wine or a sandwich. People waited
+until a footman brought it on a tray.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very well managed,&rdquo; said Brox. &ldquo;Do you
+do all this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s been done like this for years....&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb265" href="#pb265" name=
+"pb265">265</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She dropped into a chair, looking very pale.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What will you have?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A glass of champagne.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m hungry. I had a bad dinner at my hotel. I must have
+something to eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He ordered the champagne for her. He ate first a patty, then
+another, then a <i lang="fr">ch&acirc;teaubriant</i> and peas. He drank
+two glasses of claret, followed by a glass of champagne. The footman
+brought him everything, dish by dish, on a silver tray. His handsome,
+virile face was brick-red in colour with health and animal strength.
+The stiff hair on his round, heavy skull was cropped quite close. His
+large grey eyes were bright and laughing, with a straight, impudent
+glance. A heavy, well-tended moustache curled over his mouth, in which
+the white teeth gleamed. He stood with his legs slightly astraddle,
+firm and soldierly in his dress-coat, which he wore with an easy
+correctness. He ate slowly and with relish, enjoying his good glass of
+fine wine.</p>
+<p>Mechanically she now watched him, from her chair. She had drunk a
+glass of champagne and asked for another; and the stimulant revived
+her. Her cheeks recovered some of their colour; her eyes sparkled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They do you damn well here,&rdquo; he said, coming up to her
+with his glass in his hand.</p>
+<p>And he emptied his glass.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They are going to dance the pavane almost at once,&rdquo; she
+murmured.</p>
+<p>And they passed through the crowded rooms, to a big corridor
+outside, which looked like an avenue of camellia-shrubs. They were
+alone for a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is where the dancers are to meet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let&rsquo;s wait for them. It&rsquo;s nice and cool out
+here.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb266" href="#pb266" name=
+"pb266">266</a>]</span></p>
+<p>They sat down on a bench.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you feeling better?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;You were so
+queer in the ball-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m better.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think it&rsquo;s fun to meet your old husband
+again?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudolph, I don&rsquo;t understand how you can talk to me like
+that and persecute me and tease me ... after everything that has
+happened....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, well, all that has happened and is done with!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think it&rsquo;s discreet on your part ... or
+delicate?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, neither discreet nor delicate. Those, you know, are
+things I&rsquo;ve never been: you used to fling that in my face often
+enough, in the old days. But, if it&rsquo;s not delicate, it&rsquo;s
+amusing. Have you lost your sense of humour? It&rsquo;s damn jolly
+humorous, our meeting here.... And now listen to me. You and I are
+divorced. All right. That&rsquo;s so in the eyes of the law. But a
+legal divorce is a matter of law and form, for the benefit of society.
+As regards money affairs and so on. We&rsquo;ve been too much husband
+and wife not to feel something for each other at a later meeting, such
+as this. Yes, yes, I know what you want to say. It&rsquo;s simply
+untrue. You have been too much in love with me and I with you for
+everything between us to be dead. I remember everything still. And you
+must do the same. Do you remember when...?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed, pushed nearer to her and whispered close in her ear. She
+felt his breath thrilling on her flesh like a warm breeze. She flushed
+crimson with nervous distress. And she felt with her whole body that he
+had been her husband and that he had entered into her very blood. His
+voice ran like molten bronze, along her nerves of hearing, deep
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb267" href="#pb267" name=
+"pb267">267</a>]</span>down within her. She knew him through and
+through. She knew his eyes, his mouth. She knew his broad, well-kept
+hands, with the large round nails and the dark signet-ring, as they lay
+on his knees, which showed square and powerful under the crease in his
+dress-trousers. And she felt, like a sudden despair, that she knew and
+felt him in her whole body. However rough he might have been to her in
+the old days, however much he had ill-treated her, striking her with
+his clenched fist, banging her against the wall ... she had been his
+wife. She, a virgin, had become his wife, had been initiated into
+womanhood by him. And she felt that he had branded her as his own, she
+felt it in her blood and in the marrow of her bones. She confessed to
+herself that she had never forgotten him. During the first lonely days
+in Rome, she had longed for his kisses, she had thought of him, had
+conjured up his virile image before her mind, had persuaded herself to
+believe that, by exercising tact and patience and a little management,
+she could have remained his wife....</p>
+<p>Then the great happiness had come, the gentle happiness of perfect
+harmony!...</p>
+<p>It all flashed through her like lightning.</p>
+<p>Oh, in that great, gentle happiness she had been able to forget
+everything, she had not felt the past within her! But she now felt that
+the past always remained, irrevocably and indelibly. She had been his
+wife and she held him still in her blood. She felt it now with every
+breath that she drew. She was indignant because he dared to whisper
+about the old days, in her ear; but it had all been as he said,
+irrevocably, indelibly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudolph!&rdquo; she entreated, clasping her hands together.
+&ldquo;Spare me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She almost screamed it, in a cry of fear and <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb268" href="#pb268" name=
+"pb268">268</a>]</span>despair. But he laughed and with one hand seized
+both hers, clasped in entreaty:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you go on like that, if you look at me so beseechingly
+with those beautiful eyes, I won&rsquo;t spare you even here and
+I&rsquo;ll kiss you until ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His words swept over her like a scorching wind. But laughing voices
+approached; and two girls and two young men, dressed up, for the
+pavane, as Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois, came running down the
+stairs:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s become of the others?&rdquo; they cried, looking
+round in the staircase.</p>
+<p>And they came dancing up to Corn&eacute;lie. The ballet-master also
+approached. She did not understand what he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are the others?&rdquo; she repeated, mechanically, in a
+hoarse voice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here they come.... Now we&rsquo;re all there....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They were all talking and laughing and glittering and buzzing about
+her. She summoned up all her poor strength and issued a few
+instructions. The guests streamed into the great ball-room, sat down in
+the front chairs, crowded together in the corners. The pavane was
+danced in the middle of the room, to an old trailing melody: a long,
+winding curve of graceful steps, deep bows and satin gleaming with
+sudden lustre like that of porcelain ... with the occasional flutter of
+a cape ... and a flash of light on a rapier.... <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb269" href="#pb269" name="pb269">269</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLVIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">&ldquo;Urania, I beseech you, help me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come with me....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De
+Breuil into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost
+entirely deserted; the dense throng of guests stood packed along the
+sides of the great ball-room to watch the pavane.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it, Corn&eacute;lie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was trembling in every limb and clutching
+Urania&rsquo;s arm. She drew her to the farthest corner of the room.
+There was no one there.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania,&rdquo; she entreated, in a supreme crisis of
+nervousness, &ldquo;help me! What am I to do? I have met him
+unexpectedly. Don&rsquo;t you know whom I mean? My husband. My divorced
+husband. I had seen him once or twice before, in the street and on the
+Jet&eacute;e. The time when I was so startled, you know, when I almost
+fainted: that was because of him. And he has been talking to me now,
+here, a moment ago. And I&rsquo;m afraid of him. He spoke quite nicely,
+said he wanted to talk to me. It was so strange. Everything was
+finished between us. We were divorced. And suddenly I meet him and he
+speaks to me and asks me what sort of time I have had, tells me that I
+am looking well, that I have grown beautiful. Tell me, Urania, what I
+am to do. I&rsquo;m frightened. I&rsquo;m ill with anxiety. I want to
+get away. I should like best to go away at <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb270" href="#pb270" name=
+"pb270">270</a>]</span>once, to Florence, to Duco. I am so frightened,
+Urania. I want to go to my room. Tell Mrs. Uxeley that I want to go to
+my room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She hardly knew what she was saying. The words fell incoherently
+from her lips, as in a fever. Men&rsquo;s voices approached. They were
+those of Gilio, De Breuil, the Duke di Luca and the young journalists,
+the two who were pushing their way into society.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is the Signora de Retz doing?&rdquo; asked the duke.
+&ldquo;We are missing her everywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the young journalists, standing in the shadow of these eminent
+noblemen, confirmed the statement: they had been missing her
+everywhere.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fetch Mrs. Uxeley here,&rdquo; Urania whispered to Gilio.
+&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie is ill, I think. I can&rsquo;t leave her here
+alone. She wants to go to her room. It&rsquo;s better that Mrs. Uxeley
+should know, else she might be angry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie was jesting nervously, in feverish gaiety, with the
+duke and with De Breuil and the journalists.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you rather I took you straight to Mrs. Uxeley?&rdquo;
+Gilio whispered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to go to my room!&rdquo; she whispered, in a voice of
+entreaty, behind her fan.</p>
+<p>The pavane appeared to be over. The buzz of voices reached them, as
+though the guests were scattering about the rooms again:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see Mrs. Uxeley,&rdquo; said Gilio.</p>
+<p>He went up to her, spoke to her. She simpered at first, leaning on
+the gold knob of her cane. Then her wrinkles became angrily contracted.
+She crossed the room. Corn&eacute;lie went on jesting with the duke;
+the journalists thought every word witty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you well?&rdquo; whispered Mrs. Uxeley, going
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb271" href="#pb271" name=
+"pb271">271</a>]</span>up to her, ruffled. &ldquo;What about the
+cotillon?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will see to everything, Mrs. Uxeley,&rdquo; said
+Urania.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Impossible, dear princess; and I shouldn&rsquo;t dream of
+letting you either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Introduce me to your friend, Corn&eacute;lie!&rdquo; said a
+deep voice behind Corn&eacute;lie.</p>
+<p>She felt that voice like bronze inside her body. She turned round
+automatically. It was he. She seemed unable to escape him. And, under
+his glance, as though hypnotized, she appeared, very strangely, to
+recover her strength. It seemed as though he were willing her not to be
+ill. She murmured:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Urania, may I introduce ... a fellow-countryman?... Baron
+Brox.... Princess di Forte-Braccio....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Urania knew his name, knew who he was:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Darling,&rdquo; she whispered to Corn&eacute;lie, &ldquo;let
+me take you to your room. I&rsquo;ll see to everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no longer necessary,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m much better. I only want a glass of champagne. I am
+much better, Mrs. Uxeley.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why did you run away from me?&rdquo; asked Rudolph Brox, with
+his smile and his eyes in Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s eyes.</p>
+<p>She smiled and said the first thing that came into her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The dancing has begun,&rdquo; said Mrs. Uxeley. &ldquo;But
+who&rsquo;s going to lead my cotillon presently?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I can be of any service, Mrs. Uxeley,&rdquo; said Brox,
+&ldquo;I have some little talent as a cotillon-leader.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Mrs. Uxeley was delighted. It was arranged that De Breuil and
+Urania, Gilio and the Countess Costi and Brox and Corn&eacute;lie
+should lead the figures in turns. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb272"
+href="#pb272" name="pb272">272</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;You poor darling!&rdquo; Urania said in
+Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s ear. &ldquo;Can you manage it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie smiled:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, I&rsquo;m all right again,&rdquo; she
+whispered.</p>
+<p>And she moved towards the ball-room on Brox&rsquo;s arm. Urania
+stared after her in amazement. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb273"
+href="#pb273" name="pb273">273</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER XLIX</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">It was twelve o&rsquo;clock when Corn&eacute;lie woke
+that morning. The sun was piercing the golden slit in the half-parted
+curtains with tiny eddying atoms. She felt dog-tired. She remembered
+that Mrs. Uxeley, on the morning after one of these parties, left her
+free to rest: the old lady herself stayed in bed, although she did not
+sleep. And Corn&eacute;lie lacked the smallest capacity to rise. She
+remained lying where she was, heavy with fatigue. Her eyes wandered
+through the untidy room; her handsome ball-dress, hanging listlessly,
+limply over a chair, at once reminded her of yesterday. For that
+matter, everything in her was thinking of yesterday, everything in her
+was thinking of her husband, with a tense, hypnotized consciousness.
+She felt as if she were recovering from a nightmare, a bout of
+drunkenness, a swoon. It was only by drinking glass after glass of
+champagne that she had been able to keep going, had been able to dance
+with Brox, had been able to lead the figure when their turn came. But
+it was not only the champagne. His eyes also had held her up, had
+prevented her from fainting, from bursting into sobs, from screaming
+and waving her arms like a madwoman. When he had taken his leave, when
+everybody had gone, she had collapsed in a heap and been taken to bed.
+The moment she was no longer under his eyes, she had felt her misery
+and her weakness; and the champagne had as it were suddenly clouded her
+brain.</p>
+<p>Now she lay thinking of him in the dejected slackness <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb274" href="#pb274" name="pb274">274</a>]</span>of
+her overwhelming morning fatigue. And it seemed to her as if her whole
+Italian year had been an interlude, a dream. She saw herself at the
+Hague again, with her pretty little face and her little flirting ways
+and her phrases always to the point. She saw their first meetings and
+how she had at once fallen under his influence and been unable to flirt
+with him, because he laughed at her little feminine defences. He had
+been too strong for her from the first. Then came their engagement. He
+laid down the law and she rebelled, angrily, with violent scenes, not
+wishing to be controlled, injured in her pride as a girl who had always
+been spoiled and made much of. And then he subdued her as though with
+the rude strength of his fist&mdash;and always with a laugh on his
+handsome mouth&mdash;until they were married, until she created a
+scandal and ran away. He had refused to be divorced at first, but had
+consented later, because of the scandal. She had freed herself, she had
+fled!...</p>
+<p>The feminist movement, Italy, Duco.... Was it a dream? Was the great
+happiness, the delightful harmony, a dream and was she awaking after a
+year of dreams? Was she divorced or was she not? She had to make an
+effort to remember the formalities: yes, they were legally divorced.
+But <i>was</i> she divorced, was everything over between them? And
+<i>was</i> she really no longer his wife?</p>
+<p>Why had he done it, why had he pursued her after seeing her once at
+Nice? Oh, he had told her, during that cotillon, that endless cotillon!
+He had become proud of her when he saw how beautiful she was and how
+smart, how happy she looked driving in Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s or the
+princess&rsquo; elegant victoria; it was then that he had seen her,
+beautiful, smart and happy; and he had grown jealous. She, a beautiful
+woman, had been his wife! He felt that <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb275" href="#pb275" name="pb275">275</a>]</span>he had a right to
+her, notwithstanding the law. What was the law? Had the law taught her
+womanhood or had he? And he had made her feel his right, together with
+the irrevocable past. It was all irrevocable and indelible....</p>
+<p>She looked about her, at her wits&rsquo; end what to do. And she
+began to weep, to sob. Then she felt something gaining strength within
+her, the instinctive rebellion that leapt up within her like a spring
+which had at length recovered its resilience, now that she was resting
+and no longer under his eyes. She would not. She would not. She refused
+to feel him in her blood. Should she meet him once more, she would
+speak to him calmly, very curtly, and order him to leave her, show him
+the door, have him put out of the door.... She clenched her fists with
+rage. She hated him. She thought of Duco.... And she thought of writing
+to him, telling him everything. And she thought of going back to him as
+quickly as possible. He was not a dream, he existed, even though he was
+living so far away, at Florence. She had saved a little money, they
+would find their happiness again in the studio in Rome. She would write
+to him; and she wanted to get away as quickly as possible. With Duco
+she would be safe. Oh, how she longed for him, to lie so softly and
+quietly and blissfully in his arms, against his breast, as in the
+embrace of a miraculous happiness! Was it all true, their happiness,
+their love and harmony? Yes, it had existed, it was not a dream. There
+was his photograph; there, on the wall, were two of his
+water-colours&mdash;the sea at Sorrento and the skies over
+Amalfi&mdash;done in those days which had been like poems. She would be
+safer with him. When she was with Duco, she would not feel Rudolph, her
+husband, in her blood. For she felt Duco in her soul; and her soul
+would be <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb276" href="#pb276" name=
+"pb276">276</a>]</span>the stronger! She would feel Duco in her soul,
+in her heart, in all the most fervent part of her life and gather from
+him her uppermost strength, like a sheaf of gleaming sword-blades!
+Already now, when she thought of him with such longing, she felt
+herself growing stronger. She could have spoken to Brox now. Yesterday
+he had taken her by surprise, had squeezed her between himself and that
+looking-glass, till she had seen him double and lost her wits and been
+defeated. That would never happen again. That was only due to the
+surprise. If she spoke to him again now, <i>she</i> would triumph,
+thanks to what she had learnt as a woman who stood on her own feet.</p>
+<p>And she got up and opened the windows and put on her dressing-gown.
+She looked at the blue sea, at the motley traffic on the Promenade. And
+she sat down and wrote to Duco. She told him everything: her first
+startled meeting, her surprise and defeat at the ball. Her pen flew
+over the paper. She did not hear the knock at the door, did not hear
+Urania come in carefully, fearing lest she should still be asleep and
+anxious to know how she felt. Excitedly she read out part of her letter
+and said that she was ashamed of her weakness of yesterday. How she
+could have behaved like that she herself was unable to understand.</p>
+<p>No, she herself could not understand it. Now that she felt somewhat
+rested and was speaking to Urania, who reminded her of Rome, and
+holding her long letter to Duco in her hand ... now she herself did not
+understand it all and wondered which had been a dream: her Italian year
+of happiness or that nightmare of yesterday.... <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb277" href="#pb277" name="pb277">277</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER L</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She stayed at home for a day, feeling tired and, deep
+down within herself, almost unconsciously, afraid, in spite of all, of
+meeting him. But Mrs. Uxeley, who would never hear of illness or
+fatigue, was so much put out that Corn&eacute;lie accompanied her next
+day to the Promenade des Anglais. Friends came up to talk to them and
+gathered round their chairs, with Rudolph Brox among them. But
+Corn&eacute;lie avoided any confidential conversation.</p>
+<p>Some days later, however, he called on Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s at-home
+day; and, amid the crowd of visitors paying duty-calls after the party,
+he was able to speak to her for a moment alone. He came up to her with
+that laugh of his, as though his eyes were laughing, as though his
+moustache were laughing. And she collected all her thoughts, so that
+she might be firm with him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rudolph,&rdquo; she said, loftily, &ldquo;it is simply
+ridiculous. If you don&rsquo;t think it indelicate, you might at least
+try to think it ridiculous. It tickles your sense of humour, but
+imagine what people would say about it in Holland!... The other
+evening, at the party, you took me by surprise and somehow&mdash;I
+really don&rsquo;t know how it happened&mdash;I yielded to your strange
+wish to dance with me and to lead the cotillon. I frankly confess, I
+was confused. I now see everything clearly and plainly and I tell you
+this: I refuse to meet you again. I refuse to speak to you again. I
+refuse to turn the solemn earnest of our divorce into a
+farce.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you look back,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you will recollect
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb278" href="#pb278" name=
+"pb278">278</a>]</span>that you never got anything out of me with that
+lofty tone and those dignified airs, but that, on the contrary, you
+just stimulate me to do what you don&rsquo;t want....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If that is so, I shall simply tell Mrs. Uxeley in what
+relation I stand to you and ask her to forbid you her house.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed. She lost her temper:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you intend to behave like a gentleman or like a
+cad?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He turned red and clenched his fists:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Curse you!&rdquo; he hissed, in his moustache.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you would like to hit me and knock me about?&rdquo;
+she continued, scornfully.</p>
+<p>He mastered himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are in a room full of people,&rdquo; she sneered,
+defiantly. &ldquo;What if we were alone? You&rsquo;ve already clenched
+your fists! You would thrash me as you did before. You brute! You
+brute!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you are very brave in this room full of people!&rdquo; he
+laughed, with his laugh which incited her to rage, when it did not
+subdue her. &ldquo;No, I shouldn&rsquo;t thrash you,&rdquo; he
+continued. &ldquo;I should kiss you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is the last time you&rsquo;re going to speak to
+me!&rdquo; she hissed furiously. &ldquo;Go away! Go away! Or I
+don&rsquo;t know what I shall do, I shall make a scene.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He sat down calmly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As you please,&rdquo; he said, quietly.</p>
+<p>She stood trembling before him, impotent. Some one spoke to her; the
+footman handed her some tea. She was now in the midst of a circle of
+men; and, mastering herself, she jested, with loud, nervous gaiety,
+flirted more coquettishly than ever. There was a little court around
+her, with the Duke di Luca as its ring-leader. Close by, Rudolph Brox
+sat <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb279" href="#pb279" name=
+"pb279">279</a>]</span>drinking his tea, with apparent calmness, as
+though waiting. But his strong, masterful blood was boiling madly
+within him. He could have murdered her and he was seeing red with
+jealousy. That woman was his, despite the law. He was not going to be
+afraid of any more scandal. She was beautiful, she was as he wished her
+to be and he wanted her, his wife. He knew how he would win her back;
+and this time he would not lose her, this time she should be his, for
+as long as he wished.</p>
+<p>As soon as he was able to speak to her unheard, he came up to her
+again. She was just going to Urania, whom she saw sitting with Mrs.
+Uxeley, when he said in her ear, sternly and abruptly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She turned round mechanically, but with her haughty glance. She
+would rather have gone on, but could not: something held her back, a
+secret strength, a secret superiority, which sounded in his voice and
+flowed into her with a weight as of bronze that weakened and paralysed
+her energy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to speak to you alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. Listen to me calmly for a moment, if you can. I am calm
+too, as you see. You needn&rsquo;t be afraid of me. I promise not to
+ill-treat you or even to swear at you. But I must speak to you, alone.
+After our meeting, after the ball last week, we can&rsquo;t part like
+this. You are not even entitled to show me the door, after talking to
+me and dancing with me so recently. There&rsquo;s no reason and no
+logic in it. You lost your temper. But let us both keep our tempers
+now. I want to speak to you....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t: Mrs. Uxeley doesn&rsquo;t like me to leave the
+drawing-room when there are people here. I am dependent on her.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb280" href="#pb280" name=
+"pb280">280</a>]</span></p>
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are almost even more dependent on her than you used to be
+on me! But you can give me just a second, in the next room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you can.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want to speak to me about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t speak to you alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what it is: you&rsquo;re afraid
+to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you are: you&rsquo;re afraid of me. With all your airs
+and your dignity, you&rsquo;re afraid to be alone with me for a
+moment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not afraid.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>are</i> afraid. You&rsquo;re shaking in your shoes
+with fear. You received me with a fine speech which you rehearsed in
+advance. Now that you&rsquo;ve delivered your speech ... it&rsquo;s
+over and you&rsquo;re frightened.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am not frightened.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then come with me, my plucky authoress of <i>The Social
+Position of the What&rsquo;s-her-name</i>! I promise, I swear that I
+shall be calm and tell you calmly what I have to say to you; and I give
+you my word of honour not to hit you.... Which room shall we go to?...
+Do you refuse? Listen to me: if you don&rsquo;t come with me,
+it&rsquo;s not finished yet. If you do, perhaps it will be finished ...
+and you will never see me again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What can you have to say to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She yielded because of his voice, not because of his words:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But only for three minutes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, three minutes.&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb281" href="#pb281" name="pb281">281</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She took him into the passage and into an empty room:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well what is it?&rdquo; she asked, frightened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be frightened,&rdquo; he said, laughing under his
+moustache. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be frightened. I only wanted to tell you
+... <i>that you are my wife</i>. Do you understand that? Don&rsquo;t
+try to deny it. I felt it at the ball the other night, when I had my
+arm round you, waltzing with you. Don&rsquo;t try to deny that you
+pressed yourself against me for a moment. <i>You&rsquo;re my wife.</i>
+I felt it then and I feel it now. And you feel it too, though you would
+like to deny it. But that won&rsquo;t help you. What has been
+can&rsquo;t be altered; and what has been ... always remains part of
+you. There, you can&rsquo;t say that I am not speaking prettily and
+delicately. Not an oath, not an improper word has escaped my lips. For
+I don&rsquo;t want to make you angry. I only want to make you confess
+that what I say is true <i>and that you are still my wife</i>. That law
+doesn&rsquo;t signify. It&rsquo;s another law that rules us. It&rsquo;s
+a law that rules you especially; a law which, without our ever
+suspecting it, brings us together again, even though it does so by a
+very strange, roundabout path, along which you, especially, have
+strayed. That law rules you especially. I am convinced that you still
+love me, or at least that you are still in love with me. I feel it, I
+know it as a fact: don&rsquo;t try to deny it. It&rsquo;s <i>no
+use</i>, Corn&eacute;lie. And I&rsquo;ll tell you something besides: I
+am in love with you too and more so than ever. I feel it when
+you&rsquo;re flirting with those fellows. I could wring your neck then,
+I could break every bone in their bodies.... Don&rsquo;t be afraid:
+I&rsquo;m not going to; I&rsquo;m not in a temper. I just wanted to
+talk to you calmly and make you see the truth. Do you see it before
+you? It is in-con-tro-ver-tible. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb282"
+href="#pb282" name="pb282">282</a>]</span>You see, you have nothing to
+say in reply. Facts are facts.... Will you show me the door now? Do you
+still propose to speak to Mrs. Uxeley? I shouldn&rsquo;t, if I were
+you. Your friend, the princess, knows who I am: leave it at that. Had
+the old woman never heard my name, or has she forgotten it? Forgotten
+it, I expect. Well, then, don&rsquo;t trouble to refresh her ancient
+memory. Leave things as they are. It&rsquo;s better to say nothing. No,
+the position is not ridiculous and it&rsquo;s not humorous either. It
+has become very serious: the truth is always serious. It is strange, I
+admit: I should never have expected it. It&rsquo;s a revelation to me
+as well.... And now I&rsquo;ve said what I had to say. Less than five
+minutes by my watch. They will hardly have noticed your absence in the
+drawing-room. And now I&rsquo;m going; but first give your husband a
+kiss, for I am your husband ... and always shall be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She stood trembling before him. It was his voice, which fell like
+molten bronze into her soul, into her body, and lamed and paralysed
+her. It was his voice of persuasion, of persuasive charm, the voice
+which she knew of old, the voice that compelled her to do everything
+that he wanted. Under the influence of that voice she became a thing, a
+chattel, something that belonged to him, once he had branded her for
+ever as his mate. She was powerless to cast him out of herself, to
+shake him from herself, to erase from herself the stamp of his
+possession and the brand which marked her as his property. She was his;
+and anything that otherwise was herself had left her. There was no
+longer in her brain either memory or thought....</p>
+<p>She saw him come up to her and put his arm around her. He took her
+to his breast slowly but so firmly that he seemed to be taking
+possession of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb283" href="#pb283" name=
+"pb283">283</a>]</span>her entirely. She felt herself melting away in
+his arms as in a scorching flame. On her lips she felt his mouth, his
+moustache, pressing, pressing, pressing, until she closed her eyes,
+half-fainting. He said something more in her ear, with that voice under
+which she seemed not to count, as though she were nothing, as though
+she existed only through him. When he released her, she staggered on
+her feet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, pull yourself together,&rdquo; she heard him say,
+calmly, authoritatively, omnipotently. &ldquo;And accept the position.
+Things are as they are. There&rsquo;s no altering them. Thank you for
+letting me speak to you. Everything is all right between us now:
+I&rsquo;m sure of it. And now <i lang="fr">au revoir. Au
+revoir....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He kissed her again:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Give me a kiss too,&rdquo; he said, with that voice of
+his.</p>
+<p>She flung her arm round his body and kissed him on the lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i lang="fr">Au revoir</i>,&rdquo; he said, once more.</p>
+<p>She saw him laugh under his moustache; his eyes laughed at her with
+flames of gold; and he went away. She heard his feet going down the
+stairs and ringing on the marble of the hall, with the strength of his
+firm tread.... She remained standing as though bereft of life. In the
+drawing-room, next to the room in which she was, the hum of laughing
+voices sounded loudly. She saw Rome before her, saw Duco, in a short
+flash of lightning.... It was gone.... And, collapsing into a chair,
+she uttered a suppressed cry of despair, put her hands before her face
+and sobbed, restraining her despair before all those people, dully, as
+from a stifling throat. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb284" href=
+"#pb284" name="pb284">284</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER LI</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly
+from his mastery, to fly from the emanation of that dominion which,
+mysteriously but irrevocably, wiped away with his caress all that was
+in her of will, energy and self. She remembered having felt the same
+thing in the old days: rebellion and anger when he became angry and
+coarse, but an eclipse of self when he caressed her; an inability to
+think when he merely laid his hand upon her head; a swooning away into
+a vast nothingness when he took her in his arms and kissed her. She had
+felt it from the first time of seeing him, when he stood before her and
+looked down upon her with that light irony in the smile of his eyes and
+his moustache, as though he took pleasure in her resistance&mdash;at
+that time prompted by flirting and fun, soon by petulance, later by
+anger and fury&mdash;as though he took pleasure in her futile feminine
+attempts to escape his power. He had at once realized that he ruled
+this woman. And she had found in him her master, her sole master. For
+no other man pressed down upon her with that empire which was of the
+blood, of the flesh. On the contrary, she was usually the superior. She
+had about her a cool indifference which was always provoking her to
+destructive criticism. She had a need for fun, for cheerful
+conversation, for coquetry, for flirtation; and, always a mistress of
+quick repartee, she invited the occasion for repartee; but, apart from
+this, men meant little to her and she always saw the absurd side of
+each of them, thinking this one too short, that one too tall, a third
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb285" href="#pb285" name=
+"pb285">285</a>]</span>clumsy, a fourth stupid, finding something in
+every one of them to rouse her laughter, her mockery or her criticism.
+She would never be a woman to give herself to many. She had met Duco
+and given herself to him with her love, wholly, as one great
+inseparable golden gift; and after him she would never fall in love
+again. But before Duco she had met Rudolph Brox. Perhaps, if she had
+met him after Duco, his mastery would not have swayed her. She did not
+know. And what was the good of thinking about it. The thing was as it
+was. In her blood she was not a woman for many; in her blood she was
+the wife, the spouse, the consort. Of the man who had been her husband
+she was in her flesh and in her blood the wife; and she was his wife
+even without love. For she could not call this love: she gave the name
+of love only to that other passion, that proud, tender and intense
+completion of life&rsquo;s harmony, that journey along one golden line,
+the marriage of two gleaming lines.... But the phantom hands had risen
+all about them in a cloud, the hands had mysteriously and inevitably
+divided their golden line; and hers, a winding curve, had leapt back,
+like a quivering spring, crossing a darker line of former days, a
+sombre line of the past, a dark track full of unconscious action and
+fatal bondage. Oh, the strangeness, the most mysterious strangeness of
+those lines of life! Why should they curl back, force her backwards to
+her original starting-point? Why had it all been necessary?</p>
+<p>She had but one thought: to take to flight. She did not see the
+inevitability of those lines and the fatality of those paths and she
+did not wish to feel the pressure of the phantom hands that rose about
+her. To fly, to turn up the dusky path, back to the point of
+separation, back to Duco, and with him to <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb286" href="#pb286" name="pb286">286</a>]</span>rebraid and twist the
+two lost directions into one pure movement, one line of
+happiness!...</p>
+<p>To fly, to fly! She told Urania that she was going. She begged
+Urania to forgive her, because it was she who had recommended her to
+the old woman whom she was now suddenly leaving. And she told Mrs.
+Uxeley, without caring for her anger, her temper or her words of abuse.
+She admitted that she was ungrateful. But there was a vital necessity
+which compelled her <span class="corr" id="xd21e5248" title=
+"Source: sudddenly">suddenly</span> to leave Nice. She swore that it
+existed. She swore that it would mean unhappiness, even ruin, were she
+to stay. She explained it to Urania in a single sentence. But she did
+not explain it to the old woman and left her in an impotent fury which
+made her writhe with rheumatic aches and pains. She left behind her
+everything that she had received from Mrs. Uxeley, all the superfluous
+wardrobe of her dependence. She put on an old frock. She went to the
+station like a criminal, trembling lest she should meet him. But she
+knew that at this hour he was always at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless she
+went in a closed cab and she took a second-class ticket for Florence.
+She telegraphed to Duco. And she fled.</p>
+<p>She had nothing left but him. She could never again count upon Mrs.
+Uxeley; and Urania had behaved coolly, not understanding that singular
+flight, because she did not understand the simple truth, Rudolph
+Brox&rsquo; power. She thought that Corn&eacute;lie was making things
+difficult for herself. In the circle in which Urania lived, her sense
+of social morality had wavered since her <i>liaison</i> with the
+Chevalier de Breuil. Hearing the Italian law of love whispered all
+around her, the law that love is as simple as an opening rose, she did
+not understand Corn&eacute;lie&rsquo;s struggle. She no longer resented
+anything that Gilio did; and he in his turn left her free. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb287" href="#pb287" name="pb287">287</a>]</span>What
+was happening to Corn&eacute;lie? Surely it was all very simple, if she
+was still fond of her divorced husband! Why should she run away to Duco
+and make herself ridiculous in the eyes of all their acquaintances? And
+so she had parted coolly from Corn&eacute;lie; but still she missed her
+friend. She was the Princess di Forte-Braccio; and lately, on her
+birthday, Prince Ercole had sent her a great emerald, out of the
+carefully kept family-jewels, as though she were becoming worthy of
+them gradually, stone by stone! But she missed Corn&eacute;lie and she
+felt lonely, deadly lonely, notwithstanding her emerald and her
+lover....</p>
+<p>Corn&eacute;lie fled: she had nothing in the world but Duco. But in
+him she would have everything. And, when she saw him at Florence, at
+the Santa Maria Novella Station, she flung herself on his breast and
+clung to him as to a cross of redemption, a saviour. He led her sobbing
+to a cab; and they drove to his room. There she looked round her
+nervously, done up with the overstrain of her long journey, thinking
+every minute that Rudolph would come after her. She told Duco
+everything, opened her heart to him entirely, as though he were her
+conscience, as though he were her soul, her god. She nestled up against
+him, she told him that he must help her. It was as though she were
+praying to him; her anguish went up to him like a prayer. He kissed
+her; and she knew that manner of comforting, she knew that tender
+caressing. She suddenly fell against him, utterly relaxed; and so she
+continued to lie, with closed eyes. It was as though she were sinking
+in a lake, in a blue sacred lake, mystic as the Lake of San Stefano in
+the sleeping night, powdered with stars. And she heard him say that he
+would help her; that there was nothing in her fears; that that man had
+no power over her; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb288" href="#pb288"
+name="pb288">288</a>]</span>that he would never have any power over
+her, if she became his, Duco&rsquo;s, wife. She looked at him and did
+not understand what he was saying. She looked at him feverishly, as
+though he had awakened her suddenly while she lay sleeping for a second
+in the blue calmness of the mystic lake. She did not understand, but,
+dead-tired, she hid her face against his arm again and fell asleep.</p>
+<p>She was dead-tired. She slept for two hours immovably, breathing
+deeply, upon his breast. When he shifted his arm, she just moved her
+head heavily, like a flower on a weary stalk, but she slept on. He
+stroked her forehead, her hair; and she slept on, with her hand in his.
+She slept as if she had not slept for days, for weeks. <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb289" href="#pb289" name="pb289">289</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER LII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">&ldquo;There is nothing to be afraid of,
+Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he said, convincingly. &ldquo;That man has no
+power over you if you refuse, if you refuse with a firm will. I do not
+see what he could do. You are quite free, absolutely released from him.
+That you ran away so precipitately was certainly not wise: it will look
+to him like a flight. Why did you not tell him calmly that he
+can&rsquo;t claim any rights in you? Why did you not say that you loved
+me? If need were, you could have said that we were engaged. How can you
+have been so weak and so terrified? It&rsquo;s not like you! But, now
+that you are here, all is well. We are together now. Shall we go back
+to Rome to-morrow or shall we remain here a little first? I have always
+longed to show you Florence. Look, there, in front of us, is the Arno;
+there is the Ponto Vecchio; there is the Uffizi. You&rsquo;ve been here
+before, but you didn&rsquo;t know Italy then. You&rsquo;ll enjoy it
+more now. Oh, it is so lovely here! Let us stay a week or two first. I
+have a little money; you need have no fear. And life is cheaper here
+than in Rome. Living in this room, we shall spend hardly anything. I
+have light enough through this window to sketch by, now and again. Or
+else I go and work in the San Marco or in San Lorenzo or up on San
+Miniato. It is delightfully quiet in the cloisters. There are a few
+excursionists at times; but I don&rsquo;t mind that. And you can go
+with me, with a book, a book about Florence; I&rsquo;ll tell you what
+to read. You must learn to know Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, but,
+above all, Donatello. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb290" href=
+"#pb290" name="pb290">290</a>]</span>We shall see him in the Bargello.
+And Lippo Memmi&rsquo;s <i>Annunciation</i>, the golden
+<i>Annunciation</i>! You shall see how like our angel is to it, our
+beautiful angel of happiness, the one you gave me! It is so rich here;
+we shall not feel that we are poor. We need so little. Or have you been
+spoilt by your luxury at Nice? But I know you so well: you will forget
+that at once; and we shall win through together. And presently we shall
+go back to Rome. But this time ... married, my darling, and you
+belonging to me entirely, legally. It must be so now; you must not
+refuse me again. We&rsquo;ll go to the consul to-morrow and ask what
+papers we want from Holland and what will be the quickest way of
+getting married. And meanwhile you must look upon yourself as my wife.
+Until now we have been very, very happy ... but you were not my wife.
+Once you <i>feel</i> yourself to be my wife&mdash;even though we wait
+another fortnight for those papers to sign&mdash;you will feel safe and
+peaceful. There is nobody and nothing that has any power over you.
+You&rsquo;re not well, if you really think there is. And then
+I&rsquo;ll bet you, when we are married, my mother will make it up with
+us. Everything will come right, my darling, my angel.... But you must
+not refuse: we <i>must</i> get married with all possible
+speed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was sitting beside him on a sofa and staring out of doors,
+where, in the square frame of the tall window, the slender <i lang=
+"it">campanile</i> rose like a marble lily between the dome-crowned
+harmonies of the Cathedral and the Battisterio, while on one side the
+Palazzio Vecchio lay, a massive, battlemented fortress, amid the welter
+of the streets and roofs, and lifted its tower, suddenly expanding into
+the machicolated summit, with Fiesole and the hills shimmering behind
+it in the purple of the evening. The noble city of eternal grace
+gleamed a golden <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb291" href="#pb291"
+name="pb291">291</a>]</span>bronze in the last reflection of the
+setting sun.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We <i>must</i> get married at once?&rdquo; she repeated, with
+a doubting interrogation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, as soon as ever we can, darling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Duco, dearest Duco, it&rsquo;s less possible now than
+ever. Don&rsquo;t you see that it can&rsquo;t be done? It&rsquo;s
+impossible, impossible. It might have been possible before, some months
+ago, a year ago ... perhaps, perhaps not even then. Perhaps it was
+never possible. It is so difficult to say. But now it can&rsquo;t be
+done, really not....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you love me well enough?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can you ask me such a question? How can you ask me,
+darling? But it&rsquo;s not that. It is ... it is ... it can&rsquo;t
+be, because I am not free.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not free?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am <i>not</i> free. I may feel free later ... or perhaps
+not, perhaps never.... My dearest Duco, it is impossible. I wrote to
+you, you know: that first meeting at the ball; it was so strange; I
+felt that ...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She took his hand and stroked it; her eyes were vague, her words
+were vague:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see ... he has been my husband.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you&rsquo;re divorced from him: not merely separated, but
+divorced!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m divorced; but it&rsquo;s not that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What then, dearest?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She shook her head and hid her face against him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you, Duco.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m ashamed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me; do you still love him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not love. I love you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what then, my darling? Why are you ashamed?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb292" href="#pb292" name=
+"pb292">292</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She began to cry on his shoulder:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That I am not free, although ... although I am divorced. I
+feel ... that I am his wife all the same.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She whispered the words almost inaudibly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But then you do love him and more than you love
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, I swear I don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, darling, you&rsquo;re not talking sense!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, indeed I am.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, you&rsquo;re not. It&rsquo;s impossible!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s quite possible. And he told me so
+... and I felt it....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the fellow&rsquo;s hypnotizing you!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not hypnotism. It&rsquo;s not a delusion:
+it&rsquo;s a reality, deep, deep down within myself. Look here, you
+know me: you know how I feel. I love you and you only. That alone is
+love. I have never loved any one else. I am not a woman who is
+susceptible to.... I&rsquo;m not hysterical. But with him ... No other
+man, no man whom I have ever met, rouses that feeling in me ... that
+feeling that I am not myself. That I belong to him, that I am his
+property, his chattel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She threw her arms about him, she hid herself like a child in his
+breast:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is so strange.... You know me, don&rsquo;t you? I can be
+plucky and I am independent and I am never at a loss for an answer. But
+with him I am no longer sure of myself, I no longer have a life of my
+own. And I do what he tells me to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But that is hypnotism: you can escape that, if you seriously
+wish to. I will help you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not hypnotism. It is a truth, deep down inside me. It
+exists inside me. I know that it is so, <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb293" href="#pb293" name="pb293">293</a>]</span>that it has to be
+so.... Duco, it is impossible. I can&rsquo;t become your wife. I
+<i>mustn&rsquo;t</i> become your wife ... less now than ever.
+Perhaps....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I always felt like that, without knowing it, that it
+must not be. Both for you and for me ... and for him too.... Perhaps
+that was what I felt, without knowing it, when I talked as I used to,
+about my antipathy for marriage.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But that antipathy arose from your marriage ... with
+him!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s the strange part of it. I dislike him ...
+and yet....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yet you&rsquo;re in love with him!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yet I belong to him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you tell me that you love me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She took his head in her two hands:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Try to understand. It tires me so, trying to make you
+understand. I love you ... but I am his wife....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you forgetting what you were to me in Rome?...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was everything to you: love, happiness, intense
+happiness.... There was the most intense harmony between us: I shall
+never forget it.... But I was not your wife.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not my wife!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I was your mistress.... I was unfaithful to him.... Oh,
+don&rsquo;t repulse me! Pity me, pity me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He had unconsciously made a gesture that frightened her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me stay like this, leaning against you. May I? I am so
+tired and I feel restful, leaning against you like this, my darling. My
+darling, my darling ... things will never be as they were. What are we
+to do?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb294" href="#pb294" name=
+"pb294">294</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he said, in despair. &ldquo;I want
+to marry you as soon as may be. You won&rsquo;t consent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t. I mustn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t know what to do or say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be angry. Don&rsquo;t leave me. Help me, do, do!
+I love you, I love you, I love you!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She drew him into her arms, in a close, sudden embrace, as though in
+perplexity and despair. He kissed her passionately in response.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;O God, tell me what to do!&rdquo; she prayed, as she, lay
+hopelessly perplexed in his embrace. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb295" href="#pb295" name="pb295">295</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER LIII</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">Next day, when Corn&eacute;lie walked with Duco
+through Florence, when they entered the courtyard of the Palazzo
+Vecchio, saw the Loggia dei Lanzi and looked in at the Uffizi to see
+Memmi&rsquo;s <i>Annunciation</i>, she felt something like her former
+sensations irresistibly unfolding within her. They seemed to have taken
+their lines which had burst asunder and with human force to have bent
+them together again into one path, along which the white daisies and
+white lilies shot up with a tenderness of soft, mystic recognition that
+was almost like a dream. And yet it was not quite the same as before.
+An oppression as of a grey cloud hung between her and the deep-blue
+sky, which hung out stretched like strips of &aelig;ther, like paths of
+lofty, quivering atmosphere, above the narrow streets, above the domes
+and towers and turrets. She no longer felt the former apprehension;
+there was a remembrance in her, a heavy pondering weighed upon her
+brain, an anxiety for what was about to happen. She had a presentiment
+as of a coming storm; and when, after their walk, they had had
+something to eat and went home, she dragged herself up the stairs to
+Duco&rsquo;s room more wearily than she had ever done in Rome. And she
+at once saw a letter lying on the table, a letter addressed to her. But
+how addressed! It gave her so violent a start that she began to tremble
+in every limb and managed to thrust the letter away even before Duco
+had followed her into the room. She took off her hat and told Duco that
+she wanted to get something out of her trunk, <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb296" href="#pb296" name=
+"pb296">296</a>]</span>which was standing in the passage. He asked if
+he could help her; but she said no and left the room and went into the
+narrow passage. Here, standing by the little window overlooking the
+Arno, she took out the letter. It was the only place where she could
+read for a moment undisturbed. And she read that address again, written
+in his hand, which she knew so well, with its great thick, heavy
+characters. The name which she bore abroad was her maiden name; she
+called herself Madame de Retz van Loo. But on the envelope she read,
+briefly:</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="first">&ldquo;<span class="sc">Baronne Brox</span>,<br>
+37, Lung&rsquo; Arno Torrigiani,<br>
+<span class="sc">Florence</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+<p>A deep crimson flush mantled over her face. She had borne that name
+for a year. Why did he call her by it now? Where was the logic in that
+title which, by the law, was hers no longer? What did he mean by it,
+what did he want?... And, standing by the little window, she read his
+short but imperious letter. He wrote that he took her flight very much
+amiss, especially after their last conversation. He wrote that, at this
+last interview, she had granted him every right over her, that she had
+not denied it and that, by kissing him and putting her arms around him,
+she had shown that she regarded herself as his wife, just as he
+regarded her as his wife. He wrote that he would not now resent her
+independent life of a year in Rome, because she was then still free,
+but that he was offended at her still looking upon herself as free and
+that he would not accept the insult of her flight. He called upon her
+to return. He said that he had no legal right to do so, but that he did
+it because he nevertheless had a right, a right which she could not
+dispute, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb297" href="#pb297" name=
+"pb297">297</a>]</span>which indeed she had not disputed, which on the
+contrary she had acknowledged by her kiss. He had learnt her address
+from the porter of the Villa Uxeley. And he ended by repeating that she
+was to return to Nice, to him, at the H&ocirc;tel Continental, and
+telling her that, if she did not do this, he would come to Florence and
+she would be responsible for the consequences of her refusal.</p>
+<p>Her knees shook; she was hardly able to stand upright. Should she
+show Duco the letter or keep it from him? She had to make up her mind
+then and there. He was calling to her from the room, asking what she
+was doing so long in the passage. She went in and was too weak to
+refrain from throwing herself on his breast. She showed him the letter.
+Leaning against him, sobbing violently, she heard him fume and rage,
+saw the veins on his temples swell, saw him clench his fists and roll
+the letter into a ball and dash it to the floor. He told her not to be
+frightened, said that he would protect her. He too regarded her as his
+wife. It all depended upon the light in which she henceforth regarded
+herself. She did not speak, merely sobbed, broken with fatigue, with
+fright, with head-ache. She undressed and went to bed, her teeth
+chattering with fever. He drew her curtains to darken the room and told
+her to go to sleep. His voice sounded angry and she thought that he was
+angry at her lack of resolution. She sobbed and cried herself to sleep.
+But in her sleep she felt the terror within herself and again felt the
+irresistible pressure. While sleeping she dreamt of what she could
+reply and wrote to Brox, but it was not clear what she wrote: it was
+all a vague, impotent pleading for mercy.</p>
+<p>When she woke, she saw Duco beside her bed. She took his hand; she
+was calmer. But she had no hope. She had no faith in the days that were
+coming. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb298" href="#pb298" name=
+"pb298">298</a>]</span>She looked at him and saw him gloomy, stern and
+self-contained, as she had never seen him before. Oh, their happiness
+was past! On that fatal day when he had seen her to the train in Rome,
+they had taken leave of their happiness. It was gone, it was gone! Gone
+the dear walks through ruins and museums, the trips to Frascati,
+Naples, Amalfi! Gone the dear, fond life of poverty in the big studio,
+among the gleaming colours of the old brocades and chasubles, of the
+old bronzes and silver! Gone the gazing together at his water-colour of
+<i>The Banners</i>, she with her head on his shoulder, within his arm,
+living his art with him, enjoying his work with him! Gone the ecstasy
+of the night in the pergola, in the star-spangled night, with the
+sacred lake at their feet! Life was not to be repeated. They had tried
+in vain to repeat it here, in this room, at Florence, in the Palazzo
+Vecchio, tried in vain to repeat it even in the presence of
+Memmi&rsquo;s angel emitting his beam of light! They tried in vain to
+repeat their life, their happiness, their love; it was in vain that
+they had forced together the lines which had burst asunder. These had
+merely twined round each other for a moment, in a despairing curve. It
+was gone, it was gone!... Gloomy and stern he sat beside her bed; and
+she knew it, he felt that he was powerless because she did not feel
+herself to be his wife. His mistress!... Oh, she had felt that
+involuntary repulsion when she had uttered the word! Had he not always
+wanted to marry her? But she had always felt unconsciously that it
+could not be, that it must not be. Under all the exuberance of her
+acrid feministic phrases, that had been the unconscious truth. She,
+railing against marriage, had always, inwardly, felt herself to be
+married ... not by a signature, in accordance with the law, but
+according to an age-old law, a primeval right of man <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb299" href="#pb299" name="pb299">299</a>]</span>over
+woman, a law and a right of flesh and blood and the very marrow of the
+bones. Oh, above that immovable physical truth her soul had blossomed
+its blossom of white daisies and lilies; and that blossom also was the
+intense truth, the lofty truth of happiness and love! But the daisies
+and lilies blossomed and faded: the soul blossoms for but a single
+summer. The soul does not blossom for a lifetime. It blossoms perhaps
+before life, it blossoms perhaps after it; but in life itself the soul
+blossoms for but a single summer. It had blossomed, it was over! And in
+her body, which lived, in her being, which survived, she felt the truth
+in her very marrow! He was sitting beside her bed, but he had no
+rights, now that the lilies had blossomed.... She was broken with pity
+for him. She took his hand and kissed it fervently and sobbed over it.
+He said nothing. He did not know how to say anything. It would all have
+been very simple for him, if she had consented to be his wife. As
+things were, he could not help her. As things were, he saw his
+happiness foundering while he looked on: there was nothing to be done.
+It was slowly falling to pieces, like a crumbling ruin. It was gone! It
+was gone!...</p>
+<p>She stayed in bed these days; she slept, she dreamt, she awoke
+again; and the dread waiting never left her. She had a slight
+temperature now and again; and it was better for her to stay in bed. As
+a rule, he remained by her side. But one day, when Duco had gone to the
+chemist&rsquo;s for something, there was a knock at the door. She leapt
+out of bed, terrified, terrified lest she should see the man of whom
+she was always thinking. Half-fainting with fright, she opened the door
+ajar. It was only the postman, with a registered letter ... from him!
+Even more curtly than last time, he wrote <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb300" href="#pb300" name="pb300">300</a>]</span>that, immediately on
+the receipt of his letter, she was to telegraph, stating the day when
+she would come. He said that, if on such and such a day&mdash;he would
+calculate, etc., which&mdash;he did not receive her telegram, he would
+leave for Florence and shoot her lover like a dog at her feet. He would
+not take a moment to reflect. He did not care what happened.... In this
+short letter, his anger, his fury, raged like a red storm that lashed
+her across the face. She knew him; and she knew that he would do what
+he said. She saw, as in a flash, the terrible scene, with Duco
+dropping, murdered, weltering in his blood. And she was no longer her
+own mistress. The red fury of that letter, dispatched from afar, made
+her his chattel, his thing. She had torn the letter open hastily,
+before signing the postman&rsquo;s book. The man was waiting in the
+passage. Her brain whirled, the room spun before her eyes. If she
+paused to reflect, it would be too late, too late to reflect. And she
+asked the postman, nervously:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can you send off a telegram for me at once?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No, he couldn&rsquo;t: it wasn&rsquo;t on his road.</p>
+<p>But she implored him to do it. She said that she was ill and that
+she must telegraph at once. And she found a gold ten-franc piece in her
+purse and gave it to him as a tip over and above the money for the
+telegram. And she wrote the telegram:</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="first">&ldquo;Leaving to-morrow express train.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+<p>It was a vague telegram. She did not know by what express; she had
+not been able to look it up. Would it be in the evening or quite early
+in the morning? She had no idea. How would she be able to get away? She
+had no idea. But she thought that the telegram would calm him. And she
+meant to go. She had no choice. Now that <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
+"pb301" href="#pb301" name="pb301">301</a>]</span>she had fled in
+despair, she saw it: if he wanted to have her back, back as his wife,
+she must go. If he had not wanted it, she could have remained, wherever
+she might be, despite her feeling that she belonged to him. But now
+that he wanted it, she must go back. But oh, how was she to tell Duco?
+She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking of Duco. She saw him
+lying before her in his blood. She forgot that she had no money left.
+Was she to ask him for it? O God, what was she to do? She could not go
+next day, notwithstanding her telegram! She could not tell Duco that
+she was going.... She had meant to slip quietly to the station, when he
+was out.... Or had she better tell him?... Which would be the least
+painful?... Or should ... should she tell everything to Duco and ...
+and run away ... run away somewhere with him and tell nobody where they
+were going.... But supposing <i>he</i> discovered where they had gone!
+And he would find them!... And then ... then he would murder ...
+Duco!...</p>
+<p>She was almost delirious with fear, with terror, with not knowing
+what to do, how to act.... She now heard Duco&rsquo;s steps on the
+stairs.... He came in, bringing her the pills.... And, as usual, she
+told him everything, too weak, too tired, to keep anything hidden, and
+showed him the letter. He blazed out, furiously, with hatred; but she
+fell on her knees before him and took his hands. She said that she had
+already sent the answer. He suddenly became cool, as though overcome by
+the inevitable. He said that he had no money to pay for her journey.
+Then, once more, he took her in his arms, kissed her, begged her to be
+his wife, said that he would kill her husband, even as her husband had
+threatened to kill him. But she did nothing but sob and refuse,
+although she continued to cling to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb302"
+href="#pb302" name="pb302">302</a>]</span>him convulsively. Then he
+yielded to the fatal omnipotence of life&rsquo;s silent tyranny. He
+felt death in his soul. But he wished to keep calm for her sake. He
+said that he forgave her. He held her, all sobbing, in his arms,
+because his touch calmed her. And he said that, if she wanted to go
+back&mdash;she despondently nodded yes&mdash;it was better to telegraph
+to Brox again, asking for money for the journey and for clear
+instructions as to the day and time. He would do this for her. She
+looked at him, through her tears, in surprise. He himself drew up the
+telegram and went out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My darling, my darling!&rdquo; she thought, as he went, as
+she felt the pain in his torn soul. She flung herself on the bed. He
+found her in hysterics when he returned. When he had tended her and
+tucked her up in bed, he sat down beside her. And he said, in a dead
+voice:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dearest, be calm now. The day after to-morrow I shall take
+you to Genoa. Then we shall take leave of each other, for ever. If it
+can&rsquo;t be otherwise, it must be like that. If you feel that it has
+to be, then it must be. Be calm now, be calm now. If you feel like
+that, that you must go back to your husband, then perhaps you will not
+be unhappy with him. Be calm, dear, be calm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you take me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall take you as far as <span class="corr" id="xd21e5498"
+title="Source: Geona">Genoa</span>. I have borrowed the money from a
+friend. But above all try to be calm. Your husband wants you back; he
+can&rsquo;t want you back only to beat you. He must feel something for
+you if he wants you so. And, if it has to be ... then perhaps it will
+be the best thing ... for you.... Even though I can&rsquo;t see it in
+that light!...&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He covered his face with his hands and, no longer master of himself
+burst into sobs. She drew him <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb303"
+href="#pb303" name="pb303">303</a>]</span>to her breast. She was now
+calmer than he. And, as he sobbed with his head on her beating heart,
+she quietly stroked his forehead, while her eyes roamed distantly round
+the walls of the room.... <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb304" href=
+"#pb304" name="pb304">304</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="div1 chapter">
+<div class="divHead">
+<h2 class="main">CHAPTER LIV</h2>
+</div>
+<div class="divBody">
+<p class="first">She was now alone in the train. By tipping the guard
+lavishly, they had travelled by themselves through the night and been
+left undisturbed in their compartment. Oh, the melancholy journey, the
+last silent journey of the end! They had not spoken but had sat close
+together, hand in hand, with eyes gazing into the distance before them,
+as though staring at the approaching point of separation. The dreary
+thought of that separation never left them, rushed onward in unison
+with the rattling train. Sometimes she thought of a railway-accident
+and that it would be welcome to her if she could die with him. But the
+lights of Genoa had gleamed up inexorably. Then the train had stopped.
+And he had flung out his arms and they had kissed for the last time.
+Pressed to his breast, she had felt all his grief within him. Then he
+had released her and rushed away, without looking round. She followed
+him with her eyes, but he did not look back and she saw him disappear
+in the morning mist, pierced with little lights, that hung about the
+station. She had seen him disappear among other people, swallowed up in
+the hovering mist. Then the silent and despairing surrender of her life
+had become so great that she was not even able to weep. Her head
+dropped limply, her arms hung lax. Like an inert thing she let the
+train bear her onward with its rending rattle.</p>
+<p>A white morning twilight had risen on the left over the brightening
+sea; and the dawning daylight tinted the water blue and defined the
+horizon. For <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb305" href="#pb305" name=
+"pb305">305</a>]</span>hours and hours she travelled on, motionlessly,
+gazing out at the sea; and she felt almost painless with her impassive
+surrender of life. She would now let things happen as life willed, as
+her husband willed, as the train willed. As in a tired dream she
+thought of the inevitability of everything and all the unconscious life
+within herself, of her first rebellion against her husband&rsquo;s
+tyranny, of the illusion of her independence, the arrogance of her
+pride and all the happiness of her gentle ecstasy, all her gladness
+because of the harmony which she had achieved.... Now it was past; now
+all self-will was vain. The train was carrying her to where Rudolph
+called her; and life hemmed her in on every side, not roughly, but with
+a soft pressure of phantom hands, which pushed and led and
+guided....</p>
+<p>And she ceased to think. The tired dream became clouded in the
+deeper blue of the day; and she felt that she was approaching Nice. She
+returned to the petty realities of life. She felt that she was looking
+a little travel-worn: and, feeling that it would be better if Rudolph
+did not see her for the first time in so unattractive a light, she
+slowly opened her bag, washed her face with her handkerchief dipped in
+eau-de-Cologne, combed her hair, powdered her face, brushed herself
+down, put on a transparent white veil and took out a pair of new
+gloves. She bought a couple of yellow roses at a station and put them
+in her waistband. She did all this unconsciously, without thinking
+about it, feeling that it was best, that it was sensible to do it, best
+that Rudolph should see her like that, with that bloom of a beautiful
+woman about her. She felt that henceforth she must be above all
+beautiful and that nothing else mattered. And when the train droned
+into the station, when she recognized Nice, she was resigned, because
+she had ceased to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb306" href="#pb306"
+name="pb306">306</a>]</span>struggle and had yielded to all the
+stronger forces. The door was flung open and, in the station, which at
+that early hour was comparatively empty, she saw him at once: tall,
+robust, easy, in his light summer suit, straw hat and brown shoes. He
+gave an impression of health and strength and above all of
+broad-shouldered virility; and, notwithstanding his broadness, he was
+still quite thoroughbred, thoroughly well-groomed without the least
+touch of toppishness; and the ironical smile beneath his moustache and
+the steady glance of his fine grey eyes, the eyes of a woman-hunter,
+gave him an air of strength, of the certainty of doing as he wished, of
+the power to subdue if he thought fit. An ironic pride in his handsome
+strength, with a tinge of contempt for the others who were less
+handsome and strong, less of the healthy animal and yet the aristocrat,
+and above all a mocking, supercilious sarcasm directed against all
+women, because he knew women and knew how much they were really worth:
+all this was expressed by his glance, his attitude, his movements. It
+was thus that she knew him. It had often roused her to rebellion in the
+old days, but she now felt resigned and also a little frightened.</p>
+<p>He had come to her; he helped her to alight. She saw that he was
+angry, that he intended to receive her rudely; then, that his moustache
+was curling ironically, as though in mockery because he was the
+stronger. She said nothing, however, took his hand calmly and alighted.
