Inevitable

XXVIII

IT WAS A COUPLE OF MONTHS after Easter: the spring days of May. The flood of tourists had subsided immediately after the great church festivals and Rome was already very hot and became very quiet. One morning, as Cornélie was crossing Piazza di Spagna, where the sunshine flowed along the creamy yellow facade of Trinità de’ Monti, down the monumental staircase, where only a few beggars and a last flower boy sat dreamily blinking in a corner, she saw the prince coming towards her. He greeted her with a happy smile and hastened toward her.

“I am so happy to meet you. I’m in Rome for a few days and I have to go to San Stefano to see my father on business. Such a nuisance, business, especially at this time. Urania is in Nice. But it’s hot, we’re going away. We’ve just returned from a trip through the Mediterranean. Four weeks on a friend’s yacht. It was wonderful! Why haven’t you come to see us in Nice, as Urania asked you in her letters?”

“I really couldn’t come …”

“I called on you at Via dei Serpenti yesterday. But I was told you had moved …”

He looked at her with a mocking laugh in his small, sparkling eyes. She said nothing.

“I did not wish to be indiscreet,” he concluded meaningfully …“Where are you going?”

“I have to go to the post office.”

“I have nothing to do. May I walk with you? Don’t you find it too hot to walk?”

“Oh no, I like the heat. Of course you may. How is Urania?”

“Fine, excellent. She’s excellent. She’s marvellous, simply marvellous. I would never have thought it. I would never have dared hope it. She cuts a brilliant figure. As far as that is concerned, I have no regrets about my marriage. But apart from that, what a disappointment, what deception. Gesù mio!”

“Why?”

“You guessed, didn’t you — how I still have no idea — the price tag I carried? Not five, but ten million. Oh, signora mia, the deceit! You saw my father-in-law at our wedding. What a Yankee, what a stocking-salesman and what a businessman! We can’t cope with that. Not I, not my father, and not the marchesa. First promises, contracts, oh yes. But then haggling about this, haggling about that. We don’t know how to do that. I couldn’t. Nor could papa. Only auntie knew how to haggle. But she was no match for the stocking-salesman. She hadn’t learned how in all those years of running a pensione. Ten million? Five million? Not even three million! But anyway we’ve received about that much, plus lots of promises, for our children’s children, when everyone’s dead. Oh, signora, signora, I was richer before I was married! It’s true I had debts then, and now I don’t. But Urania is so thrifty, so practical. I would never have thought it … It’s been a blow to everyone, papa, auntie, the monsignori. You should see them together. They could scratch each other’s eyes out … Papa almost had a stroke; auntie came to blows with the monsignori. Oh, signora, signora, I don’t like such things. I’m a victim. For whole winters they fished with me as bait. But I didn’t want to cooperate, I resisted: I didn’t let the fish bite. And now it has finally happened. Less than three million. Lire, not dollars. I was so stupid that at first I thought it would be dollars. And Urania is so thrifty. She gives me my pocket money. She manages everything, she does everything. She knows exactly how much I lose at the club. No, you’re laughing, but it’s sad. You see, sometimes I could just cry! And then she has the oddest ideas. For example, we have our apartment in Nice now and we’re keeping on my rooms in Palazzo Ruspoli, as a pied-à-terre in Rome. It’s enough: we don’t go to Rome much anyway, because we are ‘black’ and Urania finds that boring. In the summers we had planned to go somewhere or other, to a seaside resort. Exactly, that had been firmly agreed. But now Urania suddenly takes it into her head that she wants San Stefano as a summer residence! San Stefano!!! I ask you. I can’t stand it there. It’s true it’s high up, and cool: the climate is pleasant — fresh mountain air. But I need more to live than mountain air. I need more than that. Oh, you wouldn’t recognise Urania. She’s so stubborn sometimes. It’s now been irrevocably decided: San Stefano in the summers. And the worst thing is that by doing this she’s stolen papa’s heart. So I’ve lost out. It’s two against one. And the worst thing of all is … that we must be very economical so that we can do up San Stefano. It’s a famous historic site but very run down. What do you expect; we’ve never had much luck. Since a Forte-Braccio was once pope … our star waned and we were never lucky again. San Stefano is a model of grandeur in decline. You should see it. Being economical to do up San Stefano! That’s now Urania’s ambition. She is determined to do justice to our ancestral home. Anyway, she has won over my father and he has recovered from his stroke. But do you understand now why il povero Gilio is poorer than before he had shares in a stocking factory in Chicago?”

The flood of words was unstoppable. He was deeply unhappy, small, chastened, tamed, defeated, devastated and needed to get things off his chest. They had already walked past the post office and were now retracing their steps. He was looking for sympathy from Cornélie, and he found it in the smiling attention with which she listened to his laments. She replied that it spoke well of Urania that she had a feeling for San Stefano.

“Oh, yes,” he conceded humbly. “She is very good. I would never have thought it. She’s a princess to her fingertips. It’s wonderful. But as for the ten million, the dream has gone! But my goodness, how well you look! You are more beautiful every time I see you. Do you know that you are a very beautiful woman? You must be very happy. You are an exceptional woman, I’ve said so all along. I don’t understand you … Can I be frank? Are we good friends? I don’t understand you. What you have just done, I find so terrible … It is unheard of in our world.”

“Your world is not mine, prince.”

