Inevitable

XLII

THEY WERE VERY THRIFTY, they had a little money and the months flowed past as if in a dream, through the scorching Rome summer. They continued their happy, isolated existence, seeing no one but Urania, who occasionally came to Rome, visited them, lunched with them in the studio and left again in the evening. Then Urania wrote to say that Gilio could no longer stand it at San Stefano and that they were going on a trip, first to Switzerland and later to Ostend. She came once more to say goodbye, and after that they saw no one else.

In the past Duco had known one artist, a painter and compatriot in Rome: now he knew no one, and saw no one. Their life in the cool studio was a lonely oasis existence in the sun-baked desert of Rome in August. To save money, they did not go into the mountains to somewhere cooler. They spent only what was absolutely necessary and their bohemian poverty with its backdrop of triptych and chasuble colours was still full of happiness.

But money remained tight. Duco sold the occasional watercolour, but sometimes they had to resort to selling a knick-knack. And it was always very painful for Duco to part with something he had collected. Their needs were few, but the rent for the studio occasionally had to be paid. Cornélie wrote the odd letter or sketch, which paid for what clothes she needed. She had a certain chic way of wearing clothes, a talent for looking elegant in a worn old blouse. She took great care of her hair, her skin, her teeth and her nails. She would wear an old hat with a new veil; and a pair of fresh gloves with an old walking dress, and she wore everything with style. At home, in her pink peignoir, now completely faded, she made such a charming picture that Duco was forever sketching her. They scarcely ever went out to eat any more. Cornélie would cook up something at home, dreaming up easy recipes, would buy a flask of wine from the first wine and oil shop she passed, with coachmen drinking outside at tables, and they would eat better and cheaper at home than in the osteria. And Duco, now he no longer frequented the antique dealers down by the Tiber, spent nothing. But money remained tight. Once, after they had sold a silver crucifix for far too little, Cornélie was so discouraged that she sobbed against Duco’s chest. He comforted her, stroked her hair and maintained that he did not care that much for the crucifix. But she knew that it was a very beautiful anonymous sixteenth-century piece, and it pained him greatly to have lost it. And she told him seriously that things could not go on like this, that she could not be a burden on him, and that they must separate: that she would look for something, would go back to Holland … He was startled by her despair, and said that there was no need, that he would look after her, as a wife, but that he was an impractical fellow who could do nothing but daub a little, and not even enough to make a living. But she said that he must not talk like that, that he was a great artist, who did not have a facile, profitable productivity, but he was all the greater for that. She said that she did not want to live on his money, but wanted to fend for herself. And she gathered up the scattered remnants of her feminist ideas. Again he asked her to consent to a marriage: they would make things up with his mother and Mrs Van der Staal would restore the allowance she had given him when he had lived with her at Belloni. But in the first place she refused to contemplate marriage and in the second place to accept any support from his mother, just as he did not want money from Urania. How often Urania had offered to help! He had never wanted to accept: he had even been angry when Urania had given Cornélie a blouse, which she had accepted with a kiss.

No, things could not go on like this: they must separate: she would go back to Holland, look for something. It was easier in Holland than abroad … But the sight of their happiness tottering before his eyes filled him with such despair that he hugged her to him and she too sobbed, her arms round his neck. “Why separate?” he asked. They would be stronger together. He could no longer do without her: life without her would be no life at all. In the past he had lived in his dream, now he lived in the reality of their happiness.

And that was as far as they got: unable to change anything, they were as miserly as possible, in order to stay together. He finished his landscapes, which always sold, but he sold them at once, so as not to have to wait. But then penury threatened once more and she thought of writing to Holland. At that very moment she received a letter from her mother, followed by one from one of her sisters. In those letters they asked if it was true what they were saying in The Hague, that she was living with Van der Staal. She had always seen herself as so far away from The Hague and Hague society that she had never suspected that her life could become public knowledge. She spoke to no one, she knew no one with Dutch connections … But whatever the case, her independence was now out in the open. She answered the letters in a feminist vein: confessed her antipathy to marriage, and admitted that she was living with Van der Staal. She wrote in a cool, businesslike tone, in order to impress people in The Hague with her liberated state. They knew her brochure of course. But she realised now that she could no longer think of Holland. She wrote off her family. She did feel a slight wrench, an unconscious sense of family ties. But the ties were already loosened by lack of sympathy, especially at the time of her divorce. She felt completely alone: all she had was her happiness, her love, her Duco. Oh, it was enough, enough for a whole lifetime. If only she could earn some money! But how? She went to the Dutch consul and asked his advice: to no avail. She was not cut out to be a sister of mercy: she wanted to start earning at once and she could not study. She could serve in a shop. And she offered her services, without telling Duco, but despite her worn-out coat everyone thought her too much of a lady, and she considered the wages too low for a full day’s work. And when she felt that it was not in her blood to work for a living, despite all her ideas, all her logic, despite her pamphlet and her liberated lifestyle, she felt helpless to the point of despair, and as she went home, tired, worn out by climbing stairs and useless job interviews, the old lament rose to her lips: “Oh God, tell me what I’m to do …!!”