+He led her outside; and in the carriage they waited a moment for the
+trunk. His eyes took her in at a glance. She was wearing an old
+blue-serge skirt and a little blue-serge cape; but, notwithstanding her
+old clothes and her weary resignation, she looked a handsome and
+smartly-dressed woman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad to see that you thought it advisable <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb307" href="#pb307" name="pb307">307</a>]</span>at
+last to carry out my wishes,&rdquo; he said, in the end.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought it would be best,&rdquo; she answered, softly.</p>
+<p>Her tone struck him; and he watched her attentively, out of the
+corner of his eyes. He did not understand her, but he was pleased that
+she had come. She was tired now, from excitement and travelling; but he
+thought that she looked most charming, even though she was not so
+brilliant as on that night, at Mrs. Uxeley&rsquo;s ball, when he had
+first spoken to his divorced wife.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you tired?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been a bit feverish for a day or two; and of course I
+had no sleep last night,&rdquo; she said, as though in apology.</p>
+<p>The trunk was brought and they drove away, to the H&ocirc;tel
+Continental. She did not speak again in the carriage. They were also
+silent as they entered the hotel and in the lift. He took her to his
+room. It was an ordinary hotel-bedroom; but she thought it strange to
+see his brushes lying on the dressing-table, his coats and trousers
+hanging on the pegs: familiar things with whose outlines and folds she
+was well-acquainted. She recognized his trunk in a corner.</p>
+<p>He opened the windows wide. She had sat down on a chair, in an
+expectant attitude. She felt a little faint and closed her eyes, which
+were blinded by the stream of sunlight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must be hungry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What shall I order
+for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should like some tea and bread-and-butter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her trunk arrived; and he ordered her breakfast. Then he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take off your hat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She stood up. She took off her cape. Her cotton blouse was rumpled;
+and this annoyed her. She <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb308" href=
+"#pb308" name="pb308">308</a>]</span>removed the pins from her hat
+before the glass and quite naturally did her hair with his comb, which
+she saw lying there. And she settled the silk bow around her
+collar.</p>
+<p>He had lit a cigar and was smoking quietly, standing. A waiter came
+in with the breakfast. She ate a mouthful without speaking and drank a
+cup of tea.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you breakfasted?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They were silent again and she went on eating.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And shall we have a talk now?&rdquo; he asked, still standing
+up, smoking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t speak about your running off as you did,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;My first intention was to give you a regular flaying,
+for it was a damned silly trick....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She said nothing. She merely looked up at him; and her beautiful
+eyes were filled with a new expression, one of gentle resignation. He
+fell silent again, evidently restraining himself and seeking his words.
+Then he resumed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As I say, I won&rsquo;t speak about that any more. For the
+moment you didn&rsquo;t know what you were doing and you weren&rsquo;t
+accountable for your actions. But there must be an end of that now, for
+I wish it. Of course I know that according to the law I have not the
+least right over you. But we&rsquo;ve discussed all that; and I told it
+you in writing. And you have been my wife; and, now that I am seeing
+you again, I feel very plainly that, in spite of everything, I regard
+you as my wife and that you are my wife. And you must have retained the
+same impression from our meeting here, at Nice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, calmly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You admit that?&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb309"
+href="#pb309" name="pb309">309</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she repeated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then that&rsquo;s all right. It&rsquo;s the only thing I
+wanted of you. So we won&rsquo;t think any more now of what happened,
+of our former unpleasantness, of our divorce and of what you have done
+since. From now on we will put all that behind us. I look upon you as
+my wife and you shall be my wife again. According to the law we
+can&rsquo;t get married again. But that makes no difference. Our
+divorce in law I regard as an intervening formality and we will counter
+it as far as we can. If we have children, we shall get them
+legitimatized. I will consult a lawyer about all that; and I shall take
+all the necessary measures, financial included. In this way our divorce
+will be nothing more than a formality, of no meaning to us and of as
+little significance as possible to the world and to the law. And then I
+shall leave the service. I shouldn&rsquo;t in any case care to stay in
+it for good, so I may as well leave it earlier than I intended. For you
+wouldn&rsquo;t find it pleasant to live in Holland; and it
+doesn&rsquo;t appeal to me either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she murmured.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where would you like to live?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In Italy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she begged, in a tone of entreaty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Care to stay here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not ... to begin with.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was thinking of Paris. Would you like to live in
+Paris?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right then. So we will go to Paris as soon
+as possible and look out for a flat and settle in. It&rsquo;ll soon be
+spring now; and that is a good time to start life in Paris.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well.&rdquo; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb310" href=
+"#pb310" name="pb310">310</a>]</span></p>
+<p>He flung himself into an easy-chair; it creaked under him. Then he
+asked:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, what do you really think, inside
+yourself?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to know what you thought of your husband. Did you
+think him absurd?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come over here and sit on my knee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She stood up and went to him. She did as he wished, sat down on his
+knee; and he drew her to him. He laid his hand on her head, with that
+gesture which prevented her thinking. She closed her eyes and laid her
+head against his cheek.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t forgotten me altogether?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We ought never to have got divorced, ought we?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She shook her head again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But we used to be very bad-tempered then, both of us. You
+must never be bad-tempered in future. It makes you look spiteful and
+ugly. As you are now, you&rsquo;re much nicer and prettier.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She smiled faintly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad to have you back with me,&rdquo; he whispered, with
+a long kiss on her lips.</p>
+<p>She closed her eyes under his kiss, while his moustache curled
+against her skin and his mouth pressed hers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you still tired?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Would you like
+to rest a little?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I would like to get my things
+off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go to bed for a bit,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you: your friend, the princess,
+is coming here this evening!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t Urania angry?&rdquo; <span class=
+"pagenum">[<a id="pb311" href="#pb311" name="pb311">311</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I have told her everything and she knows about it
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She was pleased to know that Urania was not angry and that she still
+had a friend left.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I have seen Mrs. Uxeley also.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She must be angry with me, isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That old hag! No, not angry. She&rsquo;s in the dumps because
+she has no one with her. She set great store by you. She likes to have
+pretty people about her, she said. She can&rsquo;t stand an ugly
+companion, with no <i>chic</i>.... There, get undressed and go to bed.
+I&rsquo;ll leave you and go and sit downstairs somewhere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They stood up. His eyes had a golden glimmer in them; his moustache
+was lifted by his ironic smile. And he caught her fiercely in his
+arms:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Corn&eacute;lie,&rdquo; he said, hoarsely, &ldquo;I think
+it&rsquo;s wonderful to have you back again. Do you belong to me, tell
+me, do you belong to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He pressed her to him till he almost stifled her with the pressure
+of his arms:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, do you belong to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What used you to say to me in the old days, when you were in
+love with me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What used you to say?&rdquo; he insisted, holding her still
+more tightly.</p>
+<p>Pushing her hands against his shoulders, she fought to catch her
+breath:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My Rud!&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;My beautiful, glorious
+Rud!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Automatically she now wound her arms around his head. He released
+her as with an effort of will: <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb312"
+href="#pb312" name="pb312">312</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take off your things,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and try to get
+some sleep. I&rsquo;ll come back later.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He went away. She undressed and brushed her hair with his brushes,
+washed her face and dripped into the basin some of the toilet-water
+which he used. She drew the curtains, behind which the noonday sun
+shone; and a soft crimson twilight filled the room. And she crept into
+the great bed and lay waiting for him, trembling. There was no thought
+in her. There was in her no grief and no recollection. She was filled
+only with a great expectancy, a waiting for the inevitability of life.
+She felt herself to be solely and wholly a bride, but not an innocent
+bride; and, deep in her blood, in the very marrow of her bones, she
+felt herself to be the wife, the very blood and marrow, of him whom she
+awaited. Before her, as she lay half-dreaming, she saw little figures
+of children. For, if she was to be his wife in truth and sincerity, she
+wanted to be not only his lover but also the woman who gave him his
+children. She knew that, despite his roughness, he loved the softness
+of children; and she herself would long for them, in her second married
+life, as a sweet comfort for the days when she would be no longer
+beautiful and no longer young. Before her, half-dreaming, she saw the
+figures of children.... And she lay waiting for him, she listened for
+his step, she longed for his coming, her flesh quivered towards him....
+And, when he entered and came to her, her arms closed round him in
+profound and conscious certainty and she felt, beyond a doubt, on his
+breast, in his arms, the knowledge of his virile, over-mastering
+dominion, while before her eyes, in a dizzy, melancholy obscurity, the
+dream of her life&mdash;Rome, Duco, the studio&mdash;sank away....</p>
+<p class="trailer xd21e5687">THE END</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="back">
+<div class="transcribernote">
+<h2 class="main">Colophon</h2>
+<h3 class="main">Availability</h3>
+<p class="first">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
+cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
+it away or re-use it under the terms of the <a class="exlink xd21e48"
+title="External link" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" rel=
+"license">Project Gutenberg License</a> included with this eBook or
+online at <a class="exlink xd21e48" title="External link" href=
+"http://www.gutenberg.org/" rel="home">www.gutenberg.org</a>.</p>
+<p>This eBook is produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+at <a class="exlink xd21e48" title="External link" href=
+"http://www.pgdp.net/">www.pgdp.net</a>.</p>
+<h3 class="main">Encoding</h3>
+<p class="first"></p>
+<h3 class="main">Revision History</h3>
+<ul>
+<li>2013-06-15 Started.</li>
+</ul>
+<h3 class="main">External References</h3>
+<p>This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These
+links may not work for you.</p>
+<h3 class="main">Corrections</h3>
+<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
+<table class="correctiontable" summary=
+"Overview of corrections applied to the text.">
+<tr>
+<th>Page</th>
+<th>Source</th>
+<th>Correction</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e569">16</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">a</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">an</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e624">19</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">give</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">gives</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1470">61</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">ttering</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">fluttering</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1969">102</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">grocchi</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">gnocchi</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2258">114</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">&ldquo;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2870">146</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">a</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">at</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5248">286</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">sudddenly</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">suddenly</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5498">302</a></td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">Geona</td>
+<td class="width40 bottom">Genoa</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 43005-h.htm or 43005-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/0/43005/
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/43005-h/images/book.png b/43005-h/images/book.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..963d165
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/images/book.png
diff --git a/43005-h/images/card.png b/43005-h/images/card.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ffbe1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/images/card.png
diff --git a/43005-h/images/external.png b/43005-h/images/external.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba4f205
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/images/external.png
diff --git a/43005-h/images/new-cover-tn.jpg b/43005-h/images/new-cover-tn.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c7250a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/images/new-cover-tn.jpg
diff --git a/43005-h/images/new-cover.jpg b/43005-h/images/new-cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc51b4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005-h/images/new-cover.jpg
diff --git a/43005.txt b/43005.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6948aea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10648 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Inevitable
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2013 [EBook #43005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             THE INEVITABLE
+
+                                   BY
+                             LOUIS COUPERUS
+
+
+
+                             Translated by
+
+                      ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+
+                                New York
+                         Dodd, Mead and Company
+                                  1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE INEVITABLE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Marchesa Belloni's boarding-house was situated in one of the
+healthiest, if not one of the most romantic quarters of Rome. One
+half of the house had formed part of a villino of the old Ludovisi
+Gardens, those beautiful old gardens regretted by everybody who knew
+them before the new barrack-quarters were built on the site of the old
+Roman park, with its border of villas. The entrance to the pension
+was in the Via Lombardia. The older or villino portion of the house
+retained a certain antique charm for the marchesa's boarders, while
+the new premises built on to it offered the advantages of spacious
+rooms, modern sanitation and electric light. The pension boasted a
+certain reputation for comfort, cheapness and a pleasant situation:
+it stood at a few minutes' walk from the Pincio, on high ground, and
+there was no need to fear malaria; and the price charged for a long
+stay, amounting to hardly more than eight lire, was exceptionally
+low for Rome, which was known to be more expensive than any other
+town in Italy. The boarding-house therefore was generally full. The
+visitors began to arrive as soon as October: those who came earliest
+in the season paid least; and, with the exception of a few hurrying
+tourists, they nearly all remained until Easter, going southward to
+Naples after the great church festivals.
+
+Some English travelling-acquaintances had strongly recommended the
+pension to Cornelie de Retz van Loo, who was travelling in Italy by
+herself; and she had written to the Marchesa Belloni from Florence. It
+was her first visit to Italy; it was the first time that she had
+alighted at the great cavernous station near the Baths of Diocletian;
+and, standing in the square, in the golden Roman sunlight, while
+the great fountain of the Acqua Marcia gushed and rippled and the
+cab-drivers clicked with their whips and their tongues to attract
+her attention, she was conscious of her "nice Italian sensation,"
+as she called it, and felt glad to be in Rome.
+
+She saw a little old man limping towards her with the instinct of
+a veteran porter who recognizes his travellers at once; and she read
+"Hotel Belloni" on his cap and beckoned to him with a smile. He saluted
+her with respectful familiarity, as though she were an old acquaintance
+and he glad to see her; asked if she had had a pleasant journey,
+if she was not over-tired; led her to the victoria; put in her rug
+and her hand-bag; asked for the tickets of her trunks; and said that
+she had better go on ahead: he would follow in ten minutes with the
+luggage. She received an impression of cosiness, of being well cared
+for by the little old lame man; and she gave him a friendly nod as
+the coachman drove away. She felt happy and careless, though she had
+just the faintest foreboding of something unhappy and unknown that
+was going to happen to her; and she looked to right and left to take
+in the streets of Rome. But she saw only houses upon houses, like so
+many barracks; then a great white palace, the new Palazzo Piombino,
+which she knew to contain the Juno Ludovisi; and then the vettura
+stopped and a boy in buttons came out to meet her. He showed her into
+the drawing-room, a gloomy apartment, in the middle of which was a
+table covered with periodicals, arranged in a regular and unbroken
+circle. Two ladies, obviously English and of the aesthetic type, with
+loose-fitting blouses and grimy hair, sat in a corner studying their
+Baedekers before going out. Cornelie bowed slightly, but received
+no bow in return; she did not take offence, being familiar with the
+manners of the travelling Briton. She sat down at the table and took
+up the Roman Herald, the paper which appears once a fortnight and
+tells you what there is to do in Rome during the next two weeks.
+
+Thereupon one of the ladies asked her, from the corner, in an
+aggressive tone:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but would you please not take the Herald to
+your room?"
+
+Cornelie raised her head very haughtily and languidly in the direction
+where the ladies were sitting, looked vaguely above their grimy heads,
+said nothing and glanced down at the Herald again; and she thought
+herself a very experienced traveller and smiled inwardly because she
+knew how to deal with that type of Englishwoman.
+
+The marchesa entered and welcomed Cornelie in Italian and in
+French. She was a large, fat matron, vulgarly fat; her ample bosom
+was contained in a silk cuirass or spencer, shiny at the seams
+and bursting under the arms; her grey frizzled hair gave her a
+somewhat leonine appearance; her great yellow and blue eyes, with
+bistre shadows beneath them, wore a strained expression, the pupils
+unnaturally dilated by belladonna; a pair of immense crystals sparkled
+in her ears; and her fat, greasy fingers were covered with nameless
+jewels. She talked very fast; and Cornelie thought her sentences as
+pleasant and homely as the welcome of the lame porter in the square
+outside the station. The marchesa led her to the lift and stepped in
+with her; the hydraulic lift, a railed-in cage, running up the well
+of the staircase, rose solemnly and suddenly stopped, motionless,
+between the second and the third floor.
+
+"Third floor!" cried the marchesa to some one below.
+
+"Non c'e acqua!" the boy in buttons calmly called back, meaning thereby
+to convey that--as seemed natural--there was not enough water to move
+the lift.
+
+The marchesa screamed out some orders in a shrill voice; two facchini
+came running up and hung on to the cable of the lift, together with the
+ostensibly zealous boy in buttons; and by fits and starts the cage rose
+higher and higher, until at last it almost reached the third storey.
+
+"A little higher!" ordered the marchesa.
+
+But the facchini strained their muscles in vain: the lift refused
+to stir.
+
+"We can manage!" said the marchesa. "Wait a bit."
+
+Taking a great stride, which revealed the enormous white-stockinged
+calf of her leg, she stepped on to the floor, smiled and gave her
+hand to Cornelie, who imitated her gymnastics.
+
+"Here we are!" sighed the marchesa, with a smile of satisfaction. "This
+is your room."
+
+She opened a door and showed Cornelie a room. Though the sun was
+shining brightly out of doors, the room was as damp and chilly as
+a cellar.
+
+"Marchesa," Cornelie said, without hesitation, "I wrote to you for
+two rooms facing south."
+
+"Did you?" asked the marchesa, plausibly and ingenuously. "I really
+didn't remember. Yes, that is one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms
+facing south.... This is really a beautiful room."
+
+"I'm sorry, but I can't accept this room, marchesa."
+
+La Belloni grumbled a bit, went down the corridor and opened the door
+of another room:
+
+"And this one, signora?... How do you like this?"
+
+"Is it south?"
+
+"Almost"
+
+"I want it full south."
+
+"This looks west: you see the most splendid sunsets from your window."
+
+"I absolutely must have a south room, marchesa."
+
+"I also have the most charming little apartments looking east: you
+get the most picturesque sunrises there."
+
+"No, marchesa."
+
+"Don't you appreciate the beauties of nature?"
+
+"Just a little, but I put my health first."
+
+"I sleep in a north room myself."
+
+"You are an Italian, marchesa, and you're used to it."
+
+"I'm very sorry, but I have no rooms facing south."
+
+"Then I'm sorry too, marchesa, but I must look out somewhere else."
+
+Cornelie turned as though to go away. The choice of a room sometimes
+means the choice of a life.
+
+The marchesa caught hold of her hand and smiled. She had abandoned
+her cool tone and her voice was all honey:
+
+"Davvero, that's one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms facing
+south! But I have two little kennels left. Here...."
+
+And she quickly opened two doors, two snug little cupboards of rooms,
+which showed through the open windows a lofty and spacious view of
+the sky, outspread above the streets and roofs below, with the blue
+dome of St. Peter's in the distance.
+
+"These are the only rooms I have left facing south," said the marchesa,
+plaintively.
+
+"I shall be glad to have these, marchesa."
+
+"Sixteen lire," smiled la Belloni.
+
+"Ten, as you wrote."
+
+"I could put two persons in here."
+
+"I shall stay all the winter, if I am satisfied."
+
+"You must have your way!" the marchesa exclaimed, suddenly, in her
+sweetest voice, a voice of graceful surrender. "You shall have the
+rooms for twelve lire. Don't let us discuss it any more. The rooms
+are yours. You are Dutch, are you not? We have a Dutch family staying
+here: a mother with two daughters and a son. Would you like to sit
+next to them at table?"
+
+"No, I'd rather you put me somewhere else; I don't care for my
+fellow-countrymen when travelling."
+
+The marchesa left Cornelie to herself. She looked out of the window,
+absent-mindedly, glad to be in Rome, yet faintly conscious of the
+something unhappy and unknown that was going to happen. There was a tap
+at her door; the men carried in her luggage. She saw that it was eleven
+o'clock and began to unpack. One of her rooms was a small sitting-room,
+like a bird-cage in the air, looking out over Rome. She altered the
+position of the furniture, draped the faded sofa with a shawl from the
+Abruzzi and fixed a few portraits and photographs with drawing-pins to
+the wall, whose white-washed surface was broken up by rudely-painted
+arabesques. And she smiled at the border of purple hearts transfixed
+by arrows, which surrounded the decorated panels of the wall.
+
+After an hour's work her sitting-room was settled: she had a home
+of her own, with a few of her own shawls and rugs, a screen here,
+a little table there, cushions on the sofa, books within easy
+reach. When she had finished and had sat down and looked around her,
+she suddenly felt very lonely. She began to think of the Hague and
+of what she had left behind her. But she did not want to think and
+picked up her Baedeker and read about the Vatican. She was unable to
+concentrate her thoughts and turned to Hare's Walks in Rome. A bell
+sounded. She was tired and her nerves were on edge. She looked in the
+glass, saw that her hair was out of curl, her blouse soiled with coal
+and dust, unlocked a second trunk and changed her things. She cried
+and sobbed while she was curling her hair. The second bell rang; and,
+after powdering her face, she went downstairs.
+
+She expected to be late, but there was no one in the dining-room and
+she had to wait before she was served. She resolved not to come down
+so very punctually in future. A few boarders looked in through the
+open door, saw that there was no one sitting at table yet, except a
+new lady, and disappeared again.
+
+Cornelie looked around her and waited.
+
+The dining-room was the original dining-room of the old villa, with a
+ceiling by Guercina. The waiters loitered about. An old grey major-domo
+cast a distant glance over the table, to see if everything was in
+order. He grew impatient when nobody came and told them to serve the
+macaroni to Cornelie. It struck Cornelie that he too limped with one
+leg, like the porter. But the waiters were very young, hardly more than
+sixteen to eighteen, and lacked the waiter's usual self-possession.
+
+A stout gentleman, vivacious, consequential, pock-marked, ill-shaven,
+in a shabby black coat which showed but little linen, entered,
+rubbing his hands, and took his seat, opposite Cornelie.
+
+He bowed politely and began to eat his macaroni.
+
+And this seemed to be the signal for the others to begin eating,
+for a number of boarders, mostly ladies, now came in, sat down
+and helped themselves to the macaroni, which was handed round
+by the youthful waiters under the watchful eye of the grey-haired
+major-domo. Cornelie smiled at the oddity of these travelling types;
+and, when she involuntarily glanced at the pock-marked gentleman
+opposite, she saw that he too was smiling.
+
+He hurriedly mopped up his tomato-sauce with his bread, bent a little
+way across the table and almost whispered, in French:
+
+"It's amusing, isn't it?"
+
+Cornelie raised her eyebrows:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A cosmopolitan company like this."
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"You are Dutch?"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I saw your name in the visitors' book, with 'la Haye' after it."
+
+"I am Dutch, yes."
+
+"There are some more Dutch ladies here, sitting over there: they
+are charming."
+
+Cornelie asked the major-domo for some vin ordinaire.
+
+"That wine is no good," said the stout gentleman, vivaciously. "This
+is Genzano," pointing to his fiasco. "I pay a small corkage and drink
+my own wine."
+
+The major-domo put a pint bottle in front of Cornelie: it was included
+in her pension without extra charge.
+
+"If you like, I will give you the address where I get my wine. Via
+della Croce, 61."
+
+Cornelie thanked him. The pock-marked gentleman's uncommon ease and
+vivacity diverted her.
+
+"You're looking at the major-domo?" he asked.
+
+"You are a keen observer," she smiled in reply.
+
+"He's a type, our major-domo, Giuseppe. He used to be major-domo in
+the palace of an Austrian archduke. He did I don't know what. Stole
+something, perhaps. Or was impertinent. Or dropped a spoon on the
+floor. He has come down in the world. Now you behold him in the
+Pension Belloni. But the dignity of the man!"
+
+He leant forward:
+
+"The marchesa is economical. All the servants here are either old or
+very young. It's cheaper."
+
+He bowed to two German ladies, a mother and daughter, who had come
+in and sat down beside him:
+
+"I have the permit which I promised you, to see the Palazzo Rospigliosi
+and Guido Reni's Aurora" he said, speaking in German.
+
+"Is the prince back then?"
+
+"No, the prince is in Paris. The palace is not open to visitors,
+except yourselves."
+
+This was said with a gallant bow.
+
+The German ladies exclaimed how kind he was, how he was able to do
+anything, to find a way out of every difficulty. They had taken endless
+trouble to bribe the Rospigliosi porter and they had not succeeded.
+
+A little thin Englishwoman had taken her seat beside Cornelie.
+
+"And for you, Miss Taylor, I have a card for a low mass in His
+Holiness' private chapel."
+
+Miss Taylor was radiant with delight.
+
+"Have you been sight-seeing again?" the pock-marked gentleman
+continued.
+
+"Yes, Museo Kircheriano," said Miss Taylor. "But I am tired out. It
+was most exquisite."
+
+"My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this afternoon
+and rest."
+
+"I have an engagement to go to the Aventino...."
+
+"You mustn't. You're tired. You look worse every day and you're losing
+flesh. You must rest, or you sha'n't have the card for the low mass."
+
+The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of
+delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman
+as though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from
+his lips.
+
+Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornelie
+rose:
+
+"May I give you a glass out of my bottle?" asked the stout
+gentleman. "Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so,
+I'll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce."
+
+Cornelie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was
+deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink
+a pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed
+to read her quick thought:
+
+"It is a good thing," he said, "to drink a strengthening wine while
+you are in Rome, where life is so tiring."
+
+Cornelie agreed.
+
+"This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the fiasco. It will last
+you a long time: the wine keeps. So I'll order you a fiasco."
+
+He bowed to the ladies around and left the room.
+
+The German ladies bowed to Cornelie.
+
+"Such an amiable man, that Mr. Rudyard."
+
+"What can he be?" Cornelie wondered. "French, German, English,
+American?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+She had hired a victoria after lunch and had driven through Rome, to
+make her first acquaintance with the city for which she had longed
+so eagerly. This first impression was a great disappointment. Her
+unspoiled imagination, her reading, even the photographs which she had
+bought in Florence and studied with the affection of an inexperienced
+tourist had given her the illusion of a city of an ideal antiquity,
+an ideal Renascence; and she had forgotten that, especially in Rome,
+life has progressed pitilessly and that the ages are not visible,
+in buildings and ruins, as distinct periods, but that each period is
+closely connected with the next by the passing days and years.
+
+Thus she had thought the dome of St. Peter's small, the Corso narrow
+and Trajan's Column a column like any other; she had not noticed the
+Forum as she drove past it; and she had been unable to think of a
+single emperor when she was at the Palatine.
+
+Now she was home again, tired, and was resting a little and meditating;
+she felt depressed, yet she enjoyed her vague reflections and the
+silence about her in the big house, to which most of the boarders had
+not yet returned. She thought of the Hague, of her big family, her
+father, mother, brothers and sisters, to whom she had said good-bye
+for a long time to go abroad. Her father, a retired colonel of hussars
+living on his pension, with no great private means, had been unable to
+contribute anything to the fulfilment of her caprice, as he called it;
+and she would not have been able to satisfy that caprice, of beginning
+a new life, but for a small legacy which she had inherited some years
+ago from a godmother. She was glad to be more or less independent,
+though she felt the selfishness of her independence.
+
+But what could she have done for her family-circle, after the scandal
+of her divorce? She was weak and selfish, she knew it; but she had
+received a blow under which she had at first expected to succumb. And,
+when she found herself surviving it, she had mustered such energy as
+she possessed and said to herself that she could not go on existing in
+that same narrow circle of her sisters and her girl friends; and she
+had forced her life into a different path. She had always had the knack
+of creating an apparently new frock out of an old dress, transforming
+a last year's hat into one of the latest fashion. Even so she had
+now done with her distraught and wretched life, all battered and
+broken as it was: she had gathered together, as in a fit of economy,
+all that was left, all that was still serviceable; and out of those
+remnants she had made herself a new existence. But this new life was
+unable to breathe in the old atmosphere: it felt aimless in it and
+estranged; and she had managed to force it into a different path,
+in spite of all the opposition of her family and friends. Perhaps she
+would not have succeeded so readily if she had not been so completely
+shattered. Perhaps she would not have felt this energy if she had
+suffered only a little. She had her strength and she had her weakness;
+she was very simple and yet she was very various; and it was perhaps
+just this complexity that had been the saving of her youth.
+
+Besides, she was actually very young, only twenty-three; and in youth
+one possesses an unconscious vitality, notwithstanding any apparent
+weakness. And her contradictory qualities gave her equilibrium and
+saved her from falling over into the abyss....
+
+All this passed vaguely through her mind as clouds pass before
+the eyes, not with the conciseness of words but with the misty
+indefiniteness of a dreamy fatigue. As she lay there, she did not
+look as if she had ever exerted the strength to give a new path to
+her life: a pale, delicate woman, slender, with drooping movements,
+lying on a sofa in her not very fresh dressing-gown, with its faded
+pink and its rumpled lace. And yet there was a certain poetical
+fragrance about her personality, despite her weary eyes and the
+limp outlines of her attire, despite the boarding-house room, with
+its air of quickly improvised comfort, a comfort which was a matter
+of tact rather than reality and could be packed away in a single
+trunk. Her frail figure, her pale and delicate rather than beautiful
+features were surrounded, as by an aura, by that atmosphere of personal
+poetry which she unconsciously radiated, which she shed from her eyes
+upon the things which she beheld, from her fingers upon the things
+which she touched. To those who did not like her, this peculiar
+atmosphere, this unusualness, this eccentricity, this unlikeness to
+the typical young woman of the Hague, was the very thing with which
+they reproached her. To those who liked her, it was partly talent,
+partly soul; something peculiar to her which seemed almost genius;
+yet it was perturbing. It invested her with a great charm; it gave
+pause for thought and it promised much: more, perhaps, than could
+be realized. And this woman was the child of her time but especially
+of her environment and therefore so unfinished, revealing disparity
+against disparity, in an equilibrium of opposing forces, which might
+be her undoing or her salvation, but were in either case her fate.
+
+She felt lonely in Italy. She had stayed for weeks at Florence, where
+she tried to lead a full life, enriched by art and history. There,
+it was true, she forgot herself to a great extent, but she still felt
+lonely. She had spent a fortnight at Siena, but Siena had depressed
+her, with its sombre streets, its dead palaces; and she had yearned
+for Rome. But she had not found Rome yet that afternoon. And, though
+she felt tired, she felt above all things lonely, terribly lonely
+and useless in a great world, in a great town, a town in which one
+feels the greatness, uselessness and vast antiquity of things more
+perhaps than anywhere else. She felt like a little atom of suffering,
+like an insect, an ant, half-trodden, half-crushed, among the immense
+domes of Rome, of whose presence out of doors she was subtly conscious.
+
+And her hand wandered vacantly over her books, which she had stacked
+punctiliously and conscientiously on a little table: some translations
+of the classics, Ovid, Tacitus, together with Dante, Petrach, Tasso. It
+was growing dusk in her room, there was no light to read by, she
+was too much enervated to ring for a lamp; a chilliness hovered in
+her little room, now that the sun had quite gone down, and she had
+forgotten to ask for a fire on that first day. Loneliness was all
+about her, her suffering pained her; her soul craved for a fellow-soul,
+but her mouth craved for a kiss, her arms for him, once her husband;
+and, turning on her cushions and wringing her hands, she prayed deep
+down in herself:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+At dinner there was a buzz of voices; the three or four long tables
+were all full; the marchesa sat at the head of the centre table. Now
+and then she beckoned impatiently to Giuseppe, the old major-domo,
+who had dropped a spoon at an archducal court; and the unfledged
+little waiters rushed about breathlessly. Cornelie found the obliging
+stout gentleman, whom the German ladies called Mr. Rudyard, sitting
+opposite her and her fiasco of Genzano beside her plate. She thanked
+Mr. Rudyard with a smile and made the usual remarks: how she had been
+for a drive that afternoon and had made her first acquaintance with
+Rome, the Forum, the Pincio. She talked to the German ladies and
+to the English one, who was always so tired with her sight-seeing;
+and the Germans, a Baronin and the Baronesse her daughter, laughed
+with her at the two aesthetes whom Cornelie had come upon that morning
+in the drawing-room. The two were sitting some distance away, lank
+and angular, grimy-haired, in curiously cut evening-dress, which
+showed the breast and arms warmly covered with a Jaeger undervest,
+on which, in their turn, lay strings of large blue beads. Their eyes
+browsed over the long table, as though they were pitying everybody
+who had come to Rome to learn about art, because they two alone knew
+what art was. While eating, which they did unpleasantly, almost with
+their fingers, they read aesthetic books, wrinkling their brows and
+now and then looking up angrily, because the people about them were
+talking. With their self-conceit, their impossible manners, their
+worse than tasteless dress and their great air of superiority, they
+represented types of travelling Englishwomen that are never met except
+in Italy. They were unanimously criticized at the table. They came to
+the Pension Belloni every winter and made drawings in water-colours
+in the Forum or the Via Appia. And they were so remarkable in
+their unprecedented originality, in their grimy angularity, with
+their evening-dresses, their Jaegers, their strings of blue beads,
+their aesthetic books and their meat-picking fingers, that all eyes
+were constantly wandering in their direction, as though under the
+influence of a Medusa spell.
+
+The young baroness, a type out of the Fliegende Blaetter, witty and
+quick, with her little round, German face and arched, pencilled
+eyebrows, was laughing with Cornelie and showing her a thumb-nail
+caricature which she had made of the two aesthetic ladies in her
+sketch-book, when Giuseppe conducted a young lady to the end of the
+table where Cornelie and Rudyard sat opposite each other. She had
+evidently just arrived, said "Evening" to everybody near her and sat
+down with a great rustling. It was at once apparent that she was an
+American, almost too good-looking, too young, to be travelling alone
+like that, with a smiling self-possession, as if she were at home:
+a very white complexion, very fine dark eyes, teeth like a dentist's
+advertisement, her full breast moulded in mauve cloth plentifully
+decorated with silver braid, on her heavily-waved hair a large mauve
+hat with a cascade of black ostrich-feathers, fastened by an over-large
+paste buckle. At every movement the silk of her petticoat rustled,
+the feathers nodded, the paste buckle gleamed. And, notwithstanding all
+this showiness, she was child-like: she was perhaps just twenty, with
+an ingenuous expression in her eyes. She at once spoke to Cornelie,
+to Rudyard; said that she was tired, that she had come from Naples,
+that she had been dancing last night at Prince Cibo's, that her name
+was Miss Urania Hope, that her father lived in Chicago, that she had
+two brothers who, in spite of her father's money, were working on a
+farm in the Far West, but that she had been brought up as a spoilt
+child by her father, who, however, wanted her to be able to stand on
+her own feet and was therefore making her travel by herself in the
+Old World, in dear old Italy. She was delighted to hear that Cornelie
+was also travelling alone; and Rudyard chaffed the ladies about their
+modern views, but the Baronin and the Baronesse applauded them. Miss
+Hope at once took a liking to her Dutch fellow-traveller and wanted
+to arrange joint excursions; but Cornelie, withdrawing into herself,
+made a tactful excuse, said that her time was fully engaged, that
+she wanted to study in the museums.
+
+"So serious?" asked Miss Hope, respectfully.
+
+And the petticoat rustled, the plumes nodded, the paste buckle gleamed.
+
+She made on Cornelie the impression of a gaudy butterfly, which,
+sportive and unthinking, might easily one day dash itself to pieces
+against the hot-house windows of our cabined existence. She felt no
+attraction towards this strange, pretty little creature, who looked
+like a child and a cocotte in one; but she felt sorry for her, she
+did not know why.
+
+After dinner, Rudyard proposed to take the two German ladies for
+a little walk. The younger baroness came to Cornelie and asked if
+she would come too, to see Rome by moonlight, quite close, from the
+Villa Medici. She felt grateful for the kindly suggestion and was
+just going to put on her hat, when Miss Hope ran after her:
+
+"Stay and sit with me in the drawing-room."
+
+"I am going for a walk with the Baronin," Cornelie replied.
+
+"That German lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is she a noblewoman?"
+
+"I presume so."
+
+"Are there many titled people in the house?" asked Miss Hope, eagerly.
+
+Cornelie laughed:
+
+"I don't know. I only arrived this morning."
+
+"I believe there are. I heard that there were many titled people
+here. Are you one?"
+
+"I was!" Cornelie laughed. "But I had to give up my title."
+
+"What a shame!" Miss Hope exclaimed. "I love titles. Do you know what
+I've got? An album with the coats of arms of all sorts of families
+and another album with patterns of silk and brocade from each of the
+Queen of Italy's ball-dresses. Would you care to see it?"
+
+"Very much indeed!" Cornelie laughed. "But I must put on my hat now."
+
+She went and returned in a hat and cloak; the German ladies and
+Rudyard were waiting in the hall and asked what she was laughing
+at. She caused great merriment by telling them about the album with
+the patterns of the queen's ball-dresses.
+
+"Who is he?" she asked the Baronin, as she walked in front with her,
+along the Via Sistina, while the Baronesse and Rudyard followed.
+
+She thought the Baronin a charming person, but she was surprised to
+find, in this German woman, who belonged to the titled military-class,
+a coldly cynical view of life which was not exactly that of her
+Berlin environment.
+
+"I don't know," the Baronin answered, with an air of indifference. "We
+travel a great deal. We have no house in Berlin at present. We want
+to make the most of our stay abroad. Mr. Rudyard is very pleasant. He
+helps us in all sorts of ways: tickets for a papal mass, introductions
+here, invitations there. He seems to have plenty of influence. What
+do I care who or what he is! Else agrees with me. I accept what he
+gives us and for the rest I don't try to fathom him."
+
+They walked on. The Baronin took Cornelie's arm:
+
+"My dear child, don't think us more cynical than we are. I hardly know
+you, but I've felt somehow drawn towards you. Strange, isn't it, when
+one's abroad like this and has one's first talk at a table-d'hote,
+over a skinny chicken? Don't think us shabby or cynical. Oh, dear,
+perhaps we are! Our cosmopolitan, irresponsible, unsettled life makes
+us ungenerous, cynical and selfish. Very selfish. Rudyard shows us
+many kindnesses. Why should I not accept them? I don't care who or
+what he is. I am not committing myself in any way."
+
+Cornelie looked round involuntarily. In the nearly dark street she saw
+Rudyard and the young Baronesse, almost whispering and mysteriously
+intimate.
+
+"And does your daughter think so too?"
+
+"Oh, yes! We are not committing ourselves in any way. We do not
+even particularly like him, with his pock-marked face and his dirty
+finger-nails. We merely accept his introductions. Do as we do. Or
+... don't. Perhaps it will be better form if you don't. I ... I have
+become a great egoist, through travelling. What do I care?..."
+
+The dark street seemed to invite confidences; and Cornelie to some
+extent understood this cynical indifference, particularly in a woman
+reared in narrow principles of duty and morality. It was certainly
+not good form; but was it not weariness brought about by the wear
+and tear of life? In any case she vaguely understood it: that tone
+of indifference, that careless shrugging of the shoulders....
+
+They turned the corner of the Hotel Massier and approached the Villa
+Medici. The full moon was pouring down its flood of white radiance
+and Rome lay in the flawless blue glamour of the night. Overflowing
+the brimming basin of the fountain, beneath the black ilexes, whose
+leafage held the picture of Rome in an ebony frame, the waste water
+splashed and clattered.
+
+"Rome must be very beautiful," said Cornelie, softly.
+
+Rudyard and the Baronesse had come nearer and heard what she said:
+
+"Rome is beautiful," he said, earnestly. "And Rome is more. Rome is
+a great consolation to many people."
+
+His words, spoken in the blue moonlit night, impressed her. The city
+seemed to lie in mystical billows at her feet. She looked at him,
+as he stood before her in his black coat, showing but little linen,
+the same stout, civil gentleman. His voice was very penetrating, with
+a rich note of conviction in it. She looked at him long, uncertain
+of herself and vaguely conscious of an approaching intimation, but
+still antipathetic.
+
+Then he added, as though he did not wish her to meditate too deeply
+the words which he had uttered:
+
+"A great consolation to many ... because beauty consoles."
+
+And she thought his last words an aesthetic commonplace; but he had
+meant her to think so.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Those first days in Rome tired Cornelie greatly. She did too much, as
+every one does who has just arrived in Rome; she wanted to take in the
+whole city at once; and the distances, although covered in a carriage,
+and the endless galleries in the museums resulted in producing physical
+exhaustion. Moreover she was constantly experiencing disappointments,
+in respect of pictures, statues or buildings. At first she dared not
+own to these disappointments; but one afternoon, feeling dead-tired,
+after she had been painfully disappointed in the Sistine Chapel, she
+owned up to herself. Everything that she saw that was already known
+to her from her previous studies disappointed her. Then she resolved
+to give sight-seeing a rest. And, after those fatiguing days, when
+every morning and every afternoon was spent out of doors, it was
+a luxury to surrender herself to the unconscious current of daily
+life. She remained at home in the mornings, wrapped in a tea-gown,
+in her cosy little bird-cage of a sitting-room, writing letters,
+dreaming a little, with her arms folded behind her head; she read
+Ovid and Petrarch, or listened to a couple of street-musicians, who,
+with their quavering tenors, to the shrill whining of their guitars,
+filled the silent street with a sobbing passion of music. At lunch
+she considered that she had been lucky in her pension, in her little
+corner at the table. She was interested in Baronin von Rothkirch, with
+her indifferent, aristocratic condescension towards Rudyard, because
+she saw how residence abroad can draw a person out of the narrow ring
+of caste principles. The young Baronesse, who cared nothing about
+life and merely sketched and painted, interested her because of her
+whispering intimacy with Rudyard, which she failed to understand. Miss
+Hope was so ingenious, so childishly irrational, that Cornelie could
+not imagine how old Hope, the rich stockinet-manufacturer over in
+Chicago, allowed this child to travel about alone, with her far too
+generous monthly allowance and her total ignorance of the world and
+people; and Rudyard himself, though she sometimes felt an aversion
+for him, attracted her in spite of that aversion. Although she had
+so far formed no deeper friendship with any of her fellow-boarders,
+at any rate they were people to whom she was able to talk; and the
+conversation at table was a diversion amid the solitude of the rest
+of the day.
+
+For in the afternoons, during this period of fatigue and
+disappointment, she would merely go for a short walk by herself down
+the Corso or on the Pincio and then return home, make her own tea in
+her little silver tea-pot and sit dreaming by the log fire, in the
+dusk, until it was time to dress for dinner.
+
+And the brightly-lit dining-room with the Guercino ceiling was gay
+and cheerful. The pension was crammed: the marchesa had given up
+her own room and was sleeping in the bath-room. A hum of voices
+buzzed around the tables; the waiters rushed to and fro; spoons
+and forks clattered. There was none of the melancholy spirit of so
+many tables-d'hote. The people knew one another; and the excitement
+of Roman life, the oxygen in the Roman air seemed to lend an added
+vivacity to the gestures and conversation. Amidst this vivacity the
+two grimy aesthetic ladies attracted attention by their unvarying pose,
+with their eternal evening-dress, their Jaegers, their beads, the fat
+books which they read, their angry looks because people were talking.
+
+After dinner they sat in the drawing-room or in the hall, made
+friends here and there and talked about Rome, Rome, Rome. There
+was always a great fuss about the music in the different churches:
+they consulted the Herald; they asked Rudyard, who knew everything,
+and gathered round him; and he, fat and polite as ever, smiled and
+distributed tickets and named the day and hour at which an important
+service would be held in this church or in that. To English ladies,
+who were not fully informed, he would now and then, as it were
+casually, impart details about the complexities of Catholic ritual
+and the Catholic hierarchy; he explained the nationalities denoted
+by the various colours of the seminarists whom you met in shoals of
+an afternoon on the Pincio, staring at St. Peter's, in ecstasy over
+St. Peter's, the mighty symbol of their mighty religion; he set forth
+the distinction between a church and a basilica; he related anecdotes
+of the private life of Leo XIII. His manner of speaking of all these
+things possessed an insinuating charm: the English ladies, greedy
+for information, hung on his lips, thought him too awfully nice,
+asked him for a thousand particulars.
+
+These days were a great rest for Cornelie. She recovered from her
+fatigue and felt indifferent towards Rome. But she did not think of
+leaving any the sooner. Whether she was here or elsewhere was all
+the same to her: she had to be somewhere. Besides, the pension was
+good, her fellow-boarders pleasant and cheerful. She no longer read
+Hare's Walks in Rome or Ovid's Metamorphoses, but she read Ouida's
+Ariadne over again. She did not care for the book as much as she
+had done three years before, at the Hague; and after that she read
+nothing. But she amused herself with the von Rothkirch ladies for a
+whole evening, looking over Miss Hope's album of seals and collection
+of patterns. How mad those Americans were on titles and royalties! The
+Baronin good-naturedly contributed an impression of her own arms to
+the album. And the patterns were greatly admired: gold brocades; silks
+heavily interwoven with silver; spangled tulles. Miss Hope related how
+she had come by them: she knew one of the queen's waiting-women, who
+had formerly been in service with an American; and this waiting-woman
+was now able to procure the patterns for her at a high price: a
+precious bit of material picked up while the queen was trying on,
+or sometimes even cut out of a broad seam. The child was prouder of
+her collection of patterns than an Italian prince of his paintings,
+said Baronin von Rothkirch. But, notwithstanding this absurdity, this
+vanity, Cornelie came to like the pretty American girl because of her
+candid and unsophisticated nature. She looked most attractive in the
+evening, in a black low-cut dress, or in a rose chiffon blouse. For
+that matter, it was a different frock every night. She possessed a
+kaleidoscopic collection of dresses, blouses and jewels. She would walk
+through the ruins of the Forum in a tailor-made suit of cream cloth,
+lined with orange silk; and her white lace petticoat flitted airily
+over the foundations of the Basilica Julia or the Temple of Vesta. Her
+gaily-trimmed hats introduced patches of colour from Regent Street or
+the Avenue de l'Opera into the tragic seriousness of the Colosseum or
+the ruined palace of the Palatine. The young Baronesse teased her about
+her orange silk lining, so in harmony with the Forum, about her hats,
+so in keeping with the seriousness of a place of Christian martyrdom,
+but she was never angry:
+
+"It's a nice hat anyway!" she would say, in her Yankee drawl, which
+always afforded a good view of her pretty teeth but made her strain
+her mouth as though she were cracking filberts.
+
+And the child enjoyed everything, enjoyed the Baronin and the
+Baronesse, enjoyed being at a pension kept by a decayed Italian
+marchioness. And, as soon as she caught sight of the Marchesa
+Belloni's grey, leonine head, she would make a rush for her--because a
+marchioness is higher than a baroness, said Madame von Rothkirch--drag
+her into a corner and if possible monopolize her throughout the
+evening. Rudyard would then join them; and Cornelie, seeing this,
+wondered what Rudyard was, who he was and what he was about. But this
+did not interest the Baronin, who had just received a card for a mass
+in the papal chapel; and the young Baronesse merely said that he told
+legends of the saints so nicely, when explaining the pictures to her
+in the Doria and the Corsini.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+One evening Cornelie made the acquaintance of the Dutch family beside
+whom the Marchesa had first wished to place her at table: Mrs. van der
+Staal and her two daughters. They too were spending the whole winter in
+Rome: they had friends there and went out visiting. The conversation
+flowed smoothly; and mevrouw invited Cornelie to come and have a chat
+in her sitting-room. Next day she accompanied her new acquaintances
+to the Vatican and heard that mevrouw was expecting her son, who was
+coming to Rome from Florence to continue his archaeological studies.
+
+Cornelie was glad to meet at the hotel a Dutch element that was
+not antipathetic. She thought it pleasant to talk Dutch again and
+she confessed as much. In a day or two she had become intimate with
+Mrs. van der Staal and the two girls; and on the evening when young
+Van der Staal arrived she opened her heart more than she had ever
+thought that she could do to strangers whom she had known for barely
+a few days.
+
+They were sitting in the Van der Staal's sitting-room, Cornelie in a
+low chair by the blazing log-fire, for the evening was chilly. They
+had been talking about the Hague, about her divorce; and she was now
+speaking of Italy, of herself:
+
+"I no longer see anything," she confessed. "Rome has quite bewildered
+me. I can't distinguish a colour, an outline. I don't recognize
+people. They all seem to whirl round me. Sometimes I feel a need to sit
+alone for hours in my bird-cage upstairs, to recollect myself. This
+morning, in the Vatican, I don't know: I remember nothing. It is all
+grey and fuzzy around me. Then the people in the boarding-house:
+the same faces every day. I see them and yet I don't see them. I
+see ... I see Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair
+Urania ... and Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor,
+who is always so tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything
+most exquisite. But my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have
+to think to myself: Madame von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with
+the smile of the German Empress--she is rather like her--talking fast
+and yet with indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently
+from her lips...."
+
+"You're a good observer," said Van der Staal.
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" said Cornelie, almost vexed. "I see nothing and
+I can't remember. I receive no impressions. Everything around me is
+colourless. I really don't know why I have come abroad.... When I am
+alone, I think of the people whom I meet. I know Madame von Rothkirch
+now and I know Else. Such a round, merry face, with arched eyebrows,
+and always a joke or a witticism: I find it tiring sometimes, she makes
+me laugh so. Still they are very nice. And the fair Urania. She tells
+me everything. She is as communicative ... as I am at this moment. And
+Rudyard: I see him before me too."
+
+"Rudyard!" smiled mevrouw and the girls.
+
+"What is he?" Cornelie asked, inquisitively. "He is so civil, he
+ordered my wine for me, he can always get one all sorts of cards."
+
+"Don't you know what Rudyard is?" asked Mrs. van der Staal.
+
+"No; and Mrs. von Rothkirch doesn't know either."
+
+"Then you had better be careful," laughed the girls.
+
+"Are you a Catholic?" asked mevrouw.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor the fair Urania either? Nor Mrs. von Rothkirch?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that is why la Belloni put Rudyard at your table. Rudyard is
+a Jesuit. Every pension in Rome has a Jesuit who lives there free
+of charge, if the proprietor is a good friend of the Church, and who
+tries to win souls by making himself especially agreeable."
+
+Cornelie refused to believe it.
+
+"You can take my word for it," mevrouw continued, "that in a pension
+like this, a first-class pension, a pension with a reputation,
+a great deal of intrigue goes on."
+
+"La Belloni?" Cornelie enquired.
+
+"Our marchesa is a thorough-paced intrigante. Last winter, three
+English sisters were converted here."
+
+"By Rudyard?"
+
+"No, by another priest. Rudyard is here for the first time this
+winter."
+
+"Rudyard walked quite a long way with me in the street this morning,"
+said young Van der Staal. "I let him talk, I heard all he had to say."
+
+Cornelie fell back in her chair:
+
+"I am tired of people," she said, with the strange sincerity which
+was hers. "I should like to sleep for a month, without seeing anybody."
+
+And, after a short pause, she got up, said goodnight and went to bed,
+while everything swam before her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+She remained indoors for a day or two and had her meals served in her
+room. One morning, however, she was going for a stroll in the Villa
+Borghese, when she met young Van der Staal, on his bicycle.
+
+"Don't you ride?" he asked, jumping off.
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It is an exercise which doesn't suit my style," Cornelie replied,
+vexed at meeting any one who disturbed the solitude of her stroll.
+
+"May I walk with you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He gave his machine into the charge of the porter at the gate and
+walked on with her, quite naturally, without saying very much:
+
+"It's beautiful here," he remarked.
+
+His words seemed to convey a simple meaning. She looked at him,
+for the first time, attentively.
+
+"You're an archaeologist?" she asked.
+
+"No," he said, deprecatingly.
+
+"What are you, then?"
+
+"Nothing. Mamma says that, just to excuse me. I am nothing and a very
+useless member of society at that. And I am not even well off."
+
+"But you are studying, aren't you?"
+
+"No. I do a little casual reading. My sisters call it studying."
+
+"Do you like going about, as your sisters do?"
+
+"No, I hate it. I never go with them."
+
+"Don't you like meeting and studying people?"
+
+"No. I like pictures, statues and trees."
+
+"A poet?"
+
+"No. Nothing. I am nothing, really."
+
+She looked at him, with increased attention. He was walking very simply
+by her side, a tall, thin fellow of perhaps twenty-six, more of a boy
+than a man in face and figure, but endowed with a certain assurance
+and restfulness that made him seem older than his years. He was pale;
+he had dark, cool, almost reproachful eyes; and his long, lean figure,
+in his badly-kept cycling-suit, betrayed a slight indifference,
+as though he did not care what his arms and legs looked like.
+
+He said nothing but walked on pleasantly, unembarrassed, without
+finding it necessary to talk. Cornelie, however, grew fidgety and
+sought for words:
+
+"It is beautiful here," she stammered.
+
+"Oh, it's very beautiful!" he replied, calmly, without seeing that
+she was constrained. "So green, so spacious, so peaceful: those
+long avenues, those vistas of avenues, like an antique arch, over
+yonder; and, far away in the distance, look, St. Peter's, always
+St. Peter's. It's a pity about those queer things lower down: that
+restaurant, that milk-tent. People spoil everything nowadays.... Let
+us sit down here: it is so lovely here."
+
+They sat down on a bench.
+
+"It is such a joy when a thing is beautiful," he continued. "People
+are never beautiful. Things are beautiful: statues and paintings. And
+then trees and clouds!"
+
+"Do you paint?"
+
+"Sometimes," he confessed, grudgingly. "A little. But really everything
+has been painted already; and I can't really say that I paint."
+
+"Perhaps you write too?"
+
+"There has been even more written than painted, much more. Perhaps
+everything has not yet been painted, but everything has certainly been
+written. Every new book that is not of absolute scientific importance
+is superfluous. All the poetry has been written and every novel too."
+
+"Do you read much?"
+
+"Hardly at all. I sometimes dip into an old author."
+
+"But what do you do then?" she asked, suddenly, querulously.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, calmly, with a glance of humility. "I do
+nothing, I exist."
+
+"Do you think that a good mode of existence?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why don't you adopt another?"
+
+"As I might buy a new coat or a new bicycle?"
+
+"You're not speaking seriously," she said, crossly.
+
+"Why are you so vexed with me?"
+
+"Because you annoy me," she said, irritably.
+
+He rose, bowed civilly and said:
+
+"Then I had better go for a turn on my bicycle."
+
+And he walked slowly away.
+
+"What a stupid fellow!" she thought, peevishly.
+
+But she thought it tiresome that she had wrangled with him, because
+of his mother and his sisters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+At the hotel, however, he spoke to Cornelie politely, as though
+there had been no embarrassment, no wrangling interchange of words
+between them, and he even asked her quite simply--because his mother
+and sisters had some calls to pay that afternoon--whether they should
+go to the Palatine together.
+
+"I passed it the other day," she said, indifferently.
+
+"And don't you intend to see the ruins?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They don't interest me. I can't see the past in them. I merely
+see ruins."
+
+"But then why did you come to Rome?" he asked, irritably.
+
+She looked at him and could have burst into sobs:
+
+"I don't know," she said, meekly. "I could just as well have gone
+somewhere else. But I had formed a great idea of Rome; and Rome
+disappoints me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I find it hard and inexorable and devoid of feeling. I don't know
+why, but that's the impression it makes upon me. And I am in a mood
+at present which somehow makes me want something less insensible
+and imperturbable."
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Come along," he said. "Come with me to the Palatine. I must show
+you Rome. It is so beautiful."
+
+She felt too much depressed to remain alone; and so she put on
+her things and left the hotel with him. The cabmen outside cracked
+their whips:
+
+"Vole? Vole?" they shouted.
+
+He picked out one:
+
+"This is Gaetano," he said. "I always take him. He knows me, don't
+you, Gaetano?"
+
+"Si, signorino. Cavallo di sangue, signorina!" said Gaetano, pointing
+to his horse.
+
+They drove away.
+
+"I am always frightened of these cabmen," said Cornelie.
+
+"You don't know them," he answered, smiling. "I like them. I like
+the people. They're nice people."
+
+"You approve of everything in Rome."
+
+"And you submit without reserve to a mistaken impression."
+
+"Why mistaken?"
+
+"Because that first impression of Rome, as hard and unfeeling, is
+always the same and always mistaken."
+
+"Yes, it's that. Look, we are driving by the Forum. Whenever I see
+the Forum, I think of Miss Hope and her orange lining."
+
+He felt annoyed and did not answer.
+
+"This is the Palatine."
+
+They alighted and passed through the entrance.
+
+"This wooden staircase takes us to the Palace of Tiberius. Above the
+palace, on the top of the arches, is a garden from which we look down
+on the Forum."
+
+"Tell me about Tiberius. I know that there were good and bad
+emperors. We were taught that at school. Tiberius was a bad emperor,
+wasn't he?"
+
+"He was a dismal brute. But why do you want me to tell you about him?"
+
+"Because otherwise I can take no interest in those arches and
+chambers."
+
+"Then let us go up to the top and sit in the garden."
+
+They did so.
+
+"Don't you feel Rome here?" he asked.
+
+"I feel the same everywhere," she replied.
+
+But he seemed not to hear her:
+
+"It's the atmosphere around you," he continued. "You should try to
+forget our hotel, to forget Belloni and all our fellow-visitors and
+yourself. When anybody first arrives here, he has all the usual trouble
+about the hotel, his rooms, the table-d'hote, the vaguely likable or
+dislikable people. You've got over that now. Clear your mind of it. And
+try to feel only the atmosphere of Rome. It's as if the atmosphere had
+remained the same, notwithstanding that the centuries lie piled up
+one above the other. First the middle ages covered the antiquity of
+the Forum and now it is hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century
+craze for travel. There you have Miss Hope's orange lining. But the
+atmosphere has always remained the same. Unless I imagine it...."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Perhaps I do," he continued. "But what does that matter to me? Our
+whole life is imagination; and imagination is a beautiful thing. The
+beauty of our imagination is the consolation of our lives, to those of
+us who are not men of action. The past is beauty. The present is not,
+does not exist. And the future does not interest me."
+
+"Do you never think about modern problems?" she asked.
+
+"The woman question? Socialism? Peace?"
+
+"Well, yes, for instance."
+
+"No," he smiled. "I think of them sometimes, but not about them."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I get no further. That is my nature. I am a dreamer by nature;
+and my dream is the past."
+
+"Don't you dream of yourself?"
+
+"No. Of my soul, my inner self? No. It interests me very little."
+
+"Have you ever suffered?"
+
+"Suffered? Yes, no. I don't know. I feel sorry for my utter uselessness
+as a human being, as a son, as a man; but, when I dream, I am happy."
+
+"How do you come to speak to me so openly?"
+
+He looked at her in surprise:
+
+"Why should I be reticent about myself?" he asked. "I either don't
+talk or I talk as I am doing now. Perhaps it is a little odd."
+
+"Do you talk to every one so intimately?"
+
+"No, hardly to anybody. I once had a friend ... but he's dead. Tell
+me, I suppose you consider me morbid?"
+
+"No, I don't think so."
+
+"I shouldn't mind if you did. Oh, how beautiful it is here! Are you
+drinking Rome in with your very breath?"
+
+"Which Rome?"
+
+"The Rome of antiquity. Under where we are sitting is the Palace of
+Tiberius. I see him walking about there, with his tall, strong figure,
+with his large, searching eyes: he was very strong, he was very dismal
+and he was a brute. He had no ideals. Farther down, over there, is the
+Palace of Caligula, a madman of genius. He built a bridge across the
+Forum to speak to Jupiter in the Capitol. That's a thing one couldn't
+do nowadays. He was a genius and a madman. When a man's like that,
+there's a good deal about him to admire."
+
+"How can you admire an age of emperors who were brutes and mad?"
+
+"Because I see their age before my eyes, in the past, like a dream."
+
+"How is it possible that you don't see the present before you, with the
+problems of our own time, especially the eternal problem of poverty?"
+
+He looked at her:
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know. That is my sin, my wickedness. The eternal
+problem of poverty doesn't affect me."
+
+She looked at him contemptuously:
+
+"You don't belong to your period," she said, coldly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you ever felt hungry?"
+
+He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Have you ever pictured yourself leading the life of a labourer, of
+a factory-girl who works until she's worn out and old and half-dead
+for a bare crust of bread?"
+
+"Oh, those things are so horrible and so ugly: don't talk about
+them!" he entreated.
+
+The expression of her eyes was cold; the corners of her lips were
+depressed as though by a feeling of distaste; and she rose from
+her seat.
+
+"Are you angry?" he asked, humbly.
+
+"No," she said, gently, "I am not angry."
+
+"But you despise me, because you consider me a useless creature,
+an aesthete and a dreamer?"
+
+"No. What am I myself, that I should reproach you with your
+uselessness?"
+
+"Oh, if we could only find something!" he exclaimed, almost in ecstasy.
+
+"What?"
+
+"An aim. But mine would always remain beauty. And the past."
+
+"And, if I had the strength of mind to devote myself to an aim,
+it would above all be this: bread for the future."
+
+"How abominable that sounds!" he said, rudely but sincerely. "Why
+didn't you go to London, or Manchester, or one of those black
+manufacturing towns?"
+
+"Because I hadn't the strength of mind and because I think too much
+of myself and of a sorrow that I have had lately. And I expected to
+find distraction in Italy."
+
+"And that is where your disappointment lies. But perhaps you will
+gradually acquire greater strength and then devote yourself to your
+aim: bread for the future. I sha'n't envy you, however: bread for
+the Future!..."
+
+She was silent.
+
+Then she said, coldly:
+
+"It is getting late. Let us go home...."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Duco van der Staal had taken a large, vault-like studio, with a chilly
+north light, up three flights of stairs in the Via del Babuino. Here he
+painted, modelled and studied and here he dragged all the beautiful and
+antique objects that he succeeded in picking up in the little shops
+along the Tiber or in the Mercato dei Fiori. That was his passion:
+to hunt through Rome for a panel of an old triptych or a fragment of
+ancient sculpture. In this way his studio had not remained the large,
+chilly, vault-like workroom bearing witness to zealous and serious
+study, but had become a refuge for dim-coloured remnants of antiquity
+and ancient art, a museum for his dreaming spirit. Already as a child,
+as a boy, he had felt that passion for antiquity developing; he learnt
+how to rummage through the stocks of old Jewish dealers; he taught
+himself to haggle when his purse was not full; and he collected
+first rubbish and afterwards, gradually, objects of artistic and
+financial value. And it was his great hobby, his one vice: he spent
+all his pocket-money on it and, later, without reserve, the little
+that he was able to earn. For sometimes, very seldom, he would finish
+something and sell it. But generally he was too ill-satisfied with
+himself to finish anything; and his modest notion was that everything
+had already been created and that his art was useless.
