Inevitable

XXXIII

CORNÉLIE HAD CHANGED and left her room. She walked down the corridor and saw no one. She did not know the way, but kept on walking; suddenly, in front of her, a wide staircase led downwards, between two rows of giant marble candelabras, and Cornélie found herself in an atrium that opened onto the lake: the wall panels with frescos by Mantegna — depicting the deeds of the San Stefanos — arched up to a cupola painted with sky and clouds so that it appeared to be open, and where cherubs and nymphs gathered around a balustrade to look down.

She went outside and saw Gilio. He was sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the lake. Now he came towards her.

“I was almost certain you would come this way. Aren’t you tired? Can I show you around? Have you seen our Mantegnas? They have suffered greatly. They were restored at the beginning of this century. Yes, they’re in a sorry state, aren’t they? Do you see the little mythological scene above, by Giulio Romano? Come here, through this gate. But it’s locked. Wait …”

He called outside to someone down below. After a while an old servant brought a heavy bunch of keys and handed it to the prince.

“Off you go, Egisto! I know the keys.”

The man went. The prince opened a heavy bronze door. He pointed out the reliefs to her.

“Giovanni da Bologna,” he said.

They went on, through a room with arazzi, tapestries on the walls; the prince pointed out the ceiling by Ghirlandaio: the apotheosis of the only pope in the San Stefano family. Then through a room with mirrors, painted by Mario de’ Fiori. The dusty dankness of a poorly maintained museum, shrouded in a haze of neglect and indifference, made it hard to breathe; the white silk drapes were yellow with age and fouled by flies; the red top curtains of Venetian damask were threadbare and moth-eaten; the painted mirrors were weathered and dulled; the arms of the glass Venetian chandeliers were broken. Carelessly pushed aside the most precious cabinets, inlaid with bronze, mother-of-pearl and ivory panels, mosaic tables of lapis lazuli, malachite and green, yellow, black and pink marbles, stood as if in an attic like lumber; the arazzi of Saul and David, Esther, Holofernes, Solomon, were no longer alive with the emotion of the figures, smothered as they were under the thick grey layer of dust that covered their perished fabric and neutralised all colour.

Through the immense rooms, in their curtained semi-darkness, there wafted something like a sadness, a melancholy of bitterness, hopeless, vanquished, a slow extinction of greatness and grandeur; among the masterpieces of the most famous painters there were sad gaps, pointing to an acute shortage of money, to paintings, despite everything, sold off for a fortune … Cornélie remembered an incident of a few years ago involving a court case, an attempt to send Raphaels out of the country illegally and sell them in Berlin … And Gilio guided her through the spectral rooms, as cheerful as a young boy, light-hearted as a child, happy to have a diversion, mentioning names to her hurriedly, without love or interest, which he had heard in his childhood, but still making mistakes, correcting himself, and finally admitting with a laugh that he had forgotten.

“And here is the camera degli sposi …”

He searched through the bunch of keys, reading the copper tags, and when he had opened the creaking door, they went inside.

There was a suddenly intense, exquisite, glorious feeling of intimacy: a large bedroom, all in gold, all matt gold, tarnished and perished and softened gold thread; on the walls gold-coloured arazzi: the birth of Venus from the golden foam of a golden ocean, Venus with Mars, Venus with Adonis, Venus with Cupid: the pale pink nakedness of mythology flowering for a moment in nothing but a golden atmosphere and ambience, in gold bunches among gold flowers; and cupids and swans and wild boar in gold; gold peacocks at gold fountains; water and clouds of elemental gold, and all the gold with a patina and perished and softened into a single languorous sunset of dying rays: the four-poster bed, gold under a canopy of gold brocade on which the family coats-of-arms were embroidered in heavy relief: the gold bedspread, but all the gold lifeless, all the gold reduced to a melancholy of an almost greying glimmer, erased, swept away, jaded, as if the dusty centuries had cast a shadow, spread a cobweb over it.

“How beautiful!” said Cornélie.

“Our famous bridal chamber,” laughed the prince. “Strange idea those ancestors of ours had, to sleep in such a remarkable room on their first night. If they married into our family, they slept here on their first night. It was a kind of superstition. The young woman would only stay faithful if she had spent the first night here with her husband. Poor Urania! We did not sleep here, signora mia, among all those indecent goddesses of love. We no longer observe the family tradition. Urania is destined by fate to be unfaithful to me. Unless I take that fate upon myself …”

“I expect no mention was made in the family tradition of the faithfulness of the men?”

“No, not much importance was attached to it — then or now.”