“All right, but I expect your world takes the same view. And the calm way, the pride, the happiness with which you calmly do … what you feel like. I find it awesome. I’m amazed …Yet … it’s a shame. In my world people are very easy-going … But that is beyond the pale!”

“Prince, once again, I have no world. My world is my own circle.”

“I don’t understand … Tell me, how am I to tell Urania? Because I’d be delighted if you would visit us at San Stefano. Oh, come on, come, come and keep us company. I beg you. Have pity, do a good deed …But first tell me how I am to break it to Urania …”

She laughed. “What?”

“What they told me at Via dei Serpenti: that from now on your address was: Via del Babuino, Mr Van der Staal’s studio …”

Smiling, she looked at him almost pityingly.

“It is too difficult for you to tell her,” she replied, slightly condescendingly. “I’ll write to Urania myself to tell her and explain my behaviour to her.”

He was obviously relieved.

“That’s wonderful, excellent! And … will you be coming to San Stefano?”

“No, I can’t, really.”

“Why not?”

“I can no longer venture into the circles you live in, after my change of address,” she said, half-laughing, half-serious.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Listen,” he said. “You know our Roman society. Provided certain conventions are observed … everything is permitted.”

“Exactly, but it’s just those conventions that I am not observing …”

“Then that is very wrong of you. Believe me, I’m saying this as your friend.”

“I live according to my own laws and do not ask you to enter my world.”

He folded his hands.

“Yes, yes, I know that, you are a ‘new woman’. You are a law unto yourself. But I beg you, have pity on me. Have mercy on me. Come to San Stefano.”

She sensed a seductive edge in his voice and so said:

“Prince, even if it accorded with the conventions of your world … I would still not want to. I don’t want to leave Van der Staal.”

“You come first and he can come later. Urania would like to ask his advice on a number of artistic matters to do with her ‘refurbishment’ of San Stefano. We have many paintings there. From antiquity too. Come on, do it. I’m going to San Stefano tomorrow. Urania will join me in a week. I shall suggest she asks you soon …”

“Really, prince … I can’t at such short notice …”

“Why not?”

She looked at him for a long time.

“Shall I be very frank?”

“Of course.”

They had already passed the post office a number of times. The street was eerily quiet, and there were no pedestrians. He looked at her quizzically.

“Well then,” she said, “we are in serious financial difficulties. At the moment we have nothing. I have lost my capital and the little I have earned from writing an article has gone. Duco works hard, but he is engaged on a largescale work and is earning nothing. He is expecting money in a few months. But at the moment we have nothing Nothing at all. That’s why I went down to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much the dealer would give for a couple of antique paintings that Duco wants to sell. He is reluctant to part with them. But there’s no alternative. So you see that I cannot come. I would not like to leave him, and than I have no money for the journey or a decent wardrobe …”

He looked at her. He had first been struck by her burgeoning beauty; he was now struck by the fact that her skirt was rather worn, her blouse was no longer fresh, although she was wearing a couple of roses in her belt.

“Gesù mio!” he exclaimed. “And you tell me that so calmly, so serenely …”

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

“What do you want me to do? Whine about it?”

“But you are a woman … a woman worthy of respect!” he exclaimed. “How is Van der Staal coping with it?”

“He’s a little depressed. He has never experienced financial problems. And it is stopping him from working with all his talent. But I hope I am some support to him in this unfortunate period. So you see, prince, that I cannot come to San Stefano.”

“But why did you not write to us? Why did you not ask us for money?”

“It is very sweet of you to say that, the idea never even occurred to us.”

“Too proud?”

“Too proud, yes.”

“But what a situation! What can I do to help you? Can I give you a few hundred lire? I have a few hundred on me. And I shall tell Urania that I have given them to you.”

“No, prince, thank you. I am very grateful, but I cannot accept.”

“Not from me?”

“No.”

“Not from Urania?”

“Not even from her.”

“Why?”

“I want to earn my money and cannot accept alms.”

“A fine principle. But only for now.”

“I shall stick to it.”

“May I say something?”

“What is it?”

“I admire you. More than that. I love you.”

She made a gesture with her hand and frowned.

“Why can’t I say that to you? An Italian does not keep his love hidden inside. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and loftier than I could ever imagine a woman … Don’t be angry: I am not asking anything of you. I’m a bad lot but at the moment I really feel something inside that you see on our old family portraits. A chance remaining atom of chivalry. I ask nothing of you. I am just saying to you, on behalf of Urania too: you can always count on us. Urania will be angry that you did not write to her.”

They went to the post office and she bought a few stamps.

“There go my last few soldi,” she said with a laugh and showed her empty purse. “We needed them for some letters to an exhibition-organising committee in London. Will you walk me home?”

She suddenly saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“Accept two hundred lire from me!” he begged.

She declined with a smile.

“Are you eating at home?” he asked.

She gave him a funny look.

“Yes,” she said.

He did not want to ask any more questions, for fear of offending her.

“It would be very sweet of you,” he said, “if you would dine with me tonight. I’m bored. At present I have no close friends in Rome. Everyone is away. Not in the Grand-Hôtel, but in a cosy restaurant where they know me. I’ll call for you at seven o’clock. Be a darling, and do it! For my sake!”

He could not hold back his tears.

“I’d be delighted,” she said softly, with her smile.

They stood in the doorway of the house on Via del Babuino, where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it fervently. Then he tipped his hat and left hurriedly. She slowly climbed the stairs, fighting back her emotion, before entering the studio.