+
+This idea sometimes paralysed him for months together, without making
+him unhappy. When he had the money to keep himself going--and his
+personal needs were very small--he felt rich and was content in his
+studio or would wander, perfectly content, through the streets of
+Rome. His long, careless, lean, slender body was at such times clad
+in his oldest suit, which afforded an unostentatious glimpse of an
+untidy shirt with a soft collar and a bit of string instead of a tie;
+and his favourite headgear was a faded hat, battered out of shape by
+the rain. His mother and sisters as a rule found him unpresentable,
+but had given up trying to transform him into the well-groomed son
+and brother whom they would have liked to take to the drawing-rooms
+of their Roman friends. Happy to breathe the atmosphere of Rome, he
+would wander for hours through the ruins and see, in a dazzling vision
+of phantom columns, ethereal temples and translucent marble palaces
+looming up in a shimmering sunlit twilight; and the tourists going
+by with their Baedekers, who passed this long lean young man seated
+carelessly on the foundations of the Temple of Saturn, would never
+have believed in his architectural illusions of harmonious ascending
+lines, crowned by an array of statues in noble and god-like attitudes,
+high in the blue sky.
+
+But he saw them before him. He raised the shafts of the pillars,
+he fluted the severe Doric columns, he bent and curved the cushioned
+Ionic capitals and unfurled the leaves of the Corinthian acanthuses;
+the temples rose in the twinkling of an eye, the basilicas shot up as
+by magic, the graven images stood white against the elusive depths
+of the sky and the Via Sacra became alive. He, in his admiration,
+lived his dream, his past. It was as though he had known preexistence
+in ancient Rome; and the modern houses, the modern Capitol and all
+that stood around the tomb of his Forum were invisible to his eyes.
+
+He would sit like this for hours, or wander about and sit down again
+and be happy. In the intensity of his imagination, he conjured
+up history from the clouds of the past, first of all as a mist,
+a miraculous haze, whence the figures stepped out against the
+marble background of ancient Rome. The gigantic dramas were enacted
+before his dreaming eyes as on an ideal stage which stretched from
+the Forum to the hazy, sun-shot azure of the Campagna, with slips
+that lost themselves in the depths of the sky. Roman life came into
+being, with a toga'd gesture, a line of Horace, a sudden vision of
+an emperor's murder or a contest of gladiators in the arena. And
+suddenly also the vision paled and he saw the ruins, the ruins only,
+as the tangible shadow of his unreal illusion: he saw the ruins as
+they were, brown and grey, eaten up with age, crumbled, martyred,
+mutilated with hammers, till only a few occasional pillars lifted
+and bore a trembling architrave, that threatened to come crashing to
+the ground. And the browns and greys were so richly and nobly gilded
+by splashes of sunlight, the ruins were so exquisitely beautiful in
+decay, so melancholy in their unwitting fortuitousness of broken lines,
+of shattered arches and mutilated sculpture, that it was as though
+he himself, after his airy vision of radiant dream-architecture, had
+tortured and mutilated them with an artist's hand and caused them to
+burst asunder and shake and tremble, for the sake of their wistful
+aftermath of beauty. Then his eyes grew moist, his heart became more
+full than he could bear and he went away, through the Arch of Titus
+by the Colosseum, through the Arch of Constantine, on and on, and
+hurried past the Lateran to the Via Appia and the Campagna, where
+his smarting eyes drank in the blue of the distant Alban Hills, as
+though that would cure them of their excessive gazing and dreaming....
+
+Neither in his mother nor in his sisters did he find a strain that
+sympathized with his eccentric tendencies; and, since that one friend
+who died, he had never found another and had always been lonely within
+and without, as though the victim of a predestination which would not
+allow him to meet with sympathy. But he had peopled his loneliness so
+densely with his dreams that he had never felt unhappy because of it;
+and, even as he loved roaming alone among the ruins and along the
+country-roads, so he cherished the privacy of his lonely studio,
+with the many silent figures on an old panel of some triptych, on
+a tapestry, or on the many closely hung sketches, all around him,
+all with the charm of their lines and colours, all with the silent
+gesture of their movement and emotion and all blending together
+in twilit corners or a shadowy antique cabinet. And in between all
+this lived his china and bronze and old silver, while the faded gold
+embroidery of an ecclesiastical vestment gleamed faintly and the
+old leather bindings of his books stood in comfortable brown rows,
+ready to give forth, when his hands opened them, images which mistily
+drifted upwards, living their loves and their sorrows in the tempered
+browns and reds and golds of the soundless atmosphere of the studio.
+
+Such was his simple life, without much inward doubting, because he
+made no great demands upon himself, and without the modern artist's
+melancholy, because he was happy in his dreams. He had never, despite
+his hotel life with his mother and sisters--he slept and took his meals
+at Belloni's--met many people or concerned himself with strangers,
+being by nature a little shy of Baedekered tourists, of short-skirted
+English ladies, with their persistent little exclamations of uniform
+admiration, and feeling entirely impossible in the half-Italian,
+half-cosmopolitan set of his rather worldly mother and smart little
+sisters, who spent their time dancing and cycling with young Italian
+princes and dukes.
+
+And, now that he had met Cornelie de Retz, he had to confess to himself
+that he possessed but little knowledge of human nature and that he
+had never learnt to believe in the reality of such a woman, who might
+have existed in books, but not in actual life. Her very appearance--her
+pallor, her drooping charm, her weariness--had astonished him; and her
+conversation astonished him even more: her positiveness mingled with
+hesitation; her artistic feeling modified by the endeavour to take part
+in her period, a period which he failed to appreciate as artistic,
+enamoured as he was of Rome and of the past. And her conversation
+astonished him, attractive though the sound of it was and offended
+as he often was by a recurrent bitterness and irony, followed again
+by depression and discouragement, until he thought it over again and
+again, until in his musing he seemed to hear it once more on her own
+lips, until she joined the busts and torsos in his studio and appeared
+before him in the lily-like frailness of her visible actuality,
+against the preraphaelite stiffness of line and the Byzantine gold
+and colour of the angels and madonnas on canvas and tapestry.
+
+His soul had never known love; and he had always looked on love as
+imagination and poetry. His life had never known more than the natural
+virile impulse and the ordinary little love-affair with a model. And
+his ideas on love swayed in a too wide and unreal balance between
+a woman who showed herself in the nude for a few lire and Petrarch's
+Laura; between the desire roused by a beautiful body and the exaltation
+inspired by Dante's Beatrice; between the flesh and the dream. He had
+never contemplated an encounter of kindred souls, never longed for
+sympathy, for love in the full and pregnant sense of the word. And,
+when he began to think and to think long and often of Cornelie de Retz,
+he could not understand it. He had pondered and dreamed for days,
+for a week about a woman in a poem; on a woman in real life never.
+
+And that he, irritated by some of her sayings, had nevertheless seen
+her stand with her lily-like outline against his Byzantine triptych,
+like a wraith in his lonely dreams, almost frightened him, because
+it had made him lose his peace of mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It was Christmas Day, on which occasion the Marchesa Belloni
+entertained her boarders with a Christmas-tree in the drawing-room,
+followed by a dance in the old Guercino dining-room. To give a ball and
+a Christmas-tree was a custom with many hotel-keepers; and the pensions
+that gave no dance or Christmas-tree were known and numbered and were
+greatly blamed by the foreigners for this breach of tradition. There
+were instances of very excellent pensions to which many travellers,
+especially ladies, never went, because there was neither a dance nor
+a Christmas-tree at Christmas.
+
+The marchesa realized that her tree was expensive and that her
+dance cost money too and she would gladly have found an excuse for
+avoiding both, but she dared not: the reputation of her pension,
+as it happened, depended on its worldliness and smartness, on the
+table-d'hote in the handsome dining-room, where people dressed for
+dinner, and also on the brilliant party given at Christmas. And it
+was amusing to see how keen all the ladies were to receive gratis in
+their bill for a whole winter's stay a trashy Christmas present and the
+opportunity of dancing without having to pay for a glass of orgeade
+and a bit of pastry, a sandwich and a cup of soup. Giuseppe, the old
+nodding major-domo, looked down contemptuously on this festivity:
+he remembered the gala pomp of his archducal evenings and considered
+the dance inferior and the tree paltry. Antonio, the limping porter,
+accustomed to his comparatively quiet life--fetching a visitor or
+taking him to the station; sorting the post twice a day at his ease;
+and for the rest pottering around his lodge and the lift--hated the
+dance, because of all the guests of the boarders, each of whom was
+entitled to invite two or three friends, and because of all that tiring
+fuss about carriages, when a good many of the visitors skipped into
+their vettura without tipping him. Round about Christmas, therefore,
+relations between the marchesa and her two principal dignitaries
+became far from harmonious; and a hail of orders and abuse would
+patter down on the backs of the old cameriere, crawling wearily up
+and downstairs with their hot-water-cans in their trembling hands,
+and of the young greenhorns of waiters, colliding with one another
+in their undisciplined zeal and smashing the plates. And it was only
+now, when the whole staff was put to work that people saw how old the
+cameriere were and how young the waiters and qualified as disgraceful
+and shocking the thrifty method of the marchesa in employing none but
+wrecks and infants in her service. The one muscular facchino, who was
+essential for hauling the luggage, cut an unexpected figure of virile
+maturity and robustness. But above everything the visitors detested the
+marchesa because of the great number of her servants, reflecting that
+now, at Christmas-time, they would have to tip every one of them. No,
+they never imagined that the staff was so large! Quite unnecessarily
+large too! Why couldn't the marchesa engage a couple of strong young
+maids and waiters instead of all those old women and little boys? And
+there was much hushed plotting and confabulating in the corners of the
+passages and at meals, to decide on the tips to be given: they didn't
+want to spoil the servants, but still they were staying all the winter;
+and therefore one lira was hardly enough and they hesitated between
+one lira twenty-five and one lira fifty. But, when they counted on
+their fingers that there were fully five-and-twenty servants and
+that therefore they were close on forty lire out of pocket, they
+thought it an awful lot and they got up subscription-lists. Two
+lists went round, one of one lira and one of twelve lire a visitor,
+the latter subscription covering the whole staff. On this second list
+some, who had arrived a month before and who had arranged to leave,
+entered their names for ten lire and some for six lire. Five lire
+was by general consent considered too little; and, when it became
+known that the grimy aesthetic ladies intended to give five lire,
+they were regarded with the greatest contempt.
+
+It all meant a lot of trouble and excitement. As Christmas drew nearer,
+people streamed to the presepii set up by painters in the Palazzo
+Borghese: a panorama of Jerusalem and the shepherds, the angels,
+the Magi and Mary and the Child in the manger with the ox and the
+ass. They listened in the Ara Coeli to the preaching of little boys
+and girls, who by turns climbed the platform and told the story of the
+Nativity, some shyly reciting a little poem, prompted by an anxious
+mother; others, girls especially, declaiming and rolling their eyes
+with the dramatic fervour of little Italian actresses and ending up
+with a religious moral. The people and countless tourists stood and
+listened to the preaching; a pleasant spirit prevailed in the church,
+where the shrill young children's voices were lifted up in oratory;
+there was laughter at a gesture or a point driven home; and the
+priests strolling round the church wore an unctuous smile because it
+was all so pretty and so satisfactory. And in the chapel of the Santo
+Bambino the miraculous wooden doll was bright with gold and jewels;
+and the close-packed multitude thronged to gaze at it.
+
+All the visitors at Belloni's bought bunches of holly in the Piazza
+di Spagna to adorn their rooms with; and some, such as the Baronin
+van Rothkirch, set up a private Christmas-tree in their own rooms. On
+the evening before the great party one and all went to admire these
+private trees, going in and out of one another's rooms; and all the
+boarders wore a kind, festive smile and welcomed everybody, however
+much at other times they might quarrel and intrigue against one
+another. It was universally agreed that the Baronin had taken great
+pains and that her tree was magnificent. Her bedroom had been cleverly
+metamorphosed into a boudoir, the beds draped to look like divans,
+the wash-hand-stands concealed; and the tree was radiant with candles
+and tinsel. And the Baronin, a little sentimentally inclined, for the
+season reminded her of Berlin and her lost domesticity, opened her
+doors wide to everybody and was even offering the two aesthetic ladies
+sweets, when the marchesa, also smiling, appeared at the door, with
+her bosom moulded in sky-blue satin and with even larger crystals than
+usual in her ears. The room was full: there were the Van der Staals,
+Cornelie, Rudyard, Urania Hope and other guests going in and out,
+so that it became impossible to move and they stood packed together
+or sat on the draped beds of the mother and daughter. The marchesa
+led in beside her an unknown young man, short, slender, with a pale
+olive complexion and with dark, bright, witty, lively eyes. He wore
+dress-clothes and displayed the vague good manners of a beloved and
+careless viveur, distinguished and yet conceited. And she proudly
+went up to the Baronin, who kept prettily wiping her moist eyes,
+and with a certain arrogance presented:
+
+"My nephew, Duca di San Stefano, Principe di Forte-Braccio...."
+
+The well-known Italian name sounded from her lips in the small,
+crowded room with deliberate distinctness; and all eyes went to the
+young man, who bowed low before the Baronin and then looked round
+the room with a vague, ironical glance. The marchesa's nephew had not
+yet been seen at the hotel that winter, but everybody knew that the
+young Duke of San Stefano, Prince of Forte-Braccio, was a nephew of
+the marchesa's and one of the advertisements for her pension. And,
+while the prince talked to the Baronin and her daughter, Urania Hope
+stared at him as a miraculous being from another world. She clung
+tight to Cornelie's arm, as though she were in danger of fainting at
+the sight of so much Italian nobility and greatness. She thought him
+very good-looking, very imposing, short and slender and pale, with
+his carbuncle eyes and his weary distinction and the white orchid
+in his button-hole. She would have loved to ask the marchioness to
+introduce her to her chic nephew, but she dared not, for she thought
+of her father's stockinet-factory at Chicago.
+
+The Christmas-tree party and the dance took place the following
+night. It became known that the marchesa's nephew was coming that
+evening too; and a great excitement reigned throughout the day. The
+prince arrived after the presents had been taken down from the tree
+and distributed and made a sort of state entry by the side of his
+aunt, the marchesa, into the drawing-room, where the dancing had not
+yet begun, though the guests were sitting about the room, all fixing
+their eyes on the ducal and princely apparition.
+
+Cornelie was strolling with Duco van der Staal, who to his mother's
+and sisters' great surprise had fished out his dress-clothes and
+appeared in the big hall; and they both observed the triumphant entry
+of la Belloni and her nephew and laughed at the fanatically upturned
+eyes of the English and American ladies. They, Cornelie and Duco,
+sat down in the hall on two chairs, in front of a clump of palms,
+which concealed one of the doors of the drawing-room, while the dance
+began inside. They were talking about the statues in the Vatican,
+which they had been to see two days before, when they heard, as though
+close to their ears, a voice which they recognized as the marchesa's
+commanding organ, vainly striving to sink into a whisper. They looked
+round in surprise and perceived the hidden door, which was partly open,
+and through the open space they faintly distinguished the slim hand and
+black sleeve of the prince and a piece of the blue bosom of la Belloni,
+both seated on a sofa in the drawing-room. They were therefore back to
+back, separated by the half-open door. They listened for fun to the
+marchesa's Italian; the prince's answers were lisped so softly that
+they could scarcely catch them. And of what the marchesa said they
+heard only a few words and scraps of sentences. They were listening
+quite involuntarily, when they heard Rudyard's name clearly pronounced
+by the marchesa.
+
+"And who besides?" asked the prince, softly.
+
+"An English miss," said the marchesa. "Miss Taylor: she's sitting
+over there, by herself in the corner. A simple little soul.... The
+Baronin and her daughter.... The Dutchwoman: a divorcee.... And the
+pretty American."
+
+"And those two very attractive Dutch girls?" asked the prince.
+
+The music boom-boomed louder; and Cornelie and Duco did not catch
+the reply.
+
+"And the divorced Dutchwoman?" the prince asked next.
+
+"No money," the marchesa answered, curtly.
+
+"And the young baroness?"
+
+"No money," la Belloni repeated.
+
+"So there's no one except the stocking-merchant?" asked the prince,
+wearily.
+
+La Belloni became cross, but Cornelie and Duco could not understand the
+sentences which she rattled out through the boom-booming music. Then,
+during a lull, they heard the marchesa say:
+
+"She is very pretty. She has tons and tons of money. She could have
+gone to a first-class hotel but preferred to come here because, as a
+young girl travelling by herself, she was recommended to me and finds
+it pleasanter here. She has the big sitting-room to herself and pays
+fifty lire a day for her two rooms. She does not care about money. She
+pays three times as much as the others for her wood; and I also charge
+her for the wine."
+
+"She sells stockings," muttered the prince, obstinately.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the marchesa. "Remember that there's nobody at
+the moment. Last winter we had rich English titled people, with a
+daughter, but you thought her too tall. You're always discovering
+some objection. You mustn't be so difficult."
+
+"I think those two little Dutch dolls attractive."
+
+"They have no money. You're always thinking what you have no business
+to think."
+
+"How much did Papa promise you if you...."
+
+The music boomed louder.
+
+" ... makes no difference.... If Rudyard talks to her.... Miss Taylor
+is easy.... Miss Hope...."
+
+"I don't want so many stockings as all that."
+
+" ... very witty, I dare say.... If you don't care to...."
+
+"No."
+
+" ... then I retire.... I'll tell Rudyard so.... How much?"
+
+"Sixty or seventy thousand: I don't know exactly."
+
+"Are they urgent?"
+
+"Debts are never urgent!"
+
+"Do you agree?"
+
+"Very well. But mind, I won't sell myself for less than ten
+millions.... And then you get...."
+
+They both laughed; and again the names of Rudyard and Urania were
+pronounced.
+
+"Urania?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, Urania," replied la Belloni. "Those little Americans are
+very tactful. Look at the Comtesse de Castellane and the Duchess of
+Marlborough: how well they bear their husbands' honours! They cut
+an excellent figure. They are mentioned in every society column and
+always with respect."
+
+" ... All right then. I am tired of these wasted winters. But not
+less than ten millions."
+
+"Five."
+
+"No, ten."
+
+The prince and the marchesa had stood up to go. Cornelie looked at
+Duco. He laughed:
+
+"I don't quite understand them," he said. "It's a joke, of course."
+
+Cornelie was startled:
+
+"A joke, you think, Mr. van der Staal?"
+
+"Yes, they're humbugging."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Have you any knowledge of human nature?"
+
+"Oh, no, none at all!"
+
+"I'm getting it, gradually. I believe that Rome can be dangerous and
+that an hotel-keeping marchesa, a prince and a Jesuit...."
+
+"What about them?"
+
+"Can be dangerous, if not to your sisters, because they have no money,
+but at any rate to Urania Hope."
+
+"I don't believe it for a moment. It was all chaff. And it doesn't
+interest me. What do you think of Praxiteles' Eros? I think it the most
+divine statue that I ever saw. Oh, the Eros, the Eros! That is love,
+the real love, the predestined, fatal love, begging forgiveness for
+the suffering which it causes."
+
+"Have you ever been in love?"
+
+"No. I have no knowledge of human nature and I have never been in
+love. You are always so definite. Dreams are beautiful, statues
+are delightful and poetry is everything. The Eros expresses love
+completely. The love of the Eros is so beautiful! I could never love
+so beautifully as that.... No, it does not interest me to understand
+human nature; and a dream of Praxiteles, lingering in a mutilated
+marble torso, is nobler than anything that the world calls love."
+
+She knitted her brows; her eyes were sombre.
+
+"Let us go to the dancers," she said. "We are so out of it all here."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The day after the dance, at table, Cornelie received a strange
+impression: suddenly, as she sipped her delicious Genzano, ordered
+for her by Rudyard, she became aware that it was not by accident that
+she was sitting with the Baronin and her daughter, with Urania and
+Miss Taylor; she saw that the marchesa had an intention behind this
+arrangement. Rudyard, always civil, polite, thoughtful, always full
+of attentions, his pockets always filled with cards of introduction
+very difficult to obtain--or so at least he contended--talked
+without ceasing, lately more particularly to Miss Taylor, who went
+faithfully to hear all the best church music and always returned
+home in ecstasy. The pale, simple, thin little Englishwoman, who at
+first used to go into raptures over museums, ruins and the sunsets
+on the Aventine or the Monte Mario and who was always tired by her
+rambles through Rome, now devoted herself exclusively to the hundreds
+of churches, visited and studied them all and above all faithfully
+attended the musical services and spoke ecstatically of the choir in
+the Sistine Chapel and the quavering Glorias of the male soprani.
+
+Cornelie spoke to Mrs. van der Staal and the Baronin von Rothkirch
+of the conversation between the marchesa and her nephew which
+she had heard through the half-open door; but neither of them,
+though interested and curious, took the marchesa's words seriously,
+regarding them only as so much thoughtless talk between a foolish,
+match-making aunt and an unwilling nephew. Cornelie was struck by
+seeing how unable people are to take things seriously; but the Baronin
+was quite indifferent, saying that Rudyard could do her no harm and
+was still supplying her with tickets; and Mrs. van der Staal, who had
+been in Rome a long time and was accustomed to little boarding-house
+conspiracies, considered that Cornelie was making herself too uneasy
+about the fair Urania's fate.
+
+Suddenly, however, Miss Taylor disappeared from the table. They thought
+that she was ill, until it came to light that she had left the Pension
+Belloni. Rudyard said nothing; but, a few days later, the whole pension
+knew that Miss Taylor had been converted to the Catholic faith and
+had moved to a pension recommended by Rudyard, a pension frequented
+by monsignori and noted for its religious tone. Her disappearance
+produced a certain constraint in the conversation between Rudyard,
+the German ladies and Cornelie; and the latter, in the course of a
+week which the Baronin was spending at Naples, changed her seat and
+joined her fellow-countrywomen the Van der Staals. The Von Rothkirches
+also changed, because of the draught, said the Baronin; their seats
+were taken by new arrivals; and Urania was left alone with Rudyard
+at lunch and dinner, amid those foreign elements.
+
+Cornelie reproached herself and one day spoke seriously to the American
+girl and warned her. But she dared not repeat what she had overheard
+at the dance; and her warning made no impression on Urania. And,
+when Rudyard had obtained for Miss Hope the privilege of a private
+audience of the Pope, Urania would not hear a word against Rudyard
+and considered him the kindest man whom she had ever met, Jesuit or
+no Jesuit.
+
+But Rudyard continued to appear through a haze of mystery; and people
+were not agreed as to whether he was a priest or a layman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What do those strangers matter to you?" asked Duco.
+
+They were sitting in his studio: Mrs. van der Staal, Cornelie and the
+girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie was pouring out the tea; and they were
+discussing Miss Taylor and Urania.
+
+"I am a stranger to you too!" said Cornelie.
+
+"You are not a stranger to me, to us. But Miss Taylor and Urania don't
+matter. Hundreds of shadows pass through our lives: I don't see them
+and don't feel for them."
+
+"And am I not a shadow?"
+
+"I have talked to you too much in the Borghese and on the Palatine
+to look upon you as a shadow."
+
+"Rudyard is a dangerous shadow," said Annie.
+
+"He has no hold over us," Duco replied.
+
+Mrs. van der Staal looked at Cornelie. She understood the enquiring
+glance and said, laughing:
+
+"No, he has no hold over me either. Still, if I felt the need of
+a religion, I mean an ecclesiastical religion, I would rather be a
+Roman Catholic than a Protestant. But, as things are ..."
+
+She did not complete her sentence. She felt safe in this studio,
+in this soft, many-coloured profusion of beautiful things, in the
+affection of her friends; she felt in harmony with them all: with the
+worldly charm of that somewhat superficial mother and her two pretty
+girls, a little doll-like and vaguely cosmopolitan and a trifle vain
+of the little marquises with whom they danced and bicycled; and with
+that son, that brother so very different from the three of them and
+yet obviously related to them, as a movement, a gesture, a single
+word would show. It also struck Cornelie that they accepted each
+other affectionately as they were: Duco, his mother and sisters,
+with their stories about the Princesses Colonna and Odescalchi;
+mevrouw and the girls and him, with his worn jacket and his unkempt
+hair. And, when he began to speak, especially about Rome, when he
+put his dream into words, in almost bookish sentences, which however
+flowed easily and naturally from his lips, Cornelie felt in harmony
+with her surroundings, secure and interested and to some extent
+lost that longing to contradict him which his artistic indolence
+sometimes aroused in her. And, besides, his indolence suddenly seemed
+to her merely apparent and perhaps an affection, for he showed her
+sketches and water-colour drawings, not one of them finished, but
+every water-colour alive with light before all things, alive with
+all that light of Italy: the pearl sunsets over the molten emerald of
+Venice; the campanili of Florence drawn vaguely and dreamily against
+tender tea-rose skies; Siena fortress-like, blue-black in the bluish
+moonlight; the blazing sunshine behind St. Peter's; and, above all,
+the ruins, in every kind of light: the Forum in the bright sunlight,
+the Palatine by twilight, the Colosseum mysterious in the night;
+and then the Campagna: all the dream-like skies and luminous haze of
+the glad and sad Campagna, with pale-pink mauves, dewy blues, dusky
+violets or the swaggering ochres of pyrotechnical sunsets and clouds
+flaring like the crimson pinions of the phoenix. And, when Cornelie
+asked him why nothing was finished off, he answered that nothing was
+right. He saw the skies as dreams, visions and apotheoses; and on
+his paper they became water and paint; and paint was not a thing to
+be finished off. Besides, he lacked the self-confidence. And then he
+laid his skies aside, he said, and sat down to copy Byzantine madonnas.
+
+When he saw that his water-colours interested her nevertheless, he
+went on talking about himself: how he had at first raved over the
+noble and ingenuous Primitives, Giotto and especially Lippo Memmi;
+how, after that, spending a year in Paris, he had found nothing that
+excelled Forain: cold, dry satire in two or three lines; how, next,
+in the Louvre, Rubens had become revealed to him, Rubens whose own
+talent and whose own brush he used to trace amid all the prentice-work
+and imitations of his pupils, until he was able to tell which cherub
+was by Rubens himself in a sky full of cherubs painted by four or
+five disciples.
+
+And then, he said, he would pass weeks without giving a thought to
+painting or taking up a brush and would go daily to the Vatican,
+lost in contemplation of the magnificent marbles.
+
+Once he had sat dreaming a whole morning in front of the Eros; once
+he had dreamt a poem there, to a very gentle, melodious, monotonous
+accompaniment, like an inward incantation. On coming home he had
+tried to put both poem and music on paper, but he had failed. Now he
+could no longer look at Forain, thought Rubens coarse and disgusting,
+but remained faithful to the Primitives:
+
+"And suppose for a moment that I painted a lot and sent a lot of
+pictures to exhibitions? Should I be any the happier? Should I feel
+satisfied in having done something? I doubt it. Sometimes I do finish
+a water-colour and sell it; and then I can go on living for a month
+without troubling Mamma. Money I don't care about. Ambition is quite
+foreign to my nature.... But don't let us talk about myself. Do you
+still think of the future and ... bread?"
+
+"Perhaps," she said, with a melancholy laugh, while the studio around
+her grew dusk and dim and the figures of his mother and sisters,
+sitting silent, languid and uninterested in their easy-chairs,
+gradually faded away and every colour slowly paled. "But I am so
+weak-minded. You say that you are not an artist; and I ... I am not
+an apostle."
+
+"To give one's life a course: that is the difficulty. Every life
+has a line, an appointed course, a road, a path: life has to flow
+along that line to death and what comes after death; and that line
+is difficult to find. I shall never find my line."
+
+"I don't see my line before me either."
+
+"Do you know, a restlessness has come over me. Mamma, listen, a
+restlessness has come over me. I used to dream in the Forum, I was
+happy and didn't think about my line, my appointed course. Mamma,
+do you think about your line? Do you, girls?"
+
+His sisters giggled in the dark, sunk in their low chairs, like two
+pussy-cats. Mamma got up:
+
+"Duco dear, you know I can't follow you. I admire Cornelie for liking
+your water-colours and understanding what you mean by that line. My
+line is to go home at once, for it's very late."
+
+"That's the line of the next two seconds. But there is a restlessness
+about my line that affects it for days and weeks to come. I am not
+leading the right life. The past is very beautiful and so peaceful,
+because it has been. But I have lost that peace. The present is very
+small. But the future! ... Oh, if we could only find an aim ... for
+the future!"
+
+They no longer listened; they went down the dark stairs, groping
+their way.
+
+"Bread?" he asked himself, wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+One morning when Cornelie stayed indoors she went through the books
+that lay scattered about her room. And she found that it was useless
+for her to read Ovid, in order to study something of Roman manners,
+some of which had alarmed and shocked her; she found that Dante and
+Petrarch were too difficult to learn Italian from, whereas she had
+only to pick up a word or two in order to make herself understood in a
+shop or by the servants; she found Hare's Walks a too wearisome guide,
+because every cobble-stone in Rome did not inspire her with the same
+interest that Hare evidently derived from it. Then she confessed to
+herself that she could never see Italy and Rome as Duco van der Staal
+did. She never saw the light of the skies or the drifting of the clouds
+as he had seen them in his unfinished water-colour sketches. She had
+never seen the ruins transfigured in glory as he did in his hours of
+dreaming on the Palatine or in the Forum. She saw a picture merely
+with a layman's eye; a Byzantine madonna made no appeal to her. She
+was very fond of statues; but to fall head over ears in love with
+a mutilated marble torso, in the spirit in which he loved the Eros,
+seemed to her sickly ... and yet it seemed to be the right spirit in
+which to see the Eros. Well, not sickly, she admitted ... but morbid:
+the word, though she herself smiled at it expressed her opinion better;
+not sickly, but morbid. And she looked upon an olive as a tree rather
+like a willow, whereas Duco had told her that an olive was the most
+beautiful tree in the world.
+
+She did not agree with him, either about the olive or about the
+Eros; and yet she felt that he was right from a certain mysterious
+standpoint on which there was no room for her, because it was like
+a mystic eminence amid impassable sensitive spheres which were not
+hers, even as the eminence was to her an unknown vantage-point of
+sensitiveness and vision. She did not agree with him and yet she
+was convinced of his greater rightness, his truer view, his nobler
+insight, his deeper feeling; and she was certain that her way of
+seeing Italy, in the disappointment of her disillusion, in the
+grey light of a growing indifference, was neither noble nor good;
+and she knew that the beauty of Italy escaped her, whereas to him
+it was like a tangible and comprehensible vision. And she cleared
+away Ovid and Petrarch and Hare's guidebook and locked them up in
+her trunk and took out the novels and pamphlets which had appeared
+that year about the woman movement in Holland. She took an interest
+in the problem and thought that it made her more modern than Duco,
+who suddenly seemed to her to belong to a bygone age, not modern,
+not modern. She repeated the words with enjoyment and suddenly felt
+herself stronger. To be modern: that should be her strength. One
+phrase of Duco's had struck her immensely, that exclamation:
+
+"Oh, if we could only find an aim! Our life has a line, a path,
+which it must follow...."
+
+To be modern: was that not a line? To find the solution of a modern
+problem: was that not an aim in life? He was quite right, from his
+point of view, from which he saw Italy; but was not the whole of
+Italy a past, a dream, at least that Italy which Duco saw, a dreamy
+paradise of nothing but art? It could not be right to stand like
+that, see like that a dream like that. The present was here: on
+the grey horizon muttered an approaching storm; and the latter-day
+problems flashed like lightning. Was that not what she had to live
+for? She felt for the woman, she felt for the girl: she herself
+had been the girl, brought up only as a social ornament, to shine,
+to be pretty and attractive and then of course to get married; she
+had shone and she had married; and now she was three-and-twenty,
+divorced from the husband who at one time had been her only aim and,
+for her sake, the aim of her parents; now she was alone, astray,
+desperate and utterly disconsolate: she had nothing to cling to and
+she suffered. She still loved him, cad and scoundrel though he was;
+and she had thought that she was doing something very clever, when she
+went abroad, to Italy, to study art. But she did not understand art,
+she did not feel Italy. Oh, how clearly she saw it, after those talks
+with Duco, that she would never understand art, even though she used
+to sketch a bit, even though she used to have a biscuit-group after
+Canova in her boudoir, Cupid and Psyche: so nice for a young girl! And
+with what certainty she now knew that she would never grasp Italy,
+because she did not think an olive-tree so very beautiful and had
+never seen the sky of the Campagna as a fluttering phoenix-wing! No,
+Italy would never be the consolation of her life....
+
+But what then? She had been through much, but she was alive and very
+young. And once again, at the sight of those pamphlets, at the sight
+of that novel, the desire arose in her soul: to be modern, to be
+modern! And to take part in the problem of to-day! To live for the
+future! To live for her fellow-women, married or unmarried!...
+
+She dared not look deep down into herself, lest she should waver. To
+live for the future!... It separated her a little more from Duco,
+that new ideal. Did she mind? Was she in love with him? No, she
+thought not. She had been in love with her husband and did not want
+to fall in love at once with the first agreeable young man whom she
+chanced to meet in Rome....
+
+And she read the pamphlets, about the feminine problem and love. Then
+she thought of her husband, then of Duco. And wearily she dropped the
+pamphlets and reflected how sad it all was: people, women, girls. She,
+a woman, a young woman, an aimless woman: how sad her life was! And
+Duco: he was happy. And yet he was seeking the line of his life,
+yet he was looking out for his aim. A new restlessness had entered
+into him. And she wept a little and anxiously twisted herself on her
+cushions and clasped her hands and prayed, unconsciously, without
+knowing to whom she was praying:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+It was then, after a few days, that Cornelie conceived the idea
+of leaving the boarding-house and going to live in rooms. The
+hotel-life disturbed her budding thoughts, like a wind of vanity
+that was constantly blighting very vague and fragile blossoms;
+and, despite a torrent of abuse from the marchesa, who reproached
+her with having engaged to stay the whole winter, she moved into
+the rooms which she had found with Duco van der Staal, after much
+hunting and stair-climbing. They were in the Via dei Serpenti, up any
+number of stairs: a set of two roomy, but almost entirely unfurnished
+apartments, containing only the absolute essentials; and, though the
+view extended far and wide above the house-tops of Rome to the circular
+ruin of the Colosseum, the rooms were rough and uncomfortable, bare
+and uninviting. Duco had not approved of them and said that they made
+him shiver, although they faced the sun; but there was something about
+the ruggedness of the place that harmonized with Cornelie's new mood.
+
+When they parted that day, he thought how inartistic she was and
+she how unmodern he was. They did not meet again for several days;
+and Cornelie was very lonely, but did not feel her loneliness,
+because she was writing a pamphlet on the social position of divorced
+women. The idea was suggested to her by a few sentences in a tract
+on the feminist problem; and at once, without wasting much time in
+thought, she flung off her sentences in a succession of impulses and
+intuitions, rough-hewn, cold and clear; she wrote in an epistolary
+style, without literary art, as though to warn girls against cherishing
+too many illusions about marriage.
+
+She had not made her rooms comfortable; she sat there, high up over
+Rome, with her view across the house-tops to the Colosseum, writing,
+writing and writing, absorbed in her sorrow, uttering herself in
+her stubborn sentences, feeling intensely bitter, but pouring the
+wormwood of her soul into her pamphlet. Mrs. van der Staal and the
+girls, who came to see her, were surprised by her untidy appearance,
+her rough-looking rooms, with a dying fire in the little grate and
+with no flowers, no books, no tea and no cushions; and, when they went
+away after fifteen minutes, pleading urgent errands, they looked at
+each other, tripping down the endless stairs, with eyes of amazement,
+utterly at a loss to understand this transformation of an interesting,
+elegant little woman, surrounded by an aura of poetry and a tragic
+past, into an "independent woman," working furiously at a pamphlet full
+of bitter invective against society. And, when Duco looked her up again
+in a week's time and came to sit with her a little, he remained silent,
+stiff and upright in his chair, without speaking, while Cornelie read
+the beginning of her pamphlet to him. He was touched by the glimpses
+which it revealed to him of personal suffering and experience, but he
+was irritated by a certain discord between that slender, lily-like
+woman, with her drooping movements, and the surroundings in which
+she now felt at her ease, entirely absorbed in her hatred for the
+society--Hague society--which had become hostile to her because she
+refused to go on living with a cad who ill-treated her. And while
+she was reading, Duco thought:
+
+"She would not write like that if she were not writing it all down from
+her own suffering. Why doesn't she make a novel of it? Why generalize
+from one's personal sorrows and why that admonishing voice?..."
+
+He did not like it. He thought the sound of that voice was hard,
+those truths so personal, that bitterness unattractive and that
+hatred of convention so small. And, when she put a question to him,
+he did not say much, nodded his head in vague approval and remained
+sitting in his stiff, uncomfortable attitude. He did not know what to
+answer, he was unable to admire, he thought her inartistic. And yet a
+great compassion welled up within him when he saw, in spite of it all,
+how charming she would be and what charm and womanly dignity would be
+hers could she find the line of her life and moved harmoniously along
+that line with the music of her own movement. He now saw her taking a
+wrong road, a path pointed out to her by the fingers of others and not
+entered upon from the impulse of her own soul. And he felt the deepest
+pity for her. He, an artist, but above all a dreamer, sometimes saw
+vividly, despite his dreaming, despite his sometimes all-embracing
+love of line and colour and atmosphere; he, the artist and dreamer,
+sometimes very clearly saw the emotion looming through the outward
+actions of his fellow-creatures, saw it like light shining through
+alabaster; and he suddenly saw her lost, seeking, straying: seeking
+she herself knew not what, straying she herself knew not through what
+labyrinth, far from her line, the line of her life and the course of
+her soul's journey, which she had never yet found.
+
+She sat before him excitedly. She had read her last pages with a
+flushed face, in a resonant voice, her whole being in a fever. She
+looked as if she would have liked to fling those bitter pages
+at the feet of her Dutch sisters, at the feet of all women. He,
+absorbed in his speculations, melancholy in his pity for her,
+had scarcely listened, nodding his head in vague approval. And
+suddenly she began to speak of herself, revealed herself wholly,
+told him her life: her existence as a young girl at the Hague, her
+education with a view to shining a little and being attractive and
+pretty, with not one serious glance at her future, only waiting for
+a good match, with a flirtation here and a little love-affair there,
+until she was married: a good match, in her own circle; her husband
+a first lieutenant of hussars, a fine, handsome fellow, of a good,
+distinguished family, with a little money. She had fallen in love with
+him for his handsome face and his fine figure, which his uniform showed
+to advantage, and he with her as he might have done with any other
+girl who had a pretty face. Then came the revelation of those very
+early days: the discord between their characters manifesting itself
+luridly at once. She, spoilt at home, dainty, delicate, fastidious,
+but selfishly fastidious and flying out against any offence to her
+own spoilt little ego; he no longer the lover but immediately and
+brutally the man with rights to this and rights to that, with an oath
+here and a roar there; she with neither the tact nor the patience
+to make of their foundering lives what could still be made of them,
+nervous, quick-tempered, quick to resent coarseness, which made his
+savagery flare up so violently that he ill-treated her, swore at her,
+struck her, shook her and banged her against the wall.
+
+The divorce followed. He had not consented at first, content, in
+spite of all, to have a house and in that house a wife, female to
+him, the male, and declining to return to the discomfort of life in
+chambers, until she simply ran away, first to her parents, then to
+friends in the country, protesting loudly against the law, which was
+so unjust to women. He had yielded at last and allowed himself to
+be accused of infidelity, which was not beside the truth. She was
+now free, but stood as it were alone, looked at askance by all her
+acquaintances, refusing to yield to their conventional demand for that
+sort of half-mourning which, according to their conventional ideas,
+should surround a divorced woman and at once returning to her former
+life, the gay life of an unmarried girl. But she had felt that this
+could not go on, both because of her acquaintances and because of
+herself: her acquaintances looking at her askance and she loathing
+her acquaintances, loathing their parties and dinners, until she felt
+profoundly unhappy, lonely and forlorn, without anything or anybody
+to cling to, and had felt all the depression that weighs down on the
+divorced woman. Sometimes, in her heart of hearts, she reflected that
+by dint of great patience and great tact she might have managed that
+man, that he was not wicked, only coarse, that she was still fond of
+him, or at least of his handsome face and his sturdy figure. Love, no,
+it was not love; but had she ever thought of love as she now sometimes
+pictured it? And did not nearly everybody live more or less so-so,
+with a good deal of give and take?
+
+But this regret she hardly confessed to herself, did not now confess
+to Duco; and what she did confess was her bitterness, her hatred of
+her husband, of marriage, of convention, of people, of the world,
+of all the great generalities, generalizing her own feelings into
+one great curse against life. He listened to her, with pity. He
+felt that there was something noble in her, which, however, had been
+stifled from the beginning. He forgave her for not being artistic,
+but he was sorry that she had never found herself, that she did
+not know what she was, who she was, what her life should be, or
+where the line of her life wound, the only path which she ought to
+tread, as every life follows one path. Oh, how often, if a person
+would but let herself go, like a flower, like a bird, like a cloud,
+like a star which so obediently ran its course, she would find her
+happiness and her life, even as the flower or the bird finds them,
+even as the cloud drifts before the sun, even as the star follows its
+course through the heavens. But he told her nothing of his thoughts,
+knowing that, especially in her present mood of bitterness, she would
+not understand them and could derive no comfort from them, because they
+would be too vague for her and too far removed from her own manner of
+thinking. She thought of herself, but imagined that she was thinking
+of women and girls and their movement towards the future. The lines
+of the women ... but had not every woman a line of her own? Only,
+how few of them knew it: their direction, their path, their line of
+life, their wavering course in the twilight of the future. And perhaps,
+because they did not know it for themselves, they were now all seeking
+together a broad path, a main road, along which they would march in
+troops, in a threatening multitude of women, in regiments of women,
+with banners and mottoes and war-cries, a broad path, parallel with
+the movement of the men, until the two paths would melt into one,
+until the troops of women would mingle with the troops of men, with
+equal rights and equal fullness of life....
+
+He said nothing to her. She noticed his silence and did not see how
+much was going on within him, how earnestly he was thinking of her,
+how profoundly he pitied her. She thought that she had bored him. And
+suddenly, around her, she saw the dim, barren room, saw that the fire
+was out; and her zeal subsided, her fever cooled and she thought her
+pamphlet bad, lacking strength and conviction. What would she not
+have given for a word from him! But he sat silent, seemed to take no
+interest, probably did not admire her style of writing. And she felt
+sad, deserted, lonely, estranged from him and bitter because of the
+estrangement; she felt ready to weep, to sob; and, strange to say, in
+her bitterness she thought of him, of her husband, with his handsome
+face. She could not restrain herself, she wept. Duco came up to her,
+put his hand on her shoulder. Then she felt something of what was
+going on within him and that his silence was not due to coldness. She
+told him that she could not remain alone that evening: she was too
+wretched, too wretched. He comforted her, said that there was much
+that was good, much that was true in her pamphlet; that he was not
+a good judge of these modern questions; that he was never clever
+except when he talked about Italy; that he felt so little for people
+and so much for statues, so little for what was newly building for
+a coming century and so much for what lay in ruins and remained over
+from earlier centuries. He said it as though apologizing. She smiled
+through her tears but repeated that she could not stay alone that
+evening and that she was coming with him to Belloni's, to his mother
+and sisters. And they went together, they walked round together; and,
+to divert her mind, he spoke to her of his own thoughts, told her
+anecdotes of the Renascence masters. She did not hear what he said,
+but his voice was sweet to her ears. There was something so gentle
+about his indifference to the modern things that interested her, he had
+so much calmness, healing as balsam, in the restfulness of his soul,
+which allowed itself to move along the golden thread of his dreams,
+as though that thread was the line of his life, so much calmness and
+gentleness that she too grew calmer and gentler and looked up to him
+with a smile.
+
+And, however far removed they might be from each other--he going along
+a dreamy path, she lost in an obscure maze--they nevertheless felt each
+other approaching, felt their souls drawing nearer to each other, while
+their bodies moved beside each other in the actual street, through
+Rome, in the evening. He put his arm through hers to guide her steps.
+
+And, when they came in sight of Belloni's, she thanked him, she did
+not know exactly for what: for the look in his eyes, for his voice, for
+the walk, for the consolation which she felt inexplicably yet clearly
+radiating from him; and she was glad to have come with him this evening
+and to feel the distraction of the Belloni table-d'hote around her.
+
+But at night, alone, alone in her bare rooms, she was overcome by
+her wretchedness as by a sea of blackness; and, looking out at the
+Colosseum, which showed faintly as a black arc in the black night,
+she sobbed until she felt herself sinking to the point of death,
+derelict, lonely and forlorn, high up above Rome, above the roofs,
+above the pale lights of Rome by night, under the clouds of the
+black night, sinking and derelict, as though she were drifting,
+a shipwrecked waif on an ocean which drowned the world and roared
+its plaints to the inexorable heavens.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Nevertheless Cornelie recovered her calmness when her pamphlet
+was finished. She unpacked her trunks, arranged her rooms a little
+more snugly and, now more at her ease, rewrote the pamphlet and,
+in the revision, improved her style and even her ideas. When she had
+done working in the morning, she usually lunched at a small osteria,
+where she nearly always met Duco van der Staal and had her meal with
+him at a little table. As a rule she dined at Belloni's, beside the
+Van der Staals, in order to obtain a little diversion. The marchesa
+had not bowed to her at first, though she suffered her to attend her
+table-d'hote, at three lire an evening; but after a time she bowed to
+Cornelie again, with a bitter-sweet little smile, for she had relet
+her two rooms at a higher price. And Cornelie, in her calmer mood,
+found it pleasant to change in the evening, to see Mrs. van der Staal
+and the girls, to listen to their little stories about the Roman
+salons and to cast a glance over the long tables. And they saw that
+the guests were ever again different, as in a kaleidoscope of fleeting
+personalities. Rudyard had disappeared, owing money to the marchesa,
+no one knew whither; the Von Rothkirches had gone to Greece; but Urania
+Hope was still there and sat next to the Marchesa Belloni. On her other
+side was the nephew, the Prince of Forte-Braccio, Duke of San Stefano,
+who dined at Belloni's every night. And Cornelie saw that a sort of
+conspiracy was in progress, the marchesa and the prince laying siege
+to the vain little American from either side. And next day she saw two
+monsignori seated in eager conversation with Urania at the marchesa's
+table, while the marchesa and the prince nodded their heads. All the
+visitors commented on it, every eye was turned in that direction,
+everybody watched the manoeuvres and delighted in the romance.
+
+Cornelie was the only one who was not amused. She would have liked to
+warn Urania against the marchesa, the prince and the monsignori who had
+taken Rudyard's place, but especially against marriage, even marriage
+with a prince and duke. And, growing excited, she spoke to Mrs. van
+der Staal and the girls, repeated phrases out of her pamphlet, glowing
+with her red young hatred against society and people and the world.
+
+Dinner was over; and, still eagerly talking, she went with the Van
+der Staals--mevrouw and the girls and Duco--to the drawing-room,
+sat down in a corner, resumed her conversation, flew out at mevrouw,
+who had contradicted her, and then suddenly saw a fat lady--the girls
+had already nick-named her the Satin Frigate--come towards her with
+a smile and say, while still at some distance:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but there's something I want to say. Look here, I
+have been to Belloni's regularly every winter for the last ten years,
+from November to Easter; and every evening after dinner--but only
+after dinner--I sit in this corner, at this table, on this sofa. I
+hope you won't mind, but I should be glad to have my own seat now."
+
+And the Satin Frigate smiled amiably; but, when the Van der Staals and
+Cornelie rose in mute amazement, she dumped herself down with a rustle
+on the sofa, bobbed up and down for a moment on the springs, laid her
+crochet-work on the table with a gesture as though she were planting
+the Union Jack in a new colony and said, with her most amiable smile:
+
+"Very much obliged. So many thanks."
+
+Duco roared, the girls giggled, but the Satin Frigate merely nodded to
+them good-humouredly. And, not even yet realizing what had happened,
+astounded but gay, they sat down in another corner, the girls still
+seized with an irrepressible giggle. The two aesthetic ladies, with
+the evening-dress and the Jaegers, who sat reading at the table in
+the middle of the room, closed their two books with one slam, rose
+and indignantly went away, because people were laughing and talking
+in the drawing-room:
+
+"It's a shame!" they said, aloud.
+
+And, angular, arrogant and grimy, they stalked out through the door.
+
+"What strange people!" thought Duco, smiling. "Shadows of
+people!... Their lines curl like arabesque through ours. Why do they
+cross our lines with their petty movements and why are ours never
+crossed by those which perhaps would be dearest to our souls?..."
+
+He always took Cornelie back to the Via dei Serpenti. They walked
+slowly through the silent, deserted streets. Sometimes it was late in
+the evening, but sometimes it was immediately after dinner and then
+they would go through the Corso and he would generally ask her to
+come and sit at Aragno's for a little. She agreed and they drank their
+coffee amid the gaiety of the brightly-lit cafe, watching the bustle
+on the pavement outside. They exchanged few words, distracted by the
+passers-by and the visitors to the cafe; but they both enjoyed this
+moment and felt at one with each other. Duco evidently did not give
+a thought to the unconventionality of their behaviour; but Cornelie
+thought of Mrs. van der Staal and that she would not approve of it or
+consent to it in one of her daughters, to sit alone with a gentleman
+in a cafe in the evening. And Cornelie also remembered the Hague and
+smiled at the thought of her Hague friends. And she looked at Duco,
+who sat quietly, pleased to be sitting with her, and drank his coffee
+and spoke a word now and again or pointed to a queer type or a pretty
+woman passing....
+
+One evening, after dinner, he suggested that they should all go to
+the ruins. It was full moon, a wonderful sight. But mevrouw was
+afraid of malaria, the girls of foot-pads; and Duco and Cornelie
+went by themselves. The streets were quite empty, the Colosseum rose
+menacingly like a fortress in the night; but they went in and the
+moonlight blue of the night shone through the open arches: the round
+pit of the arena was black on one side with shadow, while the stream
+of moonlight poured in on the other side, like a white flood, like
+a cascade; and it was as though the night were haunted, as though
+the Colosseum were haunted by all the dead past of Rome, emperors,
+gladiators and martyrs; shadows prowled like lurking wild animals,
+a patch of light suggested a naked woman and the galleries seemed to
+rustle with the sound of the multitude. And yet there was nothing and
+Duco and Cornelie were alone, in the depths of the huge, colossal ruin,
+half in shadow and half in light; and, though she was not afraid, she
+was obsessed by that awful haunting of the past and pushed closer to
+him and clutched his arm and felt very, very small. He just pressed
+her hand, with his simple ease of manner, to reassure her. And the
+night oppressed her, the ghostliness of it all suffocated her, the
+moon seemed to whirl giddily in the sky and to expand to a gigantic
+size and spin round like a silver wheel. He said nothing, he was in
+one of his dreams, seeing the past before him. And silently they went
+away and he led her through the Arch of Titus into the Forum. On
+the left rose the ruins of the imperial palaces; and all around
+them stood the black fragments, with a few pillars soaring on high
+and the white moonlight pouring down like a ghostly sea out of the
+night. They met no one, but she was frightened and clung tighter to his
+arm. When they sat down for a moment on a fragment of the foundation
+of some ancient building, she shivered with cold. He started up,
+said that she must be careful not to catch a chill; and they walked
+on and left the Forum. He took her home and she went upstairs alone,
+striking a match to see her way up the dark staircase. Once in her
+room, she perceived that it was dangerous to wander about the ruins
+at night. She reflected how little Duco had spoken, not thinking
+of danger, lost in his nocturnal dream, peering into the awful
+ghostliness. Why ... why had he not gone alone? Why had he asked her
+to go with him? She fell asleep after a chaos of whirling thoughts:
+the prince and Urania, the fat satin lady, the Colosseum and the
+martyrs and Duco and Mrs. van der Staal. His mother was so ordinary,
+his sisters charming but commonplace and he ... so strange! So simple,
+so unaffected, so unreserved; and for that very reason so strange. He
+would be impossible at the Hague, among her friends. And she smiled
+as she thought of what he had said and how he had said it and how he
+could sit quietly silent, for minutes on end, with a smile about his
+lips, as though thinking of something beautiful....
+
+But she must warn Urania....
+
+And she wearily fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Cornelie's premonition regarding Mrs. van der Staal's opinion of her
+intercourse with Duco was confirmed: mevrouw spoke to her seriously,
+saying that she would compromise herself if she went on like that and
+adding that she had spoken to Duco in the same sense. But Cornelie
+answered rather haughtily and nonchalantly, declared that, after
+always minding the conventions and becoming very unhappy in spite of
+it, she had resolved to mind them no longer, that she valued Duco's
+conversation and that she was not going to be deprived of it because
+of what people thought or said. And then, she asked Mrs. van der Staal,
+who were "people?" Their three or four acquaintances at Belloni's? Who
+knew her besides? Where else did she go? Why should she care about
+the Hague? And she gave a scornful laugh, loftily parrying Mrs. van
+der Staal's arguments.
+
+The conversation caused a coolness between them. Wounded in her
+touchy over-sensitiveness, she did not come to dinner at Belloni's
+that evening. Next day, meeting Duco at their little table in the
+osteria, she asked him what he thought of his mother's rebuke. He
+smiled vaguely, raising his eyebrows, obviously not realizing the
+commonplace truth of his mother's words, saying that those were just
+Mamma's ideas, which of course were all very well and current in
+the set in which Mamma and his sisters lived, but which he didn't
+enter into or bother about, unless Cornelie thought that Mamma was
+right. And Cornelie blazed out contemptuously, shrugged her shoulders,
+asked who or what there was for whose sake she should allow herself
+to break off their friendly intercourse. They ordered a mezzo-fiasco
+between them and had a long, chatty lunch like two comrades, like
+two students. He said that he had been thinking over her pamphlet;
+he talked, to please her, about the modern woman, modern marriage,
+the modern girl. She condemned the way in which Mrs. van der Staal
+was bringing up her daughters, that light, frivolous education and
+that endless going about, on the look for a husband. She said that
+she spoke from experience.
+
+They walked along the Via Appia that afternoon and went to the
+Catacombs, where a Trappist showed them round. When Cornelie returned
+home she felt pleasantly light and cheerful. She did not go out again;
+she piled up the logs on her fire against the evening, which was
+turning chilly, and supped off a little bread and jelly, so as not
+to go out for her dinner. Sitting in her tea-gown, with her hands
+folded over her head, she stared into the briskly burning logs and
+let the evening speed past her. She was satisfied with her life,
+so free, independent of everything and everybody. She had a little
+money, she could go on living like this. She had no great needs. Her
+life in rooms, in little restaurants was not expensive. She wanted
+no clothes. She felt satisfied. Duco was an agreeable friend: how
+lonely she would be without him! Only her life must acquire some
+aim. What aim? The feminist movement? But how, abroad? It was such
+a different movement to work at.... She would send her pamphlet now
+to a newly founded women's paper. But then? She wasn't in Holland
+and she didn't want to go to Holland; and yet there would certainly
+be more scope there for her activity, for exchanging views with
+others. Whereas here, in Rome.... An indolence overcame her, in
+the drowsiness of her cosy room. For Duco had helped her to arrange
+her sitting-room. He certainly was a cultivated fellow, even though
+he was not modern. What a lot he knew about history, about Italy;
+and how cleverly he told it all! The way he explained Italy to her,
+she was interested in the country after all.
+
+Only, he wasn't modern. He had no insight into Italian politics,
+into the struggle between the Quirinal and the Vatican, into
+anarchism, which was showing its head at Milan, into the riots in
+Sicily.... An aim in life: what a difficult thing it was! And, in
+her evening drowsiness after a pleasant day, she did not feel the
+absence of an aim and enjoyed the soft luxury of letting her thoughts
+glide on in unison with the drowsy evening hours, in a voluptuous
+self-indulgence. She looked at the sheets of her pamphlet, scattered
+over her big writing-table, a real table to work at: they lay yellow
+under the light of her reading-lamp; they had not all been recopied,
+but she was not in the mood now; she threw a log into the little grate
+and the fire smoked and blazed. So pleasant, that foreign habit of
+burning wood instead of coal....
+
+And she thought of her husband. She missed him sometimes. Could she
+not have managed him, with a little tact and patience? After all,
+he was very nice during the period of their engagement. He was rough,
+but not bad. He might have sworn at her sometimes, but perhaps he did
+not mean any great harm. He waltzed divinely, he swung you round so
+firmly.... He was good-looking and, she had to confess, she was in love
+with him, if only for his handsome face, his handsome figure. There
+was something about his eyes and mouth that she was never able to
+resist. When he spoke, she had to look at his mouth. However, that
+was all over and done with....
+
+After all, perhaps the life at the Hague was too monotonous for her
+temperament. She liked travelling, seeing new people, developing
+new ideas; and she had never been able to settle down in her little
+set. And now she was free, independent of all ties, of all people. If
+Mrs. van der Staal was angry, she didn't care.... And, all the same,
+Duco was rather modern, in his indifference to convention. Or was
+it merely the artistic side in him? Or was he, as a man who was not
+modern, indifferent to it even as she, a modern woman, was? A man
+could allow himself more. A man was not so easily compromised.... A
+modern woman. She repeated the words proudly. Her drowsiness acquired
+a certain arrogance. She drew herself up, stretching out her arms,
+looked at herself in the glass: her slender figure, her delicate
+little face, a trifle pale, with the eyes big and grey and bright
+under their remarkably long lashes, her light-brown hair in a loose,
+tangled coil, the lines of her figure, like those of a drooping lily,
+very winsome in the creased folds of her old tea-gown, pale-pink and
+faded.... What was her path in life? She felt herself to be something
+more than a worker and fighter, to be very complex, felt that she was
+a woman too, felt a great womanliness inside her, like a weakness
+which would hamper her energy. And she wandered through the room,
+unable to decide to go to bed, and, staring into the gloomy ashes
+of the expiring fire, she thought of her future, of what she would
+become and how, of how she would go and whither, along which curve
+of life, wandering through what forests, winding through what alleys,
+crossing which other curves of which other, seeking souls....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The idea had long fixed itself in Cornelie's mind that she must speak
+to Urania Hope; and one morning she sent her a note asking for an
+appointment that afternoon. Miss Hope wrote back assenting; and at
+five o'clock Cornelie found her at home in her handsome and expensive
+sitting-room at Belloni's: many lights, many flowers; Urania hammering
+on the piano in an indoor gown of Venetian lace; the table decked with
+a rich tea, with cut bread-and-butter, cakes and sweets. Cornelie had
+said that she wanted to see Miss Hope alone, on a matter of importance,
+and at once asked if she would be alone, feeling a doubt of it, now
+that Urania was receiving her so formally. But Urania reassured her:
+she had said that she was at home to no one but Mrs. de Retz and was
+very curious to know what Cornelie had come to talk about. Cornelie
+reminded Urania of her former warning and, when Urania laughed, she
+took her hand and looked at her with such serious eyes that she made an
+impression of the American girl's frivolous nature and Urania became
+puzzled. Urania now suddenly thought it very momentous--a secret,
+an intrigue, a danger, in Rome!--and they whispered together. And
+Cornelie, no longer feeling anxious amid this increasing intimacy,
+confessed to Urania what she had heard through the half-open door: the
+marchesa's machinations with her nephew, whom she was absolutely bent
+on marrying to a rich heiress at the behest of the prince's father, who
+seemed to have promised her so much for putting the match through. Then
+she spoke of Miss Taylor's conversion, effected by Rudyard: Rudyard,
+who did not seem able to achieve his purpose with Urania, failing to
+obtain a hold on her confiding, but frivolous, butterfly nature, and
+who, as Cornelie suspected, had for that reason incurred the disfavour
+of his ecclesiastical superiors and vanished without settling his
+debt to the marchesa. His place appeared to have been taken by the two
+monsignori, who looked more dignified and worldly and displayed great
+unctuousness, were more lavish in smiles. And Urania, staring at this
+danger, at these pit-falls under her feet which Cornelie had suddenly
+revealed to her, now became really frightened, turned pale and promised
+to be on her guard. Really she would have liked to tell her maid to
+pack up at once, so that they might leave Rome as soon as possible,
+for another town, another pension, one with lots of titled people: she
+adored titles! And Cornelie, seeing that she had made an impression,
+continued, spoke of herself, spoke of marriage in general, said that
+she had written a pamphlet against marriage and on The Social Position
+of Divorced Women. And she spoke of the suffering which she had been
+through and of the feminist movement in Holland. And, once in the vein,
+she abandoned all restraint and talked more and more emphatically,
+until Urania thought her exceedingly clever, a very clever girl,
+to be able to argue and write like that on a ques-tion bru-lante,
+laying a fine stress on the first syllables of the French words. She
+admitted that she would like to have the vote and, as she said this,
+spread out the long train of her lace tea-gown. Cornelie spoke of the
+injustice of the law which leaves the wife nothing, takes everything
+from her and forces her entirely into the husband's power; and Urania
+agreed with her and passed the little dish of chocolate-creams. And
+to the accompaniment of a second cup of tea they talked excitedly,
+both speaking at once, neither listening to what the other was saying;
+and Urania said that it was a shame. From the general discussion they
+relapsed to the consideration of their particular interests: Cornelie
+depicted the character of her husband, unable, in the coarseness of
+his nature, to understand a woman or to consent that a woman should
+stand beside him and not beneath him. And she once more returned to
+the Jesuits, to the danger of Rome for rich girls travelling alone,
+to that virago of a marchesa and to the prince, that titled bait
+which the Jesuits flung to win a soul and to improve the finances
+of an impoverished Italian house which had remained faithful to the
+Pope and refused to serve the king. And both of them were so vehement
+and excited that they did not hear the knock and looked up only when
+the door slowly opened. They started, glanced round and both turned
+pale when they saw the Prince of Forte-Braccio enter the room. He
+apologized with a smile, said that he had seen a light in Miss
+Urania's sitting-room, that the porter had told him she was engaged,
+but that he had ventured to disobey her orders. And he sat down;
+and, in spite of all that they had been saying, Urania thought it
+delightful to have the prince sitting there and accepting a cup of
+tea at her hands and graciously consenting to eat a piece of cake.
