The months dreamed past. And their happiness caused such a summer to bloom in them that she ripened in beauty and be 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 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 everyday 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 Memmes 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....
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 preferredThe 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 fromThe 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 onlyThe Bannerswaved 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 anyliaisonbetween 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 atThe 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 washhand-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 theosteria. 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, oflazzaroni, 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, shining. 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 thenshewould 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 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 curtainless 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.
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 here. 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 for which she kept a boarding-house. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Or yes, perhaps we did get something like that,pusa 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, themonsignori. 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 themonsignori.... 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 doles out 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 a flat at Nice and we keep on my rooms in the Palazzo Ruspoli, as apied-à-terrein 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 thatil poveroGiliois 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 fromme?"
"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.
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 knick-knack 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 theosteria?"
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 ofThe 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 toThe 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 moderntrucs; 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 theosteria: 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.
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 to 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 respectfully 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.
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 Bannerswas 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 clays 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 onThe Social Position of Divorced Womenhad 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 her 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....
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 theirliaisonwithout criticizing it....
The Bannershad 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 extreme 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 la zulite—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 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 sombre 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 theosteria.
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 thecampanileon the left and thebattisterioon 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. 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 acocottein 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 of Forte-Braccio, Duchess of 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 werefrère et compagnonand 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 Principessa 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.
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 anatriowhich 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.[1]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 lawsuit 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 thecamera 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, looking 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."