Inevitable

XIX

BUT THERE HAD BEEN SUCH VAGUENESS in Urania’s assurances, that Cornélie felt uneasy and that evening talked to Duco about it in the restaurant where they met. But he was not interested, in Urania, what she did or did not do, and shrugged his shoulders indifferently. But she was silent and withdrawn and did not hear what he said: a side panel of a triptych, definitely by Lippo Memmi, which he had discovered in a shop down by the Tiber: the angel of the Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling in the last sweep of his flight, with the lily stalk in his hands. But the shopkeeper wanted two hundred lire for it and he was only prepared to offer fifty. And yet the dealer had not mentioned the name of Memmi: he had no idea that the angel was by Memmi …

Cornélie had not been listening and suddenly she said,

“I’m going to Palazzo Ruspoli …”

He looked up in surprise.

“Why?”

“To ask for Miss Hope.”

He was speechless with amazement and stared at her open-mouthed.

“If she’s not there …” Cornélie went on, “then it’s all right. If she’s there … if she went after all, then I’ll ask to speak to her urgently …”

He did not know what to say, finding her impulse so strange, so eccentric, so futile a twisting arabesque to cross the arabesques of insignificant, indifferent people, that he was at a loss for words. Cornélie looked at her watch.

“It’s past eight-thirty. If she goes after all, she’ll go about this time.”

She motioned to the waiter and paid. She buttoned her coat and got up. He followed her.

“Cornélie,” he began, “isn’t what you’re proposing to do rather odd? It’ll get you into all sorts of trouble.”

“If we were always deterred by a bit of trouble, no one would ever do a good deed.”

They walked on in silence, he angry at her side. They did not talk: he thought what she was planning was simply crazy: she thought he was weak for not wanting to protect Urania. She thought of her pamphlet, of Women, and she wanted to protect Urania from marriage, from that prince. And they walked down the Corso, towards Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made a last attempt to restrain her, but she was already asking the guard:

“Is the signore principe at home?”

The man looked at her suspiciously.

“No,” he said brusquely.

“I have a feeling he is. If so, please ask whether Miss Hope is with his Excellency. Miss Hope was not at home; I have a feeling that she is coming to visit the prince this evening and I need to speak to her urgently … on a matter that cannot be put off. Here … la signora De Retz …” She presented her card. She spoke with such aplomb, portrayed Urania’s visit with such calm and simplicity, as if it happened every evening that American girls visited Italian princes, and as if she were convinced that the guard was acquainted with the custom. The man was completely non-plussed, bowed, took the card and withdrew. Cornélie and Duco waited in the gateway.

He admired her calm. He found what she was doing eccentric, but there was a certainty about her eccentricity that showed in a quite different light. So would he never understand her, never grasp anything or know anything for certain, in the shifting and intangible vagueness of her self? He would never have been able to say those few words to the guard. How had she found the tact, that lofty, serious tone in addressing that imposing doorman with his cane and three-cornered hat! She did it with the same ease, the same familiar amiability with which she ordered dinner from the waiter in their little restaurant … The guard returned.

“Miss Hope and His Excellency would like you to come upstairs …”

She looked at Duco with a smile, triumphantly, amused at his confusion.

“Are you coming?”

“No,” he stammered. “I’ll wait for you here.”

She followed a lackey upstairs. The wide corridor was hung with family portraits. The door of the drawing-room was open. The prince came to meet her.

“Forgive me, your Highness,” she said calmly, putting out her hand: his eyes were as small as squeezed carbuncles, he was white with rage, but he controlled himself and pressed his lips briefly on the hand she proffered.

“Forgive me,” she continued. “I must speak to Miss Hope urgently …”

She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing, embarrassed.

“You understand,” smiled Cornélie, “I wouldn’t have dared disturb you, had it not been a matter of great importance. A matter between women … but important nonetheless!” she joked and the prince said something cloyingly gallant in reply. “May I speak to Miss Hope alone for a moment?”