+
+And Urania showed her album of coats of arms--the prince had already
+contributed an impression of his--and next the album with patterns
+of the queen's ball-dresses. Then the prince laughed and felt in his
+pocket for an envelope; he opened it and carefully produced a cutting
+of blue brocade embroidered with silver and seed-pearls.
+
+"What is it?" asked Urania, in ecstasy.
+
+And he said that he had brought her a pattern of her majesty's last
+dress; his cousin--not a Black, like himself, but a White, belonging
+not to the papal but to the court party and a lady-in-waiting to the
+queen--had procured this cutting for him for Urania's album. Urania
+would see it herself: the queen would wear the dress at next week's
+court ball. He was not going, he did not even go to his cousin's
+officially, not to her parties; but he saw her sometimes, because
+of the family relationship, out of friendship. And he begged Urania
+not to give him away: it might injure him in his career--"What
+career?" Cornelie wondered to herself--if people knew that he saw
+much of his cousin; but he had called on her pretty often lately,
+for Urania's sake, to get her that pattern.
+
+And Urania was so grateful that she forgot all about the social
+position of girls and women, married or unmarried, and would gladly
+have sacrificed her right to the franchise for such a charming Italian
+prince. Cornelie became vexed, rose, bowed coldly to the prince and
+drew Urania with her to the door:
+
+"Don't forget what we have been saying," she warned her. "Be on
+your guard."
+
+And she saw the prince look at her sarcastically, as they whispered
+together, suspecting that she was talking about him, but proud of
+the power of his personality and his title and his attentions over
+the daughter of an American stockinet-manufacturer.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+A coolness had arisen between Mrs. van der Staal and Cornelie; and
+Cornelie no longer went to dine at Belloni's. She did not see mevrouw
+and the girls again for weeks; but she saw Duco daily. Notwithstanding
+the essential differences in their characters, they had grown so
+accustomed to being together that they missed each other if a day
+passed without their meeting; and so they had gradually come to
+lunch and dine together every day, almost as a matter of course:
+in the morning at the osteria and in the evening at some small
+restaurant or other, usually very simply. To avoid dividing the bill,
+Duco would pay one time and Cornelie the next. Generally they had
+much to talk about: he taught her Rome, took her after lunch to all
+manner of churches and museums; and under his guidance she began
+to understand, appreciate and admire. By unconscious suggestion he
+inspired her with some of his ideas. She found painting very difficult,
+but understood sculpture much more readily. And she began to look upon
+him as not merely morbid; she looked up to him, he spoke quite simply
+to her, as from his exalted standpoint of feeling and knowledge and
+understanding, of very exalted matters which she, as a girl and later
+as a young married woman, had never seen in the glorious apotheosis
+which he caused to rise before her like the first gleam of a dawn,
+of a new day in which she beheld new types of life, created of all
+that was noblest in the artist's soul. He regretted that he could not
+show her Giotto in the Santa Croce at Florence and the Primitives in
+the Uffizi and that he had to teach her Rome straight away; but he
+introduced her to all the exuberant art-life of the Papal Renascence,
+until, under the influence of his speech, she shared that life for a
+single intense second and until Michael Angelo and Raphael stood out
+before her, also living. After a day like that, he would think that
+after all she was not so hopelessly inartistic; and she thought of
+him with respect, even after the suggestion was interrupted and when
+she reflected on what she had seen and heard and really, deep down in
+herself, no longer understood things so well as she had that morning,
+because she was lacking in love for them. But so much glamour of colour
+and the past remained whirling before her eyes in the evening that
+it made her pamphlet seem drab and dull; and the feminist movement
+ceased to interest her and she did not care about Urania Hope.
+
+He admitted to himself that he had quite lost his peace of mind,
+that Cornelie stood before him in his thoughts, between him and his
+old triptychs, that his lonely, friendless, ingenuous, simple life,
+content with wandering through and outside Rome, with reading,
+dreaming and now and then painting a little, had changed entirely
+in habit and in line, now that the line of his life had crossed that
+of hers and they both seemed to be going one way, he did not really
+know why. Love was not exactly the word for the feeling that drew
+him towards her. And just very vaguely, inwardly and unconsciously
+he suspected, though he never actually said or even thought as much,
+that it was the line of her figure, which was marked by something
+almost Byzantine, the slenderness of the frame, the long arms, the
+drooping lily-line of the woman who suffered, with the melancholy in
+her grey eyes, overshadowed by their almost too-long lashes; that it
+was the noble shape of her hand, small and pretty for a tall woman;
+that it was a movement of her neck, as of a swaying stalk, or a tired
+swan trying to glance backwards. He had never met many women and those
+whom he had met had always seemed very ordinary; but she was unreal
+to him, in the contradictions of her character, in its vagueness
+and intangibility, in all the half-tints which escaped his eye,
+accustomed to half-tints though it was.... What was she like? What he
+had always seen in her character was a woman in a novel, a heroine in
+a poem. What was she as a living woman of flesh and blood? She was
+not artistic and she was not inartistic; she had no energy and yet
+she did not lack energy; she was not precisely cultivated; and yet,
+obeying her impulse and her intuition, she wrote a pamphlet on one of
+the most modern questions and worked at it and revised and copied it,
+till it became a piece of writing no worse than another. She had a
+spacious way of thinking, loathing all the pettiness of the cliques,
+no longer feeling at home, after her suffering, in her little Hague
+set; and here, in Rome, at a dance she listened behind a door to
+a nonsensical conspiracy, hardly worthy of the name, he thought,
+and had gone to Urania Hope to mingle with the confused curves of
+smaller lives, curves without importance, of people whom he despised
+for their lack of line, of colour, of vision, of haze, of everything
+that was dear as life to him and made up life for him.... What was
+she like? He did not understand her. But her curve was of importance
+to him. She was not without a line: a line of art and line of life;
+she moved in the dream of her own indefiniteness before his gazing
+eyes; and she loomed up out of the haze, as out of the twilight of
+his studio atmosphere, and stood before him like a phantom. He would
+not call that love; but she was dear to him like a revelation that
+constantly veiled itself in secrecy. And his life as a lonely wanderer
+was, it was true, changed; but she had introduced no inharmonious
+habit into his life: he enjoyed taking his meals in a little cafe or
+osteria; and she took them with him easily and simply, not squalidly
+but pleasantly and harmoniously, with an adaptability and with just
+as much natural grace as when she used to dine of an evening at the
+table-d'hote at Belloni's. All this--that contradictory admixture of
+unreality, of inconsistency; that living vision of indefiniteness;
+that intangibility of her individual essence; that self-concealment of
+the soul; that blending of her essential characteristics--had become
+a charm to him: a restlessness, a need, a nervous want in his life,
+otherwise so restful, so easily contented and calm, but above all a
+charm, an indispensable every-day charm.
+
+And, without troubling about what people might think, about what
+Mrs. van der Staal thought, they would one day go to Tivoli together,
+or another day walk from Castel Gandolfo to Albano and drive to the
+Lago di Nemi and picnic at the Villa Sforza-Cesarini, with the broken
+capital of a classic pillar for a table. They rested side by side in
+the shadow of the trees, admired the camellias, silently contemplated
+the glassy clearness of the lake, Diana's looking-glass, and drove
+back over Frascati. They were silent in the carriage; and he smiled
+as he reflected how they had been taken everywhere that day for man
+and wife. She also thought of their increasing intimacy and at the
+same time thought that she would never marry again. And she thought
+of her husband and compared him with Duco, so young in the face but
+with eyes full of depth and soul, a voice so calm and even, with
+everything that he said much to the point, so accurately informed;
+and then his calmness, his simplicity, his lack of passion, as though
+his nerves had schooled themselves only to feel the calmness of art
+in the dreamy mist of his life. And she confessed to herself, there,
+in the carriage beside him, amid the softly shelving hills, purpling
+away in the evening, while before her faded the rose-mallow of a pale
+gold sunset, that he was dear to her because of that cleverness, that
+absence of passion, that simplicity and that accuracy of information--a
+clear voice sounding up out of the dreamy twilight--and that she was
+happy to be sitting beside him, to hear that voice and by chance
+to feel his hand, happy in that her line of life had crossed his,
+in that their two lines seemed to form a path towards the increasing
+brightness, the gradual daily elucidation of their immediate future....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Cornelie now saw no one except Duco. Mrs. van der Staal had broken
+with her and would not allow her daughters to have any further
+intercourse with her. A coolness had arisen even between the mother
+and the son. Cornelie saw no one now except Duco and, at times,
+Urania Hope. The American girl came to her pretty often and told
+her about Belloni's, where the people talked about Cornelie and Duco
+and commented on their relations. Urania was glad to think herself
+above that hotel gossip, but still she wanted to warn Cornelie. Her
+words displayed a simple spontaneity of friendship that appealed to
+Cornelie. When Cornelie, however, asked after the prince, she became
+silent and confused and evidently did not wish to say much. Then,
+after the court ball, at which the queen had really worn the dress
+embroidered with seed-pearls, Urania came and looked Cornelie up again
+and admitted, over a cup of tea, that she had that morning promised to
+go and see the prince at his own place. She said this quite simply,
+as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Cornelie was
+horrified and asked her how she could have promised such a thing.
+
+"Why not?" Urania replied. "What is there in it? I receive his
+visits. If he asks me to come and see his rooms--he lives in the
+Palazzo Ruspoli and wants to show me his pictures and miniatures and
+old lace--why should I refuse to go? Why should I make a fuss about
+it? I am above any such narrow-mindedness. We American girls go about
+freely with our men friends. And what about yourself? You go for walks
+with Mr. van der Staal, you lunch with him, you go for trips with him,
+you go to his studio...."
+
+"I have been married," said Cornelie. "I am responsible to no one. You
+have your parents. What you are thinking of doing is imprudent and
+high-handed. Tell me, does the prince think of ... marrying you?"
+
+"If I become a Catholic."
+
+"And ...?"
+
+"I think ... I shall. I have written to Chicago," she said,
+hesitatingly.
+
+She closed her beautiful eyes for a second and went pale, because
+the title of princess and duchess flashed before her sight.
+
+"Only ..." she began.
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"I sha'n't have a cheerful life. The prince belongs to the Blacks. They
+are always in mourning because of the Pope. They have hardly anything
+in their set: no dances, no parties. If we got married, I should like
+him to come to America with me. Their home in the Abruzzi is a lonely,
+tumbledown castle. His father is a very proud, stand-offish, silent
+person. I have been told so by ever so many people. What am I to do,
+Cornelie? I'm very fond of Gilio: his name is Virgilio. And then, you
+know, the title is an old Italian title: Principe di Forte-Braccio,
+Duca di San Stefano.... But then, you see, that's all there is
+to it. San Stefano is a hole. That's where his papa lives. They
+sell wine and live on that. And olive-oil; but they don't make any
+money. My father manufactures stockinet; but he has grown rich on
+it. They haven't many family-jewels. I have made enquiries.... His
+cousin, the Contessa di Rosavilla, the lady in waiting to the queen,
+is nice ... but we shouldn't see her officially. I shouldn't be able
+to go anywhere. It does strike me as rather boring."
+
+Cornelie spoke vehemently, blazed out and repeated her phrases: against
+marriage in general and now against this marriage in particular, merely
+for the sake of a title. Urania assented: it was merely for the title;
+but then there was Gilio too, of course: he was so nice and she was
+fond of him. But Cornelie didn't believe a word of it and told her
+so straight out. Urania began to cry: she did not know what to do.
+
+"And when were you to go to the prince?"
+
+"This evening."
+
+"Don't go."
+
+"No, no, you're right, I sha'n't go."
+
+"Do you promise me?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Don't go, Urania."
+
+"No, I sha'n't go. You're a dear girl. You're quite right: I won't
+go. I swear to you I won't."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The undertaking which Urania had given was so vague, however,
+that Cornelie felt uneasy and spoke of it to Duco that evening,
+when she met him at the restaurant. But he was not interested
+in Urania, in what she did or didn't do; and he shrugged his
+shoulders indifferently. Cornelie, on the other hand, was silent
+and absent-minded and did not listen to what he was talking about:
+a side-panel of a triptych, undoubtedly by Lippo Memmi, which
+he had discovered in a little shop by the Tiber; the angel of the
+Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling
+with the stir of his last flight yet about him, with the lily-stem
+in his hands. But the dealer asked two hundred lire for it and he
+did not want to give more than fifty. And yet the dealer had not
+mentioned Memmi's name, did not suspect that the angel was by Memmi.
+
+Cornelie was not listening; and suddenly she said:
+
+"I am going to the Palazzo Ruspoli."
+
+He looked up in surprise:
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To ask for Miss Hope."
+
+He was dumb with amazement and continued to look at her open-mouthed.
+
+"If she's not there," Cornelie went on, "it's all right. If she is, if
+she has gone after all, I'll ask to speak to her on urgent business."
+
+He did not know what to say, thinking her sudden idea so strange,
+so eccentric, thinking it so unnecessary that her curve should cross
+the curves of insignificant, indifferent people, that he did not know
+how to choose his words. Cornelie glanced at her watch:
+
+"It's past half-past nine. If she does go, she will go about this
+time."
+
+She called the waiter and paid the bill. And she buttoned her coat
+and stood up. He followed after her:
+
+"Cornelie," he began, "isn't what you are doing rather strange? It'll
+mean all sorts of worries for you."
+
+"If one always objected to being worried, one would never do a good
+action."
+
+They walked on in silence, he moving irritably by her side. They did
+not speak: he thought her intention simply crazy; she thought him
+wanting in chivalry, not to wish to protect Urania. She was thinking
+of her pamphlet, of her fellow-women; and she wanted to protect Urania
+from marriage, from that prince. And they walked through the Corso
+to the Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made another attempt to
+restrain her; but she had already asked the porter:
+
+"Is il signore principe at home?"
+
+The man looked at her suspiciously:
+
+"No," he said, curtly.
+
+"I believe he is. If so, ask if Miss Hope is with his excellency. Miss
+Hope was not at home; I believe that she was coming to see the prince
+this evening; and I want to speak to her urgently ... on a matter
+which will not brook delay. Here: la Signora de Retz...."
+
+She handed him her card. She spoke with the greatest self-possession
+and referred to Urania's visit calmly and simply, as though it were
+an every-day occurrence for American girls to call on Italian princes
+in the evening and as though she were persuaded that the porter knew
+of this custom. The man was disconcerted by her attitude, bowed,
+took the card and went away. Cornelie and Duco waited in the portico.
+
+He admired her calmness. He considered her behaviour eccentric; but
+she carried out her eccentricity with a self-assurance which once
+more showed her in a new light. Would he never understand her, would
+he never grasp anything or know anything for certain of that changeful
+and intangible vagueness of hers? He could never have spoken those few
+words to that porter in just that tone! Where had she got that tact
+from, that dignified, serious attitude towards that imposing janitor,
+with his long cane and his cocked hat? She did it all as easily as
+she ordered their simple dinner, with a pleasant familiarity, of the
+waiter at their little restaurant.
+
+The porter returned:
+
+"Miss Hope and his excellency beg that you will come upstairs."
+
+She looked at Duco with a triumphant smile, amused at his confusion:
+
+"Will you come too?"
+
+"Why, no," he stammered. "I can wait for you here."
+
+She followed the footman up the stairs. The wide corridor was hung
+with family-portraits. The drawing-room door was open and the prince
+came out to meet her.
+
+"Please forgive me, prince," she said, calmly, putting out her hand.
+
+His eyes were small and pinched and gleamed like carbuncles; he was
+white with rage; but he controlled himself and pressed his lips to
+the hand which she gave him.
+
+"Forgive me," she went on. "I want to speak to Miss Hope on an
+urgent matter."
+
+She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing and
+embarrassed.
+
+"You understand," Cornelie said, with a smile, "that I would not have
+disturbed you if it had not been important. A question between women
+... and still important!" she continued, jestingly; and the prince
+made an insipid, gallant reply. "May I speak to Miss Hope alone for
+a moment?"
+
+The prince looked at her. He suspected unfriendliness in her and more,
+hostility. But he bowed, with his insipid smile, and said that he
+would leave the ladies to themselves. He went to another room.
+
+"What is it, Cornelie?" asked Urania, in agitation.
+
+She took Cornelie's two hands and looked at her anxiously.
+
+"Nothing," said Cornelie, severely. "I have nothing to say to you. Only
+I had my suspicions and felt sure that you would not keep your
+promise. I wanted to make certain if you were here. Why did you come?"
+
+Urania began to weep.
+
+"Don't cry!" whispered Cornelie, mercilessly. "For God's sake don't
+start crying. You've done the most thoughtless thing imaginable...."
+
+"I know I have!" Urania confessed, nervously, drying her tears.
+
+"Then why did you do it?"
+
+"I couldn't help it."
+
+"Alone, with him, in the evening! A man well-known to be a bad lot."
+
+"I know."
+
+"What do you see in him?"
+
+"I'm fond of him."
+
+"You only want to marry him for his title. For the sake of his title
+you're compromising yourself. What if he doesn't respect you this
+evening as his future wife? What if he compels you to be his mistress?"
+
+"Cornelie! Don't!"
+
+"You're a child, a thoughtless child. And your father lets you travel
+by yourself ... to see 'dear old Italy!' You're an American and
+broad-minded: that's all right; to travel through the world pluckily
+on your own is all right; but you're not a woman, you're a baby!"
+
+"Cornelie...."
+
+"Come away with me; say that you're going with me ... for an urgent
+reason. Or no ... better say nothing. Stay. But I'll stay too."
+
+"Yes, you stay too."
+
+"We'll send for him now."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Cornelie rang the bell. A footman appeared.
+
+"Tell his excellency that we are ready."
+
+The man went away. In a little while the prince entered. He had never
+been treated like that in his own house. He was seething with rage,
+but he remained very polite and outwardly calm:
+
+"Is the important matter settled?" he asked, with his small eyes and
+his hypocritical smile.
+
+"Yes; thank you very much for your discretion in leaving us to
+ourselves," said Cornelie. "Now that I have spoken to Miss Hope,
+I am greatly relieved by what she has told me. Aha, you would like
+to know what we were talking about!"
+
+The prince raised his eyebrows. Cornelie had spoken archly, holding
+up her finger as though in threat, smiling; and the prince looked at
+her and saw that she was handsome. Not with the striking beauty and
+freshness of Urania Hope, but with a more complex attractiveness, that
+of a married woman, divorced, but very young; that of a fin-de-siecle
+woman, with a faintly perverse expression in her deep grey eyes,
+moving under very long lashes; that of a woman of peculiar grace
+in the drooping lines of her tired, lax, morbid charm: a woman who
+knew life; a woman who saw through him: he was certain of it; a woman
+who, though disliking him, nevertheless spoke to him coquettishly in
+order to attract him, to win him, unconsciously, from sheer womanly
+perversity. And he saw her, in her perverse beauty, and admired her,
+sensitive as he was to various types of women. He suddenly thought her
+handsomer and less commonplace than Urania and much more distinguished
+and not so ingenuously susceptible to his title, a thing which he
+thought so silly in Urania. He was suddenly at his ease with her,
+his anger subsided: he thought it fun to have two good-looking women
+with him instead of one; and he jested in return, saying that he was
+consumed with curiosity, that he had been listening at the door but
+had been unable to catch a word, alas!
+
+Cornelie laughed with coquettish gaiety and looked at her watch. She
+said something about going, but sat down at the same time, unbuttoned
+her coat and said to the prince:
+
+"I have heard so much about your miniatures. Now that I have the
+chance, may I see them?"
+
+The prince was willing, charmed by the look in her eyes, by her voice;
+he was all fire and flame in a second.
+
+"But," said Cornelie, "my escort is waiting outside in the portico. He
+would not come up: he doesn't know you. It is Mr. van der Staal."
+
+The prince laughed as he glanced at her. He knew of the gossip at
+Belloni's. He did not for a moment doubt the existence of a liaison
+between Van der Staal and Signora de Retz. He knew that they did not
+care for the proprieties. And he began to like Cornelie very much.
+
+"But I will send to Mr. van der Staal at once to ask him to come up."
+
+"He is waiting in the portico," said Cornelie. "He won't like to...."
+
+"I'll go myself," said the prince, with obliging vivacity.
+
+He left the room. The ladies stayed behind. Cornelie took off her
+coat, but kept on her hat, because her hair was sure to be untidy. She
+looked into the glass:
+
+"Have you your powder on you?" she asked Urania.
+
+Urania took her little ivory powder-box from her bag and handed it
+to Cornelie. And, while Cornelie powdered her face, Urania looked at
+her friend and did not understand. She remembered the impression of
+seriousness which Cornelie had made on her at their first meeting:
+studying Rome; afterwards, writing a pamphlet on the woman question
+and the position of divorced women. Then her warnings against marriage
+and the prince. And now she suddenly saw her as a most attractive,
+frivolous woman, irresistibly charming, even more bewitching than
+actually beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of her grey eyes,
+which glanced up and down under the curling lashes, simply dressed in
+a dark-silk blouse and a cloth skirt, but with so much distinction
+and so much coquetry, with so much dignity and yet with a touch of
+yielding winsomeness, that she hardly knew her.
+
+But the prince had returned, bringing Duco with him. Duco was nervously
+reluctant, not knowing what had happened, not grasping how Cornelie had
+acted. He saw her sitting quietly, smiling; and she at once explained
+that the prince was going to show her his miniatures.
+
+Duco declared flatly that he did not care for miniatures. The prince
+suspected from his irritable tone that he was jealous. And this
+suspicion incited the prince to pay attentions to Cornelie. And
+he behaved as though he were showing his miniatures only to her,
+as though he were showing her his old lace. She admired the lace
+in particular and rolled it between her delicate fingers. She asked
+him to tell her about his grandmothers, who used to wear the lace:
+had they had any adventures? He told her one, which made her laugh
+very much; then he told an anecdote or two, vivaciously, flaming
+up under her glance, and she laughed. Amid the atmosphere of that
+big drawing-room, his study--it contained his writing-table--with
+the candles lighted and flowers everywhere for Urania, a certain
+perverse gaiety began to reign, an airy joie de vivre. But only
+between Cornelie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent; and Duco
+did not speak a word. Cornelie was a revelation to him also. He had
+never seen her like that: not at the dance on Christmas Day, nor at
+the table-d'hote, nor in his studio, nor on their excursions, nor in
+their restaurant. Was she a woman, or was she ten women?
+
+And he confessed to himself that he loved her, that he loved her
+more at each revelation, more with each woman that he saw in her,
+like a new facet which she made to gleam and glitter. But he could
+not speak, could not join in their pleasantry, feeling strange in
+that atmosphere, strange in that atmosphere of buoyant animal spirits,
+caused by nothing but aimless words, as though the French and Italian
+which they mixed up together were dropping so many pearls, as though
+their jests shone like so much tinsel, as though their equivocal
+playing upon words had the iridescence of a rainbow....
+
+The prince regretted that his tea was no longer fit to drink, but
+he rang for some champagne. He thought that his plans had partly
+failed that evening, for, fearing to lose Urania, he had intended
+to compel her; seeing her hesitation, he had resolved to force the
+irreparable. But his nature was so devoid of seriousness--he was
+marrying to please his father and the Marchesa Belloni rather than
+himself; he enjoyed his life quite as well with a load of debts and no
+wife as he could hope to do with a wife and millions of money--that
+he began to consider the failure of his plans highly amusing and had
+to laugh within himself when he thought of his father, of his aunt,
+the marchesa, and of their machinations, which had no effect on Urania,
+because a pretty, flirtatious woman had objected.
+
+"Why did she object?" he wondered, as he poured out the foaming
+Monopole, spilling it over the glasses. "Why does she put herself
+between me and the American stocking-seller? Is she herself in Italy
+hunting for a title?"
+
+But he did not care: he thought the intruder charming, pretty, very
+pretty, coquettish, seductive, bewitching. He fussed around her,
+neglecting Urania, almost forgetting to fill her glass. And, when
+it grew late and Cornelie at last rose to go and drew Urania's arm
+through hers and looked at the prince with a glance of triumph which
+they mutually understood, he whispered in her ear:
+
+"I am ever so grateful to you for visiting me in my humble abode. You
+have defeated me: I acknowledge myself defeated."
+
+The words appeared to be merely an allusion to their jesting discussion
+about nothing; but, uttered between him and her, between the prince
+and Cornelie, they sounded full of meaning; and he saw the smile of
+victory in her eyes....
+
+He remained behind in his room and poured himself out what remained of
+the champagne. And, as he raised the glass to his lips, he said, aloud:
+
+"O, che occhi! Che belli occhi!... Che belli occhi!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Next day, when Duco met Cornelie at the osteria, she was very cheerful
+and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from
+the woman's paper to which she had sent her pamphlet the week before
+and that her work was not only accepted but would be paid for. She
+was so proud at earning money for the first time that she was as
+merry as a little child. She did not speak of the previous evening,
+seemed to have forgotten Urania, but felt an exuberant need to talk.
+
+She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a journalist,
+to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to pursue every
+reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate to congresses
+and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning already made
+her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a lot of money
+and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought her simply
+adorable: in the half light of the osteria, as she sat at the little
+table eating her gnocchi, with in front of her the mezzofiasco of
+pale-yellow wine of the country, her usual languor acquired a new
+vivacity which astonished him; her outline, half-dark on the left,
+lighted on the right by the sunshine in the street, acquired a modern
+grace of drawing which reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the
+rather pale face with the delicate features, lit up by her smile,
+faintly indicated under the sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes;
+the hair, touched with gold, or a dark light-brown; the white veil
+raised into a rumpled mist above; her figure, slender and gracious
+in the simple, unbuttoned coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.
+
+The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she addressed
+the cameriere--the only one, who knew them well, from seeing them
+daily--with a pleasant familiarity; the vivacity replacing her languor;
+her great plans, her gay phrases: all this seemed to shine upon him,
+unconstrained and yet distinguished, free and yet womanly and, above
+all, easy, as she was at her ease everywhere, with an assimilative
+tact which for him constituted a peculiar harmony. He thought of
+the evening before, but she did not speak of it. He thought of that
+revelation of her coquetry, but she was not thinking of coquetry. She
+was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, regarded him as
+clever and exceptional, though not belonging to his time; she respected
+him for the things which he said and thought; and she was as matter of
+fact towards him as one chum towards another, who happened to be older
+and cleverer. She felt for him a sincere friendship, an indescribable
+something that implied the need of being together, of living together,
+as though the lines of their two lives should form one line. It was
+not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion and to her mind it
+was not love; but it was a great sense of respectful tenderness, of
+longing admiration and of affectionate delight at having met him. If
+she never saw him again, she would miss him as she would never miss
+any one in her life. And that he took no interest in modern questions
+did not lower him in the eyes of this young modern Amazon, who was
+about to wave her first banner. It might vex her for an instant,
+but it did not carry weight in her estimation of him. And he saw
+that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without coquetry. Yet
+he would never forget what she had been like yesterday, with the
+prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in Urania also. But she
+herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with her nature that
+she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince, of Urania,
+of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on their side.
+
+He paid the bill--it was his turn--and she gaily took his arm and
+said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he would
+be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a very
+handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was going
+to receive for her article. But she hadn't got it yet ... as though
+that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to give him
+his present now.
+
+He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and
+whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it
+be? But she refused to tell him yet.
+
+The vetturino drove them through the Borgo to the Tiber and stopped
+outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the wares lay heaped
+up right out into the street.
+
+"Cornelie!" Duco exclaimed, guessing.
+
+"Your Lippo Memmi angel. I'm getting it for you. Not a word!"
+
+The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop.
+
+"Ask him how much he wants for it."
+
+He was too much moved to speak; and Cornelie had to ask the price
+and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a
+hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.
+
+And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the
+stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness
+into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a
+noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with long, almond-shaped
+eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last stir of his flight;
+and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak fluttered in the
+air while his long wings quivered straight above him. Duco stared at
+his Memmi, filled with a two-fold emotion, because of the angel and
+because of her.
+
+And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms:
+
+"May I thank you, Cornelie?"
+
+And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When she came home she found the prince's card. It was an ordinary
+civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected visit to the
+Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a second thought. She was
+in a pleasant frame of mind, pleased with herself, glad that her work
+would appear first as an article in Het Recht der Vrouw [1]--she would
+publish it as a pamphlet afterwards--and glad that she had made Duco
+happy with the Memmi. She changed into her tea-gown and sat down by the
+fire in her musing attitude and thought of how she could carry out her
+great plans. To whom ought she to apply? There was an International
+Women's Congress sitting in London; and Het Recht der Vrouw had sent
+her a prospectus. She turned over the pages. Different feminist leaders
+were to speak; there would be numbers of social questions discussed:
+the psychology of the child; the responsibility of the parents; the
+influence on domestic life of women's admission to all the professions;
+women in art, women in medicine; the fashionable woman; the woman at
+home, on the stage; marriage- and divorce-laws.
+
+In addition the prospectus gave concise biographies of the speakers,
+with their portraits. There were American, Russian, English, Swedish,
+Danish women; nearly every nationality was represented. There were
+old women and young women; some pretty, some ugly; some masculine,
+some womanly; some hard and energetic, with sexless boys' faces; one
+or two only were elegant, with low-cut dresses and waved hair. It was
+not easy to divide them into groups. What impulse in their lives had
+prompted them to join in the struggle for women's rights? In some,
+no doubt, inclination, nature; in an occasional case, vocation;
+in another, the desire to be in the fashion. And, in her own case,
+what was the impulse?... She dropped the prospectus in her lap and
+stared into the fire and reflected. Her drawing-room education passed
+before her once more, followed by her marriage, by her divorce....
+
+What was the impulse? What was the inducement?... She had come to it
+gradually, to go abroad, to extend her sphere of vision, to reflect,
+to learn about art, about the modern life of women. She had glided
+gradually along the line of her life, with no great effort of will
+or striving, without even thinking much or feeling much.... She
+glanced into herself, as though she were reading a modern novel,
+the psychology of a woman. Sometimes she seemed to will things, to
+wish to strive, as just now, to pursue her great plans. Sometimes
+she would sit thinking, as she often did in these days, beside her
+cosy fire. Sometimes she felt, as she now did, for Duco. But mostly
+her life had been a gradual gliding along the line which she had to
+follow, urged by the gentle pressure of the finger of fate.... For
+a moment she saw it clearly. There was a great sincerity in her: she
+never posed either to herself or to others. There were contradictions
+in her, but she recognized them all, in so far as she could see
+herself. But the open landscape of her soul became clear to her at
+that moment. She saw the complexity of her being gleam with its many
+facets.... She had taken to writing, out of impulse and intuition;
+but was her writing any good? A doubt rose in her mind. A copy of
+the code lay on her table, a survival of the days of her divorce; but
+had she understood the law correctly? Her article was accepted; but
+was the judgement of the editress to be trusted? As her eyes wandered
+once again over those women's portraits and biographies, she became
+afraid that her work would not be good, would be too superficial,
+and that her ideas were not directed by study and knowledge. But she
+could also imagine her own photograph appearing in that prospectus,
+with her name under it and a brief comment: writer of The Social
+Position of Divorced Women, with the name of the paper, the date and
+so on. And she smiled: how highly convincing it sounded!
+
+But how difficult it was to study, to work and understand and act and
+move in the modern movement of life! She was now in Rome: she would
+have liked to be in London. But it did not suit her at the moment
+to make the journey. She had felt rich when she bought Duco's Memmi,
+thinking of the payment for her article; and now she felt poor. She
+would much have liked to go to London. But then she would have missed
+Duco. And the congress lasted only a week. She was pretty well at home
+here now, was beginning to love Rome, her rooms, the Colosseum lying
+yonder like a dark oval, like a sombre wing at the end of the city,
+with the hazy-blue mountains behind it.
+
+Then the prince came into her mind and for the first time she thought
+of yesterday, saw that evening again, an evening of jesting and
+champagne: Duco silent and sulky, Urania depressed and the prince
+small, lively, slender, roused from his slackness as an aristocratic
+man-about-town and with his narrow carbuncle eyes. She thought him
+really pleasant; once in a way she liked that atmosphere of coquetry
+and flirtation; and the prince had understood her. She had saved
+Urania, she was sure of that; and she felt the content of her good
+action....
+
+She was too lazy to dress and go to the restaurant. She was not very
+hungry and would stay at home and sup on what was in her cupboard:
+a couple of eggs, bread, some fruit. But she remembered Duco and that
+he would certainly be waiting for her at their little table and she
+wrote him a note and sent it by the hall-porter's boy....
+
+Duco was just coming down, on his way out to the restaurant, when
+he met the little fellow on the stairs. He read the note and felt
+as if he was suffering a grievous disappointment. He felt small and
+unhappy, like a child. And he went back to his studio, lit a single
+lamp, threw himself on a broad couch and lay staring in the dusk at
+Memmi's angel, who, still standing on the chair, glimmered vaguely
+gold in the middle of the room, sweet as comfort, with his gesture
+of annunciation, as though he sought to announce all the mystery that
+was about to be fulfilled....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+A few days later, Cornelie was expecting a visit from the prince, who
+had asked her for an appointment. She was sitting at her writing-table,
+correcting proofs of her article. A lamp on the writing-table cast
+a soft glow over her through a yellow silk shade; and she wore
+her tea-gown of white crepe de Chine, with a bunch of violets at
+her breast. Another lamp, on a pedestal, cast a second gleam from a
+corner; and the room flickered in cosy intimacy with the third light
+from the log-fire, falling over water-colours by Duco, sketches and
+photographs, white anenomes in vases, violets everywhere and one tall
+palm. The writing-table was littered with books and printed sheets,
+bearing witness to her work.
+
+There was a knock at the door; and, at her "Come in," the prince
+entered. She remained seated for a moment, laid down her pen and
+rose. She went up to him with a smile and held out her hand. He
+kissed it. He was very smartly dressed in a frock-coat, with a silk
+hat and pale-grey gloves; he wore a pearl pin in his tie. They sat
+down by the fire and he paid her compliments in quick succession, on
+her sitting-room, her dress and her eyes. She made a jesting reply;
+and he asked if he was disturbing her:
+
+"Perhaps you were writing an interesting letter to some one near
+your heart?"
+
+"No, I was revising some proofs."
+
+"Proofs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you write?"
+
+"I have just begun to."
+
+"A story?"
+
+"No, an article."
+
+"An article? What about?"
+
+She gave him the long title. He looked at her open-mouthed. She
+laughed gaily:
+
+"You would never have believed it, would you?"
+
+"Santa Maria!" he murmured in surprise, unaccustomed in his own world
+to "modern" women, taking part in a feminist movement. "Dutch?"
+
+"Yes, Dutch."
+
+"Write in French next time: then I can read it."
+
+She laughed and gave her promise, poured him out a cup of tea, handed
+the chocolates. He nibbled at them:
+
+"Are you so serious? Have you always been? You were not serious the
+other day."
+
+"Sometimes I am very serious."
+
+"So am I."
+
+"I gathered that. If I had not come that time, you might have become
+very serious."
+
+He gave a fatuous laugh and looked at her knowingly:
+
+"You are a wonderful woman!" he said. "Very interesting and very
+clever. What you want to happen happens."
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Sometimes what I want also. Sometimes I also am very clever. When
+I want a thing. But generally I don't want it."
+
+"You did the other day."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Yes! You were cleverer than I then. To-morrow perhaps I shall be
+cleverer than you."
+
+"Who knows!"
+
+They both laughed. He nibbled the chocolates in the dish, one after
+the other, and asked if he might have a glass of port instead of
+tea. She poured him out a glass.
+
+"May I give you something?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"A souvenir of our first acquaintance."
+
+"It is very charming of you. What is it to be?"
+
+He took something wrapped in tissue-paper from his pocket and handed
+it to her. She opened the little parcel and saw a strip of old Venetian
+lace, worked in the shape of a flounce, for a low bodice.
+
+"Do accept it," he besought her. "It is a lovely piece. It is such
+a pleasure to me to give it to you."
+
+She looked at him with all her coquetry in her eyes, as though she
+were trying to see through him.
+
+"You must wear it like this."
+
+He stood up, took the lace and draped it over her white tea-gown from
+shoulder to shoulder. His fingers fumbled with the folds, his lips
+just touched her hair.
+
+She thanked him for his gift. He sat down again:
+
+"I am glad that you will accept it."
+
+"Have you given Miss Hope something too?"
+
+He laughed, with his little laugh of conquest:
+
+"Patterns are all she wants, patterns of the queen's ball-dresses. I
+wouldn't dare to give you patterns. To you I give old lace."
+
+"But you nearly ruined your career for the sake of that pattern?"
+
+"Oh, well!" he laughed.
+
+"Which career?"
+
+"Oh, don't!" he said, evasively. "Tell me, what do you advise me
+to do?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Shall I marry her?"
+
+"I am against all marriage, between cultivated people."
+
+She wanted to repeat some of her phrases, but thought to herself,
+why? He would not understand them. He looked at her profoundly,
+with his carbuncle eyes:
+
+"So you are in favour of free love?"
+
+"Sometimes. Not always. Between cultivated people."
+
+He was certain now, had any doubt still lingered in his mind, that
+a liaison existed between her and Van der Staal.
+
+"And do you think me ... cultivated?"
+
+She laughed provocatively, with a touch of scorn in her voice:
+
+"Listen. Shall I speak to you seriously?"
+
+"I wish you would."
+
+"I consider neither you nor Miss Hope suited for free love."
+
+"So I am not cultivated?"
+
+"I don't mean it in the sense of being civilized. I mean modern
+culture."
+
+"So I am not modern."
+
+"No," she said, slightly irritated.
+
+"Teach me to be modern."
+
+She gave a nervous laugh:
+
+"Oh, don't let us talk like this! You want to know my advice. I advise
+you not to marry Urania."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you would both of you have a wretched life. She is a dear
+little American parvenue...."
+
+"I am offering her what I possess; she is offering me what she
+possesses...."
+
+He nibbled at the chocolates. She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"Then marry her," she said, with indifference.
+
+"Tell me that you don't want me to and I won't."
+
+"And your father? And the marchesa?"
+
+"What do you know about them?"
+
+"Oh ... everything and nothing!"
+
+"You are a demon!" he exclaimed. "An angel and a demon! Tell me,
+what do you know about my father and the marchesa?"
+
+"For how much are you selling yourself to Urania? For not less than
+ten millions?"
+
+He looked at her in bewilderment.
+
+"But the marchesa thinks five enough. And a very handsome sum it is:
+five millions. Which is it, dollars or lire?"
+
+He clapped his hands together:
+
+"You are a devil!" he cried. "You are an angel and a devil! How do
+you know? How do you know? Do you know everything?"
+
+She flung herself back in her chair and laughed:
+
+"Everything."
+
+"But how?"
+
+She looked at him and shook her head tantalizingly.
+
+"Tell me."
+
+"No. It's my secret."
+
+"And you think that I ought not to sell myself?"
+
+"I dare not advise you as regards your own interest."
+
+"And as regards Urania?"
+
+"I advise her not to do it."
+
+"Have you done so already?"
+
+"Once in a way."
+
+"So you are my enemy?" he exclaimed, angrily.
+
+"No," she said, gently, wishing to conciliate him. "I am a friend."
+
+"A friend? To what length?"
+
+"To the length to which I wish to go."
+
+"Not the length to which I wish?"
+
+"Oh, no, never!"
+
+"But perhaps we both wish to go to the same length?"
+
+He had stood up, with his blood on fire. She remained seated calmly,
+almost languidly, with her head thrown back. She did not reply. He
+fell on his knees, seized her hand and was kissing it before she
+could prevent him:
+
+"Oh, angel, angel. Oh, demon!" he muttered, between his kisses.
+
+She now withdrew her hand, pushed him away from her gently and said:
+
+"How quick an Italian is with his kisses!"
+
+She laughed at him. He rose from his knees:
+
+"Teach me what Dutchwomen are like, though they are slower than we."
+
+She pointed to his chair, with an imperious gesture:
+
+"Sit down," she said. "I am not a typical Dutchwoman. If I
+were, I should not have come to Rome. I pride myself on being a
+cosmopolitan. But we were not discussing that, we were speaking of
+Urania. Are you thinking seriously of marrying her?"
+
+"What can I do, if you thwart me? Why not be on my side, like a
+dear friend?"
+
+She hesitated. Neither of these two, Urania or he, was ripe for
+her ideas. She despised them both. Very well, let them get married:
+he in order to be rich; she to become a princess and duchess.
+
+"Listen to me," she said, bending towards him. "You want to marry her
+for the sake of her millions. But your marriage will be unhappy from
+the beginning. She is a frivolous little thing; she will want to cut
+a dash ... and you belong to the Blacks."
+
+"We can live at Nice: then she can do as she pleases. We will come
+to Rome now and again, go to San Stefano now and again. And, as for
+unhappiness," he continued, pulling a tragic face, "what do I care? I
+am not happy as it is. I shall try to make Urania happy. But my heart
+... will be elsewhere."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"With the feminist movement."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"Well, shall I be nice to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And promise to help you?"
+
+What did she care, when all was said?
+
+"Oh, angel, demon!" he cried. He nibbled at a chocolate. "And what
+does Mr. van der Staal think of it?" he asked, mischievously.
+
+She raised her eyebrows:
+
+"He doesn't think about it. He thinks only of his art."
+
+"And of you."
+
+She looked at him and bowed her head in queenly assent:
+
+"And of me."
+
+"You often dine with him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come and dine with me one day."
+
+"I shall be delighted."
+
+"To-morrow evening? And where?"
+
+"Wherever you like."
+
+"In the Grand-Hotel?"
+
+"Ask Urania to come too."
+
+"Why not you and I alone?"
+
+"I think it better that you should invite your future wife. I will
+chaperon her."
+
+"You are right. You are quite right. And will you ask Mr. van der
+Staal also to give me the pleasure of his company?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Until to-morrow then, at half-past eight?"
+
+"Until half-past eight to-morrow."
+
+He rose to take his leave:
+
+"Propriety demands that I should go," he said. "Really I should prefer
+to stay."
+
+"Well, then stay ... or stay another time, if you have to go now."
+
+"You are so cold."
+
+"And you don't think enough of Urania."
+
+"I think of the feminist movement."
+
+He sat down.
+
+"I'm afraid you must go," she said, laughing with her eyes. "I have
+to dress ... to go and dine with Mr. van der Staal."
+
+He kissed her hand:
+
+"You are an angel and a demon. You know everything. You can do
+anything. You are the most interesting woman I ever met."
+
+"Because I correct proofs."
+
+"Because you are what you are."
+
+And, very seriously, still holding her hand he said, almost
+threateningly:
+
+"I shall never be able to forget you."
+
+And he went away. As soon as she was alone, she opened all her
+windows. She realized, it was true, that she was something of a
+coquette, but that lay in her nature: she was like that of herself, to
+some men. Certainly not to all. Never to Duco. Never to men whom she
+respected. Whereas she despised that little prince, with his blazing
+eyes and his habit of kissing people.... But he served to amuse her....
+
+And she dressed and went out and reached the restaurant long after
+the appointed hour, found Duco waiting for her at their little table,
+with his head in his hands, and at once told him that the prince had
+detained her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Duco had at first wished to decline the invitation, but Cornelie
+said that she would think it pleasanter if he came. And it was an
+exquisite dinner in the restaurant of the Grand-Hotel and Cornelie
+had enjoyed herself exceedingly and looked most charming in an old
+yellow ball-dress, dating back to the first days of her marriage,
+which she had altered quickly here and there and draped with the
+prince's old lace. Urania had looked very handsome, with her clear,
+fresh complexion, her shining eyes and gleaming teeth, clad in a
+close-fitting frock in the latest fashion, blue-black spangles on
+black tulle, as though she were moulded in a cuirass: the prince said,
+a siren with a mermaid's tail. And the people at the other tables had
+stared across at theirs, for everybody knew Virgilio di Forte-Braccio;
+everybody knew that he was going to marry a rich American heiress;
+and everybody had noticed that he was paying great attention to the
+slender, fair-haired woman whom nobody knew. She had been married,
+they thought; she was chaperoning the future princess; and she was
+very intimate with that young man, a Dutch painter, who was studying
+art in Italy. They had soon found out all that there was to know.
+
+Cornelie had thought it pleasant that they all looked at her; and
+she had flirted so obviously with the prince that Urania had become
+angry. And early next morning, while Cornelie was still in bed, no
+longer thinking of last night but pondering over a sentence in her
+pamphlet, the maid knocked, brought in her breakfast and letters and
+said that Miss Hope was asking to speak to her. Cornelie had Urania
+shown in, while she remained in bed and drank her chocolate. And
+she looked up in surprise when Urania at once overwhelmed her with
+reproaches, burst into sobs, scolded and raved, made a violent scene,
+said that she now saw through her and admitted that the marchesa had
+urged her to be careful of Cornelie, whom she described as a dangerous
+woman. Cornelie waited until she had had her say and replied coolly
+that she had nothing on her conscience, that on the contrary she had
+saved Urania and been of service to her as a chaperon, though she did
+not tell her that the prince had wanted her, Cornelie, to dine with
+him alone. But Urania refused to listen and went on ranting. Cornelie
+looked at her and thought her vulgar in that rage of hers, talking
+her American English, as though she were chewing filberts; and at
+last she answered, calmly:
+
+"My dear girl, you're upsetting yourself about nothing. But, if
+you like, I will write to the prince that he must pay me no more
+attentions."
+
+"No, no, don't do that: it'll make Gilio think I'm jealous!"
+
+"And aren't you?"
+
+"Why do you monopolize Gilio? Why do you flirt with him? Why do
+you make yourself conspicuous with him, as you did yesterday, in a
+restaurant full of people?"
+
+"Well, if you dislike it, I won't flirt with Gilio again or make myself
+conspicuous with him again. I don't care twopence about your prince."
+
+"That's an extra reason."
+
+"Very well, dear, that's settled."
+
+Her coolness calmed Urania, who asked:
+
+"And do we remain good friends?"
+
+"Why, of course, my dear girl. Is there any occasion for us to
+quarrel? I don't see it."
+
+Both of them, the prince and Urania, were quite indifferent to
+her. True, she had preached to Urania in the beginning, but about a
+general idea: when afterwards she perceived Urania's insignificance,
+she withdrew the interest which she took in her. And, if the girl
+was offended by a little gaiety and innocent flirtation, very well,
+there should be no more of it. Her thoughts were more with the proofs
+which the post had brought her.
+
+She got out of bed and stretched herself:
+
+"Go into the sitting-room, Urania dear, and just let me have my bath."
+
+Presently, all fresh and smiling, she joined Urania in the
+sitting-room. Urania was crying.
+
+"My dear child, why are you upsetting yourself like this? You've
+achieved your ideal. Your marriage is as good as certain. You're
+waiting for an answer from Chicago? You're impatient? Then cable
+out. I should have cabled at once in your place. You don't imagine,
+do you, that your father has any objection to your becoming Duchess
+di San Stefano?"
+
+"I don't know yet what I myself want," said Urania, weeping. "I don't
+know, I don't know."
+
+Cornelie shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You're more sensible than I thought," she said.
+
+"Are you really my friend? Can I trust you? Can I trust your advice?"
+
+"I won't advise you again. I have advised you. You must know your
+own mind."
+
+Urania took her hand:
+
+"Which would you prefer, that I accepted Gilio ... or not?"
+
+Cornelie looked her straight in the eyes:
+
+"You're making yourself unhappy about nothing. You think--and
+the marchesa probably thinks with you--that I want to take Gilio
+from you? No, darling, I wouldn't marry Gilio if he were king and
+emperor. I have a bit of the socialist in me: I don't marry for the
+sake of a title."
+
+"No more would I."
+
+"Of course, darling, no more would you. I never dreamt of suggesting
+that you would. But you ask me which I should prefer. Well, I tell
+you in all sincerity: I don't prefer either. The whole business leaves
+me cold."
+
+"And you call yourself my friend!"
+
+"So I am, dear, and I will remain your friend. Only don't come
+overwhelming me with reproaches on an empty stomach!"
+
+"You're a flirt."
+
+"Sometimes. It comes natural to me. But, honestly, I won't be so
+again with Gilio."
+
+"Do you mean it?"
+
+"Yes, of course. What do I care? He amuses me; but, if it offends you,
+I'll gladly sacrifice my amusement for your sake. I don't value it
+so much."
+
+"Are you fond of Mr. van der Staal?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Are you going to marry him, Cornelie?"
+
+"No, dear. I sha'n't marry again. I know what marriage means. Are
+you coming for a little walk with me? It's a fine day; and you have
+upset me so with your little troubles that I can't do any work this
+morning. It's lovely weather: come along and buy some flowers in the
+Piazza di Spagna."
+
+They went and bought the flowers. Cornelie took Urania back to
+Belloni's. As she walked away, on the road to the osteria for lunch,
+she heard somebody following her. It was the prince.
+
+"I caught sight of you from the corner of the Via Aurora," he
+said. "Urania was just going home."
+
+"Prince," she said at once, "there must be no more of it."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"No more visits, no more joking, no more presents, no more dinners
+at the Grand-Hotel, no more champagne."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The future princess won't have it."
+
+"Is she jealous?"
+
+Cornelie described the scene to him:
+
+"And you mayn't even walk with me."
+
+"Yes, I may."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"I shall, for all that."
+
+"By the right of the man, of the strongest?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"My vocation is to fight against it. But to-day I am untrue to my
+vocation."
+
+"You are charming ... as always."
+
+"You mustn't say that any more."
+
+"Urania's a bore.... Tell me, what do you advise me to do? Shall I
+marry her?"
+
+Cornelie gave a peal of laughter:
+
+"You both of you keep asking my advice!"
+
+"Yes, yes, what do you think?"
+
+"Marry her by all means!"
+
+He did not observe her contempt.
+
+"Exchange your escutcheon for her purse," she continued and laughed
+and laughed.
+
+He now perceived it:
+
+"You despise me, perhaps both of us."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Tell me that you don't despise me."
+
+"You ask me my opinion. Urania is a very sweet, dear child, but she
+ought not to travel by herself. And you ..."
+
+"And I?"
+
+"You are a delightful boy. Buy me those violets, will you?"
+
+"Subito, subito!"
+
+He bought her the bunch of violets:
+
+"You're crazy over violets, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. This must be your second ... and your last present. And here
+we say good-bye."
+
+"No, I shall take you home."
+
+"I'm not going home."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the osteria. Mr. van der Staal is waiting for me."
+
+"He's a lucky man!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He needs must be!"
+
+"I don't see why. Good-bye, prince."
+
+"Ask me to come too," he entreated. "Let me lunch with you."
+
+"No," she said, seriously. "Really not. It's better not. I believe...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That Duco is just like Urania."
+
+"Jealous?... When shall I see you again?"
+
+"Really, believe me, it's better not.... Good-bye, prince. And thank
+you ... for the violets."
+
+He bent over her hand. She went into the osteria and saw that Duco
+had witnessed their leave-taking through the window.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Duco was silent and nervous at table. He played with his bread;
+and his fingers trembled. She felt that he had something on his mind:
+
+"What is it?" she asked, kindly.
+
+"Cornelie," he said, excitedly, "I want to speak to you."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"You're not behaving properly."
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on
+putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish,"
+he said, looking around him: there was no one in the restaurant save
+two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they could speak without
+being overheard. "Let me finish," he repeated, when she tried to
+interrupt him. "Let me say what I have to say. You of course are
+free to act as you please. But I am your friend and I want to advise
+you. What you are doing is not right. The prince is a cad, a low,
+common cad. How can you accept presents from him and invitations? Why
+did you compel me to come yesterday? The dinner was one long torture
+to me. You know how fond I am of you: why shouldn't I confess it? You
+know how high I hold you. I can't bear to see you lowering yourself
+with him. Let me speak. Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your
+shoe-strings. And you play with him, you jest with him, you flirt--let
+me speak--you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like
+that? What part can he play in your life? Let him marry Miss Hope:
+what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people matter
+to you, Cornelie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then
+why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their
+titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh,
+I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I
+love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't
+matter whether I understand you. But I do feel that this isn't right. I
+ask you not to see the prince any more. Have nothing more to do with
+him. Cut him.... That dinner, last night, was a torture to me...."
+
+"My poor boy," she said, gently, filling his glass from their fiasco,
+"but why?"
+
+"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
+
+"I do not stand so high. No, let me speak now. I do not stand
+high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which are
+broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an
+ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No,
+Duco, I'm speaking now. I don't consider the prince a cad. I may think
+him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know that I
+too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty. Now
+don't get angry. You are much more than that. I'm not even comparing
+il nostro Gilio with you. I won't say anything more about you, or
+you will become conceited, but cheerful and witty you are not. And
+my poor nature sometimes feels a need for these qualities. What have
+I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I am very glad to possess
+your friendship, very happy in having met you. But why may I not
+sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a little light-heartedness
+in me, a little frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco,
+am I wicked?"
+
+He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did
+not answer.
+
+"I can fight, if necessary," she resumed. "But is this a thing to fight
+against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I forget it the next
+minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you I do not forget."
+
+He was looking at her radiantly.
+
+"Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't flirt and
+fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry."
+
+She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her fingers:
+
+"Cornelie," he said, softly. "Yes, I feel that you are loyal. Cornelie,
+will you be my wife?"
+
+She looked straight in front of her and drooped her head a little
+and stared before her earnestly. They were no longer eating. The two
+Italians stood up, bowed and went away. They were alone. The waiter
+set some fruit before them and withdrew.
+
+They both sat silent for a moment. Then she spoke in a gentle voice;
+and her whole being displayed so tender a melancholy that he could
+have burst into sobs and worshipped her where she sat.
+
+"I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was in the
+nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead to
+that question. But it can't be, dearest Duco. It can't be, my dear,
+dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it's not that. I am against
+marriage ... but it's not that. In some cases a woman is unfaithful
+to all her ideas in a single second.... Then what is it?..."
+
+She stared wide-eyed and passed her hand over her forehead, as though
+she did not see clearly. Then she continued:
+
+"It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through it,
+I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see
+that habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual
+characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit,
+a groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I
+think passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can
+be noble and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based
+upon our petty human morality and calculation. And I have become
+frightened of those prudent moral ties. I promised myself--and I
+believe that I shall keep my promise--never to marry again. My whole
+nature has become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl
+going to parties and dinners and looking out for a husband, together
+with her parents.... My love for him was passion. And in my marriage
+he wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I
+rebelled.... I'd rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too short a
+time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow, etcetera? One
+needn't marry for that. I can feel esteem just as well without being
+married. Of course there is the question of the children, there are
+many difficulties. I can't think it all out now. I merely feel now,
+very seriously and calmly, that I am not fit to marry and that I
+never will marry again. I should not make you happy.... Don't be sad,
+Duco. I am fond of you, I love you. And perhaps ... had I met you
+at the right moment. Had I met you before, in my Hague life ... you
+would certainly have stood too high for me. I could not have grown
+fond of you. Now I can understand you, respect you and look up to
+you. I tell you this quite simply, that I love you and look up to you,
+look up to you, in spite of all your gentleness, as I never looked up
+to my husband, however much he made his manly privilege prevail. And
+you are to believe that, very firmly and with great certainty, and
+you must believe that I am true. I am coquettish ... only with Gilio."
+
+He looked at her through his silent tears. He stood up, called the
+waiter, paid the bill absent-mindedly, while everything swam and
+flashed before his eyes. They went out of the door and she hailed a
+carriage and told the man to drive to the Villa Doria-Pamphili. She
+remembered that the gardens were open. They drove there in silence,
+steeped in their thoughts of the future that was opening tremulously
+before them. Sometimes he heaved a deep breath and quivered all over
+his body. Once she fervently squeezed his hand. At the gate of the
+villa they alighted and walked up the majestic avenues. Rome lay in
+the depths below; and they suddenly saw St. Peter's. But they did
+not speak; and she suddenly sat down on an ancient bench and began
+to weep softly and feebly. He put his arm round her and comforted
+her. She dried her tears, smiled and embraced him and returned his
+kiss.... Twilight fell; and they went back. He gave the address of
+his studio. She accompanied him. And she gave herself to him, in all
+her truthful sincerity and with a love so violent and so great that
+she thought she would swoon in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+They did not alter their mode of life. Duco, however, after a
+scene with his mother, no longer slept at Belloni's but in a
+little room adjoining his studio and at first filled with trunks
+and lumber. Cornelie was sorry about the scene: she had always had
+a liking for Mrs. van der Staal and the girls. But a certain pride
+arose in her; and Cornelie despised Mrs. van der Staal because she
+was unable to understand either her or Duco. Still, she would have
+been pleased to prevent this coolness. At her advice Duco went to see
+his mother again, but she remained cool and sent him away. Thereupon
+Cornelie and Duco went to Naples. They did not do this by way of
+an elopement, they did it quite simply: Cornelie told Urania and
+the prince that she was going to Naples for a little while and that
+Van der Staal would probably follow her. She did not know Naples and
+would appreciate it greatly if Van der Staal showed her over the town
+and the surrounding country. Cornelie kept on her rooms in Rome. And
+they spent a fortnight of sheer, careless and immense happiness. Their
+love grew spacious and blossoming in the golden sunlight of Naples,
+on the blue gulfs of Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and Castellamare, simply,
+irresistibly and restfully. They glided gradually along the purple
+thread of their lives, they walked hand in hand down their lines now
+fused into one path, heedless of the laws and ideas of men; and their
+attitude was so lofty, their action so serene and so certain of their
+happiness, that their relations did not degenerate into insolence,
+although within themselves they despised the world. But this happiness
+softened all that pride in their soaring souls, as if their happiness
+were strewing blossoms all around it. They lived in a dream, first
+among the marbles in the museum, then on the flower-strewn cliffs
+of Amalfi, on the beach of Capri or on the terrace of the hotel at
+Sorrento, with the sea roaring at their feet and, in a pearly haze,
+yonder, vaguely white, as though drawn in white chalk, Castellamare
+and Naples and the ghost of Vesuvius, with its hazy plume of smoke.
+
+They held aloof from everybody, from all the people and excursionists;
+they had their meals at a small table; and it was generally thought
+that they were newly married. If others looked up their names in the
+visitors' book, they read two names and made whispered comments. But
+the lovers did not hear, did not see; they lived their dream, looking
+into each other's eyes or at the opal sky, the pearly sea and the hazy,
+white mountain-vistas, studded with towns like little specks of chalk.
+
+When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to
+Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now,
+in his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued
+their dream among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati,
+beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the
+gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their
+happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found
+love with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of
+him. And because of that charm they were surrounded by a sort of aura,
+through which they did not see ordinary life or meet ordinary people.
