Inevitable

XLIX

IT WAS TWELVE o’clock when Cornélie woke next morning. With its swirling particles the sun pierced the gold slit of the slightly parted curtains. She felt exhausted. She remembered that after such a party Mrs Uxeley gave her a morning off to rest: the old woman also stayed in bed, although she did not sleep. And Cornélie lacked the strength to get up, and stayed in bed, weighed down with fatigue. Her eyes wandered about the messy room; her beautiful ball gown was draped helplessly over a chair, limply and immediately reminding her of yesterday. For that matter, all her thoughts were focused on yesterday, on her husband, with a fixed hypnotic concentration. She felt as if emerging from a nightmare, a hangover, a fainting fit. Only by drinking a glass of champagne had she been able to keep up appearances, to dance, with Brox, take their turn in leading a figure. But not only with champagne. His eyes too had kept her on her feet, prevented her from fainting, from bursting into sobs, from starting to scream and waving her arms like a madwoman. When he had said good-night, when everyone had gone, she had collapsed, and had been taken to bed. The moment she was no longer under his gaze, she had felt her wretchedness and her weakness and the champagne seemed to befuddle her instantly.

Now she thought of him in the bruised languor of her devastating morning fatigue. And it seemed to her that her whole Italian year had been a dream intermezzo. She saw herself back in The Hague; the young girl who went out a lot, with her nice face and flirtatious manners and her ever-ready quips. She saw their first meetings and the way she had immediately bent to his will and had not been able to flirt with him, because he laughed at her womanly defences. He had been too strong from the first. Then their engagement. He laid down the law to her and she rebelled, angrily, with violent scenes, not wanting to be controlled, offended as a pampered, fêted and spoiled young girl. And as if by the brute force of his fist — and always with that smile on his lips — he kept her down. Until they were married, until she made a scandal and ran away. At first he had not wanted a divorce, but had later given in, because of the scandal. She had freed herself, she had run away!

The women’s movement, Italy, Duco … Was it a dream? Was the great happiness, the precious harmony a dream and was she now awaking from a year’s dreaming? Was she divorced or not? She had to force herself to remember the formalities: yes, they were legally divorced. But was she divorced, was everything over between them? And was she really no longer his wife?

What had been the point of his searching for her once he had seen her in Nice? Oh, he had told her, during the cotillon. That endless cotillon! He had become proud of her when he saw how beautiful and chic and happy she seemed in the victoria of Mrs Uxeley or the princess — and he had grown jealous. She, that beautiful woman, had been his wife! He had felt he had a right to her, despite the law! What was the law? Did the law make her a wife, or had he made her a wife? And he had made her feel that right, together with the irredeemability of the past. It had been irredeemable, ineradicable …

She looked around her, at her wit’s end. And she began to cry, sob … Then she felt something in her strengthen, resistance cry out in her like a spring that finally tensed again now she was resting and was no longer under his gaze. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want to feel him in her blood. If she met him again, she would speak to him more calmly, curtly, and order him to leave her, she would show him the door, have him thrown out … Her fists clenched in fury. She hated him. She thought of Duco … And she thought of writing to him, telling him everything. And she thought of returning to him as soon as possible. He wasn’t a dream: he existed, though he lived far away, in Florence. She had saved some money; they could find happiness again in the studio in Rome. She would write to him and she wanted to leave as soon as possible. With Duco she would be safe. Oh, she longed for him, to lie so softly and luxuriantly in his arms, against his chest, as if in the embrace of a single wondrous happiness. Had it been true, their happiness, their love and harmony? Yes, it had existed, it wasn’t a dream. There was his portrait; there on the wall a couple of his watercolours: the sea at Sorrento and the skies above Amalfi, produced in those days that had been like poetry. She would be safe with him. With Duco she would not feel Rudolf, her husband, in her blood … She felt Duco in her soul, and her soul would be stronger! She would feel Duco in her soul, in her heart in the whole of her deepest being and from him would gather her supreme strength, like a bundle of gleaming swords! Even now, when she thought of him with such longing, she could feel herself growing stronger. She could have talked to Brox now. Yesterday he had taken her by surprise, wedged her between himself and the mirror, till she had seen him double and had no longer known what to do and was lost. That would never happen again. It had simply been the surprise. If she talked to him again, she would triumph with what she had learned and as a woman who had stood on her own feet. And she got up, and opened the windows and put on a peignoir. She looked at the blue sea, at the colourful movement on the Promenade. And she sat down and wrote to Duco. She wrote everything, the first startled encounters, her surprise and defeat at the ball … Her pen raced across the paper. She did not hear a knock at the door or Urania cautiously entering, expecting to find her still asleep and anxious to know how she felt. She read a portion of her letter excitedly and said she was ashamed of her weakness of yesterday. How could she have behaved like that: she did not understand herself.

No, she didn’t understand herself. Now she felt somewhat rested, was talking to Urania, who reminded her of Rome, with a long letter to Duco in her hand … now she did not understand at all herself and asked what was a dream: her Italian year of happiness or yesterday’s nightmare?