The prince looked at her. He suspected antipathy, even enmity in her. But he bowed, with his cloying smile, and said that he would leave the ladies alone for a moment. He withdrew into another room.

“Cornélie, what’s wrong?” asked Urania hectically.

She grasped both of Cornélie’s hands and looked at her anxiously.

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Cornélie severely. “I’ve nothing to talk to you about. I just had a suspicion and was sure you wouldn’t keep your promise. I wanted to be certain whether you were here or not … Why did you come?”

Urania began crying.

“Stop crying!” whispered Cornélie unrelentingly. “For God’s sake stop crying. What you’ve done is as reckless as can be …”

“I know …” admitted Urania nervously, drying her tears.

“Why did you do it then?”

“I couldn’t help it.”

“Alone with him, here, in the evening …! A well-known good-for-nothing …”

“I know!”

“What do you see in him?”

“I love him …”

“You only want to marry him for his title. You’re compromising yourself for the sake of his title. What if he does not respect you as his wife-to-be this evening? What if he forces you to be his mistress?”

“Cornélie …. quiet …!”

“You’re a child, a reckless child. And your father lets you travel alone. To see ‘dear old Italy’ … You’re American, liberal, fine; you go boldly travelling round the world on your own: fine, but you’re not a woman yet, you’re a child!”

“Cornélie …”

“Come with me; say you’re going with me. For some urgent reason. Or no … best say nothing. Stay. But I’ll stay too …”

“Yes, you stay too …”

“We’ll call him.”

“Yes.”

Cornélie rang and a lackey appeared.

“Tell his Excellency that we are awaiting him.”

The man left. After a while the prince entered. He had never been treated like this in his own house. He was seething with rage, but remained extremely courteous and outwardly calm.

“Has the important matter been dealt with?” he asked with a hypocritical smile in his small eyes.

“Yes, thank you for your discretion in leaving us alone for a moment,” said Cornélie. “Now I have spoken to Miss Hope, I am reassured about her opinion … Oh, I expect you would like to know what we were talking about?!”

The prince raised his eyebrows. Cornélie had spoken coquettishly, wagging her finger, smiling, and the prince looked at her and suddenly saw that she was beautiful.

Not with the striking beauty and freshness of Urania Hope, with a more complex attractiveness: that of a married woman, divorced, but very young, that of a woman of the fin de siècle, with a touch of perversity in her deep grey eyes, operating beneath very long eyelashes, that of a woman with an exceptional grace in the fractured lines of her tired, languid, morbid charm: a woman who knew life, a woman who — he was sure of it — saw through him; who spoke to him — for whom she felt antipathy — coquettishly in order to please him, win him over, unconsciously, out of pure femininity. He saw her as beautiful and perverse, and he admired her, sensitive as he was to different types of women. He suddenly found her more beautiful and less banal than Urania, and much more distinguished, and not so naively susceptible to his title, something he found so absurd in Urania. He was suddenly at ease with her, his rage subsided: he enjoyed having two beautiful women with him instead of one, and he joked in return, said he was burning with curiosity, had listened at the door, but had unfortunately not caught anything … Cornélie laughed merrily, behaved coquettishly in return and looked at her watch. She mentioned leaving, but at the same time sat down, unbuttoned her coat and said to the prince:

“I’ve heard so much about your miniatures; now the opportunity presents itself: may I see them?”

The prince was willing, enchanted as he was by her eyes, her voice, on fire, aflame in a moment.

“But …” said Cornélie, “my escort is waiting outside at the gate. He did not want to come up, he does not know you … It is Mr Van der Staal …”

The prince smiled at her. He knew the rumours at Belloni. He had no doubt that there was a liaison between Van der Staal and signora De Retz. He knew that they cared nothing for convention. And he conceived a great liking for Cornélie.

“But I’ll have Mr Van der Staal invited up at once.”

“He’s waiting in the gateway,” said Cornélie. “He won’t want …”

“I’ll go myself,” said the prince, in a lively, helpful manner.