+
+At last, one afternoon, Urania found them both at home, in Cornelie's
+room, the fire lighted, she smiling and gazing into the fire, he
+sitting at her feet and she with her arm round his neck. And they
+were evidently thinking of so little besides their own love that
+neither of them heard her knock and both suddenly saw her standing
+before them, like an unexpected reality. Their dream was over for that
+day. Urania laughed, Cornelie laughed and Duco pushed an easy-chair
+closer. And Urania, blithe, beautiful and brilliant, told them that
+she was engaged. Where on earth had they been hiding, she asked,
+inquisitively. She was engaged. She had been to San Stefano, she had
+seen the old prince. And everything was lovely and good and dear:
+the old castle a dear old house, the old man a dear old man. She saw
+everything through the glitter of her future princess' title. Princess
+and duchess! The wedding-day was fixed: immediately after Easter, in
+a little more than three months therefore. It was to be celebrated at
+San Carlo, with all the splendour of a great wedding. Her father was
+coming over for it with her youngest brother. She was obviously not
+looking forward to their arrival. And she never finished talking:
+she gave a thousand details about her bridal outfit, with which
+the marchesa was helping her. They were going to live at Nice, in
+a large flat. She raved about Nice: that was a first-rate idea of
+Gilio's. And incidentally she remembered and told them that she had
+become a Catholic. That was a great nuisance! But the monsignori saw
+to everything and she allowed herself to be guided by them. And the
+Pope was to receive her in private audience, together with Gilio. The
+difficulty was what to wear at the audience: black, of course, but
+... velvet, satin? What did Cornelie advise her? She had such excellent
+taste. And a black-lace veil on her head, with brilliants. She was
+going to Nice next day, with the marchesa and Gilio, to see their flat.
+
+When she was gone, after begging Cornelie to come and admire her
+trousseau, Cornelie said, with a smile:
+
+"She is happy. After all, happiness is something different for
+everybody. A trousseau and a title would not make me happy."
+
+"These are the small people," he said, "who cross our lives now and
+again. I prefer to get out of their way."
+
+And they did not say so, but they both thought--with their fingers
+interlaced, her eyes gazing into his--that they also were happy, but
+with a loftier, better and nobler happiness; and pride arose within
+them; and they beheld as in a vision the line of their life winding up
+a steep hill. But happiness snowed blossoms down upon it; and amid the
+snowing blossoms, holding high their proud heads, with smiles and eyes
+of love, they walked on in their dream remote from mankind and reality.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+The months dreamed past. And their happiness caused such a summer to
+bloom in them that she ripened in beauty and he in talent; the pride in
+them broke into expression: in her it was the blossoming of her being,
+in him it was energy; her languid charm became transformed into a proud
+slenderness; her contour increased in fullness; a light illumined
+her eyes, a gladness shone about her mouth. His hands quivered with
+nervous emotion when he took up his brushes; and the skies of Italy
+arched firmaments before his eyes like a canopy of love and fervid
+colour. He drew and completed a series of water-colours: hazes of
+dreamy atmosphere which suggested Turner's noblest creations; natural
+monuments of sheer haze; all the milky blue and pearly mistiness of the
+Bay of Naples, like a goblet filled with light in which a turquoise
+is melted into water; and he sent them to Holland, to London, found
+that he had suddenly discovered his vocation, his work and his fame:
+courage, strength, aim and conquest.
+
+She too achieved a certain success with her article: it was discussed,
+contested; her name was mentioned. But she felt a certain indifference
+when she read her name in connection with the feminist movement. She
+preferred to live with him his life of observation and emotion; and
+she often imparted to all the haze of his vision, to the excessive
+haziness of his colour-dream a lustre of light, a definite horizon,
+a streak of actuality which gave realism to the mist of his ideal. She
+learnt with him to distinguish and to feel nature, art, all Rome; and,
+when a symbolic impulse overmastered him, she surrendered herself
+to it entirely. He planned a large sketch of a procession of women,
+mounting along a line of life that wound up a hill: they seemed
+to be moving out of a crumbling city of antiquity, whose pillars,
+joined by a single architrave, quivered on high in a violet haze
+of evening dusk; they seemed to be releasing themselves from the
+shadow of the ruins fading away on the horizon into the void of
+night; and they thronged upwards, calling to one another aloud,
+beckoning to one another with great waving gestures of their hands,
+under a mighty fluttering of streamers and pennants; they grasped
+hammer and pick-axe with sinewy arms; and the throng of them moved
+up and up, along the line, where the light grew whiter and whiter,
+until in the hazy air there dimly showed the distant vista of a new
+city, whose iron buildings, like central stations and Eiffel towers
+in the white glimmer of the distance, gleamed up very faintly with
+a reflection of glass arches and glass roofs and, high in the air,
+the musical staves of the threads of sound and accompaniment....
+
+And to so great an extent did their influences work upon each other's
+souls that she learnt to see and he learnt to think: she saw beauty,
+art, nature, haze and emotion and no longer imagined them but felt
+them; he, as in his sketch, a very vague, modern city of glass and
+iron, saw a modern city rising out of his dream-haze and thought of a
+modern question, in accordance with his own nature and aptitudes. She
+learnt above all to see and feel like a woman in love, with the
+eyes and heart of the man she loves; he thought out the question
+plastically. But whatever the imperfection in the absoluteness of
+their new spheres of feeling and thought, the reciprocal influence,
+through their love, gave them a happiness so great, so united,
+that at that moment they could not contemplate it or apprehend it:
+it was almost ecstasy, a faint unreality, in which they dreamed,
+whereas it was all pure truth and tangible actuality. Their manner
+of thinking, feeling and living was an ideal of reality, an ideal
+entered and attained, along the gradual line of their life, along
+the golden thread of their love; and they scarcely apprehended or
+contemplated it, because the every-day life still clung to them. But
+only to the smallest, inevitable extent. They lived apart; but in
+the morning she went to him and found him working at his sketch; and
+she sat down beside him and leant her head on his shoulder; and they
+thought it out together. He sketched each figure in his procession
+of women separately and sought for the features and the modelling of
+the figures: some had the Mongolian aspect of Memmi's angel of the
+Annunciation, others Cornelie's slenderness and her later, fuller
+wholesomeness; he sought for the folds of the costumes: the women
+escaped from the violet dusk of the ruined city in pleated pepli;
+and farther on their garments altered as in a masquerade of the ages:
+the long trains of the medieval ladies, the veils of the sultanas, the
+homespun of the workwomen, the caps of the nursing sisters, the attire
+becoming more modern as the wearer personified a more modern age. And
+in this grouping the draughtsmanship was so unsubstantial and sober,
+the transition from drooping folds to practical stiffness so careful
+and so gradual, that Cornelie hardly perceived the transition, that
+she appeared to be contemplating one style, one fashion in dress,
+whereas each figure nevertheless was clad in a different stuff, of
+different cut, falling into different lines.... The drawing displayed
+an old-mastery purity, a simplicity of outline, which was nevertheless
+modern, nervous and morbid, but without the conventional ideal of
+symbolical human forms; the grouping showed a Raphaelite harmony,
+the water-colour tints of the first studies the haze of Italy: the
+ruined city loomed in the dusk as he saw the Forum looming; the city
+of iron and glass gleamed up with its architecture of light, such as
+he had seen from Sorrento shining around Naples. She felt that he was
+creating a great work and had never taken so lively an interest in
+anything as she now did in his idea and his sketches. She sat behind
+him silent and still and followed his drawing of the waving banners
+and fluttering pennants; and she did not breathe when she saw him,
+with a few dabs of white and touches of light--as though light were
+one of the colours on his palette--make the glass city emerge as
+from a dream on the horizon. Then he would ask her something about
+one of the figures and put his arm around her and draw her to him;
+and they would long sit scrutinizing and thinking out lines and ideas,
+until evening fell and the evening chill shuddered through the studio
+and they rose slowly from their seats. Then they went out and in
+the Corso they returned to real life: silently, sitting at Aragno's,
+they watched the bustle outside; and in their little restaurant, with
+their eyes absorbing each other's glance, they ate their simple dinner
+and looked so obviously and harmoniously happy, that the Italians,
+the two who also always sat at the far table, at that same hour,
+smiled as they bowed to them on entering....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+At the same time Duco developed great powers of work: so much thought
+dimly took shape before him that he was constantly discovering another
+motive and symbolizing it in another figure. He sketched a life-size
+woman walking, with that admixture of child, woman and goddess which
+characterized his figures, and she walked slowly down a descending
+line towards a sombre depth, without seeing or understanding; her eyes
+towards the abyss in magnetic attraction; vague hands hovered around
+her like a cloud and softly pushed and guided her; on the hill-top,
+on high rocks, in the bright light, other figures, holding harps,
+called to her; but she went towards the depth, pushed by hands;
+in the abyss blossomed strange purple orchids, like mouths of love....
+
+When Cornelie came to his studio one morning, he had suddenly sketched
+this idea. It came upon her as a surprise, for he had not mentioned
+it to her: the idea had sprung up suddenly; the quick, spontaneous
+execution had not taken him an hour. He was almost apologizing to her
+when he saw her surprise. She certainly admired it, but shuddered at
+it and preferred The Banners, the great water-colour, the procession
+of the women marching to the battle of life.
+
+And to please her he put the straying woman aside and worked on
+solely at the striving women. But constantly a fresh thought came and
+disturbed him in his work; and in her absence he would sketch some
+new symbol, until the sketches accumulated and lay spread on every
+side. She put them away in portfolios; she removed them from easel
+and board; she saved him from wandering too far from The Banners;
+and this was the one thing that he completed.
+
+Thus smoothly did their life seem willing to run, along a gracious
+line, in one golden direction, while his symbols blossomed like flowers
+on either side, while the azure of their love seemed to form the sky
+overhead; but she plucked away the superfluous flowers and only The
+Banners waved above their path, in the firmament of their ecstasy,
+even as they waved above the militant women.
+
+They had but one distraction, the wedding of the prince and Urania:
+a dinner, a ball and the ceremony at San Carlo, attended by all
+the Roman aristocracy, who however welcomed the wealthy American
+bride with a certain reserve. But, when the Prince and Princess
+di Forte-Braccio left for Nice, all distraction was at an end; and
+the days once more glided along the same gracious golden line. And
+Cornelie retained only one unpleasant recollection: her meeting during
+those festive days with Mrs. van der Staal, who cut her persistently,
+turned her back on her and succeeded in conveying to her that the
+friendship was over. She had accepted the position; she had realized
+how difficult it was--even if Mrs. van der Staal had been willing to
+speak to her--to explain to a woman like this, rooted in her social
+and worldly conventions, her own proud ideas of freedom, independence
+and happiness. And she had avoided the girls also, understanding
+that Mrs. van der Staal wished it. She was not angry at all this
+nor hurt; she could understand it in Duco's mother: she was only a
+little sad about it, because she liked Mrs. van der Staal and liked
+the two girls. But she quite understood: it had to be so; Mrs. van
+der Staal knew or suspected everything. Duco's mother could not act
+differently, though the prince and Urania, for friendship's sake,
+overlooked any liaison between Duco and Cornelie; though the Roman
+world during the wedding-festivities accepted them simply as friends,
+as acquaintances, as fellow-countrymen, whatever they might whisper,
+smiling, behind their fans. But now those festivities were over, now
+they had passed that point of contact with the world and people, now
+their golden line once more sloped gently and evenly before them....
+
+Then Cornelie, not thinking of the Hague at all, received a letter
+from the Hague. The letter was from her father and consisted of
+several sheets, which surprised her, for he never wrote. What she read
+startled her greatly, but did not at first dishearten her altogether,
+perhaps because she did not realize the full import of her father's
+news. He implored her forgiveness. He had long been in financial
+difficulties. He had lost a great deal of money. They would have to
+move into a smaller house. The atmosphere at home was unpleasant: Mamma
+cried all day; the sisters quarrelled; the family proffered advice; the
+acquaintances were disagreeable. And he implored her forgiveness. He
+had speculated and lost. And he had also lost her own little capital,
+which he managed for her, her godmother's legacy. He asked her not to
+think too hardly of him. Things might have turned out differently;
+and then she would have been three times as well off. He admitted
+it, he had done wrong; but still he was her father and he asked her,
+his child, to forgive him and requested her to come home.
+
+She was at first greatly startled, but soon recovered her calmness. She
+was in too happy a mood of vital harmony to be depressed by the
+news. She received the letter in bed, did not get up at once, reflected
+a little, then dressed, breakfasted as usual and went to Duco. He
+received her with enthusiasm and showed her three new sketches. She
+reproached him gently for allowing himself to be distracted from his
+main idea, said that these distractions would exhaust his activity, his
+perseverance. She urged him to keep on working at The Banners. And she
+inspected the great water-colour intently, with the ancient, crumbling
+Forum-like city and the procession of the women towards the metropolis
+of the future, standing high in the dawn. And suddenly it was borne
+in upon her that her future also had fallen into ruins and that its
+crumbling arches hung menacingly over her head. Then she gave him her
+father's letter to read. He read it twice, looked at her aghast and
+asked what she proposed to do. She said that she had already thought it
+over, but so far decided only upon the most immediate thing to be done:
+to give up her rooms and come to him in his studio. She had just enough
+left to pay the rent of her rooms. But, after that, she had no money,
+no money at all. She had never consented to accept alimony from her
+husband. All that was still due to her was the payment for her article.
+
+He at once put out his hands to her, kissed her and said that this
+had been also his idea at once, that she should come to him and live
+with him. He had enough: a tiny patrimony; he made a little money
+in addition: there would be enough for the two of them. And they
+laughed and kissed and glanced round the studio. Duco slept in a
+small adjoining den, a sort of long wall-cupboard. And they glanced
+round to see what they could do. Cornelie knew: here, a curtain
+draped over a cord, with her wash-hand-stand behind it. That was
+all she needed, only that little corner: otherwise Duco would not
+have a good light. They were very merry and thought it a jolly, a
+capital idea. They went out at once, bought a little iron bedstead
+and a dressing-table and themselves hung up the curtain. Then they
+both went to pack the trunks in the Via di Serpenti ... and dined
+at the osteria. Cornelie suggested that they should dine at home now
+and then: it was cheaper. When they returned home, she was enchanted
+that her installation took up so little room, hardly six feet by six,
+with that little bed behind the curtain. They were very cheerful
+that evening. The bohemianism of it all amused them. They were in
+Italy, the land of sunshine, of beauty, of lazzaroni, of beggars who
+slept on the steps of a cathedral; and they felt akin to that sunny
+poverty. They were happy, they wanted for nothing. They would live
+on nothing, or at any rate on very little. And they saw the future
+bright, smiling. They were closer together now, they would live more
+closely linked together. They loved each other and were happy in a
+land of beauty, in an ideal of noble symbolism and life-embracing art.
+
+Next morning he worked zealously, without a word, absorbed in his
+dream, in his work; and she, likewise, silent, contented, happy,
+examined her blouses and skirts attentively and reflected that she
+would need nothing more for quite another year and that her old clothes
+were amply sufficient for their life of happiness and simplicity.
+
+And she answered her father's letter very briefly, saying that she
+forgave him, that she was sorry for all of them, but that she was not
+coming back to the Hague. She would provide for her own maintenance,
+by writing. Italy was cheap. That was all she wrote. She did not
+mention Duco. She cut herself off from her family, in thought and
+in fact. She had met with no sympathy from any of them during her
+unhappy marriage, during the painful days of her divorce; and now,
+in her turn, she felt no affection for them. And her happiness made
+her partial and selfish. She wanted nothing but Duco, nothing but
+their harmonious life in common. He sat working, laughing to her
+now and then as she lay on the couch and reflected. She looked at
+the women marching to battle; she too could not remain lying on a
+couch, she too would have to sally forth and fight. She foresaw that
+she would have to fight ... for him. He was at present in the first
+fine frenzy of his art; but, if this slackened, momentarily, after
+a result of some kind, after a success for himself and the world,
+that would be commonplace and logical; and then she would have to
+fight. He was the noble element in their two lives; his art could
+never become her bread-winner. His little fortune amounted to hardly
+anything. She would have liked to work and make money for both of them,
+so that he need not depart from the pure principle of his art. But
+how was she to strive, how to work, how to work for their lives and
+their bread? What could she do? Write? It brought in so little. What
+else? She was overcome by a slight melancholy, because she could
+do so little. She possessed minor talents and accomplishments: she
+wrote a good style, she sang, she played the piano, she could make a
+blouse and she knew something about cooking. She would herself do the
+cooking now and then and would make her own clothes. But that was all
+so small, so little. Strive? Work? In what way? However, she would do
+what she could. And suddenly she took up a Baedeker, turned over the
+pages and sat down to write at Duco's writing-table. She thought for a
+moment and began a casual article, a travel-picture for a newspaper,
+about the environs of Naples: that was easier than at once beginning
+about Rome. And in the studio, filled with a faint warmth of the fire,
+because the room faced north and was chilly, everything became still
+and silent, save for the occasional scratching of her pen or the noise
+made by him when fumbling among his chalks and paint-brushes. She
+wrote a few pages but could not hit upon an ending. Then she got up; he
+turned round and smiled at her, with his smile of friendly happiness.
+
+And she read to him what she had written. It was not in the style of
+her pamphlet. It contained no invective; it was a pleasant traveller's
+sketch.
+
+He thought it very nice, but nothing out of the way. But that wasn't
+necessary, she said, defending herself. And he kissed her, for her
+industry and her pluck. It was raining that day and they did not go out
+for their lunch; there were eggs and tomatoes and she made an omelette
+on an oil-stove. They drank water, ate quantities of bread. And, while
+the rain outside lashed the great curtain-less window of the studio,
+they enjoyed their repast, sitting like two birds that huddle side
+by side, against each other, so as not to get wet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+It was a couple of months after Easter, in the spring days of May. The
+flood of tourists had ebbed away immediately after the great church
+festivities; and Rome was already very hot and growing very quiet. One
+morning, when Cornelie was crossing the Piazza di Spagna, where the
+sunshine streamed along the cream-coloured front of the Trinita de'
+Monti and down the monumental staircase, where only a few beggars
+and the very last flower-boy sat dreaming with blinking eye-lids in
+a shady corner, she saw the prince coming towards her. He bowed to
+her with a smile of gladness and hastened up to speak to her:
+
+"How glad I am to meet you! I am in Rome for a day or two, on my way
+to San Stefano, to see my father on business. Business is always a
+bore; and this is more so than usual. Urania is at Nice. But it is
+too hot there and we are going away. We have just returned from a
+trip on the Mediterranean. Four weeks on board a friend's yacht. It
+was delightful! Why did you never come to see us at Nice, as Urania
+asked you to?"
+
+"I really wasn't able to come."
+
+"I went to call on you yesterday in the Via dei Serpenti. They told
+me you had moved."
+
+He looked at her with a touch of mocking laughter in his small,
+glittering eyes. She did not speak.
+
+"After that I did not like to commit a further indiscretion," he said,
+meaningly. "Where are you going?"
+
+"To the post-office."
+
+"May I come with you? Isn't it too hot for walking?"
+
+"Oh, no, I love the heat! Come by all means, if you like. How is
+Urania?"
+
+"Very well, capital. She's capital. She's splendid, simply splendid. I
+should never have thought it. I should never have dared to think
+it. She plays her part to perfection. So far as she is concerned,
+I don't regret my marriage. But, for the rest, Gesu mio, what a
+disappointment, what a disillusion!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You knew, did you not--I even now don't know how--you knew for how
+many millions I sold myself? Not five millions but ten millions. Ah,
+signora mia, what a take in! You saw my father-in-law at the time
+of our wedding. What a Yankee, what a stocking-merchant and what a
+tradesman! We're no match for him: I, Papa, or the marchesa. First
+promises, contracts: oh, rather! But then haggling here, haggling
+there. We're no good at that: neither Papa nor I. Aunt alone was
+able to haggle. But she was no match for the stocking-merchant. She
+had not learnt that, in all the years during which she kept a
+boarding-house. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Or
+yes, perhaps we did get something like that, plus a heap of promises,
+for our children's children, when everybody's dead. Ah, signora,
+signora, I was better off before I was married! True, I had debts then
+and not now. But Urania is so economical, so practical! I should never
+have thought it of her. It has been a disappointment to everybody:
+Papa, my aunt, the monsignori. You should have seen them together. They
+could have scratched one another's eyes out. Papa almost had a
+stroke, my aunt nearly came to blows with the monsignori.... Ah,
+signora, signora, I don't like it! I am a victim. Winter after
+winter, they angled with me. But I didn't want to be the bait,
+I struggled, I wouldn't let the fish bite. And then this came of
+it. Not three millions. Lire, not dollars. I was so stupid, I thought
+at first it would be dollars. And Urania's economy! She allows me my
+pocket-money. She controls everything, does everything. She knows
+exactly how much I lose at the club. Yes, you may laugh, but it's
+sad. Don't you see that I sometimes feel as if I could cry? And she has
+such queer notions. For instance, we have our flat at Nice and we keep
+on my rooms in the Palazzo Ruspoli, as a pied-a-terre in Rome. That's
+enough: we don't come often to Rome, because we are 'black' and
+Urania thinks it dull. In the summer, we were to go here or there,
+to some watering-place. That was all right, that was settled. But now
+Urania suddenly conceives the notion of selecting San Stefano as a
+summer residence. San Stefano! I ask you! I shall never be able to
+stand it. True, it's high up, it's cool: it's a pleasant climate,
+good, fresh mountain air. But I need more in my life than mountain
+air. I can't live on mountain air. Oh, you wouldn't know Urania! She
+can be so awfully obstinate. It's settled now, beyond recall: in the
+summer, San Stefano. And the worst of it is that she has won Papa's
+heart by it. I have to suffer. They're two to one against me. And the
+worst of it is that Urania says we shall have to be very economical,
+in order to do San Stefano up a bit. It's a famous historical place,
+but fallen into grisly disrepair. It's not our fault: we never had
+any luck. There was once a Forte-Braccio pope; after that our star
+declined and we never had another stroke of luck again. San Stefano is
+the type of ruined greatness. You ought to see the place. To economize,
+to renovate San Stefano! That's Urania's ideal. She has taken it into
+her head to do that honour to our ancestral abode. However, she has
+won Papa's heart by it and he has recovered from his stroke. But can
+you understand now that il povero Gilio is poorer than he was before
+he acquired shares in a Chicago stocking-factory?"
+
+There was no checking his flow of words. He felt profoundly unhappy,
+small, beaten, tamed, conquered, destroyed; and he had a need to ease
+his heart. They had passed the post-office and now retraced their
+steps. He looked for sympathy from Cornelie and found it in the smiling
+attention with which she listened to his grievances. She replied that,
+after all, it showed that Urania had a real feeling for San Stefano.
+
+"Oh, yes!" he admitted, humbly. "She is very good. I should never
+have thought it. She is every inch a princess and duchess. It's
+splendid. But the ten millions: gone, an illusion!... But tell me:
+how well you're looking! Each time I see you, you've grown lovelier
+and lovelier. Do you know that you're a very lovely woman? You must
+be very happy, I'm certain! You're an exceptional woman, I always
+said so. I don't understand you.... May I speak frankly? Are we good
+friends, you and I? I don't understand. I think what you have done such
+a terrible thing. I have never heard of anything like it in our world."
+
+"I don't live in your world, prince."
+
+"Very well, but all the same your world must have much the same ideas
+about it. And the calmness, the pride, the happiness with which you
+do, just quietly, as you please! I think it perfectly awful. I stand
+aghast at it.... And yet ... it's a pity. People in my world are very
+easy-going. But that sort of thing is not allowed!"
+
+"Prince, once more, I have no world. My world is my own sphere."
+
+"I don't understand that. Tell me, how am I to tell Urania? For
+I should think it delightful if you would come and stay at San
+Stefano. Oh, do come, do: come to keep us company. I entreat you. Be
+charitable, do a good work.... But first tell me, how shall I tell
+Urania?"
+
+She laughed:
+
+"What?"
+
+"What they told me in the Via dei Serpenti, that your address was
+now Signor van der Staal's studio, Via del Babuino."
+
+Laughing, she looked at him almost pityingly:
+
+"It is too difficult for you to tell her," she replied, a little
+condescendingly. "I will myself write to Urania and explain my
+conduct."
+
+He was evidently relieved:
+
+"That's delightful, capital! And ... will you come to San Stefano?"
+
+"No, I can't really."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I can no longer move in the circle in which you live, after my change
+of address," she said, half laughing, half seriously.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Listen," he said. "You know our Roman society. So long as certain
+conventions are observed ... everything's permitted."
+
+"Exactly; but it's just those conventions which I don't observe."
+
+"And that's where you are wrong. Believe me, I am saying it as your
+friend."
+
+"I live according to my own laws and I don't want to move in your
+world."
+
+He folded his hands in entreaty:
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. You are a 'new woman.' You have your own laws. But
+I beseech you, take pity on me. Be an angel of mercy and come to
+San Stefano."
+
+She seemed to hear a note of seduction in his voice and therefore said:
+
+"Prince, even if it agreed with the conventions of your world ... even
+then I shouldn't wish to. For I will not leave Van der Staal."
+
+"You come first and let him come a little later. Urania will be
+glad to have his advice on some artistic questions, concerning the
+'doing up' of San Stefano. We have a lot of pictures there. And old
+things generally. Do let's arrange that. I am going to San Stefano
+to-morrow. Urania will follow me in a week. I will suggest to her to
+ask you down soon."
+
+"Really, prince ... it can't happen just yet."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+She looked at him for some time before answering:
+
+"Shall I be candid with you?"
+
+"But of course!"
+
+They had already passed the post-office twice. The street was quite
+silent and deserted. He looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "we are in great financial difficulties. We
+have no money at present. I have lost my little capital; and the
+small sum which I earned by writing an article is spent. Duco is
+working hard, but he is engaged on a big work and making nothing
+in the meantime. He expects to receive a bit of money in a month or
+so. But at the moment we have nothing, nothing at all. That is why
+I went to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much a dealer
+would give for a couple of old pictures which Duco wants to sell. He
+doesn't like parting with them, but there's no help for it. So you
+see that I can't come. I should not care to leave him; besides,
+I should not have the money for the journey or a decent wardrobe."
+
+He looked at her. The first thing that he had noticed was her new and
+blooming loveliness; now he noticed that her skirt was a little worn
+and her blouse none too fresh, though she wore a couple of roses in
+the waist-band.
+
+"Gesu mio!" he exclaimed. "And you tell me that so calmly, so quietly!"
+
+She smiled and shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"What would you have me do? Moan and groan about it?"
+
+"But you are a woman ... a woman to revere and respect!" he cried. "How
+does Van der Staal take it?"
+
+"He is a bit depressed, of course. He has never known money
+trouble. And it hinders him from employing his full talent. But I
+hope to help him bear up during this difficult time. So you see,
+prince, that I can't come to San Stefano."
+
+"But why didn't you write to us? Why not ask us for money?"
+
+"It is very nice of you to say that, but the idea never even occurred
+to us."
+
+"Too proud?"
+
+"Yes, too proud."
+
+"But what a position to be in! What can I do for you? May I give
+you two hundred lire? I have two hundred lire on me. And I will tell
+Urania that I gave it to you."
+
+"No, thank you, prince. I am very grateful to you, but I can't
+accept it."
+
+"Not from me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not from Urania?"
+
+"Not from her either."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I want to earn my money and I can't accept alms."
+
+"A fine principle. But for the moment ..."
+
+"I remain true to it."
+
+"Will you allow me to tell you something?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I admire you. More than that: I love you."
+
+She made a gesture with her hand and wrinkled her brows.
+
+"Why mayn't I tell you so? An Italian does not keep his love
+concealed. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and superior
+to anything that I could ever imagine any woman to be.... Don't
+be angry with me: I am not asking anything of you. I am a bad lot,
+but at this moment I really feel the sort of thing that you see in
+our old family-portraits, an atom of chivalry which has survived by
+accident. I ask for nothing from you. I merely tell you--and I say
+it in Urania's name as well as my own--that you can always rely on
+us. Urania will be angry that you haven't written to us."
+
+They now entered the post-office and she bought a few stamps:
+
+"There go my last soldi," she said, laughing and showing her empty
+purse. "We wanted the stamps to write to the secretary of an exhibition
+in London. Are you seeing me home?"
+
+She saw suddenly that he had tears in his eyes.
+
+"Do accept two hundred lire from me!" he entreated.
+
+She smilingly shook her head.
+
+"Are you dining at home?" he asked.
+
+She gave him a quizzing look:
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+He was unwilling to ask any further questions, was afraid lest he
+should wound her:
+
+"Be kind," he said, "and dine with me this evening. I'm bored. I
+have no friends in Rome at the moment. Everybody is away. Not at the
+Grand-Hotel, but in a snug little restaurant, where they know me. I'll
+come and fetch you at seven o'clock. Do be nice and come! For my sake!"
+
+He could not restrain his tears.
+
+"I shall be delighted," she said, softly, with her smile.
+
+They were standing in the porch of the house in the Via del Babuino
+where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a
+fervent kiss upon it. Then he took off his hat and hurried away. She
+went slowly up the stairs, mastering her emotion before she entered
+the studio.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+She found Duco lying listlessly on the sofa. He had a bad headache
+and she sat down beside him.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"The man offered me eighty lire for the Memmo," she said, "but he
+declared that the panel was not by Gentile da Fabriano: he remembered
+having seen it here."
+
+"The man's crazy," he replied. "Or else he is trying to get my Gentile
+for nothing.... Cornelie, I really can't sell it."
+
+"Well, Duco, then we'll think of something else," said she, laying
+her hand on his aching forehead.
+
+"Perhaps one or two smaller things, a knickknack or two," he moaned.
+
+"Perhaps. Shall I go back to him this afternoon?"
+
+"No, no, I'll go. But, really it is easier to buy that sort of thing
+than to sell it."
+
+"That is so, Duco," she agreed, laughing. "But I asked yesterday
+what I should get for a pair of bracelets; and I'll dispose of those
+to-day. And that will keep us going for quite a month. But I have
+some news for you. Do you know whom I met?"
+
+"No."
+
+"The prince."
+
+He gave a scowl:
+
+"I don't like that cad," he said.
+
+"I've told you before, Duco. I don't consider him a cad. And I don't
+believe he is one either. He asked us to dine with him this evening,
+quite quietly."
+
+"No, I don't care about it."
+
+She said nothing. She stood up, boiled some water on a spirit-stand
+and made tea:
+
+"Duco dear, I've been careless about lunch. A cup of tea and some
+bread-and-butter is all I can give you. Are you very hungry?"
+
+"No," he said, evasively.
+
+She hummed a tune while she poured out the tea into an antique cup. She
+cut the bread-and-butter and brought it to him on the sofa. Then she
+sat down beside him, with her own cup in her hand.
+
+"Cornelie, hadn't we better lunch at the osteria?"
+
+She laughed and showed him her empty purse:
+
+"Here are the stamps," she said.
+
+Disheartened, he flung himself back on the cushions.
+
+"My dear boy," she continued, "don't be so down. I shall have some
+money this afternoon, for the bracelets. I ought to have sold them
+sooner. Really, Duco, it's not of any importance. Why haven't you
+been working? It would have cheered you up."
+
+"I didn't feel inclined and I had a headache."
+
+She waited a moment and then said:
+
+"The prince was angry that we didn't write and ask him to help us. He
+wanted to give me two hundred lire...."
+
+"You refused, surely?" he asked, fiercely.
+
+"Well, of course," she answered, calmly. "He invited us to stay at San
+Stefano, where they will be spending the summer. I refused that too."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the clothes.... But you wouldn't care to go, would you?"
+
+"No," he said, dully.
+
+She drew his head to her and stroked his forehead. A wide patch of
+reflected afternoon light fell through the studio-window from the
+blue sky outside; and the studio was like a confused swirl of dusty
+colour, in which the outlines stood forth with their arrested action
+and changeless emotion. The raised embroideries of the chasubles and
+stoles, the purples and sky-blues of Gentile's panel, the mystic
+luxury of Memmi's angel in his cloak of heavily-pleated brocade,
+with the golden lily-stem between his fingers, were like a hoard
+of colour and flashed in that reflected light like so many handfuls
+of jewels. On the easel stood the water-colour of The Banners, with
+its noble refinement. And, as they sat on the sofa, he leaning his
+head against her, both drinking their tea, they harmonized in their
+happiness with that background of art. And it seemed incredible that
+they should be worried about a couple of hundred lire, for they
+were surrounded by colour as of precious stones and her smile was
+still radiant. But his eyes were dejected and his hand hung limply
+by his side.
+
+She went out again that afternoon for a little while, but soon returned
+again, saying that she had sold the bracelets and that he need not
+worry any longer. And she sang and moved gaily about the studio. She
+had made a few purchases: an almond-tart, biscuits and a small bottle
+of port. She had carried the things home herself, in a little basket,
+and she sang as she unpacked them. Her liveliness cheered him; he
+stood up and suddenly sat down to The Banners. He looked at the light
+and thought that he would be able to work for an hour longer. He was
+filled with transport as he contemplated the drawing: he saw a great
+deal that was good in it, a great deal that was beautiful. It was both
+spacious and delicate; it was modern and yet free of any modern trucs;
+there was thought in it and yet purity of line and grouping. And the
+colours were restful and dignified: purple and grey and white; violet
+and pale-grey and bright white; dusk, twilight, light; night, dawn,
+day. The day especially, the day dawning high up yonder, was a day
+of white, self-conscious sunlight: a bright certitude, in which the
+future became clear. But as a cloud were the streamers, pennants,
+flags, banners, waving in heraldic beauty above the heads of the
+militant women uplifted in ecstasy.... He selected his colours, chose
+his brushes, worked zealously, until there was no light left. Then
+he sat down beside her, happy and contented. In the falling dusk
+they drank some of the port, ate some of the tart. He felt like it,
+he said; he was hungry....
+
+At seven o'clock there was a knock. He started up and opened the door;
+the prince entered. Duco's forehead clouded over; but the prince did
+not perceive it, in the twilit studio. Cornelie lit a lamp:
+
+"Scusi, prince," she said. "I am positively distressed: Duco does
+not care to go out--he has been working and is tired--and I had no
+one to send and tell you that we could not accept your invitation."
+
+"But you don't mean that, surely! I had reckoned so absolutely on
+having you both to dinner! What shall I do with my evening if you
+don't come!"
+
+And, bursting into a flow of language, the complaints of a spoiled
+child, the entreaties of an indulged boy, he began to persuade Duco,
+who remained unwilling and sullen. At last Duco rose, shrugged
+his shoulders, but, with a compassionate, almost insulting smile,
+yielded. But he was unable to suppress his sense of unwillingness;
+his jealousy because of the quick repartees of Cornelie and the prince
+remained unassuaged, like an inward pain. At the restaurant he was
+silent at first. Then he made an effort to join in the conversation,
+remembering what Cornelie had said to him on that momentous day at
+the osteria: that she loved him, Duco; that she did not even compare
+the prince with him; but ... that he was not cheerful or witty. And,
+conscious of his superiority because of that recollection, he displayed
+a smiling superciliousness towards the prince, for all his jealousy,
+condescending slightly and suffering his pleasantry and his flirtation,
+because it amused Cornelie, that clashing interplay of swift words
+and short, parrying phrases, like the dialogue in a French comedy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+The prince was to leave for San Stefano next day; and early in the
+morning Cornelie sent him the following letter:
+
+
+
+"My dear Prince,
+
+
+"I have a favour to ask of you. Yesterday you were so good as to offer
+me help. I thought then that I was in a position to decline your
+kind offer. But I hope that you will not think me very changeable
+if I come to you to-day with this request: lend me what you offered
+yesterday to give me.
+
+"Lend me two hundred lire. I hope to be able to repay you as soon as
+possible. Of course it need not be a secret from Urania; but don't
+let Duco know. I tried to sell my bracelets yesterday, but sold only
+one and received very little for it. The goldsmith offered me far too
+little, but I had to let him have one at forty lire, for I had not a
+soldo left! And so I am writing to appeal to your friendship and to
+ask you to put the two hundred lire in an envelope and let me come
+and fetch it myself from the porter. Pray receive my sincere thanks
+in advance.
+
+"What a pleasant evening you gave us yesterday! A couple of hours'
+cheerful talk like that, at a well-chosen dinner, does me good. However
+happy I may be, our present position of financial anxiety sometimes
+depresses me, though I keep up my spirits for Duco's sake. Money
+worries interfere with his work and impair his energy. So I discuss
+them with him as little as I can; and I particularly beg you not to
+let him into our little secret.
+
+"Once more, my best and most sincere thanks.
+
+
+"Cornelie de Retz."
+
+
+
+When she left the house that morning, she went straight to the
+Palazzo Ruspoli:
+
+"Has his excellency gone?"
+
+The porter bowed respectively and confidentially:
+
+"An hour ago, signora. His excellency left a letter and a parcel for
+me to give you if you should call. Permit me to fetch them."
+
+He went away and soon returned; he handed Cornelie the parcel and
+the letter.
+
+She walked down a side-street turning out of the Corso, opened the
+envelope and found a few bank-*notes and this letter:
+
+
+
+"Most honoured Lady,
+
+
+"I am so glad that you have applied to me at last; and Urania also
+will approve. I feel I am acting in accordance with her wishes when
+I send you not two hundred but a thousand lire, with the most humble
+request that you will accept it and keep it as long as you please. For
+of course I dare not ask you to take it as a present. Nevertheless
+I am making so bold as to send you a keepsake. When I read that you
+were compelled to sell a bracelet, I hated the idea so that, without
+stopping to think, I ran round to Marchesini's and, as best I could,
+picked you out a bracelet which, at your feet, I entreat you to
+accept. You must not refuse your friend this. Let my bracelet be a
+secret from Urania as well as from Van der Staal.
+
+"Once more receive my sincere thanks for deigning to apply to me
+for aid and be assured that I attach the highest value to this mark
+of favour.
+
+
+"Your most humble servant,
+"Virgilio di F. B."
+
+
+
+Cornelie opened the parcel and found a velvet case containing a
+bracelet in the Etruscan style: a narrow gold band set with pearls
+and sapphires.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+In those hot May days, the big studio facing north was cool while the
+town outside was scorching. Duco and Cornelie did not go out before
+nightfall, when it was time to think of dining somewhere. Rome was
+quiet: Roman society had fled; the tourists had migrated. They saw
+nobody and their days glided past. He worked diligently; The Banners
+was finished: the two of them, with their arms around each other's
+waists and her head on his shoulder, would sit in front of it, proudly
+smiling, during the last days before the drawing was to be sent to the
+International Exhibition in Knightsbridge. Their feeling for each other
+had never contained such pure harmony, such unity of concord, as now,
+when his work was done. He felt that he had never worked so nobly,
+so firmly, so unhesitatingly, never with the same strength, yet never
+so tenderly; and he was grateful to her for it. He confessed to her
+that he could never have worked like that if she had not thought with
+him and felt with him in their long hours of sitting and gazing at
+the procession, the pageant of women, as it wound out of the night
+of crumbling pillars to the city of sheer increasing radiance and
+gleaming palaces of glass. There was rest in his soul, now that
+he had worked so greatly and nobly. There was pride in them both:
+pride because of their life, their independence, because of that
+work of noble and stately art. In their happiness there was much
+that was arbitrary; they looked down upon people, the multitude,
+the world; and this was especially true of him. In her there was
+more of quietude and humility, though outwardly she showed herself
+as proud as he. Her article on The Social Position of Divorced Women
+had been published in pamphlet form and made a success. But her own
+performance did not make her proud as Duco's art made her proud,
+proud of him and of their life and their happiness.
+
+While she read in the Dutch papers and magazines the reviews of
+her pamphlet--often displaying opposition but never any slight and
+always acknowledging her authority to speak on the question--while
+she read her pamphlet through again, a doubt arose within her of her
+own conviction. She felt how difficult it was to fight with a single
+mind for a cause, as those symbolic women in the drawing marched to
+the fight. She felt that what she had written was inspired by her own
+experience, by her own suffering and by these only; she saw that she
+had generalized her own sense of life and suffering, but without deeper
+insight into the essence of those things: not from pure conviction, but
+from anger and resentment; not from reflection, but after melancholy
+musing upon her own fate; not from her love of her fellow-women, but
+from a petty hatred of society. And she remembered Duco's silence at
+that time, his mute disapproval, his intuitive feeling that the source
+of her excitement was not pure, but the bitter and turbid spring of
+her own experience. She now respected his intuition; she now perceived
+the essential purity of his character; she now felt that he--because
+of his art--was high, noble, without ulterior motives in his actions,
+creating beauty for its own sake. But she also felt that she had
+roused him to it. That was her pride and her happiness; and she
+loved him more dearly for it. But about herself she was humble. She
+was conscious of her femininity, of all the complexity of her soul,
+which prevented her from continuing to fight for the objects of the
+feminist movement. And she thought again of her education, of her
+husband, her short but sad married life ... and she thought of the
+prince. She felt herself so complex and she would gladly have been
+homogeneous. She swayed between contradiction and contradiction and
+she confessed to herself that she did not know herself. It gave a
+tinge of melancholy to her days of happiness.
+
+The prince ... was not her pride only apparent that she had asked
+him not to tell Urania that she was living with Duco, because
+she would tell her so herself? In reality, she feared Urania's
+opinion.... She was troubled by the dishonesty of the life: she called
+the intersections of the line with the lines of other small people the
+petty life. Why, so soon as she crossed one of these intersections,
+did she feel, as though by instinct, that honesty was not always
+wise? What became of her pride and her dignity--not apparently, but
+actually--from the moment that she feared Urania's criticism, from the
+moment that she feared lest this criticism might be unfavourable to
+her in one respect or another? And why did she not speak of Virgilio's
+bracelet to Duco? She did not speak of the thousand lire because she
+knew that money matters depressed him and that he did not want to
+borrow from the prince, because, if he knew about it, he would not
+be able to work free from care; and her concealment had been for a
+noble object. But why did she not speak of Gilio's bracelet?...
+
+She did not know. Once or twice she had tried to say, just naturally
+and casually:
+
+"Look, I've had this from the prince, because I sold that one
+bracelet."
+
+But she was not able to say it, she did not know why. Was it because
+of Duco's jealousy? She didn't know, she didn't know. She felt that
+it would make for peace and tranquillity if she said nothing about
+the bracelet and did not wear it. Really she would have been glad to
+send it back to the prince. But she thought that unkind, after all
+his readiness to assist her.
+
+And Duco ... he thought that she had sold the bracelets for a good
+sum, he knew that she had received money from the publisher, for
+her pamphlet. He asked no further questions and ceased to think
+about money. They lived very simply.... But still she disliked his
+not knowing, even though it had been good for his work that he had
+not known.
+
+These were little things. These were little clouds in the golden
+skies of their great and noble life, their life of which they were
+proud. And she alone saw them. And, when she saw his eyes, radiant
+with the pride of life; when she heard his voice, vibrating with his
+new assured energy and pride; and when she felt his embrace, in which
+she felt the thrill of his delight in the happiness which she brought
+him, then she no longer saw the little clouds, then she felt her own
+thrill of delight in the happiness which he had brought her and she
+loved him so passionately that she could have died in his arms....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+Urania wrote most charmingly. She said that they were having a very
+quiet time with the old prince at San Stefano, as they were not
+inviting visitors because the castle was too gloomy, too shabby, too
+lonely, but that she would think it most delightful if Cornelie would
+come and spend a few weeks with them. She added that she would send
+Mr. van der Staal an invitation as well. The letter was addressed
+to the Via dei Serpenti and forwarded to Cornelie from there. She
+understood from this that Gilio had not mentioned that she was living
+in Duco's studio and she understood also that Urania accepted their
+liaison without criticizing it....
+
+The Banners had been dispatched to London; and, now that Duco was
+no longer working, a slight indolence and a vague boredom hung about
+the studio, which was still cool, while the town was scorching. And
+Cornelie wrote to Urania that she was very glad to accept and promised
+to come in a week's time. She was pleased that she would meet no
+other guests at the castle, for she had no dresses for a country-house
+visit. But with her usual tact she freshened up her wardrobe, without
+spending much money. This took up all the intervening days; and she
+sat sewing while Duco lay on the sofa and smoked cigarettes. He also
+had accepted, because of Cornelie and because the district around the
+Lake of San Stefano, which was overlooked by the castle, attracted
+him. He promised Cornelie with a smile not to be so stiff. He would
+do his best to make himself agreeable. He looked down rather haughtily
+on the prince. He considered him a scallywag, but no longer a bounder
+or a cad. He thought him childish, but not base or ignoble.
+
+Cornelie went off. He took her to the station. In the cab she kissed
+him fondly and told him how much she would miss him during those few
+days. Would he come soon? In a week? She would be longing for him:
+she could not do without him. She looked deep into his eyes, which
+she loved. He also said that he would be terribly bored without
+her. Couldn't he come earlier, she asked. No, Urania had fixed
+the date.
+
+When he helped her into a second-class compartment, she felt sad to
+be going without him. The carriage was full; she occupied the last
+vacant seat. She sat between a fat peasant and an old peasant-woman;
+the man civilly helped her to put her little portmanteau in the rack
+and asked whether she minded if he smoked his pipe. She civilly
+answered no. Opposite them sat two priests in frayed cassocks. An
+unimportant-looking little brown wooden box was lying between their
+feet: it was the supreme unction, which they were taking to a dying
+person.
+
+The peasant entered into conversation with Cornelie, asked if she was
+a foreigner: English, no doubt? The old peasant-woman offered her a
+tangerine orange.
+
+The remainder of the compartment was occupied by a middle-class family:
+father, mother, a small boy and two little sisters. The slow train
+shook, rattled and wound its way along, stopping constantly. The
+little girls kept on humming tunes. At one station a lady stepped
+out of a first-class carriage with a little girl of five, in a white
+frock and a hat with white ostrich-feathers.
+
+"Oh, che bellezza!" cried the small boy. "Mamma, mamma, look! Isn't
+she beautiful? Isn't she lovely? Divinamente! Oh ... mamma!"
+
+He closed his black eyes, lovelorn, dazzled by the little white
+girl of five. The parents laughed, the priests laughed, everybody
+laughed. But the boy was not at all confused:
+
+"Era una bellezza!" he repeated once more, casting a glance of
+conviction all around him.
+
+It was very hot in the train. Outside, the mountains gleamed white on
+the horizon and glittered like a fire with opal reflections. Close to
+the railway stood a row of eucalyptus-trees, sickle-leaved, brewing a
+heavy perfume. On the dry, sun-scorched plain, the wild cattle grazed,
+lifting their black curly heads with indifference to the train. In the
+stifling, stewing heat, the passengers' drowsy heads nodded up and
+down, while a smell of sweat, tobacco-smoke and orange-peel mingled
+with the scent of the eucalyptuses outside. The train swung round a
+curve, rattling like a toy-train of tin coaches almost tumbling over
+one another. And a level stretch of unruffled lazulite--metallic,
+crystalline, sky-blue--came into view, spreading into an oval goblet
+between slopes of mountain-land, like a very deep-set vase in which a
+sacred fluid was kept very blue and pure and motionless by a wall of
+rocky hills, which rose higher and higher until, as the train swung
+and rattled round the clear goblet, at one lofty point a castle
+stood, coloured like the rocks, broad, massive and monastic, with
+the cloisters running down the slope. It rose in noble and sombre
+melancholy; and from the train one could hardly distinguish what was
+rock and what was building-stone, as though it were all one barbaric
+growth, as though the castle had grown naturally out of the rock and,
+in growing, had assumed something of the shape of a human dwelling
+of the earliest times. And, as though the oval with its divine blue
+water had been a sacred reservoir, the mountains hedged in the Lake
+of San Stefano and the castle rose as its gloomy guardian.
+
+The train wound along a curve by the water-side, swung round a
+bend, then round another and stopped: San Stefano. It was a small,
+quiet town, lying sleepily in the sun, without life or traffic, and
+visited only in the winter by day-trippers, who came from Rome to
+see the cathedral and the castle and tasted the wine of the country
+at the osteria.
+
+When Cornelie alighted, she at once saw the prince.
+
+"How sweet of you to come and look us up in our eyrie!" he cried,
+in rapture, eagerly pressing her two hands.
+
+He led her through the station to his little basket-carriage, with
+two little horses and a tiny groom. A porter would bring her luggage
+to the castle.
+
+"It's delightful of you to come!" he repeated. "You have never been
+to San Stefano before? You know the cathedral is famous. We shall go
+right through the town: the road to the castle runs behind it."
+
+He was smiling with pleasure. He started the horses with a click of
+his tongue, with a repeated shake of the reins, like a child. They
+flew along the road, between the low, sleepy little houses, across
+the square, where in the glowing sunlight the glorious cathedral
+rose, Lombardo-Romanesque in style, begun in the eleventh and added
+to in every succeeding century, with the campanile on the left and
+the battisterio on the right: marvels of architecture in red, black
+and white marble, one vast sculpture of angels, saints and prophets
+and all as it were covered with a thick dust of ages, which had long
+since tempered the colours of the marble to rose, grey and yellow and
+which hovered between the groups as the one and only thing that had
+been left over of all those centuries, as though they had sunk into
+dust in every crevice.
+
+The prince drove across a long bridge, whose arches were the remains of
+an ancient aqueduct and now stood in the river, the bed of which was
+quite dried up, with children playing in it. Then he let the little
+horses climb at a foot's pace. The road led steeply, winding, barren
+and rocky, up to the castle, while valleys of olives sank beneath
+them, affording an ever wider view over the ever wider panorama of
+blue-white mountains and opal horizons gleaming in the sun, with
+suddenly a glimpse of the lake, the oval goblet, now sunk deeper and
+deeper, as in a fluted brim of sun-scorched hills, its blue growing
+deeper and more precipitous, a mystic blue that caught all the blue
+of the sky, until the air shimmered between lake and sky as in long
+spirals of light that whirled before the eyes. Until suddenly there
+drifted an intoxication of orange-blossom, a heavy, sensual breath
+as of panting love, as though thousands of mouths were exhaling a
+perfumed breath that hung stiflingly in the windless atmosphere of
+light, between the lake and the sky.
+
+The prince, happy and vivacious, talked a great deal, pointed this
+way and that with his whip, clicked at the horses, asked Cornelie
+questions, asked if she did not admire the landscape. Slowly, straining
+the muscles of their hind-legs, the horses drew the carriage up the
+ascent. The castle lay massive, huddling close to the ground. The
+lake sank lower and lower. The horizons became wider, like a world;
+a fitful breeze blew away some of the orange-blossom breath. The road
+became broad, easy and level. The castle lay extended like a fortress,
+like a town, behind its pinnacled walls, with gate within gate. They
+drove in, across a courtyard, under an archway into a second courtyard,
+under a second archway with a third courtyard. And Cornelie received
+a sensation of awe, a vision of pillars, arches, statues, arcades
+and fountains. They alighted.
+
+Urania ran out to meet her, embraced her, welcomed her affectionately
+and took her up the stairs and through the passages to her room. The
+windows were open; she looked out at the lake and the town and the
+cathedral. And Urania kissed her again and made her sit down. And
+Cornelie was struck by the fact that Urania had grown thin and had lost
+her former brilliant beauty of an American girl, with the unconscious
+look of a cocotte in her eyes, her smile and her clothes. She was
+changed. She had "gone off" a little and was no longer so pretty,
+as though her good looks had been a short-lived pretence, consisting
+of freshness rather than line. But, if she had lost her bloom, she
+had gained a certain distinction, a certain style, something that
+surprised Cornelie. Her gestures were quieter, her voice was softer,
+her mouth seemed smaller and was not always splitting open to display
+her white teeth; her dress was exceedingly simple: a blue skirt and a
+white blouse. Cornelie found it difficult to realize that the young
+Princess di Forte-Braccio, Duchess di San Stefano, was Miss Urania
+Hope of Chicago. A slight melancholy had come over her, which became
+her, even though she was less pretty. And Cornelie reflected that
+she must have some sorrow, which had smoothed her angles, but that
+she was also tactfully accommodating herself to her entirely novel
+environment. She asked Urania if she was happy. Urania said yes,
+with her sad smile, which was so new and so surprising. And she
+told her story. They had had a pleasant winter at Nice, but among
+a cosmopolitan circle of friends, for, though her new relations
+were very kind, they were exceedingly condescending and Virgilio's
+friends, especially the ladies, kept her at arm's length in an almost
+insolent fashion. Already during the honeymoon she had perceived
+that the aristocracy were prepared to tolerate her, but that they
+could never forget that she was the daughter of Hope the Chicago
+stockinet-manufacturer. She had seen that she was not the only one who,
+though she was now a princess and duchess, was accepted on sufferance
+and only for her millions: there were others like herself. She had
+formed no friendships. People came to her parties and dances: they
+were frere et compagnon and hand and glove with Gilio; the women
+called him by his Christian name, laughed and flirted with him and
+seemed quite to approve of him for marrying a few millions. To Urania
+they were just barely civil, especially the women: the men were not
+so difficult. But the whole thing saddened her, especially with all
+these women of the higher nobility--bearers of the most famous names
+in Italy--who treated her with condescension and always managed to
+exclude her from every intimacy, from all private gatherings, from all
+cooperation in the matter of parties or charities. When everything
+had been discussed, then they asked the Princess di Forte-Braccio
+to take part and offered her the place to which she was entitled
+and even did so with scrupulous punctiliousness. They manifestly
+treated her as a princess and an equal in the eyes of the world, of
+the public. But in their own set she remained Urania Hope. And the
+few other, middle-class millionaire elements of course ran after her,
+but she kept these at a distance; and Gilio approved. And what had
+Gilio said when she once complained of her grievance to him? That she,
+by displaying tactfulness, would certainly conquer her position, but
+with great patience and after many, many years. She was now crying,
+with her head on Cornelie's shoulder: oh, she reflected, she would
+never conquer them, those haughty women! What after all was she,
+a Hope, compared with all those celebrated families, which together
+made up the ancient glory of Italy and which, like the Massimos,
+traced back their descent to the Romans of old?
+
+Was Gilio kind? Yes, but from the beginning he had treated her as
+"his wife." All his pleasantness, all his cheerfulness was kept for
+others: he never talked to her much. And the young princess wept: she
+felt lonely, she sometimes longed for America. She had now invited her
+brother to stay with her, a nice boy of seventeen, who had come over
+for her wedding and travelled about Europe a little before returning
+to his farm in the Far West. He was her darling, he consoled her;
+but he would be gone in a few weeks. And then what would she have
+left? Oh, how glad she was that Cornelie had come! And how well she
+was looking, prettier than she had ever seen her look! Van der Staal
+had accepted: he would be here in a week. She asked, in a whisper,
+were they not going to get married? Cornelie answered positively no;
+she was not marrying, she would never marry again. And, in a sudden
+burst of candour, unable to conceal things from Urania, she told
+her that she was no longer living in the Via dei Serpenti, that she
+was living in Duco's studio. Urania was startled by this breach of
+every convention; but she regarded her friend as a woman who could
+do things which another could not. So it was only their happiness
+and friendship, she whispered, as though frightened, and without
+the sanction of society? Urania remembered Cornelie's imprecations
+against marriage and, formerly, against the prince. But she did like
+Gilio a little now, didn't she? Oh, she, Urania, would not be jealous
+again! She thought it delightful that Cornelie had come; and Gilio,
+who was bored, had also looked forward so to her arrival. Oh, no,
+Urania was no longer jealous!
+
+And, with her head on Cornelie's shoulder and her eyes still full
+of tears, she seemed merely to ask for a little friendship, a little
+affection, a few kind words and caresses, this wealthy American child
+who now bore the title of an ancient Italian house. And Cornelie
+felt for her because she was suffering, because she was no longer
+a small insignificant person, whose line of life happened to cross
+her own. She took her in her arms, comforted her, the weeping little
+princess, as with a new friendship; she accepted her in her life as a
+friend, no longer as a small insignificant person. And, when Urania,
+staring wide-eyed, remembered Cornelie's warning, Cornelie treated that
+warning lightly and said that Urania ought to show more courage. Tact,
+she possessed, innate tact. But she must be courageous and face life
+as it came....
+
+They stood up and, clasped in each other's arms, looked out of the
+open window. The bells of the cathedral were pealing through the air;
+the cathedral rose in noble pride from out of a very low huddle of
+roofs, a gigantic cathedral for so small a town, an immense symbol
+of ecclesiastical dominion over the roof-tops of the little town
+kneeling in reverence. And the awe which had filled Cornelie in the
+courtyard, among the arcades, statues and fountains, inspired her anew,
+because glory and grandeur, dying but not dead, mouldering but not
+spent, seemed to loom dimly from the mystic blue of the lake, from
+the age-old architecture of the cathedral, up the orange-clad hills
+to the castle, where at an open window stood a young foreign woman,
+discouraged, although that phantom of glory and grandeur needed her
+millions in order to endure for a few more generations....
+
+"It is beautiful and stately, all this past," thought Cornelie. "It
+is great. But still it is no longer anything. It is a phantom. For
+it is gone, it is all gone, it is but a memory of proud and arrogant
+nobles, of narrow souls that do not look towards the future."
+
+And the future, with a confusion of social problems, with the waving of
+new banners and streamers, now whirled before her in the long spirals
+of light, which, like blue notes of interrogation, shimmered before
+her eyes, between the lake and the sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+Cornelie had changed her dress and now left her room. She went down
+the corridor and saw nobody. She did not know the way, but walked
+on. Suddenly a wide staircase fell away before her, between two
+rows of gigantic marble candelabra; and Cornelie came to an atrio
+which opened over the lake. The walls, with frescoes by Mantegna,
+representing feats of bygone San Stefanos, supported a cupola which,
+painted with sky and clouds, appeared as though it were open to the
+outer air and which was surrounded by groups of cupids and nymphs
+looking down from a balustrade.
+
+She stepped outside and saw Gilio. He was sitting on the balustrade
+of the terrace, smoking a cigarette and gazing at the lake. He came
+up to her:
+
+"I was almost sure that you would come this way," he said. "Aren't
+you tired? May I show you round? Have you seen our Mantegnas? They
+have suffered badly. They were restored at the beginning of the
+century. [2] They look rather dilapidated, don't they? Do you see
+that little mythological scene up there, by Giulio Romano? Come here,
+through this door. But it's locked. Wait...."
+
+He called out an order to some one below. Presently an old serving-man
+arrived with a heavy bunch of keys, which he handed to the prince.
+
+"You can go, Egisto. I know the keys."
+
+The man went away. The prince opened a heavy bronze door. He showed
+her the bas-reliefs:
+
+"Giovanni da Bologna," he said.
+
+They went on, through a room hung with tapestries; the prince pointed
+to a ceiling by Ghirlandajo: the apotheosis of the only pope of
+the house of San Stefano. Next through a hall of mirrors, painted
+by Mario de' Flori. The dusty, musty smell of an ill-kept museum,
+with its atmosphere of neglect and indifference, stifled the breath;
+the white-silk window-curtains were yellow with age, soiled by flies;
+the red curtains of Venetian damask hung in moth-eaten rags and
+tatters; the painted mirrors were dull and tarnished; the arms of
+the Venetian glass chandeliers were broken. Pushed aside anyhow,
+like so much rubbish in a lumber-room, stood the most precious
+cabinets, inlaid with bronze, mother-of-pearl and ebony panels,
+and mosaic tables of lapis-lazuli, malachite and green, yellow,
+black and pink marble. In the tapestries--Saul and David, Esther,
+Holofernes, Salome--the vitality of the figures had evaporated,
+as though they were suffocated under the grey coat of dust that lay
+thick upon their worn textures and neutralized every colour.
+
+In the immense halls, half-dark in their curtained dusk, a sort of
+sorrow lingered, like a melancholy of hopeless, conquered exasperation,
+a slow decline of greatness and magnificence; between the masterpieces
+of the most famous painters mournful empty spaces yawned, the witnesses
+of pinching penury, spaces once occupied by pictures that had once
+and even lately been sold for fortunes. Cornelie remembered something
+about a law-suit some years ago, an attempt to send some Raphaels
+across the frontier, in defiance of the law, and to sell them in
+Berlin.... And Gilio led her hurriedly through the spectral halls,
+gay as a boy, light-hearted as a child, glad to have his diversion,
+mentioning without affection or interest names which he had heard in
+his childhood, but making mistakes and correcting himself and at last
+confessing that he had forgotten:
+
+"And here is the camera degli sposi...."
+
+He fumbled at the bunch of keys, read the brass labels till he found
+the right one and opened the door, which grated on its hinges; and
+they went in.