“It is wonderful,” repeated Cornélie, looking round. “How marvellous Duco will find this. Oh prince, I have never seen a room like this! Look at Venus there with the wounded Adonis, his head in her lap, the nymphs lamenting … It’s a fairy tale …”

“There’s too much gold for me …”

“Perhaps that’s what it used to be like, too much gold …”

“Lots of gold stood for riches and the power of love. The riches have gone now …”

“But the gold has softened now, become so grey …”

“The power of love has remained: the San Stefanos have always been great lovers.”

He went on joking and pointed to the lewdness of the scenes and ventured an allusion.

She pretended not to hear, and looked at the arazzi. In the side panels golden peacocks drank from golden fountains and cupids played with doves.

“I love you so much!” he whispered in her ear and put his arms round her waist. “Angel, angel!”

She warded him off.

“Prince …”

“Call me Gilio …!”

“Why can’t we be just good friends …”

“Because I want more than friendship.”

She now freed herself completely.

“I don’t,” she replied coolly.

“So you have only one love?”

“Yes …”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why …”

“Because in that case you would marry him. If you loved no one but him, Van der Staal, you would marry him.”

“I am against marriage.”

“Hot air. You’re not marrying him, in order to be free. And if you want to be free, I also have a right to ask, for my moment of love.”

She looked at him strangely and he could feel her contempt.

“You don’t … understand me at all,” she said slowly and pityingly.

“You understand me though.”

“Oh yes. You are so very simple.”

“Why don’t you want to?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no feelings for you.”

“Why not!?” he persisted, and his hands clenched.

“Why not?” she repeated. “Because I find you jolly and charming to play around with, but apart from that your temperament and mine are not compatible.”

“What do you know about my temperament?”

“I see you.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“I’m a woman.”

“And I am a man.”

“But not for me.”

Furiously and with a curse he embraced her with trembling arms. Before she could stop him he had kissed her wildly. She struggled free and struck him straight in the face. He cursed again, grabbed wildly at her, but she drew herself up higher.

“Prince!” she said, bursting out laughing. “Surely you don’t think you can force me?”

“Of course I do.”

She laughed mockingly.

“You can’t,” she said loudly. “Because I don’t want to and I won’t be forced.”

This was a red rag to a bull: he was furious. He had never been defied and resisted like this, he had always been triumphant. She saw him charging toward her, but calmly threw open the door of the room.

The long galleries and rooms stretched into the distance, apparently endlessly. There was something about that perspective of ancestral space that restrained him. He was more beside himself than a calculating violator. She walked on very slowly looking intently left and right.

He joined her and walked beside her.

“You struck me,” he panted, furious. “I shall never forgive you for that. Never!”

“I ask your forgiveness,” she said with her sweetest voice and smile. “But I had to defend myself, didn’t I?”

“Why?”

“Prince,” she said persuasively. “Why all that anger and passion and violence. You can be so sweet; a little while ago in Rome you were so charming. We were such good friends. I loved your conversation and your wit and kind heart. Now everything’s spoiled.”

“No,” he begged her.

“Oh yes. You refuse to understand me. Your temperament and mine are not compatible. Can’t you understand that? You force me to put things crudely by being crude yourself.”

“I …?”

“Yes; you do not believe in the integrity of my independence.”

“No!”

“Is that a courteous way to behave to a woman?”

“I am only courteous up to a certain point.”

“We’ve passed that point. So please be courteous again as you were.”

“You’re playing with me. I shan’t forget. I’ll have my revenge.”

“So, a life and death battle?”

“No, a victory, for me.”

They had almost reached the atrium.

“Thank you for the guided tour,” she said, a little mockingly. “The camera degli sposi in particular was magnificent. Don’t let us be so angry any more.”

She proffered her hand.

“No,” he said. “You struck me in the face, here. My cheek is still glowing. I won’t take your hand.”

“Poor cheek,” she teased. “Poor prince! Did I hit you hard?”

“Yes …”

“How can I cool your glowing cheek?”

He looked at her, still panting, angry and red, with his eyes like sparkling carbuncles.

“You are more of a flirt than any Italian woman I know.”

She laughed.

“With a kiss?” she asked.

“Demon!” he hissed through his teeth.

“With a kiss?” she repeated.

“Yes,” he said. “There, in our camera degli sposi.”

“No, here.”

“Demon!” he said, more softly and with more of a hiss.

She give him a fleeting kiss. Then she offered him her hand.

“And now this is over. The incident is closed.”

“Angel, devil,” he hissed after her.

She looked over the balustrade at the lake. Night had fallen and the lake was shrouded in mist. She was no longer thinking of him, although he was still standing behind her. She thought of him as a young boy, who sometimes amused her and now had misbehaved. She thought no more of him; she thought of Duco.

“How beautiful he will find it here,” she thought. “Oh, I miss him so! …”

From behind them came the rustle of women’s clothes. It was Urania and the Marchesa Belloni.