He went. The two ladies were left behind. Cornélie took off her coat, but kept her hat on, since her hair would be a mess. She looked in the mirror.

“Have you got your powder with you?” she asked Urania.

Urania took her ivory case out of her pocket and gave it to Cornélie. And while Cornélie quickly powdered her face, Urania looked at her friend, uncomprehending. She remembered the serious impression Cornélie had immediately made on her, making a study of Rome … later writing a pamphlet on the Women’s question and the Condition of the Divorced Woman … Then her warnings against Marriage and against the prince. And now she suddenly saw her as a charming, fickle woman, irresistibly attractive, more enchanting than really beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of her grey eyes whose gleam moved up and down beneath the curling eyelashes, dressed simply in a dark silk blouse and linen skirt, but with such style and undeniable coquettishness, such distinction and yet a fragile line of charm, that she scarcely recognised her …

But the prince had come in and brought Duco with him, reluctant, nervous, not knowing what had happened, not understanding how Cornélie had acted. He saw her sitting there calmly, smiling and immediately explaining to him that the prince was to show her his miniatures.

Duco said frankly that he was not interested in miniatures. His angry tone led the prince to suspect he was jealous. And this suspicion spurred the prince on to woo Cornélie. And he acted as if he were showing the miniatures only to her, as if he were showing her his antique lace. She particularly admired the lace, and rubbed it with her delicate fingers. She asked him to tell them about his grandmothers, who had worn the lace. Had they had adventures? He told her of one that made her laugh heartily: he repeated a few anecdotes, spirited, catching fire under her gaze, and she laughed. In the atmosphere of that large drawing-room, the prince’s study — his desk stood there — with the candles lit, flowers arranged for Urania, a tingle of perverse merriment and airy joie de vivre was born. But only between Cornélie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent, and Duco did not say a word. Cornélie was a revelation to him too. He had never seen her like this — not at the Christmas ball, not at dinner, not in his studio, not on their excursions, or in their restaurant. Was she one woman, or ten?

And he admitted to himself that he loved her, loved her more with each revelation, more with every woman he saw in her, as another facet that she made gleam. But he could not speak, he could not join in the repartee, alien in that atmosphere, alien in that element of so much airy joie de vivre, about nothing but aimless words, as if French and Italian were sparkling, as they mixed them at will, as if their humour glittered like fools’ gold, and their ambivalent puns shone like rainbows … The prince regretted that his tea was no longer drinkable, but had champagne brought in. He considered his evening partly a failure for his plans — since afraid of losing Urania, he had planned to force the issue; since seeing her hesitation, he had determined on taking the irrevocable step — but his nature was so lacking in seriousness — he would marry more for the sake of his father and the Marchesa Belloni than for himself; he lived just as pleasantly with debts and without a wife as he would do with a wife and millions in the bank, so that he began to find the failed evening exceedingly amusing, and he had to laugh to himself about it when he thought of his aunt the marchesa, his father: of their machinations, which had no hold over Urania because an attractive coquettish woman did not want them to. Why did she not want them to, he thought, pouring the foaming champagne, which spilled over the sides of the glasses; why is she placing herself between me and that American stocking-seller? Is she looking for an Italian title herself? But he could not really care less: he found the intruder attractive, beautiful, very beautiful, coquettish, seductive, enchanting. He focused on her. He neglected Urania. He scarcely filled her glass. And when it finally got late and Cornélie got up and put her arm in Urania’s and gave the prince a triumphant look, which they both understood, he whispered in her ear “I thank you most sincerely for your visit to my humble abode: you have conquered me: I surrender …”

The words seemed to be just an allusion to their joking, to their banter about nothing, but between the two of them — the prince and Cornélie — they were heavy with significance and in her eye he saw a smile of victory …

He remained in his room alone and poured himself the last of the champagne. And putting the glass to his lips, he said aloud,

“O, che occhi! Che belli occhi …! Che belli occhi…!!”