Inevitable

XX

THE NEXT DAY, when Duco met Cornélie in the osteria she was very excited and merry: she announced that she had already had a reply from the women’s magazine to which she had sent her pamphlet a week ago, and that her work had been accepted and she would even be paid a fee. She was so proud at the prospect of earning her first money, and she was as bubbly as a child. She did not talk about the previous evening, seemed to have forgotten about the prince and Urania, but had a need to talk exuberantly.

She had all kinds of ambitious plans: travelling as a journalist, immersing herself in the ebb and flow of city life, chasing up every new item of news, having herself sent to conferences and festivities by a magazine. The mere thought of the few guilders she would be earning made her drunk with industriousness, and she would want to earn a great deal and do a great deal and pay no attention to weariness. He found her simply adorable: in the half-light of the osteria, eating her gnocchi at the small table, the half flask in front of her, full of pale country wine, her usual languor gained a new vitality that surprised him; her outline, on the right semi-dark and on the left lit by the light from the street, acquired a new grace as if in a drawing, which reminded him of French draughtsmen: the pale, even-coloured face with the delicate features, illuminated by her smile, sketchily visible under her matelot, which was deep over her eyes; her hair with golden highlights, or dark dusky blond; the white veil lifted and crinkling hazily on top of her head; her figure, slim and graceful in the simple coat — unbuttoned — and a corsage of violets tucked into her blouse.

The way she poured her wine, asked the waiter, the only one — who knew them both well, as regular customers — for something in a familiar, agreeable tone; the vivacity that alternated with her languor. Her grand plans, her happy words — it dazzled him, student-like yet distinguished, free yet feminine, and especially with the same ease of manner that she had everywhere; with a tactful assimilation that struck him as especially harmonious. He thought about the previous evening, but did not talk about it. He thought about that revelation of her coquetry but she was not thinking of any such thing. She was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, she found him particularly clever, although not of his time; she respected what he said and thought, and she was so natural with him, like one comrade with another, an older, cleverer comrade. She felt deep friendship for him, an indescribable feeling of having to be together, having to live together; as if their lines formed a single line. It was not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion, and she did not picture it to herself as love, but it was a great sensation of respectful tenderness, of awed longing and of affectionate joy at having met him. If she were never to see him again, she would miss him like no one else in her life. The fact that he was not interested in modern questions did not lower him in her estimation as a young modern militant, about to wave her first banner. It might irritate her for a moment, but it was never decisive in her appreciation.

And he saw that she was so simply affectionate with him, without coquettishness. Yet he would never forget how she had been with the prince yesterday. He had felt jealousy and had noticed it in Urania too. But she herself must have acted so spontaneously in accordance with her nature that she was not thinking of that evening now, of the prince, of Urania, of coquetry, or of possible jealousy on his part. He paid — it was his turn — and they got up and she took his arm merrily and said that she wanted to give him a surprise. She wanted to give him something nice. She wanted to give him something, a nice, a very nice souvenir. She would like to spend her fee on the souvenir. But she didn’t have it yet … what did that matter! She would be getting it after all … And she wanted to spend it on him. Laughing, he asked what it could be … She hailed a carriage and whispered an address to the coachman; he did not hear what she said … What could it be? But she refused to say yet … The vetturino drove down the Borgo towards the Tiber. There he stopped in front of a dark shop full of junk that was piled up into the street.

“Cornélie …!” he cried, guessing what she had in mind.

“Your angel by Lippo Memmi: I’m buying it for you, sh …”

His eyes filled with tears; they went in.

“Ask how much he wants for it.”

He was so moved that he could not speak and Cornélie had to ask and haggle. She did not bargain for long; she bought the panel for a hundred and twenty lire … She carried it out to the victoria herself. They drove to his studio. They carried the angel upstairs together, smiling, as if they were carrying pure happiness into his home. In his study they put the angel on a chair. Noble, with slightly mongoloid features, the eyes long and almond-shaped, the angel was kneeling in the last flourish of his flight, and the golden sash of his gold-purple robe fluttered up, while his long wings, tall and straight, trembled. Duco gazed at his Memmi, full of a double emotion; at the Angel itself and at her … And quite naturally he opened his arms wide.

“Can I thank you, Cornélie?”

He took her in his arms and she returned his kiss.