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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43005 ***
+
+                             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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43005 ***