+
+And suddenly there was something like an intense and exquisite
+stateliness of intimacy: a huge bedroom, all gold, with the dim gold
+of tenderly faded golden tissues. On the walls were gold-coloured
+tapestries: Venus rising from the gilt foam of a golden ocean, Venus
+and Mars, Venus and Cupid, Venus and Adonis. The pale-pink nudity of
+these mythological beings stood forth very faintly against the sheer
+gold of sky and atmosphere, in golden woodlands, amid golden flowers,
+with golden cupids and swans and doves and wild boars; golden peacocks
+drank from golden fountains; water and clouds were of elemental gold;
+and all this had tenderly faded into a languorous sunset of expiring
+radiance. The state bed was gold, under a canopy of gold brocade, on
+which the armorial bearings of the family were embroidered in heavy
+relief; the bedspread was gold; but all this gold was lifeless, had
+lapsed into the melancholy of all but grey lustre: it was effaced,
+erased, obliterated, as though the dusty ages had cast a shadow over
+it, had woven a web across it.
+
+"How beautiful!" said Cornelie.
+
+"Our famous bridal chamber," said the prince, laughing. "It was a
+strange idea of those old people, to spend the first night in such
+a peculiar apartment. When they married, in our family, they slept
+here on the bridal night. It was a sort of superstition. The young
+wife remained faithful only provided it was here that she spent the
+first night with her husband. Poor Urania! We did not sleep here,
+signora mia, among all these indecent goddesses of love. We no longer
+respect the family tradition. Urania is therefore doomed by fate to
+be unfaithful to me. Unless I take that doom on my own shoulders...."
+
+"I suppose the fidelity of the husbands is not mentioned in this
+family tradition?"
+
+"No, we attached very little importance to that ... nor do we
+nowadays...."
+
+"It's glorious," Cornelie repeated, locking around her. "Duco will
+think it perfectly glorious. Oh, prince, I never saw such a room! Look
+at Venus over there, with the wounded Adonis, his head in her lap,
+the nymphs lamenting! It is a fairy-tale."
+
+"There's too much gold for my taste."
+
+"It may have been so before, too much gold...."
+
+"Masses of gold denoted wealth and abundant love. The wealth is
+gone...."
+
+"But the gold is softened now, so beautifully toned down...."
+
+"The abundant love has remained: the San Stefanos have always loved
+much."
+
+He went on jesting, called attention to the wantonness of the design
+and risked an allusion.
+
+She pretended not to hear. She looked at the tapestries. In the
+intervals between the panels golden peacocks drank from golden
+fountains and cupids played with doves.
+
+"I am so fond of you!" he whispered in her ear, putting his arm round
+her waist. "Angel! Angel!"
+
+She pushed him away:
+
+"Prince...."
+
+"Call me Gilio!"
+
+"Why can't we be just good friends?"
+
+"Because I want something more than friendship."
+
+She now released herself entirely:
+
+"And I don't!" she answered, coldly.
+
+"Do you only love one then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's not possible."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, if so, you would marry him. If you loved nobody but Van
+der Staal, you would marry him."
+
+"I am opposed to marriage."
+
+"Nonsense! You're not marrying him, so that you may be free. And, if
+you want to be free, I also am entitled to ask for my moment of love."
+
+She gave him a strange look. He felt her scorn.
+
+"You ... you don't understand me at all," she said, slowly and
+compassionately.
+
+"You understand me."
+
+"Oh, yes! You are so very simple!"
+
+"Why won't you?"
+
+"Because I won't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I haven't that feeling for you."
+
+"Why not?" he insisted; and his hands clenched as he spoke.
+
+"Why not?" she repeated. "Because I think you a cheerful and pleasant
+companion with whom to take things lightly, but in other respects
+your temperament is not in tune with mine."
+
+"What do you know about my temperament?"
+
+"I can see you."
+
+"You are not a doctor."
+
+"No, but I am a woman."
+
+"And I a man."
+
+"But not for me."
+
+Furiously, with a curse, he caught her in his quivering arms. Before
+she could prevent him, he had kissed her fiercely. She struggled out
+of his grasp and slapped his face. He gave another curse and flung
+out his arms to seize her again, but she drew herself up:
+
+"Prince!" she cried, screaming with laughter. "You surely don't think
+that you can compel me?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+She gave a disdainful laugh:
+
+"You can not," she said, aloud. "For I refuse and I will not be
+compelled."
+
+He saw red, he was furious. He had never before been defied and
+thwarted; he had always conquered.
+
+She saw him rushing at her, but she quietly flung back the door of
+the room.
+
+The long galleries and apartments stretched out before them, as
+though endlessly. There was something in that vista of ancestral
+spaciousness that restrained him. He was an impetuous rather than a
+deliberate ravisher. She walked on very slowly, looking attentively
+to right and left.
+
+He came up with her:
+
+"You struck me!" he panted, furiously. "I'll never forgive it, never!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said, with her sweetened voice and smile. "I
+had to defend myself, you know."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Prince," she said, persuasively, "why all this anger and passion and
+exasperation? You can be so nice; when I saw you last in Rome you
+were so charming. We were always such good friends. I enjoyed your
+conversation and your wit and your good-nature. Now it's all spoilt."
+
+"No," he entreated.
+
+"Yes, it is. You won't understand me. Your temperament is not in
+harmony with mine. Don't you understand? You force me to speak
+coarsely, because you are coarse yourself."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You don't believe in the sincerity of my independence."
+
+"No, I don't!"
+
+"Is that courteous, towards a woman?"
+
+"I am courteous only up to a certain point."
+
+"We have left that point behind. So be courteous again as before."
+
+"You are playing with me. I shall never forget it; I will be revenged."
+
+"So it's a struggle for life and death?"
+
+"No, a struggle for victory, for me."
+
+They had reached the atrio:
+
+"Thanks for showing me round," she said, a little mockingly. "The
+camera degli sposi, above all, was splendid. Don't let us be angry
+any more."
+
+And she offered him her hand.
+
+"No," he said, "you struck me here, in the face. My cheek is still
+burning. I won't accept your hand."
+
+"Poor cheek!" she said, teasingly. "Poor prince! Did I hit hard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How can I extinguish that burning?"
+
+He looked at her, still breathing hard, and flushed, with glittering
+carbuncle eyes:
+
+"You're a bigger coquette than any Italian woman."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"With a kiss?" she asked.
+
+"Demon!" he muttered, between his teeth.
+
+"With a kiss?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes," he said. "There, in our camera degli sposi."
+
+"No, here."
+
+"Demon!" he muttered, still more softly.
+
+She kissed him quickly. Then she gave him her hand:
+
+"And now that's over. The incident is closed."
+
+"Angel! She-devil!" he hissed after her.
+
+She looked over the balustrade at the lake. Evening had fallen and
+the lake lay shimmering in mist. She regarded him as a young boy,
+who sometimes amused her and had now been naughty. She was no longer
+thinking of him; she was thinking of Duco:
+
+"How lovely he will think it here!" she thought. "Oh, how I long
+for him!..."
+
+There was a rustle of women's skirts behind her. It was Urania and
+the Marchesa Belloni.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Urania asked Cornelie to come in, because it was not healthy out of
+doors now, at sunset, with the misty exhalations from the lake. The
+marchesa bowed coldly and stiffly, pinched her eyes together and
+pretended not to remember Cornelie very well.
+
+"I can understand that," said Cornelie, smiling acidly. "You see
+different boarders at your pension every day and I stayed for a much
+shorter time than you reckoned on. I hope that you soon disposed
+of my rooms again, marchesa, and that you suffered no loss through
+my departure?"
+
+The Marchesa Belloni looked at her in mute amazement. She was here,
+at San Stefano, in her element as a marchioness; she, the sister-in-law
+of the old prince, never spoke here of her foreigners' boarding-house;
+she never met her Roman guests here: they sometimes visited the castle,
+but only at fixed hours, whereas she spent the weeks of her summer
+villeggiatura here. And here she laid aside her plausible manner
+of singing the praises of a chilly room, her commercial habit of
+asking the most that she dared. She here carried her curled, leonine
+head with a lofty dignity; and, though she still wore her crystal
+brilliants in her ears, she also wore a brand-new spencer around her
+ample bosom. She could not help it, that she, a countess by birth,
+she, the Marchesa Belloni--the late marquis was a brother of the
+defunct princess--possessed no personal distinction, despite all
+her quarterings; but she felt herself to be, as indeed she was, an
+aristocrat. The friends, the monsignori whom she did sometimes meet
+at San Stefano, promoted the Pension Belloni in their conversation
+and called it the Palazzo Belloni.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, at last, very coolly, blinking her eyes with
+an aristocratic air, "I remember you now ... although I've forgotten
+your name. A friend of the Princess Urania, I believe? I am glad to
+see you again, very glad.... And what do you think of your friend's
+marriage?" she asked, as she went up the stairs beside Cornelie,
+between Mino da Fiesole's marble candelabra.
+
+Gilio, still angry and flushed and not at all calmed by the kiss, had
+moved away. Urania had run on ahead. The marchesa knew of Cornelie's
+original opposition, of her former advice to Urania; and she was
+certain that Cornelie had acted in this way because she herself had had
+views on Gilio. There was a note of triumphant irony in her question.
+
+"I think it was made in Heaven," Cornelie replied, in a bantering
+tone. "I believe there is a blessing on their marriage."
+
+"The blessing of his holiness," said the marchesa, naively, not
+understanding.
+
+"Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of Heaven."
+
+"I thought you were not religious?"
+
+"Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very
+religious. What peace for the Princess Urania's soul when she became
+a Catholic! What happiness in life, to marry il caro Gilio! There is
+still peace and happiness left in life."
+
+The marchesa had a vague suspicion that she was mocking and thought
+her a dangerous woman.
+
+"And you, has our religion no charm for you?"
+
+"A great deal! I have a great feeling for beautiful churches and
+pictures. But that is an artistic conception. You will not understand
+it perhaps, for I don't think you are artistic, marchesa? And
+marriage also has charms for me, a marriage like Urania's. Couldn't
+you help me too some time, marchesa? Then I will spend a whole
+winter in your pension and--who knows?--perhaps I too shall become
+a Catholic. You might give Rudyard another chance, with me; and,
+if that didn't succeed, the two monsignori. Then I should certainly
+become converted.... And it would of course be lucrative."
+
+The marchesa looked at her haughtily, white with rage:
+
+"Lucrative?..."
+
+"If you get me an Italian title, but accompanied by money, of course
+it would be lucrative."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, ask the old prince, marchesa, or the two monsignori."
+
+"What do you know about it? What are you thinking of?"
+
+"I? Nothing!" Cornelie answered, coolly. "But I have second sight. I
+sometimes suddenly see a thing. So keep on friendly terms with me and
+don't pretend again to forget an old boarder.... Is this the Princess
+Urania's room? You go in first, marchesa; after you...."
+
+The marchesa entered all aquiver: she had thoughts of witchcraft. How
+did that woman know anything of her transactions with the old prince
+and the monsignori? How did she come to suspect that Urania's marriage
+and her conversion had enriched the marchesa to the tune of a few
+ten thousand lire?
+
+She had not only had a lesson: she was shuddering, she was
+frightened. Was that woman a witch? Was she the devil? Had she the
+mal'occhio? And the marchesa made the sign of the jettatura with her
+little finger and fore-finger in the folds of her dress and muttered:
+
+"Vade retro, Satanas...."
+
+In her own drawing-room, Urania poured out tea. The three pointed
+windows of the room overlooked the town and the ancient cathedral,
+which in the orange reflection of the last gleams of sunset shot up
+for yet a moment out of its grey dust of ages with the dim huddle
+of its saints, prophets and angels. The room, hung with handsome
+tapestries--an allegory of Abundance: nymphs outpouring the contents
+of their cornucopias--was half old, half modern, not always perfect in
+taste or pure in tone, with here and there a few hideously commonplace
+modern ornaments, here and there some modern comfort that clashed
+with the rest, but still cosy, inhabited and Urania's home. A
+young man rose from a chair and Urania introduced him to Cornelie
+as her brother. Young Hope was a strongly-built, fresh-looking boy
+of eighteen; he was still in his bicycling-suit: it didn't matter,
+said his sister, just to drink a cup of tea. Laughing, she stroked
+his close-clipped round head and, with the ladies' permission,
+gave him his tea first: then he would go and change. He looked so
+strange, so new and so healthy as he sat there with his fresh, pink
+complexion, his broad chest, his strong hands and muscular calves,
+with the youthfulness of a young Yankee farmer who, notwithstanding
+the millions of "old man Hope," worked on his farm, way out in the Far
+West, to make his own fortune; he looked so strange in this ancient
+San Stefano, within view of that severely symbolical cathedral,
+against this background of old tapestries. And suddenly Cornelie
+was impressed still more strangely by the new young princess. Her
+name--her American name of Urania--had a first-rate sound: "the
+Princess Urania" sounded unexpectedly well. But the little young wife,
+a trifle pale, a trifle sad, with her clipping American accent,
+suddenly struck Cornelie as somewhat out of place amid the faded
+glories of San Stefano. Cornelie was continually forgetting that
+Urania was Princess di Forte-Braccio: she always thought of her
+as Miss Hope. And yet Urania possessed great tact, great ease of
+manner, a great power of assimilation. Gilio had entered; and the
+few words which she addressed to her husband were, quite naturally,
+almost dignified ... and yet carried, to Cornelie's ears, a sound
+of resigned disillusionment which made her pity Urania. She had from
+the beginning felt a vague liking for Urania; now she felt a fonder
+affection. She was sorry for this child, the Princess Urania. Gilio
+behaved to her with careless coolness, the marchesa with patronizing
+condescension. And then there was that awful loneliness around her, of
+all that ruined magnificence. She stroked her young brother's head. She
+spoilt him, she asked him if his tea was all right and stuffed him
+with sandwiches, because he was hungry after his bicycle-ride. She
+had him with her now as a reminder of home, a reminder of Chicago;
+she almost clung to him. But for the rest she was surrounded by the
+depressing gloom of the immense castle, the neglected glory of its
+ancient stateliness, the conceit of that aristocratic pride, which
+could do without her but not without her millions. And for Cornelie
+she had lost all her absurdity as an American parvenue and, on the
+contrary, had acquired an air of tragedy, as of a young sacrificial
+victim. How alien they were as they sat there, the young princess
+and her brother, with his muscular calves!
+
+Urania displayed her portfolio of drawings and designs: the ideas
+of a young Roman architect for restoring the castle. And she became
+excited, with a flush in her cheeks, when Cornelie asked her if
+so much restoration would really be beautiful. Urania defended her
+architect. Gilio smoked cigarettes with an air of indifference; he was
+in a bad temper. The marchesa sat like an idol, with her leonine head
+and the crystals sparkling in her ears. She was afraid of Cornelie and
+promised herself to be on her guard. A major-domo came and announced
+to the princess that dinner was served. And Cornelie recognized old
+Giuseppe from the Pension Belloni, the old archducal major-domo, who
+had once dropped a spoon, according to Rudyard's story. She looked
+at Urania with a laugh and Urania blushed:
+
+"Poor man!" she said, when Giuseppe was gone. "Yes, I took him over
+from my aunt. He was so hard-worked at the Palazzo Belloni! Here
+he has very little to do and he has a young butler under him. The
+number of servants had to be increased in any case. He is enjoying
+a pleasant old age here, poor dear old Giuseppe.... There, Bob,
+now you haven't dressed!"
+
+"She's a dear child," thought Cornelie, while they all rose and
+Urania gently reproached her brother, as she would a spoiled boy,
+for coming down to dinner in his knickerbockers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+They were in the great sombre dining-room, with the almost black
+tapestries, with the almost black panels of the ceiling, with the
+almost black oak carvings, with the black, monumental chimney-piece
+and, above it, the arms of the family in black marble. The light of
+two tall silver candle-sticks on the table merely cast a gleam over
+the damask and crystal, but left the remainder of the too large room
+in a gloomy obscurity of shadow, piled in the corners into masses of
+densest shadow, with a fainter shadow descending from the ceiling like
+a haze of dark velvet that floated in atoms above the candlelight. The
+ancestral antiquity of San Stefano hovered above them in this room
+like a palpable sense of awe, blended with a melancholy of black
+silence and black pride. Here their words sounded muffled. This
+still remained as it always had been, retaining as it were the
+sacrosanctity of their aristocratic traditions, in which Urania
+would never dare to alter anything, even as she hardly ventured to
+open her mouth to speak or eat. They waited for a moment. Then a
+double door was opened. And there entered like a spectral shade an
+old, grey man, with his arm in the arm of the priest walking beside
+him. Old Prince Ercole approached with very slow and stately steps,
+while the chaplain regulated his pace by that stately slowness. He
+wore a long black coat of an old-fashioned, roomy cut, which hung
+about him in folds, something like a cassock, and on his silvery grey
+hair, which waved over his neck, a black-velvet skull-cap. And the
+others approached him with the greatest respect: first the marchesa;
+then Urania, whom he kissed on the forehead, very slowly, as though
+he were consecrating her; then Gilio, who submissively kissed his
+father's hand. The old man nodded to young Hope, who bowed, and
+glanced towards Cornelie. Urania presented her. And the prince said
+a few amiable words to her, as though he were granting an audience,
+and asked her if she liked Italy. When Cornelie had replied, Prince
+Ercole sat down and handed his skull-cap to Giuseppe, who took it with
+a deep bow. Then they all sat down: the marchesa and the chaplain
+opposite Prince Ercole, who sat between Cornelie and Urania; Gilio
+next to Cornelie; Bob Hope next to his sister:
+
+"My legs don't show," he whispered.
+
+"Ssh!" said Urania.
+
+Giuseppe, revivified in his former dignity, standing at a sideboard,
+solemnly filled the plates with soup. He was back in his element; he
+was obviously grateful to Urania; he wore a distinguished air, as of
+one whose mind is at peace, and looked like an elderly diplomatist in
+his dress-coat. He amused Cornelie, who thought of Belloni's, where
+he used to become impatient when the visitors were late at meals and
+to rail at the young greenhorns of waiters whom the marchesa engaged
+for economy's sake. When the two footmen had handed round the soup,
+the chaplain stood up and said grace. Not a word had been spoken
+yet. They ate the soup in silence, while the three servants stood
+motionless. The spoons clinked against the plates and the marchesa
+smacked her lips. The candles flickered now and again; and the shadow
+fell more oppressively, like a haze of black velvet. Then Prince Ercole
+addressed the marchesa. And turn by turn he addressed them all, with a
+kindly, condescending dignity, in French and Italian. The conversation
+became a little more general, but the old prince continued to lead
+it. And Cornelie noticed that he was very civil to Urania. But she
+remembered Gilio's words:
+
+"Papa nearly had a stroke, because old Hope haggled over Urania's
+dowry. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Dollars? No,
+lire!"
+
+And the prince suddenly struck her as the grey-haired egoism of San
+Stefano's glory and aristocratic pride, struck her as the living
+shade of the past that loomed behind him, as she had felt it that
+afternoon, when she stood gazing with Urania into the deep, blue lake:
+an exacting shade; a shade demanding millions; a shade demanding a new
+increment of vitality; a spectral parasite who had sold his depreciated
+symbols to gratify the vanity of a new commercial house, but who, in
+his distinction, had been no match for the merchant's cunning. Their
+title of princess and duchess for less than three million lire! Papa
+had almost had a stroke, Gilio had said. And Cornelie, during the
+measured, affable stiffness of the conversation led by Prince Ercole,
+looked from the old prince and duke, seventy years of age, to the
+breezy young Far-Westerner, aged eighteen, and from him to Prince
+Gilio, the hope of the old house, its only hope. Here, in the gloom of
+this dining-room, where he was bored and moreover still out of temper,
+he seemed small, insignificant, shrunken, a paltry, distinguished
+little viveur; and his carbuncle eyes, which could sparkle merrily
+with wit and depravity, now looked dully, from under their drooping
+lids, upon his plate, at which he picked without appetite.
+
+She felt sorry for him; and her mind went back to the golden bridal
+chamber. She despised him a little. She looked upon him not so much
+as a man who could not obtain what he wanted but rather as a naughty
+boy. And he must feel jealous of Bob, she reflected: jealous of his
+young blood, which tingled in his cheeks, of his broad shoulders and
+his broad chest. But still he amused her. He could be very agreeable,
+gay and witty and vivacious, when in the mood, vivacious in his words
+and in his wits. She liked him, when all was said. And then he was
+good-hearted. She thought of the bracelet and especially the thousand
+lire, always remembered, with a certain emotion, how touched she had
+been during that walk up and down past the post-office, how touched
+by his letter and his generous assistance. He had no backbone, he was
+not a man to her; but he was witty and he had a very good heart. She
+liked him as a friend and a pleasant companion. How dejected and moody
+he was! But then why would he venture on those silly enterprises?...
+
+She spoke to him now and again, but could not succeed in rousing
+him from his depression. For the rest, the conversation dragged on
+stiffly and affably, always led by Prince Ercole. The dinner came to
+an end; and Prince Ercole rose from his chair. Giuseppe handed him his
+skull-cap; every one said good-night to him; the doors were opened
+and Prince Ercole withdrew, leaning on his chaplain's arm. Gilio,
+still angry, disappeared. The marchesa, still terrified of Cornelie,
+also disappeared, making the jettatura at her in the folds of her
+dress. And Urania took Cornelie and Bob back with her to her own
+drawing-room. They all three breathed again. They all talked freely, in
+English: the boy said in despair that he wasn't getting enough to eat,
+that he dared not eat enough to stay his hunger; and Cornelie laughed,
+thinking him jolly, because of his wholesomeness, while Urania hunted
+out some biscuits for him and a piece of cake left over from tea and
+promised that he should have some cold meat and bread before they
+went to bed. And they relaxed their minds after the pompous, stately
+meal. Urania said that the old prince never appeared except at dinner,
+but that she always looked him up in the morning and sat talking to
+him for an hour or playing chess with him. At other times he played
+chess with the chaplain. She was very busy, Urania. The reorganizing
+of the housekeeping, which used to be left to a poor relation, who
+now lived at a pension in Rome, took up a lot of her time. In the
+mornings, she discussed a host of details with Prince Ercole, who,
+notwithstanding his secluded life, knew about everything. Then she
+had consultations with her architect from Rome about the restorations
+to be effected in the castle: these consultations were sometimes held
+in the old prince's study. Then she was having a big hostel built in
+the town, an albergo dei poveri, a hostel for old men and women, for
+which old Hope had given her a separate endowment. When she first came
+to San Stefano she had been struck by the ruinous, tumbledown houses
+and cottages of the poorer quarters, leprous and scabby with filth,
+eaten up by their own poverty, in which a whole population vegetated
+like toadstools. She was now building the hostel for the old people,
+finding work on the estate for the young and healthy and looking after
+the neglected children; she had built a new school-house. She talked
+about all this very simply, while cutting cake for her brother Bob,
+who was tucking in after his formal dinner. She asked Cornelie to
+come with her one morning to see how the albergo was progressing,
+to see the new school, run by two priests who had been recommended
+to her by the monsignori.
+
+Through the pointed windows the town loomed faintly in the depths
+below; and the lines of the cathedral rose high into the sultry,
+star-spangled night. And Cornelie thought to herself:
+
+"It was not only for a shadow and an unsubstantial shade that she came
+here, the rich American who thought titles 'so nice,' the child who
+used to collect patterns of the queen's ball-dresses--she hides the
+album now that she is a 'black' princess--the girl who used to trip
+through the Forum in her white-serge tailor-made, without understanding
+either ancient Rome or the dawn of the new future."
+
+And, as Cornelie went to her own room through the silent heavy darkness
+of the Castle of San Stefano, she thought:
+
+"I write, but she acts. I dream and think; but she teaches the
+children, though it be with the aid of a priest; she feeds and houses
+old men and women."
+
+Then, in her room, looking out at the lake under the summer night
+all dusted with stars, she reflected that she too would like to be
+rich and to have a wide field of labour. For now she had no field,
+now she had no money and now ... now she longed only for Duco; and he
+must not leave her too long alone in this castle, amid all this sombre
+greatness, which oppressed her as with the weight of the centuries.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Next morning Urania's maid was showing Cornelie through a maze of
+galleries to the garden, where breakfast was to be served, when she
+met Gilio on the stairs. The maid turned back.
+
+"I still need a guide to find my way," Cornelie laughed.
+
+He grunted some reply.
+
+"How did you sleep, prince?"
+
+He gave another grunt.
+
+"Look here, prince, there must be an end of this ill-temper of
+yours. Do you hear? It's got to finish. I insist. I won't have any
+more sulking to-day; and I hope that you'll go back to your cheerful,
+witty style of conversation as soon as possible, for that's what I
+like in you."
+
+He mumbled something.
+
+"Good-bye, prince," said Cornelie, curtly.
+
+And she turned to go away.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked.
+
+"To my room. I shall breakfast in my room."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I don't care for you as a host."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, you. Yesterday you insult me. I defend myself, you go on being
+rude, I at once become as amiable as ever, I give you my hand, I
+even give you a kiss. At dinner you sulk with me in the most uncivil
+fashion. You go to bed without bidding me good-night. This morning you
+meet me without a word of greeting. You grunt, sulk and mumble like
+a naughty child. Your eyes are blazing with anger, you are yellow
+with spleen. Really, you're looking very bad. It doesn't suit you
+at all. You are most unpleasant, rough, rude and petty. I have no
+inclination to breakfast with you in that mood. And I'm going to
+my room."
+
+"No," he implored.
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Then be different. Make an effort, don't think any more about your
+defeat and be nice to me. You're behaving as the offended party,
+whereas it is I who ought to take offence. But I don't know how
+to sulk and I am not petty. I can't behave pettily. I forgive you;
+do you forgive me too. Say something nice, say something pleasant."
+
+"I am mad about you."
+
+"You don't show it. If you're mad about me, be pleasant, civil,
+gay and witty. I demand it of you as my host."
+
+"I won't sulk any longer ... but I do love you so! And you struck me!"
+
+"Will you never forget that act of self-defence?"
+
+"No, never!"
+
+"Then good-bye."
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"No, no, don't go back. Come to breakfast in the pergola. I apologize,
+I beg your pardon. I won't be rude again, I won't be petty. You are
+not petty. You are the most wonderful woman I ever met. I worship you."
+
+"Then worship in silence and amuse me."
+
+His eyes, his black carbuncle eyes, began to light up again, to laugh;
+his face lost its wrinkles and cheered up.
+
+"I am too sad to be amusing."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"Honestly, I am full of sorrow and suffering...."
+
+"Poor prince!"
+
+"You just won't believe me. You never take me seriously. I have to
+be your clown, your buffoon. And I love you and have nothing to hope
+for. Tell me, mayn't I hope?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"You are inexorable ... and so severe!"
+
+"I have to be severe with you: you are just like a naughty boy.... Oh,
+I see the pergola! Do you promise to improve?"
+
+"I shall be good."
+
+"And amusing?"
+
+He heaved a sigh:
+
+"Poor Gilio!" he sighed. "Poor buffoon!"
+
+She laughed. In the pergola were Urania and Bob Hope. The pergola,
+overgrown with creeping vine and rambler roses hanging in crimson
+clusters, displayed a row of marble caryatides and hermes--nymphs,
+satyrs and fauns--whose torsos ended in slender, sculptured pedestals,
+while their raised hands supported the flat roof of leaves and
+flowers. In the middle was an open rotunda like an open temple;
+the circular balustrade was also supported by caryatides; and an
+ancient sarcophagus had been adapted to serve as a cistern. A table
+was laid for breakfast in the pergola; and they breakfasted without
+old Prince Ercole or the marchesa, who broke her fast in her room. It
+was eight o'clock; a morning coolness was still wafted from the lake;
+a haze of blue gossamer floated over the hills, in the heart of which,
+as though surrounded by a gently fluted basin, the lake was sunk like
+an oval goblet.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful it is here!" cried Cornelie, delightedly.
+
+Breakfast was a sunny and cheerful meal, after yesterday's dark and
+gloomy dinner. Urania talked vivaciously about her albergo, which
+she was going to visit presently with Cornelie, Gilio recovered his
+amiability and Bob ate heartily. And, when Bob went off bicycling,
+Gilio even accompanied the ladies to the town. They drove at a
+foot-pace in a landau down the castle road. The sun grew hotter and
+the little old town lit up, with whitish-grey and creamy-white houses
+like stone mirrors, in which the sun reflected itself, and little open
+spaces like walls, into which the sun poured its light. The coachman
+pulled up outside the partly-finished albergo. They all alighted;
+the contractor approached ceremoniously; the perspiring masons looked
+round at the prince and princess. The heat was stifling. Gilio kept
+on wiping his forehead and sheltered under Cornelie's parasol. But
+Urania was all vivacity and interest; quick and full of energy
+in her white-pique costume, with her white sailor-hat under her
+white sun-shade, she tripped along planks, past heaps of bricks and
+cement and tubs full of mortar, accompanied by her contractor. She
+made him explain things, proffered advice, disagreed with him at
+times and pulled a wise face, saying that she did not like certain
+measurements and refused to accept the contractor's assurance that
+she would like the measurements as the building progressed; she shook
+her head and impressed this and that upon him, all in a quick, none
+too correct, broken Italian, which she chewed between her teeth. But
+Cornelie thought her charming, attractive, every inch the Princess di
+Forte-Braccio. There was not a doubt about it. While Gilio, fearful
+of dirtying his light flannel suit and brown shoes with the mortar,
+remained in the shadow of her parasol, puffing and blowing with the
+heat and taking no interest whatever, his wife was untiring, did not
+trouble to think that her white skirt was becoming soiled at the hem
+and spoke to the contractor with a lively and dignified certainty
+which compelled respect. Where had the child learnt that? Where
+had she acquired her powers of assimilation? Where did she get this
+love for San Stefano, this love for its poor? How had the American
+girl picked up this talent for filling her new and exalted position
+so worthily? Gilio thought her admirabile and whispered as much to
+Cornelie. He was not blind to her good qualities. He thought Urania
+splendid, excellent; she always astounded him. No Italian woman of his
+own set would have been like that. And they liked her. The servants
+at the castle loved her. Giuseppe would have gone through fire and
+water for her; that contractor admired her; the masons followed her
+respectfully with their eyes, because she was so clever and knew so
+much and was so good to them in their poverty.
+
+"Admirabile!" said Gilio.
+
+But he puffed and blowed. He knew nothing about bricks, beams
+and measurements and did not understand where Urania had got that
+technical sense from. She was indefatigable. She went all over the
+works, while he cast up his eyes to Cornelie in entreaty. And at
+last, speaking in English, he begged his wife in Heaven's name to come
+away. They went back to the carriage; the contractor took off his hat,
+the workmen raised their caps with an air of mingled gratitude and
+independence. And they drove to the cathedral, which Cornelie wanted
+to see. Urania showed her round. Gilio asked to be excused and went
+and sat on the steps of the altar, with his hands hanging over his
+knees, to cool himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+A week had passed. Duco had arrived. After the solemn dinner in
+the gloomy dining-room, where Duco had been presented to Prince
+Ercole, the summer evening, when Cornelie and Duco went outside,
+was like a dream. The castle was already wrapped in heavy repose;
+but Cornelie had made Giuseppe give her a key. And they went out,
+to the pergola. The stars dusted the night sky with a pale radiance;
+and the moon crowned the hill-tops and shimmered faintly in the mystic
+depths of the lake. A breath of sleeping roses was wafted from the
+flower-garden beyond the pergola; and below, in the flat-roofed town,
+the cathedral, standing in its moonlit square, lifted its gigantic
+fabric to the stars. And sleep hung everywhere, over the lake, over
+the town and behind the windows of the castle; the caryatides and
+hermes--the satyrs and nymphs--slept, as they bore the leafy roof
+of the pergola, in the enchanted attitudes of the servants of the
+Sleeping Beauty. A cricket chirped, but fell silent the moment that
+Duco and Cornelie approached. And they sat down on an antique bench;
+and she flung her arms about his body and nestled against him:
+
+"A week!" she whispered. "A whole week since I saw you, Duco,
+my darling. I cannot do so long without you. At everything that I
+thought and saw and admired I thought of you, of how lovely you would
+think it here. You have been here once before on an excursion. Oh,
+but that is so different! It is so beautiful just to stay here,
+not just to go on, but to remain. That lake, that cathedral, those
+hills! The rooms indoors: neglected but so wonderful! The three
+courtyards are dilapidated, the fountains are crumbling to pieces
+... but the style of the atrio, the sombre gloom of the dining-room,
+the poetry of this pergola!... Duco, doesn't the pergola remind you
+of a classic ode? You know how we used to read Horace together: you
+translated the verses so well, you improvised so delightfully. How
+clever you are! You know so much, you feel things so beautifully. I
+love your eyes, your voice, I love you altogether, I love everything
+that is you ... I can't tell you how much, Duco. I have gradually
+surrendered myself to every word of you, to every sensation of you, to
+your love for Rome, to your love for museums, to your manner of seeing
+the skies which you put into your drawings. You are so deliriously
+calm, almost like this lake. Oh, don't laugh, don't make a jest of it:
+it's a week since I saw you, I feel such a need to talk to you! Is it
+exaggerated? I don't feel quite normal here either: there is something
+in that sky, in that light, that makes me talk like this. It is so
+beautiful that I can hardly believe that all this is ordinary life,
+ordinary reality.... Do you remember, at Sorrento, on the terrace of
+the hotel, when we looked out over the sea, over that pearl-grey sea,
+with Naples lying white in the distance? I felt like this then; but
+then I dared not speak like this: it was in the morning; there were
+people about, whom we didn't see but who saw us and whom I suspected
+all around me; but now we are alone and now I want to tell you, in
+your arms, against your breast, how happy I am! I love you so! All my
+soul, all that is finest in me is for you. You laugh, but you don't
+believe me. Or do you? Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes, I believe you, I am not laughing at you, I am only just
+laughing.... Yes, it is beautiful here.... I also feel happy. I am
+so happy in you and in my art. You taught me to work, you roused me
+from my dreams. I am so happy about The Banners: I have heard from
+London; I will show you the letters to-morrow. I have you to thank for
+everything. It is almost incredible that this is ordinary life. I have
+been so quiet too in Rome. I saw nobody; I just worked a bit, not very
+much; and I had my meals alone in the osteria. The two Italians--you
+know the men I mean--felt sorry for me, I think. Oh, it was a terrible
+week! I can no longer do without you.... Do you remember our first
+walks and talks in the Borghese and on the Palatine? How strange we
+were to each other then, not a bit in unison. But I believe I felt
+at once that all would be well and beautiful between us...."
+
+She was silent and lay against his breast. The cricket chirped again,
+with a long quaver. But everything else slept....
+
+"Between us," she repeated, as though in a fever; and she embraced
+him passionately.
+
+The whole night slept; and, while they breathed their life in each
+other's arms, the enchanted caryatides--fauns and nymphs--lifted the
+leafy roof of the pergola above their heads, between them and the
+star-spangled sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+Gilio hated the villeggiatura at San Stefano. Every morning he had
+to be up and dressed by six o'clock, with Prince Ercole, Urania
+and the marchesa, to hear mass said by the chaplain in the private
+chapel of the castle. After that, he did not know what to do with
+his time. He had gone bicycling once or twice with Bob Hope, but the
+young Far-Westerner had too much energy for him, like Bob's sister,
+Urania. He flirted and argued a little with Cornelie, but secretly he
+was still offended and angry with himself and her. He remembered her
+first arrival that evening at the Palazzo Ruspoli, when she came and
+disturbed his rendez-vous with Urania. And in the camera degli sposi
+she had for the second time been too much for him! He seethed with fury
+when he thought of it and he hated her and swore by all his gods to be
+revenged. He cursed his own lack of resolution. He had been too weak
+to use violence or force and there ought never to have been any need
+to resort to force: he was accustomed to a quick surrender. And he
+had to be told by her, that Dutchwoman, that his temperament did not
+respond to hers! What was there about that woman? What did she mean
+by it? He was so unaccustomed to thinking, he was such a thoughtless,
+easy-going, Italian child of nature, so accustomed to let his life run
+on according to his every whim and impulse, that he hardly understood
+her--though he suspected the meaning of her words--hardly understood
+that reserve of hers. Why should she behave so to him, this foreigner
+with her demoniacal new ideas, who cared nothing about the world,
+who would have nothing to do with marriage, who lived with a painter
+as his mistress! She had no religion and no morals--he knew about
+religion and morals--she belonged to the devil; demoniacal was what she
+was: didn't she know all about Aunt Lucia Belloni's manoeuvres? And
+hadn't Aunt Lucia warned him lately that she was a dangerous woman,
+an uncanny woman, a woman of the devil? She was a witch! Why should
+she refuse? Hadn't he plainly seen her figure last night going through
+the courtyard in the moonlight, beside Van der Staal's figure, and
+hadn't he seen them opening the door that led to the terrace by the
+pergola? And hadn't he waited an hour, two hours, without sleeping,
+until he saw them come back and lock the door after them? And why
+did she love only him, that painter? Oh, he hated him, with all the
+blazing hatred of his jealousy; he hated her, for her exclusiveness,
+for her disdain, for all her jesting and flirting, as though he were
+a buffoon, a clown! What was it that he asked? A favour of love, such
+as she granted her lover! He was not asking for anything serious,
+any oath or lifelong tie; he asked for so little: just one hour of
+love. It was of no importance: he had never looked upon that as of much
+importance. And she, she refused it to him! No, he did not understand
+her, but what he did understand was that she disdained him; and he,
+he hated the pair of them. And yet he was enamoured of her with all the
+violence of his thwarted passion. In the boredom of that villeggiatura,
+to which his wife forced him in her new love for their ruined eyrie,
+his hatred and the thought of his revenge formed an occupation for
+his empty brains. Outwardly he was the same as usual and flirted with
+Cornelie, flirted even more than usual, to annoy Van der Staal. And,
+when his cousin, the Countess di Rosavilla--his "white" cousin, the
+lady-in-waiting to the queen--came to spend a few days with them,
+he flirted with her too and tried to provoke Cornelie's jealousy. He
+failed in this, however, and consoled himself with the countess,
+who made up to him for his disappointment. She was no longer a young
+woman, but represented the cold, sculptured Juno type, with a rather
+foolish expression; she had Juno eyes, protruding from their sockets;
+she was a leader of fashion at the Quirinal and in the "white"
+world; and her reputation for gallantry was generally known. She
+had never had a liaison with Gilio that lasted for longer than an
+hour. She had very simple ideas on love, without much variety. Her
+light-hearted depravity amused Gilio. And, flirting in the corners,
+with his foot on hers under her skirt, Gilio told her about Cornelie,
+about Duco and about the adventure in the camera degli sposi and asked
+his cousin whether she understood. No, the Countess di Rosavilla did
+not understand it any too well either. Temperament? Oh, yes, perhaps
+she--questa Cornelia--preferred fair men to dark: there were women
+who had a preference! And Gilio laughed. It was so simple, l'amore;
+there wasn't very much to be said about it.
+
+Cornelie was glad that Gilio had the countess to amuse him. She and
+Duco interested themselves in Urania's plans; Duco had long talks with
+the architect. And he was indignant and advised them not to rebuild
+so much in that undistinguished restoration manner: it was lacking
+in style, cost heaps of money and spoilt everything.
+
+Urania was disconcerted, but Duco went on, interrupted the architect,
+advised him to build up only what was actually falling to pieces, and,
+so far as possible, to confine himself to underpinning, reinforcing
+and preserving. And one morning Prince Ercole deigned to walk through
+the long rooms with Duco, Urania and Cornelie. There was a great deal
+to be done, Duco considered, by merely repairing and artistically
+arranging what at present stood thoughtlessly huddled together.
+
+"The curtains?" asked Urania.
+
+"Let them be," Duco considered. "At the most, new window-curtains;
+but the old red Venetian damask; oh, let it be, let it be!"
+
+It was so beautiful; here and there it might be patched, very
+carefully. He was horrified at Urania's notion: new curtains! And
+the old prince was enraptured, because in this way the restoration of
+San Stefano would cost thousands less and be much more artistic. He
+regarded his daughter-in-law's money as his own and preferred it to
+her. He was enraptured: he took Duco with him to his library, showed
+him the old missals, the old family books and papers, charters and
+deeds of gift, showed him his coins and medals. It was all out of
+order and neglected, first from lack of money and then from slighting
+indifference; but now Urania wanted to reorganize the family museum
+with the aid of experts from Rome, Florence and Bologna. The old
+prince's interest revived, now that there was money. And the experts
+came and stayed at the castle and Duco spent whole mornings in their
+company. He enjoyed every moment of it. He lived in his enchantment
+of the past, no longer in the days of antiquity, but in the middle
+ages and the Renascence. The days were too short. And his love for
+San Stefano became such that one day an archivist took him for the
+young prince, for Prince Virgilio. At dinner that evening Prince
+Ercole told the story. And everybody laughed, but Gilio thought the
+joke beyond price, whereas the archivist, who was there at dinner,
+did not know how to apologize sufficiently.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+Gilio had followed the advice of his cousin, the Countess di
+Rosavilla. Immediately after dinner, he had stolen outside; and he
+walked along the pergola to the rotunda, into which the moonlight
+fell as into a white beaker. But there was shadow behind a couple
+of caryatides; and here he hid. He waited for an hour. But the night
+slept, the caryatides slept, standing motionless and supporting the
+leafy roof. He uttered a curse and stole indoors again. He walked
+down the corridors on tiptoe and listened at Van der Staal's door. He
+heard nothing, but perhaps Van der Staal was asleep?...
+
+Gilio, however, crept along another corridor and listened at Cornelie's
+door. He held his breath.... Yes, there was a sound of voices. They
+were together! Together! He clenched his fists and walked away. But
+why did he excite himself? He knew all about their relations. Why
+should they not be together here? And he went on and tapped at the
+countess' door....
+
+Next evening he again waited in the rotunda. They did not come. But,
+a few evenings later, as he sat waiting, choking with annoyance,
+he saw them come. He saw Duco lock the terrace-door behind him: the
+rusty lock grated in the distance. Slowly he saw them walk along
+and approach in the light, disappearing from view in the shadow,
+reappearing in the moonlight. They sat down on the marble bench....
+
+How happy they seemed! He was jealous of their happiness, jealous above
+all of him. And how gentle and tender she was, she who considered him,
+Gilio, only good enough for her amusement, to flirt with, a clown:
+she, the devilish woman, was angelic to the man she loved! She bent
+towards her lover with a smiling caress, with a curve of her arm,
+with a proffering of her lips, with something intensely alluring,
+with a velvety languor of love which he would never have suspected
+in her, after her cold, jesting flirtation with him, Gilio. She was
+now leaning on Duco's arms, on his breast, with her face against
+his.... Oh, how her kiss filled Gilio with flame and fury! This was
+no longer her icy lack of sensuous response towards him, Gilio, in the
+camera degli sposi. And he could restrain himself no longer: he would
+at least disturb their moment of happiness. And, quivering in every
+nerve, he stepped from behind the caryatides and went towards them,
+through the rotunda. Lost in each other's eyes, they did not see him
+at once. But, suddenly, simultaneously, they both started; their arms
+fell apart then and there; they sprang up in one movement; they saw
+him approaching but evidently did not at once recognize him. Not until
+he was closer did they perceive who he was; and they looked at him in
+startled silence, wondering what he would say. He made a satirical bow:
+
+"A delightful evening, isn't it? The view is lovely, like this, at
+night, from the pergola. You are right to come and enjoy it. I hope
+that I am not disturbing you with my unexpected company?"
+
+His tremulous voice sounded so spiteful and aggressive that they
+could not doubt the violence of his anger.
+
+"Not at all, prince!" replied Cornelie, recovering her
+composure. "Though I can't imagine what you are doing here, at
+this hour."
+
+"And what are you doing here, at this hour?"
+
+"What am I doing? I am sitting with Van der Staal...."
+
+"At this hour?"
+
+"At this hour! What do you mean, prince, what are you suggesting?"
+
+"What am I suggesting? That the pergola is closed at night."
+
+"Prince," said Duco, "your tone is offensive."
+
+"And you are altogether offensive."
+
+"If you were not my host, I would strike you in the face...."
+
+Cornelie caught Duco by the arm; the prince cursed and clenched
+his fists.
+
+"Prince," she said, "you have obviously come to pick a quarrel with
+us. Why? What objection can you have to my meeting Van der Staal here
+in the evening? In the first place, our relation towards each other
+is no secret for you. And then I think it unworthy of you to come
+spying on us."
+
+"Unworthy? Unworthy?" He had lost all self-control. "I am unworthy,
+am I, and petty and rude and not a man and my temperament doesn't suit
+you? His temperament seems to suit you all right! I heard the kiss
+you gave him! She-devil! Demon! Never have I been insulted as I have
+by you. I have never put up with so much from anybody. I will put up
+with no more. You struck me, you demon, you she-devil! And now he's
+threatening to strike me! My patience is at an end. I can't bear that
+in my own house you should refuse me what you give to him.... He's not
+your husband! He's not your husband! I have as much right to you as
+he; and, if he thinks he has a better right than I, then I hate him,
+I hate him!..."
+
+And, blind with rage, he flew at Duco's throat. The attack was so
+unexpected that Duco stumbled. They both wrestled furiously. All their
+hidden antipathy broke forth in fury. They did not hear Cornelie's
+entreaties, they struck each other with their fists, they grappled with
+arms and legs, breast to breast. Then Cornelie saw something flash. In
+the moonlight she saw that the prince had drawn a knife. But the very
+movement was an advantage to Duco, who gripped his wrist as in a vice,
+forced him to the ground and, pressing his knee on Gilio's chest,
+took him by the throat with his other hand.
+
+"Let go!" yelled the prince.
+
+"Let go that knife!" yelled Duco.
+
+The prince obstinately persisted:
+
+"Let go!" he yelled once more.
+
+"Let go that knife."
+
+The knife dropped from his fingers. Duco grasped it and rose to
+his feet:
+
+"Get up," he said, "we can continue this fight, if you like, to-morrow,
+under less primitive conditions: not with a knife, but with swords
+or pistols."
+
+The prince stood panting, blue in the face.... When he came to himself,
+he said, slowly:
+
+"No, I will not fight a duel. Unless you want to. But I don't. I am
+defeated. She has a demoniacal force which would always make you win,
+whatever game we played. We've had our duel. This struggle tells
+me more than a regular duel would. Only, if you want to fight me,
+I have no objection. But I now know for certain that you would kill
+me. She protects you."
+
+"I don't want to fight a duel with you," said Duco.
+
+"Then let us look on this struggle as a duel and now give me your
+hand."
+
+Duco put out his hand; Gilio pressed it:
+
+"Forgive me," he said, bowing before Cornelie. "I have insulted you."
+
+"No," said she, "I do not forgive you."
+
+"We have to forgive each other. I forgive you the blow you struck me."
+
+"I forgive you nothing. I shall never forgive you this evening's work:
+not your spying, nor your lack of self-control, nor the rights which
+you try to claim from me, an unmarried woman--whereas I allow you no
+rights whatever--nor your attack, nor your knife."
+
+"Are we enemies then, for good?"
+
+"Yes, for good. I shall leave your house to-morrow."
+
+"I have done wrong," he confessed, humbly. "Forgive me. I am
+hot-blooded."
+
+"Until now I looked upon you as a gentleman...."
+
+"I am also an Italian."
+
+"I do not forgive you."
+
+"I once proved to you that I could be a good friend."
+
+"This is not the moment to remind me of it."
+
+"I remind you of everything that might make you more gently disposed
+towards me."
+
+"It is no use."
+
+"Enemies then?"
+
+"Yes. Let us go indoors. I shall leave your house to-morrow."
+
+"I will do any penance that you inflict upon me."
+
+"I inflict nothing. I want this conversation to end and I want to
+go indoors."
+
+"I will go ahead of you."
+
+They walked up the pergola. He himself opened the terrace-door and
+let them in before him.
+
+They went in silence to their rooms. The castle lay asleep in
+darkness. The prince struck a match to light the way. Duco was the
+first to reach his room.
+
+"I will light you to your room," said the prince, meekly.
+
+He struck a second match and accompanied Cornelie to her door. Here
+he fell on his knees:
+
+"Forgive me," he whispered, with a sob in his throat.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+And without more she locked the door behind her. He remained on his
+knees for another moment. Then he slowly rose to his feet. His throat
+hurt him. His shoulder felt as though it were dislocated.
+
+"It's over," he muttered. "I am defeated. She is stronger now than I,
+but not because she is a devil. I have seen them together. I have seen
+their embrace. She is stronger, he is stronger than I ... because of
+their happiness. I feel that, because of their happiness, they will
+always be stronger than I...."
+
+He went to his room, which adjoined Urania's bedroom. His chest
+heaved with sobs. Dressed as he was, he flung himself sobbing on
+his bed, swallowing his sobs in the slumbering night that hung over
+the castle. Then he got up and looked out of the window. He saw the
+lake. He saw the pergola, where they had been fighting. The night
+was sleeping there; the caryatides, sleeping, stood out white against
+the shadow. And his eyes sought the exact spot of their struggle and
+of his defeat. And, with his superstitious faith in their happiness,
+he became convinced that there would be no fighting against it, ever.
+
+Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if he were flinging a load off
+his back:
+
+"Fa niente!" he said to console himself. "Domani megliore...."
+
+And he meant that to-morrow he would achieve, if not this victory,
+another. Then, with eyes still moist, he fell asleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+Urania sobbed nervously in Cornelie's arms when she told the young
+princess that she was leaving that morning. She and Duco were alone
+with Urania in Urania's own drawing-room.
+
+"What has happened?" she sobbed.
+
+Cornelie told her of the previous evening:
+
+"Urania," she said, seriously, "I know I am a coquette. I thought it
+pleasant to talk with Gilio; call it flirting, if you like. I never
+made a secret of it, either to Duco or to you. I looked upon it as an
+amusement, nothing more. Perhaps I did wrong; I know it annoyed you
+once before. I promised not to do it again; but it seems to be beyond
+my control. It's in my nature; and I shall not attempt to defend
+myself. I looked upon it as a trifle, as a diversion, as fun. But
+perhaps it was wrong. Do you forgive me? I have grown so fond of you:
+it would hurt me if you did not forgive me."
+
+"Make it up with Gilio and stay on."
+
+"That's impossible, my dear girl. Gilio has insulted me, Gilio drew
+his knife against Duco; and those are two things which I can never
+forgive him. So it is impossible for us to remain."
+
+"I shall be so lonely!" she sobbed. "I also am so fond of you, I am
+fond of you both. Is there no way out of it? Bob is going to-morrow
+too. I shall be all alone. And I have nothing here, nobody who is
+fond of me...."
+
+"You have a great deal left, Urania. You have an object in life; you
+can do any amount of good in your surroundings. You are interested
+in the castle, which is now your own."
+
+"It's all so empty!" she sobbed. "It means nothing to me. I need
+affection. Who is there that is fond of me? I have tried to love Gilio
+and I do love him, but he doesn't care for me. Nobody cares for me."
+
+"Your poor are devoted to you. You have a noble aim in life."
+
+"I'm glad of it, but I am too young to live only for an aim. And I
+have nothing else. Nobody cares for me."
+
+"Prince Ercole, surely?"
+
+"No, he despises me. Listen. I told you once before what Gilio
+said ... that there were no family-jewels, that they were all sold:
+you remember, don't you? Well, there are family-jewels. I gathered
+that from something the Countess di Rosavilla said. There are
+family-jewels. But Prince Ercole keeps them in the Banco di Roma. They
+despise me; and I am not thought good enough to wear them. And to me
+they pretend that there are none left. And the worst of it is that
+all their friends, all their set know that the jewels are there, in
+the bank, and they all say that Prince Ercole is right. My money is
+good enough for them, but I am not good enough for their old jewels,
+the jewels of their grandmother!"
+
+"That's a shame!" said Cornelie.
+
+"It's the truth!" sobbed Urania. "Oh, do make it up, stay a little
+longer, for my sake!..."
+
+"Judge for yourself, Urania: we really can't."
+
+"I suppose you're right," she admitted, with a sigh.
+
+"It's all my fault."
+
+"No, no, Gilio is sometimes so impetuous...."
+
+"But his impetuousness, his anger, his jealousy are my fault. I am
+sorry about it, Urania, because of you. Forgive me. Come and look
+me up in Rome when you go back. Don't forget me; and write, won't
+you?... Now I must go and pack my trunk. What time is the train?"
+
+"Ten twenty-five," said Duco. "We shall go together."
+
+"Can I say good-bye to Prince Ercole? Send and ask if he can see me."
+
+"What shall I tell him?"
+
+"The first thing that comes into your head: that a friend of mine in
+Rome is ill, that I am going to look after her and that Van der Staal
+is taking me back because I am nervous travelling. I don't care what
+Prince Ercole thinks."
+
+"Cornelie...."
+
+"Darling, I really haven't another moment. Kiss me and forgive me. And
+think of me sometimes. Good-bye. We have had a delightful time together
+and I have grown very fond of you."
+
+She tore herself from Urania's embrace; Duco also said good-bye. They
+left the princess sobbing by herself. In the passage they met Gilio.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked, in his humble voice.
+
+"We are going by the ten twenty-five."
+
+"I am very, very sorry...."
+
+But they went on and left him standing there, while Urania sat sobbing
+in the drawing-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+In the train, in the scorching morning heat, they were silent; and
+they found Rome as it were bursting out of its houses in the blazing
+sunshine. The studio, however, was cool, solitary and peaceful.
+
+"Cornelie," said Duco, "tell me what happened between you and the
+prince. Why did you strike him?"
+
+She pulled him down on the sofa, threw herself on his neck and told him
+the incident of the camera degli sposi. She told him of the thousand
+lire and the bracelet. She explained that she had said nothing about
+it before, so as not to speak to him of financial worries while he
+was finishing his water-colour for the exhibition in London:
+
+"Duco," she continued, "I was so frightened when I saw Gilio draw
+that knife yesterday. I felt as if I was going to faint, but I
+didn't. I had never seen him like that, so violent, so ready to do
+anything.... It was then that I really felt how much I loved you. I
+should have murdered him if he had wounded you."
+
+"You ought not to have played with him," he said, severely. "He
+loves you."
+
+But, in spite of his stern voice, he drew her closer to him.
+
+Filled with a certain consciousness of guilt, she laid her head
+coaxingly on his chest:
+
+"He is only a little in love," she said, defending herself feebly.
+
+"He is very passionately in love. You ought not to have played
+with him."
+
+She made no further reply, merely stroked his face with her hand. She
+liked him all the better for reproaching her as he did; she loved that
+stern, earnest voice, which he hardly ever adopted towards her. She
+knew that she had that need for flirting in her, that she had had
+it ever since she was a very young girl; it did not count with her,
+it was only innocent fun. She did not agree with Duco, but thought
+it unnecessary to go over the whole ground: it was as it was, she
+didn't think about it, didn't dispute it; it was like a difference of
+opinion, almost of taste, which did not count. She was lying against
+him too comfortably, after the excitement of last evening, after a
+sleepless night, after a precipitate departure, after a three hours'
+railway-journey in the blazing heat, to argue to any extent. She liked
+the silent coolness of the studio, the sense of being alone with him,
+after her three weeks at San Stefano. There was a peacefulness here,
+a return to herself, which filled her with bliss. The tall window
+was open and the warm air poured in beneficently and was tempered by
+the natural chilliness of the north room. Duco's easel stood empty,
+awaiting him. This was their home, amid all that colour and form
+of art which surrounded them. She now understood that colour and
+form; she was learning Rome. She was learning it all in dreams of
+happiness. She gave little thought to the woman question and hardly
+glanced at the notices of her pamphlet, taking but a scanty interest
+in them. She admired Lippo's angel, admired the panel of Gentile da
+Fabriano and the resplendent colours of the old chasubles. It was
+very little, after the treasures at San Stefano, but it was theirs
+and it was home. She did not speak, felt happy and contented resting
+on Duco's breast and passing her fingers over his face.
+
+"The Banners is as good as sold," he said. "For ninety pounds. I
+shall telegraph to London to-day. And then we shall soon be able to
+pay the prince back that thousand lire."
+
+"It's Urania's money," she said, feebly.
+
+"But I won't have that debt hanging on."
+
+She felt that he was a little angry, but she was in no mood to discuss
+money matters and she was filled with a blissful languor as she lay
+on his breast....
+
+"Are you cross, Duco?"
+
+"No ... but you oughtn't to have done it."
+
+He clasped her more tightly, to make her feel that he did not want to
+grumble at her, even though he thought that she had done wrong. She
+thought that she had done right not to mention the thousand lire to
+him, but she did not defend herself. It meant useless words; and she
+felt too happy to talk about money.
+
+"Cornelie," he said, "let us get married."
+
+She looked at him in dismay, startled out of her blissfulness:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Not because of ourselves. We are just as happy unmarried. But because
+of the world, because of people."
+
+"Because of the world? Because of people?"
+
+"Yes. We shall be feeling more and more isolated. I discussed it
+once or twice with Urania. She was very sorry about it, but she
+sympathized with us and wasn't shocked. She thought it an impossible
+position. Perhaps she is right. We can't go anywhere. At San Stefano
+they still acted as though they did not know that we were living
+together; but that is over now."
+
+"What do you care about the opinion of 'small, insignificant people,
+who chance to cross your path,' as you yourself say?"
+
+"It's different now. We owe the prince money; and Urania is the only
+friend you have."
+
+"I have you: I don't want any one else."
+
+He kissed her:
+
+"Really, Cornelie, it is better that we should get married. Then
+nobody can insult you again as the prince dared to do."
+
+"He has narrow-minded notions: how can you want to get married for
+the sake of a world and people like San Stefano and the prince?"
+
+"The whole world is like that, without exception, and we are in the
+world. We live in the midst of other people. It is impossible to
+isolate one's self entirely; and isolation brings its own punishment
+later. We have to attach ourselves to other people: it is impossible
+always to lead your own existence, without any sense of community."
+
+"Duco, how you've changed! These are the ideas of ordinary society!"
+
+"I have been reflecting more lately."
+
+"I am just learning how not to reflect.... My darling, how grave
+you are this morning! And this while I'm lying up against you so
+deliciously, to rest after all that excitement and the hot journey."
+
+"Seriously, Cornelie, let us get married."
+
+She snuggled against him a little nervously, displeased because he
+persisted and because he was forcibly dissipating her blissful mood:
+
+"You're a horrid boy. Why need we get married? It would alter nothing
+in our position. We still shouldn't trouble about other people. We are
+living so delightfully here, living for your art. We want nothing more
+than each other and your art and Rome. I am so very fond of Rome now;
+I am quite altered. There is something here that is always attracting
+me afresh. At San Stefano I felt homesick for Rome and for our
+studio. You must choose a new subject ... and get to work again. When
+you're doing nothing, you sit thinking--about social ethics--and that
+doesn't suit you at all. It makes you so different. And then such
+petty, conventional ideas. To get married! Why, in Heaven's name,
+should we, Duco? You know my views on marriage. I have had experience:
+it is better not."
+
+She had risen and was mechanically looking through some half-finished
+sketches in a portfolio.
+
+"Your experience," he repeated. "We know each other too well to be
+afraid of anything."
+
+She took the sketches from the portfolio: they were ideas which had
+occurred to him and which he had jotted down while he was working at
+The Banners. She examined them and scattered them abroad:
+
+"Afraid?" she repeated, vaguely. "No," she suddenly resumed, more
+firmly. "A person never knows himself or another. I don't know you,
+I don't know myself."
+
+Something deep down within herself was warning her:
+
+"Don't marry, don't give in. It's better not, it's better not."
+
+It was barely a whisper, a shadow of premonition. She had not thought
+it out; it was unconscious and mysterious as the depths of her
+soul. For she was not aware of it, she did not think it, she hardly
+heard it within herself. It flitted through her; it was not a feeling;
+it only left a thwarting reluctance in her, very plainly. Not until
+years later would she understand that unwillingness.
+
+"No, Duco, it is better not."
+
+"Think it over, Cornelie."
+
+"It is better not," she repeated, obstinately. "Please, don't let us
+talk about it any more. It is better not, but I think it so horrid
+to refuse you, because you want it. I never refuse you anything,
+as you know. I would do anything else for you. But this time I feel
+... it is better not!"
+
+She went to him, all one caress, and kissed him:
+
+"Don't ask it of me again. What a cloud on your face! I can see that
+you mean to go on thinking of it."
+
+She stroked his forehead as though to smooth away the wrinkles:
+
+"Don't think of it any more. I love you, I love you! I want nothing
+but you. I am happy as we are. Why shouldn't you be too? Because
+Gilio was rude and Urania prim?... Come and look at your sketches:
+will you be starting work soon? I love it when you're working. Then
+I'll write something again: a chat about an old Italian castle. My
+recollections of San Stefano. Perhaps a short story, with the pergola
+for a background. Oh, that beautiful pergola!... But yesterday,
+that knife!... Tell me, Duco, are you going to work again? Let's look
+through them together. What a lot of ideas you had at that time! But
+don't become too symbolical: I mean, don't get into habits, into
+tricks; don't repeat yourself.... This woman here is very good. She
+is walking so unconsciously down that shelving line ... and all
+those hands pushing around her ... and those red flowers in the
+abyss.... Tell me, Duco, what had you in your mind?"
+
+"I don't know: it was not very clear to myself."
+
+"I think it very good, but I don't like this sketch. I can't say
+why. There's something dreary in it. I think the woman stupid. I
+don't like those shelving lines: I like lines that go up, as in
+The Banners. That all flowed out of darkness upwards, towards the
+sun! How beautiful that was! What a pity that we no longer have it,
+that it is being sold! If I were a painter, I should never be able
+to part with anything. I shall keep the sketches, to remind me of
+it. Don't you think it dreadful, that we no longer have it?"
+
+He agreed; he also loved and missed his Banners. And he hunted
+with her among the other studies and sketches. But, apart from the
+unconscious woman, there was nothing that was clear enough to him to
+elaborate. And Cornelie would not have him finish the unconscious
+woman: no, she didn't like those shelving lines.... But after that
+he found some sketches of landscape-studies, of clouds and skies over
+the Campagna, Venice and Naples....
+
+And he set to work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+They were very economical; they had a little money; and all through the
+scorching Roman summer the months passed as in a dream. They went on
+living their lonely, happy life, without seeing any one except Urania,
+who came to Rome now and again, looked them up, lunched with them
+at the studio and went back again in the evening. Then Urania wrote
+to them that Gilio could stand it no longer at San Stefano and that
+they were going abroad, first to Switzerland and then to Ostend. She
+came once more to say good-bye; and after that they saw nobody.
+
+In the old days Duco had known an artist here and there, a
+fellow-countryman painting in Rome; now he knew nobody, saw nobody. And
+their life in the cool studio was like life in a lonely oasis amid
+the torrid desert of Rome in August. For economy's sake, they did
+not go into the mountains, to a cooler spot. They spent no more than
+was absolutely necessary; and none the less this bohemian poverty,
+in its coloured setting of triptych and chasuble, spelt happiness.
+
+Money, however, remained scarce. Duco sold a water-colour once in
+a way, but at times they had to resort to the sale of a curio. And
+it always went to Duco's heart to part with anything that he had
+collected. They had few needs, but the time would come when the rent of
+the studio fell due. Cornelie sometimes wrote an article or a sketch
+and bought out of the proceeds what she needed for her wardrobe. She
+possessed a certain knack of putting on her clothes, a talent for
+looking smart in an old, worn blouse. She was fastidious about her
+hair, her skin, her teeth, her nails. With a new veil she would
+wear an old hat, with an old walking-dress a pair of fresh gloves;
+and she wore everything with a certain air of smartness. At home, in
+her pink tea-gown, which had lost its colour, the lines of her figure
+were so charming that Duco was constantly sketching her. They hardly
+ever went to a restaurant now. Cornelie cooked something at home,
+invented easy recipes, fetched a fiasco of wine from the nearest
+olio e vino, where the cab-drivers sat drinking at little tables;
+and they dined better and more cheaply than at the osteria. And Duco,
+now that he no longer bought things from the dealer in antiques on
+the Tiber, spent nothing at all. But money remained scarce. Once,
+when they had sold a silver crucifix for far less than it was worth,
+Cornelie was so dejected that she sobbed on Duco's breast. He consoled
+her, caressed her and declared that he didn't care much about the
+crucifix. But she knew that the crucifix was a very fine piece of
+work by an unknown sixteenth-century artist and that he was very
+unhappy at losing it. And she said to him seriously that it could
+not go on like this, that she could not be a burden to him and that
+they had better part; that she would look about for something to do,
+that she would go back to Holland. He was alarmed by her despair and
+said that it was not necessary, that he was able to look after her as
+his wife, but that unfortunately he was such an unpractical fellow,
+who could do nothing but splash about a bit with water-colours and
+even that not well enough to live on. But she said that he must
+not talk like that; he was a great artist. It was just that he did
+not possess a facile, money-making fertility, but he ranked all the
+higher on that account. She said that she would not live on his money,
+that she wanted to keep herself. And she collected the scattered
+remnants of her feminist ideas. Once again he begged her to consent
+to their marriage; they would become reconciled with his mother; and
+Mrs. van der Staal would give him what she used to give him when he
+used to live with her at Belloni's. But she refused to hear either
+of marriage or of an allowance from his mother, even as he refused
+to take money from Urania. How often had Urania not offered to help
+them! He had never consented; he was even angry when Urania had given
+Cornelie a blouse which Cornelie accepted with a kiss.
+
+No, it couldn't go on like this: they had better part; she must go
+back to Holland and seek employment. It was easier in Holland than
+abroad. But he was so desperate, because of their happiness, which
+tottered before his eyes, that he held her tightly pressed to his
+breast; and she sobbed, with her arms round his neck. Why should they
+part, he asked. They would be stronger together. He could no longer
+do without her; his life, if she left him, would be no life. He used
+to live in his dreams; he now lived in the reality of their happiness.
+
+And things remained as they were: they could not alter anything; they
+lived as thriftily as possible, in order to keep together. He finished
+his landscapes and always sold them; but he sold them at once, much
+too cheaply, so as not to have to wait for the money. But then poverty
+threatened once more; and she thought of writing to Holland. As it
+happened, however, she received a letter from her mother, followed
+by one from one of her sisters. And they asked her in those letters
+if it was true, what people were saying at the Hague, that she was
+living with Van der Staal. She had always looked upon herself as so
+far from the Hague and from Hague people that it had never occurred
+to her that her way of life might become known. She met nobody,
+she knew nobody with Dutch connections. Anyhow, her independent
+attitude was now known. And she answered the letters in a feminist
+tone, declared her dislike of marriage and admitted that she was
+living with Van der Staal. She wrote coldly and succinctly, so as
+to give those people at the Hague the impression that she was a free
+and independent woman. They knew her pamphlet there, of course. But
+she understood that she could now no longer think of Holland. She
+gave up her family as hopeless. Still it tore something in her, the
+unconscious family-tie. But that tie was already greatly loosened,
+through lack of sympathy, especially at the time of her divorce. And
+she felt all alone: she had only her happiness, her lover, Duco. Oh,
+it was enough, it was enough for all her life! If only she could make
+a little money! But how? She went to the Dutch consul, asked his
+advice; the visit led to nothing. She was not suited for a nurse:
+she wanted to earn money at once and had no time for training. She
+could serve in a shop, of course. And she applied, without saying
+anything to Duco; but, notwithstanding her worn cloak, they thought
+her too much of a lady wherever she went and she thought the salary
+too small for a whole day's work. And, when she felt that she hadn't
+it in her blood to work for her bread, despite all her ideas and all
+her logic, despite her pamphlet and her independent womanhood, she
+felt helpless to the point of despair and, as she went home, weary,
+exhausted by climbing many stairs and by useless conversations and
+appeals, the old plaint rose to her lips:
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+She wrote regularly to Urania, in Switzerland, at Ostend; and
+Urania always wrote back very kindly and offered her assistance. But
+Cornelie always declined, afraid of hurting Duco. She, for herself,
+felt no such scruples, especially now that it was being borne in
+upon her that she would not be able to work. But she understood those
+scruples in Duco and respected them. For her own part, however, she
+would have accepted help, now that her pride was wavering, now that
+her ideas were falling to pieces, too weak to withstand the steady
+pressure of life's hardships. It was like a great finger that just
+passed along a house of cards: though built up with care and pride,
+everything fell flat at the least touch. The only things that stood
+firm and unshakable amid the ruins were her love and her happiness. Oh,
+how she loved him, how simple was their happiness! How dear he was
+to her for his gentleness, his calmness, his lack of irritability,
+as though his nerves were strung only to the finer sensibilities of
+the artist. She felt so deliciously that it was all imperturbable,
+that it was all settled for good. Without that happiness they could
+never have dragged their difficult life along from day to day. Now she
+did not feel that burden every day, as though they were dragging the
+load along from one day to the next. She now felt it only sometimes,
+when the future was quite dark and they did not know whither they were
+dragging the burden of their lives, in the dusk of that future. But
+they always triumphed again: they loved each other too well to sink
+under the load. They always found a little more courage; smiling,
+they supported each other's strength.
+
+September came and October; and Urania wrote that they were coming
+back to San Stefano, to spend a couple of months there before going
+for the winter to Nice. And one morning Urania arrived unexpectedly
+in the studio. She found Cornelie alone: Duco had gone to an
+art-dealer's. They exchanged affectionate greetings:
+
+"I am so glad to see you again!" Urania prattled, gaily. "I am glad to
+be back in Italy and to put in a little more time at San Stefano. And
+is everything as it used to be, in your cosy studio? Are you happy? Oh,
+I need not ask!"
+
+And she hugged and kissed Cornelie, like a child, still lacking the
+strength of mind to condemn her friend's too free existence, especially
+now, after her own summer at Ostend. They sat beside each other on
+the couch, Cornelie in her old tea-gown, which she wore with her own
+peculiar grace, and the young princess in her pale-grey tailor-made,
+which clung to her figure in a very up-to-date manner and rustled
+with heavy silk lining, and a hat with black feathers and silver
+spangles. Her jewelled fingers toyed with a very long watch-chain
+which she wore round her neck: the latest freak of fashion. Cornelie
+was able to admire without feeling envious and made Urania stand up
+and turn round in front of her, approved of the cut of her skirt,
+said that the hat looked sweet on her and examined the watch-chain
+attentively. And she plunged into these matters of chiffons: Urania
+described the dresses at Ostend; Urania admired Cornelie's old
+tea-gown; Cornelie smiled:
+
+"Especially after Ostend, eh?" she laughed, merrily.
+
+But Urania meant it seriously: Cornelie wore it with such chic! And,
+changing the topic, she said that she wanted to speak very seriously,
+that perhaps she knew of something for Cornelie, now that Cornelie
+would never accept her, Urania's, assistance. At Ostend she had made
+the acquaintance of an old American lady, Mrs. Uxeley, a regular
+type. She was ninety years of age and lived at Nice in the winter. She
+was fabulously rich: an oil-queen's fortune. She was ninety, but still
+behaved as if she were forty-five. She dined out, went into society,
+flirted. People laughed at her but accepted her because of her money
+and her splendid entertainments. All the cosmopolitan colony visited
+her at Nice. Urania produced an Ostend casino-paper and read out
+a journalistic account of a ball at Ostend, in which Mrs. Uxeley
+was called la femme la plus elegante d'Ostende. The journalist
+had been paid so much for it; everybody laughed and was amused by
+it. Mrs. Uxeley was a caricature, but with enough tact to get herself
+taken seriously. Well, Mrs. Uxeley was looking for somebody. She always
+had a lady companion with her, a girl, a young woman; and already
+numberless ladies had succeeded one another in her employ. She had
+had cousins living with her, distant cousins, very distant cousins and
+total strangers. She was tiresome, capricious, impossible; everybody
+knew that. Would Cornelie care to try it? Urania had already discussed
+it with Mrs. Uxeley and recommended her friend. Cornelie did not feel
+greatly attracted, but thought it worth thinking over. Mrs. Uxeley's
+companion was staying on till November, when the old thing went back
+through Paris to Nice. And at Nice they would see so much of each
+other, Cornelie and Urania. But Cornelie thought it terrible to leave
+Duco. She did not think that it would ever work. They were so attached
+to each other, so used to each other. From the money point of view
+it would be excellent--an easy life which attracted her, after that
+blow to her moral pride--but she could not think of leaving Duco. And
+what would Duco do at Nice! No, she couldn't, she simply couldn't: she
+must stay with him.... She felt a reluctance to go, like a hand that
+withheld her. She told Urania to put the old lady off, to let her look
+out for somebody else. She could not do it. What use to her was such a
+life--socially dependent, though financially independent--without Duco?
+
+And, when Urania was gone--she was going on to San Stefano--Cornelie
+was glad that she had at once declined that stupid, easy life of
+dependence as companion to a rich old dotard. She glanced round the
+studio. She loved it with its precious colours, its noble antiques
+and, behind that curtain, her bed, behind that screen, her oil-stove,
+making the space look like a little kitchen; with the Bohemianism
+of its precious bibelots and very primitive comforts, it had become
+indispensable to her, had become her home. And, when Duco came
+in, she kissed him and told him about Urania and Mrs. Uxeley. She
+was glad to be able to nestle in his arms. He had sold a couple
+of water-colours. There was no reason whatever to leave him. He
+didn't wish it either, he never would wish it. And they held each
+other tightly embraced, as though they were conscious of something
+that would be able to part them, an ineluctable necessity, as if
+hands hovered around them pushing them, guiding them, opposing and
+inhibiting them, a contest of hands, like a cloud around them both:
+hands that strove by main force to sunder their radiant path of life,
+their coalescent line of life, as if it were too narrow for the feet
+of the two of them and the hands were trying to wrench it asunder,
+in order to let the broad track wind apart in two curves. They said
+nothing: clasped in each other's arms, they gazed at life, shuddered at
+the hands, felt the approaching constraint which already was clouding
+more closely around them. But they felt warm in each other's company;
+they locked up their little happiness tightly in their embrace and
+hid it between them, so that the hands might not point to it, touch
+it and thrust it aside....
+
+And under their fixed gaze life softly receded, the cloud dispersed,
+the hands faded away and disappeared and their breasts heaved a sigh
+of relief, while she still remained lying against him and closed her
+eyes, as though in sleep....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+But the life of constraint returned, the hovering hands reappeared,
+like a gentle mysterious force. Cornelie wept bitterly and admitted
+to herself and admitted to Duco: it could not go on any longer. At
+one moment they had not enough to pay the rent of the studio and
+had to apply to Urania. Gaps showed in the studio, colours vanished,
+owing to the sale of things which Duco had collected with love and
+sacrifice. But Lippo Memmi's angel, whom he refused to sell, still
+shone as of old, still holding forth the lily, in his gown of gold
+brocade. Around him on every side yawned melancholy spaces, with
+bare nails showing in the walls. At first they tried to hang other
+things in the place of those which had gone; but they soon lost the
+inclination. And, as they sat side by side, in each other's arms,
+conscious of their little happiness, but also of the constraint of life
+with its pushing hands, they closed their eyes, that they might no
+longer see the studio which seemed to be crumbling about them, while
+in the first cooler days a sunless chill descended shivering from
+the ceiling, which seemed higher and farther away. The easel stood
+waiting, empty. And they both closed their eyes and thus remained,
+feeling that, despite the strength of their happiness and their love,
+they were gradually conquered by life, which persisted in its tyranny
+and day by day took something from them. Once, while they were sitting
+thus, their arms relaxed and their embrace fell away, as though hands
+were drawing them apart. They remained sitting for a long time, side
+by side, without touching each other. Then she sobbed aloud and flung
+herself with her face on his knees. There was no more to be done:
+life was too strong for them, speechless life, the life of the soft,
+persistent constraint, which surrounded them with so many hands. Their
+little happiness seemed to be escaping them, like an angelic child
+that was dying and sinking out of their embrace.
+
+She said that she would write to Urania: the Forte-Braccios were at
+Nice. He listlessly assented. And, as soon as she received a reply,
+she mechanically packed her trunk, packed up her old clothes. For
+Urania wrote and told her to come, said that Mrs. Uxeley wanted to
+see her. Mrs. Uxeley sent her the money for her journey. She was
+in a desperate state of constant nervous sobbing and she felt as if
+she were being torn from him, torn from that home which was dear to
+her and which was crumbling about her, all through her fault. When
+she received the registered letter with the money, she had a nervous
+attack, complaining to him like a child that she couldn't leave him,
+that she wouldn't leave him, that she could not live without him,
+that she loved him for ever, for ever, that she would die, so far
+away from him. She lay on the sofa, her arms stiff, her legs stiff,
+crying out with a mouth distorted as though by physical pain. He took
+her in his arms and soothed her, bathed her forehead, gave her ether
+to drink, comforted her, said that everything would be all right
+again later.... Later? She looked at him vacantly. She was half
+mad with grief. She tossed everything out of the trunk again, all
+about the room--underclothing, blouses--and laughed and laughed. He
+conjured her to control herself. When she saw his frightened face,
+when he too began to sob on her breast, she drew him tightly to her,
+kissed him and comforted him in her turn. And everything in her became
+dulness and lethargy. Together they packed the trunk again. Then she
+looked round and, in a gust of energy, arranged the studio for him,
+had her bed taken away, pinned his own sketches to the walls, tried to
+build up something of what had gone to pieces around them, rearranged
+everything, did her best. She cooked their last meal; she made up
+the fire. But a desperate threat of loneliness and desertion reigned
+over everything. It was all wrong, it was all wrong.... Sobbing,
+they fell asleep, in each other's arms, close against each other.
+
+Next morning he took her to the station. And, when she had stepped into
+her compartment, they both of them lost all their self-control. They
+embraced each other sobbing, while the guard was waiting to lock the
+door. And she saw Duco run away like a madman, pushing his way through
+the crowd; and, broken with misery, she threw herself back in her
+seat. She was so ill and distressed, so near to fainting, that a lady
+beside her came to her aid and bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne....
+
+She thanked the lady, apologized for the trouble she had given and,
+seeing the other passengers staring at her with compassionate eyes,
+she mastered herself, sat huddled in her corner and gazed vacantly
+through the window. She went on, stopping nowhere, only alighting to
+change trains. Though hungry, she had not the energy to order food at
+the stations. She ate nothing and drank nothing. She travelled a day
+and a night and arrived at Nice late the following evening. Urania was
+at the station and was startled to see Cornelie look grey and sallow,
+dead-tired, with hollow eyes. And she was most charming: she took
+Cornelie home with her, looked after her for some days, made her stay
+in bed and went herself to tell Mrs. Uxeley that her friend was too
+unwell to report herself. Gilio came for a moment to pay Cornelie his
+respects; and she could not do other than thank him for these days
+of hospitality and care under his roof. And the young princess was
+like a sister, was like a mother and fed Cornelie up with milk and
+eggs and strengthening medicines. Cornelie let her do as she liked,
+remained limp and indifferent and ate to please Urania. After a few
+days, Urania said that Mrs. Uxeley was coming to call that afternoon,
+being anxious to see her new companion. Mrs. Uxeley was alone now,
+but could wait until Cornelie's recovery. Cornelie dressed herself as
+well as she could and with Urania awaited the old lady's arrival. She
+entered gushingly, with a torrent of words; and, in the dim light of
+Urania's drawing-room, Cornelie was unable to realize that she was
+ninety years old. Urania winked at Cornelie, who only smiled faintly
+in return: she was afraid of this first interview. But Mrs. Uxeley, no
+doubt because Cornelie was a friend of the Princess di Forte-Braccio,
+was very easy-mannered, very pleasant and free of all condescension
+towards her future companion; she enquired after Cornelie's health in
+a wearisome profusion of little exclamations and sentences and bits of
+advice. Cornelie, in the twilight of the lace-shaded standard-lamps,
+took her in with a glance and saw a woman of fifty, with the little
+wrinkles carefully powdered over, in a mauve-velvet gown embroidered
+with dull gold and spangles and beads. On the brown, waved chignon was
+a hat with a white aigrette. Her jewels kept on sparkling, because
+she was very fussy, very restless in her movements. She now took
+Cornelie's hands and began to talk more confidentially. So Cornelie
+would come the day after to-morrow. Very well. She was accustomed to
+pay a hundred dollars a month, or five hundred francs, never less,
+but also never more. But she could understand that Cornelie would
+want something now, for new clothes: would she order what she wanted
+at this address and have it put down to Mrs. Uxeley's account? A
+couple of ball-dresses, two or three less dressy evening-frocks,
+in short, everything. The Princess Urania would tell her all about
+it and would go with her. And she rose, affecting the young woman,
+simpering through her long-handled lorgnette, but meanwhile leaning
+hard on her sunshade, working herself with a muscular effort along
+the stick of her sunshade, with a sudden twitch of rheumatism which
+uncovered all sorts of wrinkles. Urania saw her to the hall and came
+back shrieking with laughter; and Cornelie also laughed, but only
+listlessly. She really didn't care: she was more amazed at Mrs. Uxeley
+than amused. Ninety years old! What an energy, worthy of a better
+object, to remain elegant: la femme la plus elegante d'Ostende!
+
+Ninety years old! How the woman must suffer, during the hours of her
+long toilet, while she was being made up into that caricature! Urania
+said that it was all false: the hair, the bust. And Cornelie felt a
+loathing at having to live for the future beside this woman, as though
+beside an ignominy. In the happiness of her love, a great part of her
+energy had become relaxed, as though their dual happiness--Duco's and
+hers--had unfitted her for any further struggle for life and diminished
+her zest for life; but it had refined and purified something in her
+soul and she loathed the sight of so much show for so vain and petty
+an object. And it was only necessity itself--the inevitability of
+the things of life, which urged and pushed her with a guiding finger
+along a line of life now winding solitary before her--that gave
+her the strength to hide within herself her sorrow, her longing,
+her nostalgia for everything that she had left behind. She did not
+talk about it to Urania. Urania was so glad to see her, looked upon
+her as a good friend, in the loneliness of her stately life, in her
+isolation among her aristocratic acquaintances. Urania accompanied her
+enthusiastically to dressmakers' establishments and shops and helped
+her to choose her new outfit. She did not care about it all. She,
+an elegant woman, a woman of innate elegance, who in her outward
+appearance had always fought against poverty and who, in the days
+of her happiness, was able, with the aid of a fresh ribbon, to wear
+an old blouse gracefully, was utterly indifferent to everything
+that she was now buying on Mrs. Uxeley's account. To her it was as
+though these things were not for her. She let Urania ask and choose;
+she approved of everything. She allowed herself to be fitted as
+though she had been a doll. She greatly disliked having to spend
+money at a stranger's expense. She felt lowered and humiliated:
+all her haughty pride of life was gone. She was afraid of what they
+would say of her in the circle of Mrs. Uxeley's friends, afraid lest
+they knew of her independent ideas, of her cohabitation with Duco,
+afraid of Mrs. Uxeley's opinion. For Urania had had to be honest
+and tell everything. It was only on Urania's eager recommendation
+that she had been taken by Mrs. Uxeley. She felt out of place,
+now that she would once more dare to play her part among all those
+people; and she was afraid of giving herself away. She would have to
+make-believe, to conceal her ideas, to pick her words; and she was no
+longer accustomed to doing so. And all for that money. All because
+she had not had the energy, living with Duco, to earn her own bread
+and, gaily, independently, to cheer him in his work, in his art. Oh,
+if she could only have managed to do that, how happy she would have
+been! If only she had not allowed the wretched languor that was in
+her blood to increase within her like a morbid growth: the languor
+of her upbringing, her superficial, showy, drawing-room education,
+which had unfitted her for everything whatsoever! By temperament she
+was a creature of love as well as a woman of sensuousness and luxury,
+but there was more of love in her than of luxury: she would be happy
+under the simplest conditions if only she was able to love. And now
+life had torn her away from him, gradually but inexorably. And now
+her sensuous, luxurious nature was gratified, but in dependence; yet
+it no longer satisfied her cravings, because she could not satisfy her
+soul. In that lonely soul a miserable dissatisfaction sprang up like a
+riotous growth. Her only happiness was his letters, letters of longing
+but also letters of comfort. He wrote expressing his longing, but he
+also wrote enjoining courage and hope. He wrote to her every day. He
+was now at Florence, seeking his consolation in the Uffizi, in the
+Pitti Palace. He had found it impossible to stay in Rome; the studio
+was now locked up. At Florence he was a little nearer to her. And
+his letters were to her a love-story, the only novel that she read;
+and it was as though she saw his landscapes in his style, the same
+dim blending of colour and emotion, the pearly white, misty, dreamy
+distances filled with light, the horizon of his longing, as though
+his eyes were ever gazing at the vista in which she, on the night
+of departure, had vanished as in a mauve-grey sunset, a sky of the
+dreary Campagna. In those letters they still lived together. But she
+could not write to him in this strain. Though she wrote to him daily,
+she wrote briefly, telling him ever the same things in other words:
+her longing, her weary indifference. But she wrote of the happiness
+which she derived from his letters, which were her daily bread.
+
+She was now with Mrs. Uxeley and occupied in the gigantic villa
+two charming rooms overlooking the sea and the Promenade des
+Anglais. Urania had helped her to arrange them. And she lived in an
+unreal dream of strangeness, of non-existence alone with her soul,
+of unlived actions and gestures, performed according to the will of
+others. In the mornings she went to Mrs. Uxeley in her boudoir and
+read her the French and American papers and sometimes a few pages of
+a French novel. She humbly did her best. Mrs. Uxeley thought that she
+read very nicely, only she said that Cornelie must cheer up a bit,
+that her melancholy days were over now. Duco was never mentioned and
+Mrs. Uxeley behaved as though she knew nothing. The great boudoir
+looked through the open balcony-windows over the sea, where, on the
+Promenade, the morning stroll was already beginning, with the gaudy
+colours of the parasols striking a shrill note against the deep-blue
+sea, an expensive sea, a costly tide, waves that seemed to exact a
+mint of money before they would consent to roll up prettily. The old
+lady, already painted, bedizened and bewigged, with a white-lace wrap
+over her wig against the draught, lay in the black and white lace of
+her white-silk tea-gown on the piled-up cushions of her sofa. In her
+wrinkled hand she held the lorgnette, with her initials in diamonds,
+through which it amused her to peer at the shrill patches of the
+parasols outside. Now and then, when her rheumatism gave a twinge,
+she suddenly distorted her face into one great crease of wrinkles,
+under which the smooth enamel of her make-up almost cracked, like
+crackle-china. In the daylight she seemed hardly alive, looked like
+an automatic, jointed, stiff-limbed doll, which spoke and moved
+mechanically. She was always a trifle tired in the mornings, from
+never sleeping at night; after eleven she took a little nap. She
+observed a strict regime; and her doctor, who called daily, seemed
+to revive her a little every day, to enable her to hold out until
+the evening. In the afternoon she drove out, alighted at the Jetee,
+paid her visits. But in the evening she revived with a trace of real
+life, dressed, put on her jewels and recovered her exuberance, her
+little exclamations and simpers. Then came the dances, the parties,
+the theatre. Then she was no more than fifty.
+
+But these were her good days. Sometimes, after a night of insufferable
+pain, she remained in her bedroom, with yesterday's enamelling
+untouched, her bald head wrapped in black lace, a black-satin
+bed-jacket hanging loosely around her like a sack; and she moaned
+and cried and shrieked and seemed to be begging for release from her
+torments. This lasted for a couple of days and occurred regularly
+every three weeks, after which she gradually revived again.
+
+Her fussy conversation was limited to a constantly recurrent discussion
+of all sorts of family-matters, with appropriate annotations. She
+explained to Cornelie all the family-connections of her friends,
+American and European, but she enlarged more particularly
+upon the great European families which she numbered among her
+acquaintances. Cornelie could never listen to what she was saying
+and forgot the pedigrees again at once. It was sometimes unendurably
+tedious to have to listen for so long; and only for this reason,
+as though she were forced to it, Cornelie found the energy to talk
+a little herself, to relate an anecdote, to tell a story. When she
+saw that the old woman was very fond of anecdotes, riddles and puns,
+she collected as many as she could from the Vie parisienne and the
+Journal pour rire and kept them ready to hand. And Mrs. Uxeley thought
+her very entertaining. Once, as she noticed Duco's daily letter, she
+referred to it; and Cornelie suddenly discovered that the old lady
+was devoured with curiosity. Then she quietly told her the truth:
+her marriage, her divorce, her independent ideas, her meeting and
+her life with Duco. The old woman was a little disappointed because
+Cornelie spoke so simply about it all. She merely advised her to live
+discreetly and correctly now. What people said about former incidents
+did not matter so very much. But there must be no occasion for gossip
+now. Cornelie promised meekly. And Mrs. Uxeley showed her her albums,
+with her own photographs, dating back to her young days, and the
+photographs of all sorts of men. And she told her about this friend
+and that friend and, vain-gloriously, allowed the suggestion of a very
+lurid past to peep through. But she had always lived discreetly and
+correctly. That was her pride. And what Cornelie had done was wrong....
+
+The hour or so from eleven to half-past twelve was a relief. Then the
+old woman regularly went to sleep--her only sleep in the twenty-four
+hours--and Urania came to fetch Cornelie for a drive or a walk along
+the Promenade or to sit in the Jardin Public. And it was the only
+moment when Cornelie more or less appreciated her new-found luxury and
+took pleasure in the gratification of her vanity. The passers-by turned
+round to stare at the two young and pretty women in their exquisite
+serge frocks, with their fashionable headgear withdrawn in the twilight
+of their sunshades, and admired the Princess di Forte-Braccio's glossy
+victoria, irreproachable liveries and spanking greys.
+
+Gilio maintained a reserved and respectful attitude towards
+Cornelie. He was polite but kept a courteous distance when he joined
+the two ladies for a moment in the gardens or on the Jetee. After
+the night in the pergola, after the sudden flash of his angry knife,
+she was afraid of him, afraid also because she had lost much of her
+courage and haughtiness. But she could not answer him more coldly
+than she did, because she was grateful to him as well as to Urania
+for the care shown her during the first few days, for their tact in
+not at once surrendering her to Mrs. Uxeley and in keeping her with
+them until she had recovered some of her strength.
+
+In the freedom of those mornings, when she felt herself released from
+the old woman--vain, selfish, insignificant, ridiculous--who was as
+the caricature of her life, she felt that in Urania's friendship she
+was finding herself again, she became conscious of being at Nice,
+she contemplated the garish bustle around her with clearer eyes and
+she lost the unreality of the first days. At such times it was as
+though she saw herself again for the first time, in her light serge
+walking-dress, sitting in the garden, her gloved fingers playing with
+the tassels of her sunshade. She could hardly believe in herself,
+but she saw herself. Deep down within herself, hidden even from
+Urania, she concealed her longing, her home-sickness, her stifling
+discontent. She sometimes felt ready to burst into sobs. But she
+listened to Urania and joined in her laughter and talk and looked up
+with a smile at Gilio, who stood in front of her, mincing to and fro
+on the tips of his shoes and swinging his walking-stick behind his
+back. Sometimes, suddenly--as a vision whirling through the crowd--she
+saw Duco, the studio, the happiness of the past fading away for one
+brief moment. Then with her finger-tips she felt his letter of that
+morning, between the strips of gathered lace in front of her bolero,
+and just crushed the hard envelope against her breast, as something
+belonging to him that was caressing her.
+
+And it was not to be denied: she saw herself and Nice around her; she
+became sensible of new life: it was not unreal, even though it was not
+actual to her soul; it was a sorrowful comedy, in which she--dismally,
+feebly, listlessly--played her part.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there was no possibility
+of the least alteration: everything was done in accordance with a fixed
+law. The reading of the newspaper; her hour and a half to herself;
+then lunch. After lunch, the drive, the Jetee, the visits; every
+day, those visits and afternoon teas. Once in a way, a dinner-party;
+and in the evening generally a dance, a reception or a theatre. She
+made new acquaintances by the score and forgot them again at once
+and no longer remembered, when she saw them again, whether she knew
+them or not. As a rule people were fairly pleasant to her in that
+cosmopolitan set, because they knew that she was an intimate friend
+of the Princess Urania's. But, like Urania herself, she was sometimes
+conscious, from the feminine bearers of the old Italian names and
+titles which sometimes glittered in that set, of an overwhelming
+pride and contempt. The men always asked to be introduced to her; but,
+whenever she asked to be introduced to their ladies, her only reward
+was a nod of vague surprise. She herself minded very little, but she
+felt sorry for Urania. For she saw at once, at Urania's own parties,
+that they hardly looked upon her as the hostess, that they surrounded
+and made much of Gilio, but accorded to his wife no more than the
+civility which was her due as Princess di Forte-Braccio, without ever
+forgetting that she was once Miss Hope. And for Urania this contempt
+was more difficult to put up with than for herself. For she accepted
+her role as the companion. She always kept an eye on Mrs. Uxeley,
+constantly joined her for a minute in the course of the evening,
+fetched a fan which Mrs. Uxeley had left in the next room or did her
+this or that trifling service. Then she would sit down, against the
+wall alone in the busily humming drawing-room, and gaze indifferently
+before her. She sat, always very smartly dressed, in an attitude of
+graceful indifference and weary boredom, tapping her little foot or
+unfolding her fan. She took no notice of anybody. Sometimes a couple of
+men would come up to her and she spoke to them, or danced with one of
+them, indifferently, as though conferring a favour. Once, when Gilio
+was talking to her, she sitting and he standing, and the Duchess di
+Luca and Countess Costi both came up to him and, standing, began to
+chaff him profusely, without honouring her with a word or a glance,
+she first stared at the ladies between her mocking lids, eyeing them
+from head to foot, and then rose slowly, took Gilio's arm and, with
+a glance which darted sharp as a needle from her narrowed eyes, said:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but you must excuse me if I rob you of the Prince
+di Forte-Braccio, because I have to finish a private conversation."
+
+And with the pressure of her arm she made Gilio move on a few steps,
+then at once sat down again, made him sit down beside her and began to
+whisper with him very confidentially, while she left the duchess and
+countess standing two yards away, open-mouthed with stupefaction at
+her rudeness, and furthermore spread her train wide between herself
+and the two ladies and waved her fan to and fro, as though to preserve
+a distance. She could do this sort of thing so calmly, so tactfully
+and haughtily, that Gilio was tickled to death and sat and giggled
+with delight:
+
+"I wish that Urania knew how to behave like that!" he said, pleased
+as a child at the diversion which she had afforded him.
+
+"Urania is too nice to do anything so odious," she replied.
+
+She did not make herself liked, but people became afraid of her, afraid
+of her quiet malice, and avoided offending her in future. Moreover,
+the men thought her pretty and agreeable and were also attracted by her
+haughty indifference. And, without really intending it, she achieved a
+position, apparently by using the greatest diplomacy, but in reality
+quite naturally and easily. While Mrs. Uxeley's egoism was flattered
+by her little attentions--always dutifully remembered and paid with a
+charming air of maternal solicitude, in contrast to which Mrs. Uxeley
+thought it delightful to simper like a young girl--Cornelie gradually
+gathered a court of men around her in the evenings; and the women
+became insipidly civil. Urania often told her how clever she thought
+her, how much tact she displayed. Cornelie shrugged her shoulders:
+it all happened of itself; and really she did not care. But still,
+gradually, she recovered some of her cheerfulness. When she saw
+herself standing in the glass, she had to confess to herself that
+she was better-looking than she had ever been, either as a girl or
+as a newly-married woman. Her tall, slender figure had a languorous
+line of pride that gave her a special grace; her throat was statelier,
+her bosom fuller; her waist was slimmer in these new dresses; her hips
+had become heavier, her arms more rounded; and, though her features no
+longer wore the look of radiant happiness which they had worn in Rome,
+her mocking smile and her negligent irony gave her a certain attraction
+for those unknown men, something more alluring and provoking than
+the greatest coquetry would have been. And Cornelie had not wished
+for this; but, now that it came of itself, she accepted it. It was
+foreign to her nature to refuse it. And, besides, Mrs. Uxeley was
+pleased with her. Cornelie had such a pretty way of whispering to her:
+
+"Dear lady, you were in such pain yesterday. Don't you think you
+ought to go home a little earlier to-night?"
+
+And then Mrs. Uxeley would simper like a girl who was being admonished
+by her mother not to dance too much that evening. She loved these
+little ways of Cornelie's; and Cornelie, with careless indifference,
+gave her what she wanted. And those evenings amused her more than they
+did at first; only, the amusement was combined with self-reproach
+as soon as she thought of Duco, of their separation, of Rome, of
+the studio, of the happiness of those past days, which she had lost
+through her lack of fortitude.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+Two months had passed like this. It was January; and these were busy
+days for Cornelie, because Mrs. Uxeley was soon to give one of her
+celebrated evenings and Cornelie's free hours in the morning were
+now taken up with running all sorts of errands. Urania generally
+drove with her; and she came to rely upon Urania. They had to go to
+upholsterers, to pastry-cooks, to florists and to jewellers, where
+Cornelie and Urania selected presents for the cotillon. Mrs. Uxeley
+never went out for this, but occupied herself with every trifling
+indoor detail; and there were endless discussions, followed by more
+drives to the shops, for the old lady was anything but easy to please,
+vain as she was of her fame as a hostess and afraid of losing it
+through the least omission.
+
+During one of these drives, as the victoria was turning into the Avenue
+de la Gare, Cornelie started so violently that she clutched Urania's
+arm and could not restrain an exclamation. Urania asked her what she
+had seen, but she was unable to speak and Urania made her get out at a
+confectioner's to drink a glass of water. She was very nearly fainting
+and looked deathly pale. She was not able to continue her errands; and
+they drove back to Mrs. Uxeley's villa. The old lady was displeased at
+this sudden fainting-fit and grumbled so that Urania went off alone
+to complete the errands. After lunch, however, Cornelie felt better,
+made her apologies and accompanied Mrs. Uxeley to an afternoon tea.
+
+Next day, when she was sitting with Mrs. Uxeley and a couple of
+friends on the Jetee, she seemed to see the same thing again. She
+turned as white as a sheet, but retained her composure and laughed
+and talked merrily.
+
+These were the days of the preparations. The date of the entertainment
+drew nearer; and at last the evening arrived. Mrs. Uxeley was trembling
+with nervousness like a young girl and found the necessary strength to
+walk through the whole villa, which was all light and flowers. And with
+a sigh of satisfaction she sat down for a moment. She was dressed. Her
+face was smooth as porcelain, her hair was waved and glittered with
+diamond pins. Her gown of pale-blue brocade was cut very low; and
+she gleamed like a reliquary. A triple rope of priceless pearls hung
+down to her waist. In her hand--she was not yet gloved--she held a
+gold-knobbed cane, which was indispensable when she wanted to rise. And
+it was only when she rose that she showed her age, when she worked
+herself erect by muscular efforts, with that look of pain in her face,
+with that twinge of rheumatism which shot through her. Cornelie, not
+yet dressed, after a last glance through the villa, blazing with light,
+swooning with flowers, hurried to her room and, already feeling tired,
+dropped into the chair in front of her dressing-table, to have her
+hair done quickly. She was irritable and told the maid to hurry. She
+was just ready when the first guests arrived and she was able to join
+Mrs. Uxeley. And the carriages rolled up. Cornelie, at the top of the
+monumental staircase, looked down into the hall, where the people
+were streaming in, the ladies in their long evening-wraps--almost
+more expensive even than their dresses--which they carefully gave up
+in the crowded, buzzing cloakroom. And the first arrivals came up the
+stairs, waiting so as not to be the very first, and were beamed upon
+by Mrs. Uxeley. The drawing-rooms soon filled. In addition to the
+reception-rooms, the hostess' own rooms were thrown open, forming in
+all a suite of twelve apartments. Whereas the corridors and stairs
+were adorned only with clumps of red and white and pink camellias,
+in the rooms the floral decorations were contained in hundreds of
+vases and bowls and dishes, which stood about on every hand and,
+with the light of the shaded candles, gave an intimate charm to the
+entertainment. That was the speciality of Mrs. Uxeley's decorations
+on great occasions: the electric light not used; instead, on every
+hand candles with little shades, on every hand glasses and bowls
+full of flowers, giving the effect of a fairy garden. Though perhaps
+the main outlines were broken, a most charming effect of cosiness
+was gained. Small groups and couples could find a place everywhere:
+behind a screen, in a loggia; you constantly found a spot for privacy;
+and this perhaps explained the vogue of Mrs. Uxeley's parties. The
+villa, suitable for giving a court ball, was used only for giving
+entertainments of a luxurious intimate character to hundreds of people
+who were quite unknown to one another. Each little set chose itself
+a little corner, where it made itself at home. A very tiny boudoir,
+all in Japanese lacquer and Japanese silk, was aimed at generally, but
+was at once captured by Gilio, the Countess di Rosavilla, the Duchess
+di Luca and Countess Costi. They did not even go to the music-room,
+where a concert formed the first item. Paderewski was playing, Sigrid
+Arnoldson was to sing. The music-room also was lighted by shaded
+candles; and everybody whispered that, in this soft light, Mrs. Uxeley
+did not look a day over forty. During the interval she simpered to two
+very young journalists who were to describe her party. Urania, sitting
+beside Cornelie, was addressed by a Frenchman whom she introduced to
+her friend: the Chevalier de Breuil. Cornelie knew that Urania had
+met him at Ostend and that his name was coupled with the Princess
+di Forte-Braccio's. Urania had never mentioned De Breuil to her, but
+Cornelie now saw, by her smile, her blush and the sparkle in her eyes,
+that people were right. She left them to themselves, feeling sad when
+she thought of Urania. She understood that the little princess was
+consoling herself for her husband's neglect; and she suddenly thought
+this whole life of make-believe disgusting. She longed for Rome, for
+the studio, for Duco, for independence, love and happiness. She had
+had it all; but it had been fated not to endure. Everything around her
+was like one great lie, more brilliant than at the Hague, but even more
+false, brutal and depraved. People no longer even pretended to believe
+the lie: here they showed a brutal sincerity. The lie was respected,
+but nobody believed in it, nobody put forward the lie as a truth;
+the lie was nothing more than a form.
+
+Cornelie wandered through the rooms by herself, went up to Mrs. Uxeley
+for a moment, in accordance with her habit, whispered to ask how she
+felt, whether she wanted anything, if everything was going well, then
+continued on her way through the rooms. She was standing by a vase,
+rearranging some orchids, when a woman in black velvet, fair-haired,
+with a full throat and bosom, spoke to her in English:
+
+"I am Mrs. Holt. I dare say you don't know my name, but I know
+yours. I very much want to make your acquaintance. I have often been
+to Holland and I read Dutch a little. I read your pamphlet on The
+Social Position of Divorced Women and I thought a good deal of what
+you wrote most interesting."
+
+"You are very kind. Shall we sit down? I remember your name too. You
+were one of the leaders of the Women's Congress in London, were
+you not?"
+
+"Yes, I spoke about the training of children. Weren't you able to
+come to London?"
+
+"No, I did think about it, but I was in Rome at the time and I couldn't
+manage it."
+
+"That was a pity. The congress was a great step forward. If your
+pamphlet had been translated then and distributed, you would have
+had a great success."
+
+"I care very little for success of that kind."
+
+"Of course, I can understand that. But the success of your book is
+also for the good of the great cause."
+
+"Do you really mean that? Is there any merit in my little book?"
+
+"Do you doubt it?"
+
+"Very often."
+
+"How is that possible? It is written with such a sure touch."
+
+"Perhaps just for that reason."
+
+"I don't understand you. There's a vagueness sometimes about Dutch
+people which we English don't understand, something like a reflection
+of your beautiful skies in your character."
+
+"Do you never doubt? Do you feel sure of your ideas on the training
+of children?"
+
+"I have studied children in schools, in creches and in their homes
+and I have acquired very decided ideas. And I work in accordance with
+these ideas for the people of the future. I will send you my pamphlet,
+containing the gist of my speeches at the congress. Are you working
+on another pamphlet now?"
+
+"No, I regret to say."
+
+"Why not? We must all fight shoulder to shoulder, if we are to
+conquer."
+
+"I believe I have said all that I had to say. I wrote what I did on
+impulse, from personal experience. And then ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Then things changed. All women are different and I never approved
+of generalizing. And do you believe that there are many women who can
+work for a universal object with a man's thoroughness, when they have
+found a lesser object for themselves, a small happiness, such as a
+love to satisfy their own ego, in which they can be happy? Don't you
+think that every woman has slumbering inside her a selfish craving
+for her own love and happiness and that, when she has found this,
+the outside world and the future cease to interest her?"
+
+"Possibly. But so few women find it."
+
+"I believe there are not many. But that is another question. And I
+do believe that an interest in universal questions is a pis-aller
+with most women."
+
+"You have become an apostate. You speak quite differently from what
+you wrote a year ago."
+
+"Yes, I have become very humble, because I am more sincere. Of course
+I believe in certain women, in certain choice spirits. But would the
+majority not always remain feminine, just women and weak?"
+
+"Not with a sensible training."
+
+"Yes, I believe that it lies in that, in the training...."
+
+"Of the child, of the girl."
+
+"I believe that I have never been educated and that this constitutes
+my weakness."
+
+"Our girls should be told when still very young of the struggle that
+lies before them."
+
+"You are right. We--my friends, my sisters and I--had the 'safety'
+of marriage impressed upon us at the earliest possible moment. Do you
+know whom I think the most to be pitied? Our parents! They honestly
+believed that they were having us taught all that was necessary. And
+now, at this moment, they must see that they did not divine the future
+correctly and that their training, their education was no education
+at all, because they failed to inform their children of the struggle
+which was being waged right before their eyes. It is our parents
+that are to be pitied. They can mend nothing now. They see us--girls,
+young women of twenty to thirty--overwhelmed by life; and they have
+not given us the strength for it. They kept us sheltered as long as
+possible under the paternal wing; and then they began to think of
+our marriage, not in order to get rid of us, but with a view to our
+happiness, our safety and our future. We are indeed unfortunate, we
+girls and women who were not, like our younger sisters, told of the
+struggle that lay just before us; but I believe that we may still
+have hope in our youth and that our parents are unhappier and more
+to be pitied than we, because they have nothing more to hope for and
+because they must secretly confess that they went astray in their love
+for their children. They were still educating us according to the past,
+while the future was already so near at hand. I pity our parents and I
+could almost love them better for that reason than I ever did before."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+She had suddenly turned very pale, as though under the stress of a
+sudden emotion. She covered her face with her fluttering fan and her
+fingers trembled violently; her whole body shuddered.
+
+"That is well thought on your part," said Mrs. Holt. "I am glad to
+have met you. I always find a certain charm in Dutch people: that
+vagueness, which we are unable to seize, and then all at once a light
+that flashes out of a cloud.... I hope to see you again. I am at home
+on Tuesdays, at five o'clock. Will you come one day with Mrs. Uxeley?"
+
+Mrs. Holt pressed her hand and disappeared among the other
+guests. Cornelie had risen from her chair, while her knees seemed to
+give way beneath her. She remained standing, half-turned towards the
+room, looking in the glass; and her fingers played with the orchids
+in a Venetian vase on the console-table. She was still rather pale,
+but controlled herself, though her heart was beating loudly and her
+breast heaving. And she looked in the glass. She saw first her own
+figure, her beautiful, slender outline, in her dress of white and
+black Chantilly, with the white-lace train, foaming with flounces,
+the black-lace tunic with the scalloped border and sprinkled with
+steel spangles and blue stones, a spray of orchids in the sleeveless
+corsage, which left her neck and arms and shoulders bare. Her hair
+was bound with three Greek fillets of pearls; and her fan of white
+feathers--a present from Urania--was like foam against her throat. She
+saw herself first and then, in the mirror, she saw him. He was coming
+nearer to her. She did not move, only her fingers played with the
+flowers in the vase. She felt as though she wished to take flight,
+but her knees gave way and her feet were paralysed. She stood rooted
+to the floor, hypnotized. She was unable to stir. And she saw him come
+nearer and nearer, while her back remained half-turned to the room. He
+approached; and his appearance seemed to fling out a net in which she
+was caught. He was close by her now, close behind her. Mechanically
+she raised her eyes and looked in the glass and met his eyes in the
+mirror. She thought that she would faint. She felt squeezed between
+him and the glass. In the mirror the room went round and round, the
+candles whirled giddily, like a reeling firmament. He did not say
+anything yet. She only saw his eyes gazing and his mouth smiling under
+his moustache. And he still said nothing. Then, in that unendurable
+lack of space between him and the mirror, which did not even give
+shelter as a wall would have done, but which reflected him so that he
+held her twice imprisoned, behind and before, she turned round slowly
+and looked him in the eyes. But she did not speak either. They looked
+at each other without a word.
+
+"You never expected this: that you would see me here one day," he said,
+at last.
+
+It was more than a year since she had heard his voice. But she felt
+his voice inside her.
+
+"No," she answered, at last, haughtily, coldly, distantly. "Though
+I saw you once or twice, in the street, on the Jetee."
+
+"Yes," he said. "Should I have bowed to you, do you think?"
+
+She shrugged her bare shoulders; and he looked at them. She felt for
+the first time that she was half-naked that evening.
+
+"No," she replied, still coldly and distantly. "Any more than you
+need have spoken to me now."
+
+He smiled at her. He stood before her as a wall. He stood before her
+as a man. His head, his shoulders, his chest, his legs, his whole
+stature rose before her as incarnate manhood.
+
+"Of course I needn't have done so," he said; and she felt his voice
+inside her: she felt his voice sinking in her like molten bronze into a
+mould. "If I had met you somewhere in Holland, I would only have taken
+off my hat and not spoken to you. But we are in a foreign country...."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"I felt I should like to speak to you.... I wanted to have a talk
+with you. Can't we do that as strangers?"
+
+"As strangers?" she echoed.
+
+"Oh, well, we're not strangers: we even know each other uncommonly
+intimately, eh?... Come and sit down and tell me about yourself. Did
+you like Rome?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+He had led her as though with his will to a couch behind a half-damask,
+half-glass, Louis-XV. screen; and she dropped down upon it in a rosy
+twilight of candles, with bunches of pink roses around her in all
+sorts of Venetian glasses. He sat on an ottoman, bending towards her
+slightly, with his arms on his knees and his hands folded together:
+
+"They've been gossiping about you finely at the Hague. First about
+your pamphlet ... and then about your painter."
+
+Her eyes pierced him like needles. He laughed:
+
+"You can look just as angry as ever.... Tell me, do you ever hear
+from the old people? They're in a bad way."
+
+"Now and then. I was able to send them some money lately."
+
+"That's damned good of you. They don't deserve it. They said that
+you no longer existed for them."
+
+"Mamma wrote that they were so pushed for money. Then I sent them a
+hundred guilders. It was the most that I could do."
+
+"Oh, now that they find you sending them money, you'll begin to exist
+for them again!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"I don't mind that. I was sorry for them ... and sorry I couldn't
+send more."
+
+"Ah, when you look so thundering smart...."
+
+"I don't pay for my clothes."
+
+"I'm only stating a fact. I'm not venturing to criticize. I think it
+damned handsome of you to send them money. But you do look thundering
+smart.... Look here, let me tell you something: you've become a damned
+handsome girl."
+
+He stared at her, with his smile, which compelled her to look at him.
+
+Then she replied, very calmly, waving her fan lightly in front of
+her bare neck, sheltering in the foam of her fan:
+
+"I'm damned glad to hear it!"
+
+He gave a loud, throaty laugh:
+
+"There, I like that! You've still got your witty sense of
+repartee. Always to the point. Damned clever of you!"
+
+She stood up strained and nervous:
+
+"I must leave you. I must go to Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+He spread out his arms:
+
+"Stay and sit with me a little longer. It does me good to talk to you."
+
+"Then restrain yourself a bit and don't 'damn' quite so much. I've
+not been used to it lately."
+
+"I'll do my best. Sit down."
+
+She fell back and hid herself behind her fan.
+
+"Let me tell you that you have positively become a very ... a very
+beautiful woman. Now is that like a compliment?"
+
+"It sounds more like one."
+
+"Well, it's the best I can do, you know. So you must make the most
+of it. And now tell me about Rome. How were you living there?"
+
+"Why should I tell you about it?"
+
+"Because I'm interested."
+
+"You have no need to be interested."
+
+"I dare say, but I happen to be. I've never quite forgotten you. And
+I should be surprised if you had me."
+
+"I have, quite," she said, coolly.
+
+He looked at her with his smile. He said nothing, but she felt that
+he knew better. She was afraid to convince him further.
+
+"Is it true, what they say at the Hague? About Van der Staal?"
+
+She looked at him haughtily.
+
+"Come, out with it!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are a cheeky baggage! Do you no longer care a straw for the
+whole boiling of them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And how do you manage here, with this old hag?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Do they just accept you here, at Nice?"
+
+"I don't brag about my independence; and no one is able to comment
+on my conduct here."
+
+"Where is Van der Staal?"
+
+"At Florence."
+
+"Why isn't he here?"
+
+"I'm not going to answer any more questions. You are indiscreet. It
+has nothing to do with you and I won't be cross-examined."
+
+She was very nervous again and once more rose to her feet. He spread
+out his arms.
+
+"Really, Rudolph, you must let me go," she entreated. "I have to go
+to Mrs. Uxeley. They are to dance a pavane in the ball-room and I
+have to ask for instructions and hand them on. Let me pass."
+
+"Then I'll take you there. Let me offer you my arm."
+
+"Rudolph, do go away! Don't you see how you're upsetting me? This
+meeting has been so unexpected. Do let me go, or I sha'n't be able
+to control myself. I'm going to cry.... Why did you speak to me,
+why did you speak to me, why did you come here, where you knew that
+you would meet me?"
+
+"Because I wanted to see one of Mrs. Uxeley's parties and because I
+wanted to meet you."
+
+"You must understand that it upsets me to see you again. What good
+does it do you? We are dead to each other. Why should you want to
+pester me like this?"
+
+"That's just what I wanted to know, whether we are dead to each
+other...."
+
+"Dead, dead, quite dead!" she cried, vehemently.
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Come, don't be so theatrical. You can understand that I was curious
+to see you again and talk to you. I used to see you in the street, in
+your carriage, on the Jetee; and I was pleased to find you looking so
+well, so smart, so happy and so handsome. You know that good-looking
+women are my great hobby. You are much better-looking than you used
+to be when you were my wife. If you had been then what you are now,
+I should never have allowed you to divorce me.... Come, don't be
+a child. No one knows here. I think it damned jolly to meet you
+here, to have a good old yarn with you and to have you leaning on my
+arm. Take my arm. Don't make a fuss and I'll take you where you want
+to go. Where shall we find Mrs. Uxeley? Introduce me ... as a friend
+from Holland...."
+
+"Rudolph...."
+
+"Oh, I insist: don't bother! There's nothing in it! It amuses me and
+it's no end of a lark to walk about with one's divorced wife at a ball
+at Nice. A delightful town, isn't it? I go to Monte Carlo every day
+and I've been damned lucky. Won three thousand francs yesterday. Will
+you come with me one day?"
+
+"You're mad!"
+
+"I'm not mad at all. I want to enjoy myself. And I'm proud to have
+you on my arm."
+
+She withdrew her arm:
+
+"Well, you needn't be."
+
+"Now don't get spiteful. That's all rot: let's enjoy ourselves. There
+is the old girl: she's looking at you."
+
+She had passed through some of the rooms on his arm; and they saw,
+near a tombola, round which people were crowding to draw presents
+and surprises, Mrs. Uxeley, Gilio and the Rosavilla, Costi and Luca
+ladies. They were all very gay round the pyramid of knickknacks,
+behaving like children when the number of one of them turned up on
+the roulette-wheel.
+
+"Mrs. Uxeley," Cornelie began, in a trembling voice, "may I introduce
+a fellow-countryman of mine? Baron Brox."
+
+Mrs. Uxeley simpered, uttered a few amiable words and asked if he
+wouldn't draw a number.
+
+The roulette-wheel spun round and round.
+
+"A fellow-countryman, Cornelie?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+"What do you say his name is?"
+
+"Baron Brox."
+
+"A splendid fellow! A handsome fellow! An astonishingly handsome
+fellow!... What is he? What does he do?"
+
+"He's in the army, a first lieutenant...."
+
+"In which regiment?"
+
+"In the hussars."
+
+"At the Hague?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An amazingly good-looking fellow! I like those tall, fine men."
+
+"Mrs. Uxeley, is everything going as it should?"
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"Do you feel all right?"
+
+"I have a little pain, but nothing to speak about."
+
+"Won't it soon be time for the pavane?"
+
+"Yes, see that the girls go and get dressed. Has the hairdresser
+brought the wigs for the young men?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then go and collect them and tell them to hurry up. They must be
+ready within half an hour...."
+
+Rudolph Brox returned from the tombola, where he had drawn a silver
+match-box. He thanked Mrs. Uxeley, who simpered, and, when he saw
+that Cornelie was moving away, he went after her:
+
+"Cornelie ..."
+
+"Please, Rudolph, let me be. I have to collect the girls and the men
+for the pavane. I have a lot to do...."
+
+"I'll help you...."
+
+She beckoned to a girl or two and sent a couple of footmen to hunt
+through the room for the young men and to ask them to go to the
+dressing-room. He saw that she was pale and trembling all over
+her body:
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'm tired."
+
+"Then let's go and get something to drink."
+
+She was numb with nervousness. The music of the invisible band
+boom-boomed fiercely against her brain; and at times the innumerable
+candles whirled before her eyes like a reeling firmament. The rooms
+were choked with people. They crowded and laughed aloud and showed
+one another their presents; the men trod on the ladies' trains. An
+intoxicating, suffocating fragrance of flowers, the atmosphere peculiar
+to crowded functions and the warm, perfumed odour of women's flesh
+hung in the rooms like a cloud. Cornelie hunted hither and thither
+and at last collected all the girls. The ballet-master came to ask
+her something. A butler came to ask her something. And Brox did not
+budge from her side.
+
+"Let's go now and get something to drink," he said.
+
+She mechanically took his arm; and her hand trembled on the sleeve of
+his dress-coat. He pushed his way with her through the crowd; they
+passed Urania and De Breuil. Urania said something which Cornelie
+did not catch. The refreshment-room also was chock-full and buzzed
+with loud, laughing voices. Behind the long tables stood the butler,
+like a minister, supervising the whole service. There was no crowding,
+no fighting for a glass of wine or a sandwich. People waited until
+a footman brought it on a tray.
+
+"It's very well managed," said Brox. "Do you do all this?"
+
+"No, it's been done like this for years...."
+
+She dropped into a chair, looking very pale.
+
+"What will you have?"
+
+"A glass of champagne."
+
+"I'm hungry. I had a bad dinner at my hotel. I must have something
+to eat."
+
+He ordered the champagne for her. He ate first a patty, then another,
+then a chateaubriant and peas. He drank two glasses of claret, followed
+by a glass of champagne. The footman brought him everything, dish by
+dish, on a silver tray. His handsome, virile face was brick-red in
+colour with health and animal strength. The stiff hair on his round,
+heavy skull was cropped quite close. His large grey eyes were bright
+and laughing, with a straight, impudent glance. A heavy, well-tended
+moustache curled over his mouth, in which the white teeth gleamed. He
+stood with his legs slightly astraddle, firm and soldierly in his
+dress-coat, which he wore with an easy correctness. He ate slowly
+and with relish, enjoying his good glass of fine wine.
+
+Mechanically she now watched him, from her chair. She had drunk a
+glass of champagne and asked for another; and the stimulant revived
+her. Her cheeks recovered some of their colour; her eyes sparkled.
+
+"They do you damn well here," he said, coming up to her with his
+glass in his hand.
+
+And he emptied his glass.
+
+"They are going to dance the pavane almost at once," she murmured.
+
+And they passed through the crowded rooms, to a big corridor outside,
+which looked like an avenue of camellia-shrubs. They were alone for
+a moment.
+
+"This is where the dancers are to meet."
+
+"Then let's wait for them. It's nice and cool out here."
+
+They sat down on a bench.
+
+"Are you feeling better?" he asked. "You were so queer in the
+ball-room."
+
+"Yes, I'm better."
+
+"Don't you think it's fun to meet your old husband again?"
+
+"Rudolph, I don't understand how you can talk to me like that and
+persecute me and tease me ... after everything that has happened...."
+
+"Oh, well, all that has happened and is done with!"
+
+"Do you think it's discreet on your part ... or delicate?"
+
+"No, neither discreet nor delicate. Those, you know, are things I've
+never been: you used to fling that in my face often enough, in the
+old days. But, if it's not delicate, it's amusing. Have you lost your
+sense of humour? It's damn jolly humorous, our meeting here.... And
+now listen to me. You and I are divorced. All right. That's so in
+the eyes of the law. But a legal divorce is a matter of law and form,
+for the benefit of society. As regards money affairs and so on. We've
+been too much husband and wife not to feel something for each other
+at a later meeting, such as this. Yes, yes, I know what you want to
+say. It's simply untrue. You have been too much in love with me and I
+with you for everything between us to be dead. I remember everything
+still. And you must do the same. Do you remember when...?"
+
+He laughed, pushed nearer to her and whispered close in her ear. She
+felt his breath thrilling on her flesh like a warm breeze. She flushed
+crimson with nervous distress. And she felt with her whole body
+that he had been her husband and that he had entered into her very
+blood. His voice ran like molten bronze, along her nerves of hearing,
+deep down within her. She knew him through and through. She knew his
+eyes, his mouth. She knew his broad, well-kept hands, with the large
+round nails and the dark signet-ring, as they lay on his knees, which
+showed square and powerful under the crease in his dress-trousers. And
+she felt, like a sudden despair, that she knew and felt him in her
+whole body. However rough he might have been to her in the old days,
+however much he had ill-treated her, striking her with his clenched
+fist, banging her against the wall ... she had been his wife. She,
+a virgin, had become his wife, had been initiated into womanhood by
+him. And she felt that he had branded her as his own, she felt it in
+her blood and in the marrow of her bones. She confessed to herself that
+she had never forgotten him. During the first lonely days in Rome,
+she had longed for his kisses, she had thought of him, had conjured
+up his virile image before her mind, had persuaded herself to believe
+that, by exercising tact and patience and a little management, she
+could have remained his wife....
+
+Then the great happiness had come, the gentle happiness of perfect
+harmony!...
+
+It all flashed through her like lightning.
+
+Oh, in that great, gentle happiness she had been able to forget
+everything, she had not felt the past within her! But she now felt
+that the past always remained, irrevocably and indelibly. She had
+been his wife and she held him still in her blood. She felt it now
+with every breath that she drew. She was indignant because he dared
+to whisper about the old days, in her ear; but it had all been as he
+said, irrevocably, indelibly.
+
+"Rudolph!" she entreated, clasping her hands together. "Spare me!"
+
+She almost screamed it, in a cry of fear and despair. But he laughed
+and with one hand seized both hers, clasped in entreaty:
+
+"If you go on like that, if you look at me so beseechingly with
+those beautiful eyes, I won't spare you even here and I'll kiss you
+until ..."
+
+His words swept over her like a scorching wind. But laughing voices
+approached; and two girls and two young men, dressed up, for the
+pavane, as Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois, came running down
+the stairs:
+
+"What's become of the others?" they cried, looking round in the
+staircase.
+
+And they came dancing up to Cornelie. The ballet-master also
+approached. She did not understand what he said:
+
+"Where are the others?" she repeated, mechanically, in a hoarse voice.
+
+"Here they come.... Now we're all there...."
+
+They were all talking and laughing and glittering and buzzing
+about her. She summoned up all her poor strength and issued a few
+instructions. The guests streamed into the great ball-room, sat down
+in the front chairs, crowded together in the corners. The pavane was
+danced in the middle of the room, to an old trailing melody: a long,
+winding curve of graceful steps, deep bows and satin gleaming with
+sudden lustre like that of porcelain ... with the occasional flutter
+of a cape ... and a flash of light on a rapier....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+"Urania, I beseech you, help me!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Come with me...."
+
+She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De Breuil
+into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost entirely
+deserted; the dense throng of guests stood packed along the sides of
+the great ball-room to watch the pavane.
+
+"What is it, Cornelie?"
+
+Cornelie was trembling in every limb and clutching Urania's arm. She
+drew her to the farthest corner of the room. There was no one there.
+
+"Urania," she entreated, in a supreme crisis of nervousness, "help
+me! What am I to do? I have met him unexpectedly. Don't you know
+whom I mean? My husband. My divorced husband. I had seen him once or
+twice before, in the street and on the Jetee. The time when I was so
+startled, you know, when I almost fainted: that was because of him. And
+he has been talking to me now, here, a moment ago. And I'm afraid of
+him. He spoke quite nicely, said he wanted to talk to me. It was so
+strange. Everything was finished between us. We were divorced. And
+suddenly I meet him and he speaks to me and asks me what sort of
+time I have had, tells me that I am looking well, that I have grown
+beautiful. Tell me, Urania, what I am to do. I'm frightened. I'm ill
+with anxiety. I want to get away. I should like best to go away at
+once, to Florence, to Duco. I am so frightened, Urania. I want to go
+to my room. Tell Mrs. Uxeley that I want to go to my room."
+
+She hardly knew what she was saying. The words fell incoherently from
+her lips, as in a fever. Men's voices approached. They were those
+of Gilio, De Breuil, the Duke di Luca and the young journalists,
+the two who were pushing their way into society.
+
+"What is the Signora de Retz doing?" asked the duke. "We are missing
+her everywhere."
+
+And the young journalists, standing in the shadow of these eminent
+noblemen, confirmed the statement: they had been missing her
+everywhere.
+
+"Fetch Mrs. Uxeley here," Urania whispered to Gilio. "Cornelie
+is ill, I think. I can't leave her here alone. She wants to go to
+her room. It's better that Mrs. Uxeley should know, else she might
+be angry."
+
+Cornelie was jesting nervously, in feverish gaiety, with the duke
+and with De Breuil and the journalists.
+
+"Would you rather I took you straight to Mrs. Uxeley?" Gilio whispered.
+
+"I want to go to my room!" she whispered, in a voice of entreaty,
+behind her fan.
+
+The pavane appeared to be over. The buzz of voices reached them,
+as though the guests were scattering about the rooms again:
+
+"I see Mrs. Uxeley," said Gilio.
+
+He went up to her, spoke to her. She simpered at first, leaning
+on the gold knob of her cane. Then her wrinkles became angrily
+contracted. She crossed the room. Cornelie went on jesting with the
+duke; the journalists thought every word witty.
+
+"Aren't you well?" whispered Mrs. Uxeley, going up to her,
+ruffled. "What about the cotillon?"
+
+"I will see to everything, Mrs. Uxeley," said Urania.
+
+"Impossible, dear princess; and I shouldn't dream of letting you
+either."
+
+"Introduce me to your friend, Cornelie!" said a deep voice behind
+Cornelie.
+
+She felt that voice like bronze inside her body. She turned round
+automatically. It was he. She seemed unable to escape him. And,
+under his glance, as though hypnotized, she appeared, very strangely,
+to recover her strength. It seemed as though he were willing her not
+to be ill. She murmured:
+
+"Urania, may I introduce ... a fellow-countryman?... Baron
+Brox.... Princess di Forte-Braccio...."
+
+Urania knew his name, knew who he was:
+
+"Darling," she whispered to Cornelie, "let me take you to your
+room. I'll see to everything."
+
+"It's no longer necessary," she said. "I'm much better. I only want
+a glass of champagne. I am much better, Mrs. Uxeley."
+
+"Why did you run away from me?" asked Rudolph Brox, with his smile
+and his eyes in Cornelie's eyes.
+
+She smiled and said the first thing that came into her head.
+
+"The dancing has begun," said Mrs. Uxeley. "But who's going to lead
+my cotillon presently?"
+
+"If I can be of any service, Mrs. Uxeley," said Brox, "I have some
+little talent as a cotillon-leader."
+
+Mrs. Uxeley was delighted. It was arranged that De Breuil and Urania,
+Gilio and the Countess Costi and Brox and Cornelie should lead the
+figures in turns.
+
+"You poor darling!" Urania said in Cornelie's ear. "Can you manage it?"
+
+Cornelie smiled:
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm all right again," she whispered.
+
+And she moved towards the ball-room on Brox's arm. Urania stared
+after her in amazement.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+It was twelve o'clock when Cornelie woke that morning. The sun was
+piercing the golden slit in the half-parted curtains with tiny eddying
+atoms. She felt dog-tired. She remembered that Mrs. Uxeley, on the
+morning after one of these parties, left her free to rest: the old
+lady herself stayed in bed, although she did not sleep. And Cornelie
+lacked the smallest capacity to rise. She remained lying where she
+was, heavy with fatigue. Her eyes wandered through the untidy room;
+her handsome ball-dress, hanging listlessly, limply over a chair,
+at once reminded her of yesterday. For that matter, everything in
+her was thinking of yesterday, everything in her was thinking of her
+husband, with a tense, hypnotized consciousness. She felt as if she
+were recovering from a nightmare, a bout of drunkenness, a swoon. It
+was only by drinking glass after glass of champagne that she had
+been able to keep going, had been able to dance with Brox, had been
+able to lead the figure when their turn came. But it was not only
+the champagne. His eyes also had held her up, had prevented her from
+fainting, from bursting into sobs, from screaming and waving her arms
+like a madwoman. When he had taken his leave, when everybody had gone,
+she had collapsed in a heap and been taken to bed. The moment she was
+no longer under his eyes, she had felt her misery and her weakness;
+and the champagne had as it were suddenly clouded her brain.
+
+Now she lay thinking of him in the dejected slackness of her
+overwhelming morning fatigue. And it seemed to her as if her whole
+Italian year had been an interlude, a dream. She saw herself at the
+Hague again, with her pretty little face and her little flirting ways
+and her phrases always to the point. She saw their first meetings and
+how she had at once fallen under his influence and been unable to flirt
+with him, because he laughed at her little feminine defences. He had
+been too strong for her from the first. Then came their engagement. He
+laid down the law and she rebelled, angrily, with violent scenes, not
+wishing to be controlled, injured in her pride as a girl who had always
+been spoiled and made much of. And then he subdued her as though with
+the rude strength of his fist--and always with a laugh on his handsome
+mouth--until they were married, until she created a scandal and ran
+away. He had refused to be divorced at first, but had consented later,
+because of the scandal. She had freed herself, she had fled!...
+
+The feminist movement, Italy, Duco.... Was it a dream? Was the
+great happiness, the delightful harmony, a dream and was she awaking
+after a year of dreams? Was she divorced or was she not? She had to
+make an effort to remember the formalities: yes, they were legally
+divorced. But was she divorced, was everything over between them? And
+was she really no longer his wife?
+
+Why had he done it, why had he pursued her after seeing her once
+at Nice? Oh, he had told her, during that cotillon, that endless
+cotillon! He had become proud of her when he saw how beautiful she
+was and how smart, how happy she looked driving in Mrs. Uxeley's
+or the princess' elegant victoria; it was then that he had seen
+her, beautiful, smart and happy; and he had grown jealous. She, a
+beautiful woman, had been his wife! He felt that he had a right to
+her, notwithstanding the law. What was the law? Had the law taught
+her womanhood or had he? And he had made her feel his right, together
+with the irrevocable past. It was all irrevocable and indelible....
+
+She looked about her, at her wits' end what to do. And she began to
+weep, to sob. Then she felt something gaining strength within her,
+the instinctive rebellion that leapt up within her like a spring which
+had at length recovered its resilience, now that she was resting and
+no longer under his eyes. She would not. She would not. She refused
+to feel him in her blood. Should she meet him once more, she would
+speak to him calmly, very curtly, and order him to leave her, show
+him the door, have him put out of the door.... She clenched her fists
+with rage. She hated him. She thought of Duco.... And she thought
+of writing to him, telling him everything. And she thought of going
+back to him as quickly as possible. He was not a dream, he existed,
+even though he was living so far away, at Florence. She had saved a
+little money, they would find their happiness again in the studio in
+Rome. She would write to him; and she wanted to get away as quickly
+as possible. With Duco she would be safe. Oh, how she longed for him,
+to lie so softly and quietly and blissfully in his arms, against
+his breast, as in the embrace of a miraculous happiness! Was it all
+true, their happiness, their love and harmony? Yes, it had existed,
+it was not a dream. There was his photograph; there, on the wall,
+were two of his water-colours--the sea at Sorrento and the skies over
+Amalfi--done in those days which had been like poems. She would be
+safer with him. When she was with Duco, she would not feel Rudolph,
+her husband, in her blood. For she felt Duco in her soul; and her soul
+would be the stronger! She would feel Duco in her soul, in her heart,
+in all the most fervent part of her life and gather from him her
+uppermost strength, like a sheaf of gleaming sword-blades! Already
+now, when she thought of him with such longing, she felt herself
+growing stronger. She could have spoken to Brox now. Yesterday he
+had taken her by surprise, had squeezed her between himself and
+that looking-glass, till she had seen him double and lost her wits
+and been defeated. That would never happen again. That was only due
+to the surprise. If she spoke to him again now, she would triumph,
+thanks to what she had learnt as a woman who stood on her own feet.
+
+And she got up and opened the windows and put on her dressing-gown. She
+looked at the blue sea, at the motley traffic on the Promenade. And
+she sat down and wrote to Duco. She told him everything: her first
+startled meeting, her surprise and defeat at the ball. Her pen flew
+over the paper. She did not hear the knock at the door, did not hear
+Urania come in carefully, fearing lest she should still be asleep
+and anxious to know how she felt. Excitedly she read out part of her
+letter and said that she was ashamed of her weakness of yesterday. How
+she could have behaved like that she herself was unable to understand.
+
+No, she herself could not understand it. Now that she felt somewhat
+rested and was speaking to Urania, who reminded her of Rome, and
+holding her long letter to Duco in her hand ... now she herself did
+not understand it all and wondered which had been a dream: her Italian
+year of happiness or that nightmare of yesterday....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+She stayed at home for a day, feeling tired and, deep down within
+herself, almost unconsciously, afraid, in spite of all, of meeting
+him. But Mrs. Uxeley, who would never hear of illness or fatigue,
+was so much put out that Cornelie accompanied her next day to the
+Promenade des Anglais. Friends came up to talk to them and gathered
+round their chairs, with Rudolph Brox among them. But Cornelie avoided
+any confidential conversation.
+
+Some days later, however, he called on Mrs. Uxeley's at-home day;
+and, amid the crowd of visitors paying duty-calls after the party,
+he was able to speak to her for a moment alone. He came up to her
+with that laugh of his, as though his eyes were laughing, as though
+his moustache were laughing. And she collected all her thoughts,
+so that she might be firm with him:
+
+"Rudolph," she said, loftily, "it is simply ridiculous. If you don't
+think it indelicate, you might at least try to think it ridiculous. It
+tickles your sense of humour, but imagine what people would say about
+it in Holland!... The other evening, at the party, you took me by
+surprise and somehow--I really don't know how it happened--I yielded
+to your strange wish to dance with me and to lead the cotillon. I
+frankly confess, I was confused. I now see everything clearly and
+plainly and I tell you this: I refuse to meet you again. I refuse
+to speak to you again. I refuse to turn the solemn earnest of our
+divorce into a farce."
+
+"If you look back," he said, "you will recollect that you never got
+anything out of me with that lofty tone and those dignified airs,
+but that, on the contrary, you just stimulate me to do what you
+don't want...."
+
+"If that is so, I shall simply tell Mrs. Uxeley in what relation I
+stand to you and ask her to forbid you her house."
+
+He laughed. She lost her temper:
+
+"Do you intend to behave like a gentleman or like a cad?"
+
+He turned red and clenched his fists:
+
+"Curse you!" he hissed, in his moustache.
+
+"Perhaps you would like to hit me and knock me about?" she continued,
+scornfully.
+
+He mastered himself.
+
+"We are in a room full of people," she sneered, defiantly. "What if
+we were alone? You've already clenched your fists! You would thrash
+me as you did before. You brute! You brute!"
+
+"And you are very brave in this room full of people!" he laughed,
+with his laugh which incited her to rage, when it did not subdue
+her. "No, I shouldn't thrash you," he continued. "I should kiss you."
+
+"This is the last time you're going to speak to me!" she hissed
+furiously. "Go away! Go away! Or I don't know what I shall do,
+I shall make a scene."
+
+He sat down calmly:
+
+"As you please," he said, quietly.
+
+She stood trembling before him, impotent. Some one spoke to her; the
+footman handed her some tea. She was now in the midst of a circle of
+men; and, mastering herself, she jested, with loud, nervous gaiety,
+flirted more coquettishly than ever. There was a little court around
+her, with the Duke di Luca as its ring-leader. Close by, Rudolph Brox
+sat drinking his tea, with apparent calmness, as though waiting. But
+his strong, masterful blood was boiling madly within him. He could have
+murdered her and he was seeing red with jealousy. That woman was his,
+despite the law. He was not going to be afraid of any more scandal. She
+was beautiful, she was as he wished her to be and he wanted her,
+his wife. He knew how he would win her back; and this time he would
+not lose her, this time she should be his, for as long as he wished.
+
+As soon as he was able to speak to her unheard, he came up to her
+again. She was just going to Urania, whom she saw sitting with
+Mrs. Uxeley, when he said in her ear, sternly and abruptly:
+
+"Cornelie...."
+
+She turned round mechanically, but with her haughty glance. She
+would rather have gone on, but could not: something held her back,
+a secret strength, a secret superiority, which sounded in his voice
+and flowed into her with a weight as of bronze that weakened and
+paralysed her energy.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"I want to speak to you alone."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes. Listen to me calmly for a moment, if you can. I am calm too,
+as you see. You needn't be afraid of me. I promise not to ill-treat
+you or even to swear at you. But I must speak to you, alone. After our
+meeting, after the ball last week, we can't part like this. You are
+not even entitled to show me the door, after talking to me and dancing
+with me so recently. There's no reason and no logic in it. You lost
+your temper. But let us both keep our tempers now. I want to speak
+to you...."
+
+"I can't: Mrs. Uxeley doesn't like me to leave the drawing-room when
+there are people here. I am dependent on her."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"You are almost even more dependent on her than you used to be on
+me! But you can give me just a second, in the next room."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you can."
+
+"What do you want to speak to me about?"
+
+"I can't tell you here."
+
+"I can't speak to you alone."
+
+"I'll tell you what it is: you're afraid to."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you are: you're afraid of me. With all your airs and your
+dignity, you're afraid to be alone with me for a moment."
+
+"I'm not afraid."
+
+"You are afraid. You're shaking in your shoes with fear. You received
+me with a fine speech which you rehearsed in advance. Now that you've
+delivered your speech ... it's over and you're frightened."
+
+"I am not frightened."
+
+"Then come with me, my plucky authoress of The Social Position of the
+What's-her-name! I promise, I swear that I shall be calm and tell you
+calmly what I have to say to you; and I give you my word of honour not
+to hit you.... Which room shall we go to?... Do you refuse? Listen
+to me: if you don't come with me, it's not finished yet. If you do,
+perhaps it will be finished ... and you will never see me again."
+
+"What can you have to say to me?"
+
+"Come."
+
+She yielded because of his voice, not because of his words:
+
+"But only for three minutes."
+
+"Very well, three minutes."
+
+She took him into the passage and into an empty room:
+
+"Well what is it?" she asked, frightened.
+
+"Don't be frightened," he said, laughing under his moustache. "Don't
+be frightened. I only wanted to tell you ... that you are my wife. Do
+you understand that? Don't try to deny it. I felt it at the ball the
+other night, when I had my arm round you, waltzing with you. Don't
+try to deny that you pressed yourself against me for a moment. You're
+my wife. I felt it then and I feel it now. And you feel it too, though
+you would like to deny it. But that won't help you. What has been can't
+be altered; and what has been ... always remains part of you. There,
+you can't say that I am not speaking prettily and delicately. Not an
+oath, not an improper word has escaped my lips. For I don't want to
+make you angry. I only want to make you confess that what I say is
+true and that you are still my wife. That law doesn't signify. It's
+another law that rules us. It's a law that rules you especially; a law
+which, without our ever suspecting it, brings us together again, even
+though it does so by a very strange, roundabout path, along which you,
+especially, have strayed. That law rules you especially. I am convinced
+that you still love me, or at least that you are still in love with
+me. I feel it, I know it as a fact: don't try to deny it. It's no
+use, Cornelie. And I'll tell you something besides: I am in love
+with you too and more so than ever. I feel it when you're flirting
+with those fellows. I could wring your neck then, I could break every
+bone in their bodies.... Don't be afraid: I'm not going to; I'm not
+in a temper. I just wanted to talk to you calmly and make you see the
+truth. Do you see it before you? It is in-con-tro-ver-tible. You see,
+you have nothing to say in reply. Facts are facts.... Will you show
+me the door now? Do you still propose to speak to Mrs. Uxeley? I
+shouldn't, if I were you. Your friend, the princess, knows who I am:
+leave it at that. Had the old woman never heard my name, or has she
+forgotten it? Forgotten it, I expect. Well, then, don't trouble to
+refresh her ancient memory. Leave things as they are. It's better to
+say nothing. No, the position is not ridiculous and it's not humorous
+either. It has become very serious: the truth is always serious. It is
+strange, I admit: I should never have expected it. It's a revelation
+to me as well.... And now I've said what I had to say. Less than five
+minutes by my watch. They will hardly have noticed your absence in the
+drawing-room. And now I'm going; but first give your husband a kiss,
+for I am your husband ... and always shall be."
+
+She stood trembling before him. It was his voice, which fell like
+molten bronze into her soul, into her body, and lamed and paralysed
+her. It was his voice of persuasion, of persuasive charm, the voice
+which she knew of old, the voice that compelled her to do everything
+that he wanted. Under the influence of that voice she became a thing,
+a chattel, something that belonged to him, once he had branded her
+for ever as his mate. She was powerless to cast him out of herself,
+to shake him from herself, to erase from herself the stamp of his
+possession and the brand which marked her as his property. She was
+his; and anything that otherwise was herself had left her. There was
+no longer in her brain either memory or thought....
+
+She saw him come up to her and put his arm around her. He took
+her to his breast slowly but so firmly that he seemed to be taking
+possession of her entirely. She felt herself melting away in his
+arms as in a scorching flame. On her lips she felt his mouth, his
+moustache, pressing, pressing, pressing, until she closed her eyes,
+half-fainting. He said something more in her ear, with that voice
+under which she seemed not to count, as though she were nothing,
+as though she existed only through him. When he released her, she
+staggered on her feet.
+
+"Come, pull yourself together," she heard him say, calmly,
+authoritatively, omnipotently. "And accept the position. Things are
+as they are. There's no altering them. Thank you for letting me speak
+to you. Everything is all right between us now: I'm sure of it. And
+now au revoir. Au revoir...."
+
+He kissed her again:
+
+"Give me a kiss too," he said, with that voice of his.
+
+She flung her arm round his body and kissed him on the lips.
+
+"Au revoir," he said, once more.
+
+She saw him laugh under his moustache; his eyes laughed at her with
+flames of gold; and he went away. She heard his feet going down the
+stairs and ringing on the marble of the hall, with the strength of his
+firm tread.... She remained standing as though bereft of life. In the
+drawing-room, next to the room in which she was, the hum of laughing
+voices sounded loudly. She saw Rome before her, saw Duco, in a short
+flash of lightning.... It was gone.... And, collapsing into a chair,
+she uttered a suppressed cry of despair, put her hands before her
+face and sobbed, restraining her despair before all those people,
+dully, as from a stifling throat.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly from his mastery,
+to fly from the emanation of that dominion which, mysteriously but
+irrevocably, wiped away with his caress all that was in her of will,
+energy and self. She remembered having felt the same thing in the
+old days: rebellion and anger when he became angry and coarse, but
+an eclipse of self when he caressed her; an inability to think when
+he merely laid his hand upon her head; a swooning away into a vast
+nothingness when he took her in his arms and kissed her. She had felt
+it from the first time of seeing him, when he stood before her and
+looked down upon her with that light irony in the smile of his eyes and
+his moustache, as though he took pleasure in her resistance--at that
+time prompted by flirting and fun, soon by petulance, later by anger
+and fury--as though he took pleasure in her futile feminine attempts to
+escape his power. He had at once realized that he ruled this woman. And
+she had found in him her master, her sole master. For no other man
+pressed down upon her with that empire which was of the blood, of the
+flesh. On the contrary, she was usually the superior. She had about
+her a cool indifference which was always provoking her to destructive
+criticism. She had a need for fun, for cheerful conversation, for
+coquetry, for flirtation; and, always a mistress of quick repartee,
+she invited the occasion for repartee; but, apart from this, men
+meant little to her and she always saw the absurd side of each of
+them, thinking this one too short, that one too tall, a third clumsy,
+a fourth stupid, finding something in every one of them to rouse her
+laughter, her mockery or her criticism. She would never be a woman to
+give herself to many. She had met Duco and given herself to him with
+her love, wholly, as one great inseparable golden gift; and after
+him she would never fall in love again. But before Duco she had met
+Rudolph Brox. Perhaps, if she had met him after Duco, his mastery
+would not have swayed her. She did not know. And what was the good
+of thinking about it. The thing was as it was. In her blood she was
+not a woman for many; in her blood she was the wife, the spouse, the
+consort. Of the man who had been her husband she was in her flesh and
+in her blood the wife; and she was his wife even without love. For she
+could not call this love: she gave the name of love only to that other
+passion, that proud, tender and intense completion of life's harmony,
+that journey along one golden line, the marriage of two gleaming
+lines.... But the phantom hands had risen all about them in a cloud,
+the hands had mysteriously and inevitably divided their golden line;
+and hers, a winding curve, had leapt back, like a quivering spring,
+crossing a darker line of former days, a sombre line of the past,
+a dark track full of unconscious action and fatal bondage. Oh,
+the strangeness, the most mysterious strangeness of those lines of
+life! Why should they curl back, force her backwards to her original
+starting-point? Why had it all been necessary?
+
+She had but one thought: to take to flight. She did not see the
+inevitability of those lines and the fatality of those paths and
+she did not wish to feel the pressure of the phantom hands that rose
+about her. To fly, to turn up the dusky path, back to the point of
+separation, back to Duco, and with him to rebraid and twist the two
+lost directions into one pure movement, one line of happiness!...
+
+To fly, to fly! She told Urania that she was going. She begged Urania
+to forgive her, because it was she who had recommended her to the old
+woman whom she was now suddenly leaving. And she told Mrs. Uxeley,
+without caring for her anger, her temper or her words of abuse. She
+admitted that she was ungrateful. But there was a vital necessity which
+compelled her suddenly to leave Nice. She swore that it existed. She
+swore that it would mean unhappiness, even ruin, were she to stay. She
+explained it to Urania in a single sentence. But she did not explain
+it to the old woman and left her in an impotent fury which made her
+writhe with rheumatic aches and pains. She left behind her everything
+that she had received from Mrs. Uxeley, all the superfluous wardrobe
+of her dependence. She put on an old frock. She went to the station
+like a criminal, trembling lest she should meet him. But she knew
+that at this hour he was always at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless she went
+in a closed cab and she took a second-class ticket for Florence. She
+telegraphed to Duco. And she fled.
+
+She had nothing left but him. She could never again count upon
+Mrs. Uxeley; and Urania had behaved coolly, not understanding that
+singular flight, because she did not understand the simple truth,
+Rudolph Brox' power. She thought that Cornelie was making things
+difficult for herself. In the circle in which Urania lived, her sense
+of social morality had wavered since her liaison with the Chevalier
+de Breuil. Hearing the Italian law of love whispered all around
+her, the law that love is as simple as an opening rose, she did not
+understand Cornelie's struggle. She no longer resented anything that
+Gilio did; and he in his turn left her free. What was happening to
+Cornelie? Surely it was all very simple, if she was still fond of her
+divorced husband! Why should she run away to Duco and make herself
+ridiculous in the eyes of all their acquaintances? And so she had
+parted coolly from Cornelie; but still she missed her friend. She
+was the Princess di Forte-Braccio; and lately, on her birthday,
+Prince Ercole had sent her a great emerald, out of the carefully kept
+family-jewels, as though she were becoming worthy of them gradually,
+stone by stone! But she missed Cornelie and she felt lonely, deadly
+lonely, notwithstanding her emerald and her lover....
+
+Cornelie fled: she had nothing in the world but Duco. But in him she
+would have everything. And, when she saw him at Florence, at the Santa
+Maria Novella Station, she flung herself on his breast and clung to him
+as to a cross of redemption, a saviour. He led her sobbing to a cab;
+and they drove to his room. There she looked round her nervously,
+done up with the overstrain of her long journey, thinking every
+minute that Rudolph would come after her. She told Duco everything,
+opened her heart to him entirely, as though he were her conscience, as
+though he were her soul, her god. She nestled up against him, she told
+him that he must help her. It was as though she were praying to him;
+her anguish went up to him like a prayer. He kissed her; and she knew
+that manner of comforting, she knew that tender caressing. She suddenly
+fell against him, utterly relaxed; and so she continued to lie, with
+closed eyes. It was as though she were sinking in a lake, in a blue
+sacred lake, mystic as the Lake of San Stefano in the sleeping night,
+powdered with stars. And she heard him say that he would help her;
+that there was nothing in her fears; that that man had no power over
+her; that he would never have any power over her, if she became his,
+Duco's, wife. She looked at him and did not understand what he was
+saying. She looked at him feverishly, as though he had awakened her
+suddenly while she lay sleeping for a second in the blue calmness
+of the mystic lake. She did not understand, but, dead-tired, she hid
+her face against his arm again and fell asleep.
+
+She was dead-tired. She slept for two hours immovably, breathing
+deeply, upon his breast. When he shifted his arm, she just moved her
+head heavily, like a flower on a weary stalk, but she slept on. He
+stroked her forehead, her hair; and she slept on, with her hand in
+his. She slept as if she had not slept for days, for weeks.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+"There is nothing to be afraid of, Cornelie," he said,
+convincingly. "That man has no power over you if you refuse, if you
+refuse with a firm will. I do not see what he could do. You are quite
+free, absolutely released from him. That you ran away so precipitately
+was certainly not wise: it will look to him like a flight. Why did you
+not tell him calmly that he can't claim any rights in you? Why did you
+not say that you loved me? If need were, you could have said that we
+were engaged. How can you have been so weak and so terrified? It's not
+like you! But, now that you are here, all is well. We are together
+now. Shall we go back to Rome to-morrow or shall we remain here a
+little first? I have always longed to show you Florence. Look, there,
+in front of us, is the Arno; there is the Ponto Vecchio; there is the
+Uffizi. You've been here before, but you didn't know Italy then. You'll
+enjoy it more now. Oh, it is so lovely here! Let us stay a week or
+two first. I have a little money; you need have no fear. And life is
+cheaper here than in Rome. Living in this room, we shall spend hardly
+anything. I have light enough through this window to sketch by, now
+and again. Or else I go and work in the San Marco or in San Lorenzo or
+up on San Miniato. It is delightfully quiet in the cloisters. There
+are a few excursionists at times; but I don't mind that. And you can
+go with me, with a book, a book about Florence; I'll tell you what
+to read. You must learn to know Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,
+but, above all, Donatello. We shall see him in the Bargello. And
+Lippo Memmi's Annunciation, the golden Annunciation! You shall see
+how like our angel is to it, our beautiful angel of happiness, the
+one you gave me! It is so rich here; we shall not feel that we are
+poor. We need so little. Or have you been spoilt by your luxury at
+Nice? But I know you so well: you will forget that at once; and we
+shall win through together. And presently we shall go back to Rome. But
+this time ... married, my darling, and you belonging to me entirely,
+legally. It must be so now; you must not refuse me again. We'll go
+to the consul to-morrow and ask what papers we want from Holland
+and what will be the quickest way of getting married. And meanwhile
+you must look upon yourself as my wife. Until now we have been very,
+very happy ... but you were not my wife. Once you feel yourself to
+be my wife--even though we wait another fortnight for those papers
+to sign--you will feel safe and peaceful. There is nobody and nothing
+that has any power over you. You're not well, if you really think there
+is. And then I'll bet you, when we are married, my mother will make it
+up with us. Everything will come right, my darling, my angel.... But
+you must not refuse: we must get married with all possible speed."
+
+She was sitting beside him on a sofa and staring out of doors, where,
+in the square frame of the tall window, the slender campanile rose like
+a marble lily between the dome-crowned harmonies of the Cathedral and
+the Battisterio, while on one side the Palazzio Vecchio lay, a massive,
+battlemented fortress, amid the welter of the streets and roofs, and
+lifted its tower, suddenly expanding into the machicolated summit,
+with Fiesole and the hills shimmering behind it in the purple of the
+evening. The noble city of eternal grace gleamed a golden bronze in
+the last reflection of the setting sun.
+
+"We must get married at once?" she repeated, with a doubting
+interrogation.
+
+"Yes, as soon as ever we can, darling."
+
+"But Duco, dearest Duco, it's less possible now than ever. Don't you
+see that it can't be done? It's impossible, impossible. It might have
+been possible before, some months ago, a year ago ... perhaps, perhaps
+not even then. Perhaps it was never possible. It is so difficult to
+say. But now it can't be done, really not...."
+
+"Don't you love me well enough?"
+
+"How can you ask me such a question? How can you ask me, darling? But
+it's not that. It is ... it is ... it can't be, because I am not free."
+
+"Not free?"
+
+"I am not free. I may feel free later ... or perhaps not, perhaps
+never.... My dearest Duco, it is impossible. I wrote to you, you know:
+that first meeting at the ball; it was so strange; I felt that ..."
+
+"That what?"
+
+She took his hand and stroked it; her eyes were vague, her words
+were vague:
+
+"You see ... he has been my husband."
+
+"But you're divorced from him: not merely separated, but divorced!"
+
+"Yes, I'm divorced; but it's not that."
+
+"What then, dearest?"
+
+She shook her head and hid her face against him:
+
+"I can't tell you, Duco."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I'm ashamed."
+
+"Tell me; do you still love him?"
+
+"No, it's not love. I love you."
+
+"But what then, my darling? Why are you ashamed?"
+
+She began to cry on his shoulder:
+
+"I feel...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That I am not free, although ... although I am divorced. I feel
+... that I am his wife all the same."
+
+She whispered the words almost inaudibly.
+
+"But then you do love him and more than you love me."
+
+"No, no, I swear I don't!"
+
+"But, darling, you're not talking sense!"
+
+"Yes, indeed I am."
+
+"No, you're not. It's impossible!"
+
+"It isn't. It's quite possible. And he told me so ... and I felt
+it...."
+
+"But the fellow's hypnotizing you!"
+
+"No, it's not hypnotism. It's not a delusion: it's a reality, deep,
+deep down within myself. Look here, you know me: you know how I
+feel. I love you and you only. That alone is love. I have never
+loved any one else. I am not a woman who is susceptible to.... I'm
+not hysterical. But with him ... No other man, no man whom I have
+ever met, rouses that feeling in me ... that feeling that I am not
+myself. That I belong to him, that I am his property, his chattel."
+
+She threw her arms about him, she hid herself like a child in his
+breast:
+
+"It is so strange.... You know me, don't you? I can be plucky and I
+am independent and I am never at a loss for an answer. But with him
+I am no longer sure of myself, I no longer have a life of my own. And
+I do what he tells me to."
+
+"But that is hypnotism: you can escape that, if you seriously wish
+to. I will help you."
+
+"It is not hypnotism. It is a truth, deep down inside me. It exists
+inside me. I know that it is so, that it has to be so.... Duco, it
+is impossible. I can't become your wife. I mustn't become your wife
+... less now than ever. Perhaps...."
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Perhaps I always felt like that, without knowing it, that it must
+not be. Both for you and for me ... and for him too.... Perhaps that
+was what I felt, without knowing it, when I talked as I used to,
+about my antipathy for marriage."
+
+"But that antipathy arose from your marriage ... with him!"
+
+"Yes, that's the strange part of it. I dislike him ... and yet...."
+
+"Yet you're in love with him!"
+
+"Yet I belong to him."
+
+"And you tell me that you love me!"
+
+She took his head in her two hands:
+
+"Try to understand. It tires me so, trying to make you understand. I
+love you ... but I am his wife...."
+
+"Are you forgetting what you were to me in Rome?..."
+
+"I was everything to you: love, happiness, intense happiness.... There
+was the most intense harmony between us: I shall never forget
+it.... But I was not your wife."
+
+"Not my wife!"
+
+"No, I was your mistress.... I was unfaithful to him.... Oh, don't
+repulse me! Pity me, pity me!"
+
+He had unconsciously made a gesture that frightened her.
+
+"Let me stay like this, leaning against you. May I? I am so tired and
+I feel restful, leaning against you like this, my darling. My darling,
+my darling ... things will never be as they were. What are we to do?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, in despair. "I want to marry you as soon as
+may be. You won't consent."
+
+"I can't. I mustn't."
+
+"Then I don't know what to do or say."
+
+"Don't be angry. Don't leave me. Help me, do, do! I love you, I love
+you, I love you!"
+
+She drew him into her arms, in a close, sudden embrace, as though in
+perplexity and despair. He kissed her passionately in response.
+
+"O God, tell me what to do!" she prayed, as she, lay hopelessly
+perplexed in his embrace.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+Next day, when Cornelie walked with Duco through Florence, when they
+entered the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, saw the Loggia dei Lanzi
+and looked in at the Uffizi to see Memmi's Annunciation, she felt
+something like her former sensations irresistibly unfolding within
+her. They seemed to have taken their lines which had burst asunder and
+with human force to have bent them together again into one path, along
+which the white daisies and white lilies shot up with a tenderness of
+soft, mystic recognition that was almost like a dream. And yet it was
+not quite the same as before. An oppression as of a grey cloud hung
+between her and the deep-blue sky, which hung out stretched like strips
+of aether, like paths of lofty, quivering atmosphere, above the narrow
+streets, above the domes and towers and turrets. She no longer felt the
+former apprehension; there was a remembrance in her, a heavy pondering
+weighed upon her brain, an anxiety for what was about to happen. She
+had a presentiment as of a coming storm; and when, after their walk,
+they had had something to eat and went home, she dragged herself up the
+stairs to Duco's room more wearily than she had ever done in Rome. And
+she at once saw a letter lying on the table, a letter addressed to
+her. But how addressed! It gave her so violent a start that she began
+to tremble in every limb and managed to thrust the letter away even
+before Duco had followed her into the room. She took off her hat and
+told Duco that she wanted to get something out of her trunk, which
+was standing in the passage. He asked if he could help her; but she
+said no and left the room and went into the narrow passage. Here,
+standing by the little window overlooking the Arno, she took out
+the letter. It was the only place where she could read for a moment
+undisturbed. And she read that address again, written in his hand,
+which she knew so well, with its great thick, heavy characters. The
+name which she bore abroad was her maiden name; she called herself
+Madame de Retz van Loo. But on the envelope she read, briefly:
+
+
+    "Baronne Brox,
+    37, Lung' Arno Torrigiani,
+    Florence."
+
+
+A deep crimson flush mantled over her face. She had borne that name
+for a year. Why did he call her by it now? Where was the logic in that
+title which, by the law, was hers no longer? What did he mean by it,
+what did he want?... And, standing by the little window, she read
+his short but imperious letter. He wrote that he took her flight very
+much amiss, especially after their last conversation. He wrote that,
+at this last interview, she had granted him every right over her,
+that she had not denied it and that, by kissing him and putting her
+arms around him, she had shown that she regarded herself as his wife,
+just as he regarded her as his wife. He wrote that he would not now
+resent her independent life of a year in Rome, because she was then
+still free, but that he was offended at her still looking upon herself
+as free and that he would not accept the insult of her flight. He
+called upon her to return. He said that he had no legal right to do
+so, but that he did it because he nevertheless had a right, a right
+which she could not dispute, which indeed she had not disputed, which
+on the contrary she had acknowledged by her kiss. He had learnt her
+address from the porter of the Villa Uxeley. And he ended by repeating
+that she was to return to Nice, to him, at the Hotel Continental, and
+telling her that, if she did not do this, he would come to Florence
+and she would be responsible for the consequences of her refusal.
+
+Her knees shook; she was hardly able to stand upright. Should she
+show Duco the letter or keep it from him? She had to make up her mind
+then and there. He was calling to her from the room, asking what
+she was doing so long in the passage. She went in and was too weak
+to refrain from throwing herself on his breast. She showed him the
+letter. Leaning against him, sobbing violently, she heard him fume
+and rage, saw the veins on his temples swell, saw him clench his
+fists and roll the letter into a ball and dash it to the floor. He
+told her not to be frightened, said that he would protect her. He too
+regarded her as his wife. It all depended upon the light in which she
+henceforth regarded herself. She did not speak, merely sobbed, broken
+with fatigue, with fright, with head-ache. She undressed and went to
+bed, her teeth chattering with fever. He drew her curtains to darken
+the room and told her to go to sleep. His voice sounded angry and she
+thought that he was angry at her lack of resolution. She sobbed and
+cried herself to sleep. But in her sleep she felt the terror within
+herself and again felt the irresistible pressure. While sleeping
+she dreamt of what she could reply and wrote to Brox, but it was not
+clear what she wrote: it was all a vague, impotent pleading for mercy.
+
+When she woke, she saw Duco beside her bed. She took his hand; she was
+calmer. But she had no hope. She had no faith in the days that were
+coming. She looked at him and saw him gloomy, stern and self-contained,
+as she had never seen him before. Oh, their happiness was past! On
+that fatal day when he had seen her to the train in Rome, they had
+taken leave of their happiness. It was gone, it was gone! Gone the
+dear walks through ruins and museums, the trips to Frascati, Naples,
+Amalfi! Gone the dear, fond life of poverty in the big studio, among
+the gleaming colours of the old brocades and chasubles, of the old
+bronzes and silver! Gone the gazing together at his water-colour of
+The Banners, she with her head on his shoulder, within his arm, living
+his art with him, enjoying his work with him! Gone the ecstasy of the
+night in the pergola, in the star-spangled night, with the sacred lake
+at their feet! Life was not to be repeated. They had tried in vain to
+repeat it here, in this room, at Florence, in the Palazzo Vecchio,
+tried in vain to repeat it even in the presence of Memmi's angel
+emitting his beam of light! They tried in vain to repeat their life,
+their happiness, their love; it was in vain that they had forced
+together the lines which had burst asunder. These had merely twined
+round each other for a moment, in a despairing curve. It was gone,
+it was gone!... Gloomy and stern he sat beside her bed; and she knew
+it, he felt that he was powerless because she did not feel herself
+to be his wife. His mistress!... Oh, she had felt that involuntary
+repulsion when she had uttered the word! Had he not always wanted to
+marry her? But she had always felt unconsciously that it could not be,
+that it must not be. Under all the exuberance of her acrid feministic
+phrases, that had been the unconscious truth. She, railing against
+marriage, had always, inwardly, felt herself to be married ... not by
+a signature, in accordance with the law, but according to an age-old
+law, a primeval right of man over woman, a law and a right of flesh
+and blood and the very marrow of the bones. Oh, above that immovable
+physical truth her soul had blossomed its blossom of white daisies
+and lilies; and that blossom also was the intense truth, the lofty
+truth of happiness and love! But the daisies and lilies blossomed and
+faded: the soul blossoms for but a single summer. The soul does not
+blossom for a lifetime. It blossoms perhaps before life, it blossoms
+perhaps after it; but in life itself the soul blossoms for but a single
+summer. It had blossomed, it was over! And in her body, which lived,
+in her being, which survived, she felt the truth in her very marrow! He
+was sitting beside her bed, but he had no rights, now that the lilies
+had blossomed.... She was broken with pity for him. She took his hand
+and kissed it fervently and sobbed over it. He said nothing. He did not
+know how to say anything. It would all have been very simple for him,
+if she had consented to be his wife. As things were, he could not help
+her. As things were, he saw his happiness foundering while he looked
+on: there was nothing to be done. It was slowly falling to pieces,
+like a crumbling ruin. It was gone! It was gone!...
+
+She stayed in bed these days; she slept, she dreamt, she awoke again;
+and the dread waiting never left her. She had a slight temperature
+now and again; and it was better for her to stay in bed. As a rule, he
+remained by her side. But one day, when Duco had gone to the chemist's
+for something, there was a knock at the door. She leapt out of bed,
+terrified, terrified lest she should see the man of whom she was always
+thinking. Half-fainting with fright, she opened the door ajar. It was
+only the postman, with a registered letter ... from him! Even more
+curtly than last time, he wrote that, immediately on the receipt of his
+letter, she was to telegraph, stating the day when she would come. He
+said that, if on such and such a day--he would calculate, etc.,
+which--he did not receive her telegram, he would leave for Florence
+and shoot her lover like a dog at her feet. He would not take a moment
+to reflect. He did not care what happened.... In this short letter,
+his anger, his fury, raged like a red storm that lashed her across the
+face. She knew him; and she knew that he would do what he said. She
+saw, as in a flash, the terrible scene, with Duco dropping, murdered,
+weltering in his blood. And she was no longer her own mistress. The
+red fury of that letter, dispatched from afar, made her his chattel,
+his thing. She had torn the letter open hastily, before signing the
+postman's book. The man was waiting in the passage. Her brain whirled,
+the room spun before her eyes. If she paused to reflect, it would be
+too late, too late to reflect. And she asked the postman, nervously:
+
+"Can you send off a telegram for me at once?"
+
+No, he couldn't: it wasn't on his road.
+
+But she implored him to do it. She said that she was ill and that
+she must telegraph at once. And she found a gold ten-franc piece in
+her purse and gave it to him as a tip over and above the money for
+the telegram. And she wrote the telegram:
+
+
+    "Leaving to-morrow express train."
+
+
+It was a vague telegram. She did not know by what express; she had
+not been able to look it up. Would it be in the evening or quite
+early in the morning? She had no idea. How would she be able to get
+away? She had no idea. But she thought that the telegram would calm
+him. And she meant to go. She had no choice. Now that she had fled
+in despair, she saw it: if he wanted to have her back, back as his
+wife, she must go. If he had not wanted it, she could have remained,
+wherever she might be, despite her feeling that she belonged to
+him. But now that he wanted it, she must go back. But oh, how was
+she to tell Duco? She was not thinking of herself, she was thinking
+of Duco. She saw him lying before her in his blood. She forgot that
+she had no money left. Was she to ask him for it? O God, what was she
+to do? She could not go next day, notwithstanding her telegram! She
+could not tell Duco that she was going.... She had meant to slip
+quietly to the station, when he was out.... Or had she better tell
+him?... Which would be the least painful?... Or should ... should she
+tell everything to Duco and ... and run away ... run away somewhere
+with him and tell nobody where they were going.... But supposing he
+discovered where they had gone! And he would find them!... And then
+... then he would murder ... Duco!...
+
+She was almost delirious with fear, with terror, with not knowing
+what to do, how to act.... She now heard Duco's steps on the
+stairs.... He came in, bringing her the pills.... And, as usual, she
+told him everything, too weak, too tired, to keep anything hidden,
+and showed him the letter. He blazed out, furiously, with hatred; but
+she fell on her knees before him and took his hands. She said that
+she had already sent the answer. He suddenly became cool, as though
+overcome by the inevitable. He said that he had no money to pay for
+her journey. Then, once more, he took her in his arms, kissed her,
+begged her to be his wife, said that he would kill her husband, even
+as her husband had threatened to kill him. But she did nothing but sob
+and refuse, although she continued to cling to him convulsively. Then
+he yielded to the fatal omnipotence of life's silent tyranny. He felt
+death in his soul. But he wished to keep calm for her sake. He said
+that he forgave her. He held her, all sobbing, in his arms, because
+his touch calmed her. And he said that, if she wanted to go back--she
+despondently nodded yes--it was better to telegraph to Brox again,
+asking for money for the journey and for clear instructions as to the
+day and time. He would do this for her. She looked at him, through
+her tears, in surprise. He himself drew up the telegram and went out.
+
+"My darling, my darling!" she thought, as he went, as she felt the
+pain in his torn soul. She flung herself on the bed. He found her in
+hysterics when he returned. When he had tended her and tucked her up
+in bed, he sat down beside her. And he said, in a dead voice:
+
+"My dearest, be calm now. The day after to-morrow I shall take you to
+Genoa. Then we shall take leave of each other, for ever. If it can't
+be otherwise, it must be like that. If you feel that it has to be,
+then it must be. Be calm now, be calm now. If you feel like that,
+that you must go back to your husband, then perhaps you will not be
+unhappy with him. Be calm, dear, be calm."
+
+"Will you take me?"
+
+"I shall take you as far as Genoa. I have borrowed the money from a
+friend. But above all try to be calm. Your husband wants you back;
+he can't want you back only to beat you. He must feel something for
+you if he wants you so. And, if it has to be ... then perhaps it
+will be the best thing ... for you.... Even though I can't see it in
+that light!..."
+
+He covered his face with his hands and, no longer master of himself
+burst into sobs. She drew him to her breast. She was now calmer than
+he. And, as he sobbed with his head on her beating heart, she quietly
+stroked his forehead, while her eyes roamed distantly round the walls
+of the room....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+She was now alone in the train. By tipping the guard lavishly, they had
+travelled by themselves through the night and been left undisturbed
+in their compartment. Oh, the melancholy journey, the last silent
+journey of the end! They had not spoken but had sat close together,
+hand in hand, with eyes gazing into the distance before them, as though
+staring at the approaching point of separation. The dreary thought
+of that separation never left them, rushed onward in unison with the
+rattling train. Sometimes she thought of a railway-accident and that
+it would be welcome to her if she could die with him. But the lights
+of Genoa had gleamed up inexorably. Then the train had stopped. And he
+had flung out his arms and they had kissed for the last time. Pressed
+to his breast, she had felt all his grief within him. Then he had
+released her and rushed away, without looking round. She followed him
+with her eyes, but he did not look back and she saw him disappear in
+the morning mist, pierced with little lights, that hung about the
+station. She had seen him disappear among other people, swallowed
+up in the hovering mist. Then the silent and despairing surrender of
+her life had become so great that she was not even able to weep. Her
+head dropped limply, her arms hung lax. Like an inert thing she let
+the train bear her onward with its rending rattle.
+
+A white morning twilight had risen on the left over the brightening
+sea; and the dawning daylight tinted the water blue and defined the
+horizon. For hours and hours she travelled on, motionlessly, gazing
+out at the sea; and she felt almost painless with her impassive
+surrender of life. She would now let things happen as life willed,
+as her husband willed, as the train willed. As in a tired dream she
+thought of the inevitability of everything and all the unconscious life
+within herself, of her first rebellion against her husband's tyranny,
+of the illusion of her independence, the arrogance of her pride and all
+the happiness of her gentle ecstasy, all her gladness because of the
+harmony which she had achieved.... Now it was past; now all self-will
+was vain. The train was carrying her to where Rudolph called her;
+and life hemmed her in on every side, not roughly, but with a soft
+pressure of phantom hands, which pushed and led and guided....
+
+And she ceased to think. The tired dream became clouded in the deeper
+blue of the day; and she felt that she was approaching Nice. She
+returned to the petty realities of life. She felt that she was looking
+a little travel-worn: and, feeling that it would be better if Rudolph
+did not see her for the first time in so unattractive a light, she
+slowly opened her bag, washed her face with her handkerchief dipped
+in eau-de-Cologne, combed her hair, powdered her face, brushed
+herself down, put on a transparent white veil and took out a pair
+of new gloves. She bought a couple of yellow roses at a station and
+put them in her waistband. She did all this unconsciously, without
+thinking about it, feeling that it was best, that it was sensible to
+do it, best that Rudolph should see her like that, with that bloom
+of a beautiful woman about her. She felt that henceforth she must
+be above all beautiful and that nothing else mattered. And when
+the train droned into the station, when she recognized Nice, she
+was resigned, because she had ceased to struggle and had yielded to
+all the stronger forces. The door was flung open and, in the station,
+which at that early hour was comparatively empty, she saw him at once:
+tall, robust, easy, in his light summer suit, straw hat and brown
+shoes. He gave an impression of health and strength and above all of
+broad-shouldered virility; and, notwithstanding his broadness, he was
+still quite thoroughbred, thoroughly well-groomed without the least
+touch of toppishness; and the ironical smile beneath his moustache and
+the steady glance of his fine grey eyes, the eyes of a woman-hunter,
+gave him an air of strength, of the certainty of doing as he wished,
+of the power to subdue if he thought fit. An ironic pride in his
+handsome strength, with a tinge of contempt for the others who were
+less handsome and strong, less of the healthy animal and yet the
+aristocrat, and above all a mocking, supercilious sarcasm directed
+against all women, because he knew women and knew how much they were
+really worth: all this was expressed by his glance, his attitude,
+his movements. It was thus that she knew him. It had often roused
+her to rebellion in the old days, but she now felt resigned and also
+a little frightened.
+
+He had come to her; he helped her to alight. She saw that he was
+angry, that he intended to receive her rudely; then, that his
+moustache was curling ironically, as though in mockery because he
+was the stronger. She said nothing, however, took his hand calmly
+and alighted. He led her outside; and in the carriage they waited
+a moment for the trunk. His eyes took her in at a glance. She was
+wearing an old blue-serge skirt and a little blue-serge cape; but,
+notwithstanding her old clothes and her weary resignation, she looked
+a handsome and smartly-dressed woman.
+
+"I am glad to see that you thought it advisable at last to carry out
+my wishes," he said, in the end.
+
+"I thought it would be best," she answered, softly.
+
+Her tone struck him; and he watched her attentively, out of the corner
+of his eyes. He did not understand her, but he was pleased that she
+had come. She was tired now, from excitement and travelling; but he
+thought that she looked most charming, even though she was not so
+brilliant as on that night, at Mrs. Uxeley's ball, when he had first
+spoken to his divorced wife.
+
+"Are you tired?" he asked.
+
+"I have been a bit feverish for a day or two; and of course I had no
+sleep last night," she said, as though in apology.
+
+The trunk was brought and they drove away, to the Hotel
+Continental. She did not speak again in the carriage. They were also
+silent as they entered the hotel and in the lift. He took her to his
+room. It was an ordinary hotel-bedroom; but she thought it strange to
+see his brushes lying on the dressing-table, his coats and trousers
+hanging on the pegs: familiar things with whose outlines and folds
+she was well-acquainted. She recognized his trunk in a corner.
+
+He opened the windows wide. She had sat down on a chair, in an
+expectant attitude. She felt a little faint and closed her eyes,
+which were blinded by the stream of sunlight.
+
+"You must be hungry," he said. "What shall I order for you?"
+
+"I should like some tea and bread-and-butter."
+
+Her trunk arrived; and he ordered her breakfast. Then he said:
+
+"Take off your hat."
+
+She stood up. She took off her cape. Her cotton blouse was rumpled;
+and this annoyed her. She removed the pins from her hat before the
+glass and quite naturally did her hair with his comb, which she saw
+lying there. And she settled the silk bow around her collar.
+
+He had lit a cigar and was smoking quietly, standing. A waiter came
+in with the breakfast. She ate a mouthful without speaking and drank
+a cup of tea.
+
+"Have you breakfasted?" she asked.
+
+"Yes"
+
+They were silent again and she went on eating.
+
+"And shall we have a talk now?" he asked, still standing up, smoking.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"I won't speak about your running off as you did," he said. "My first
+intention was to give you a regular flaying, for it was a damned
+silly trick...."
+
+She said nothing. She merely looked up at him; and her beautiful eyes
+were filled with a new expression, one of gentle resignation. He
+fell silent again, evidently restraining himself and seeking his
+words. Then he resumed:
+
+"As I say, I won't speak about that any more. For the moment you
+didn't know what you were doing and you weren't accountable for
+your actions. But there must be an end of that now, for I wish
+it. Of course I know that according to the law I have not the least
+right over you. But we've discussed all that; and I told it you in
+writing. And you have been my wife; and, now that I am seeing you
+again, I feel very plainly that, in spite of everything, I regard
+you as my wife and that you are my wife. And you must have retained
+the same impression from our meeting here, at Nice."
+
+"Yes," she said, calmly.
+
+"You admit that?"
+
+"Yes," she repeated.
+
+"Then that's all right. It's the only thing I wanted of you. So
+we won't think any more now of what happened, of our former
+unpleasantness, of our divorce and of what you have done since. From
+now on we will put all that behind us. I look upon you as my wife and
+you shall be my wife again. According to the law we can't get married
+again. But that makes no difference. Our divorce in law I regard as
+an intervening formality and we will counter it as far as we can. If
+we have children, we shall get them legitimatized. I will consult a
+lawyer about all that; and I shall take all the necessary measures,
+financial included. In this way our divorce will be nothing more
+than a formality, of no meaning to us and of as little significance
+as possible to the world and to the law. And then I shall leave the
+service. I shouldn't in any case care to stay in it for good, so I
+may as well leave it earlier than I intended. For you wouldn't find
+it pleasant to live in Holland; and it doesn't appeal to me either."
+
+"No," she murmured.
+
+"Where would you like to live?"
+
+"I don't know...."
+
+"In Italy?"
+
+"No," she begged, in a tone of entreaty.
+
+"Care to stay here?"
+
+"I'd rather not ... to begin with."
+
+"I was thinking of Paris. Would you like to live in Paris?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"That's all right then. So we will go to Paris as soon as possible
+and look out for a flat and settle in. It'll soon be spring now;
+and that is a good time to start life in Paris."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He flung himself into an easy-chair; it creaked under him. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Tell me, what do you really think, inside yourself?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I want to know what you thought of your husband. Did you think
+him absurd?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Come over here and sit on my knee."
+
+She stood up and went to him. She did as he wished, sat down on his
+knee; and he drew her to him. He laid his hand on her head, with that
+gesture which prevented her thinking. She closed her eyes and laid
+her head against his cheek.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me altogether?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"We ought never to have got divorced, ought we?"
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"But we used to be very bad-tempered then, both of us. You must never
+be bad-tempered in future. It makes you look spiteful and ugly. As
+you are now, you're much nicer and prettier."
+
+She smiled faintly.
+
+"I am glad to have you back with me," he whispered, with a long kiss
+on her lips.
+
+She closed her eyes under his kiss, while his moustache curled against
+her skin and his mouth pressed hers.
+
+"Are you still tired?" he asked. "Would you like to rest a little?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "I would like to get my things off."
+
+"You'd better go to bed for a bit," he said. "Oh, by the way, I forgot
+to tell you: your friend, the princess, is coming here this evening!"
+
+"Isn't Urania angry?"
+
+"No, I have told her everything and she knows about it all."
+
+She was pleased to know that Urania was not angry and that she still
+had a friend left.
+
+"And I have seen Mrs. Uxeley also."
+
+"She must be angry with me, isn't she?"
+
+He laughed:
+
+"That old hag! No, not angry. She's in the dumps because she has no
+one with her. She set great store by you. She likes to have pretty
+people about her, she said. She can't stand an ugly companion, with
+no chic.... There, get undressed and go to bed. I'll leave you and
+go and sit downstairs somewhere."
+
+They stood up. His eyes had a golden glimmer in them; his moustache
+was lifted by his ironic smile. And he caught her fiercely in his arms:
+
+"Cornelie," he said, hoarsely, "I think it's wonderful to have you
+back again. Do you belong to me, tell me, do you belong to me?"
+
+He pressed her to him till he almost stifled her with the pressure
+of his arms:
+
+"Tell me, do you belong to me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What used you to say to me in the old days, when you were in love
+with me?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"What used you to say?" he insisted, holding her still more tightly.
+
+Pushing her hands against his shoulders, she fought to catch her
+breath:
+
+"My Rud!" she murmured. "My beautiful, glorious Rud!"
+
+Automatically she now wound her arms around his head. He released
+her as with an effort of will:
+
+"Take off your things," he said, "and try to get some sleep. I'll
+come back later."
+
+He went away. She undressed and brushed her hair with his brushes,
+washed her face and dripped into the basin some of the toilet-water
+which he used. She drew the curtains, behind which the noonday sun
+shone; and a soft crimson twilight filled the room. And she crept
+into the great bed and lay waiting for him, trembling. There was no
+thought in her. There was in her no grief and no recollection. She was
+filled only with a great expectancy, a waiting for the inevitability
+of life. She felt herself to be solely and wholly a bride, but not
+an innocent bride; and, deep in her blood, in the very marrow of her
+bones, she felt herself to be the wife, the very blood and marrow,
+of him whom she awaited. Before her, as she lay half-dreaming, she saw
+little figures of children. For, if she was to be his wife in truth and
+sincerity, she wanted to be not only his lover but also the woman who
+gave him his children. She knew that, despite his roughness, he loved
+the softness of children; and she herself would long for them, in her
+second married life, as a sweet comfort for the days when she would be
+no longer beautiful and no longer young. Before her, half-dreaming,
+she saw the figures of children.... And she lay waiting for him, she
+listened for his step, she longed for his coming, her flesh quivered
+towards him.... And, when he entered and came to her, her arms closed
+round him in profound and conscious certainty and she felt, beyond
+a doubt, on his breast, in his arms, the knowledge of his virile,
+over-mastering dominion, while before her eyes, in a dizzy, melancholy
+obscurity, the dream of her life--Rome, Duco, the studio--sank away....
+
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] Woman's Rights.
+
+[2] The nineteenth century.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INEVITABLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 43005.txt or 43005.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/0/43005/
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
+Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
+made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/43005.zip b/43005.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..456684f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43005.zip