Inevitable

LII

“THERE’S NO REASON to be afraid, Cornélie,” he said persuasively. “The man has no hold over you, if you don’t want him to, and your will is strong. I can’t imagine what he could do. You’re completely free, completely independent of him. The fact that you left in haste was certainly not sensible of you: he will think you ran away. Why didn’t you tell him calmly that he has no claim on you? Why didn’t you say you loved me? If need be you could have said we were engaged. How could you be so weak, and so afraid? That’s not the Cornélie I remember. But now you’re here, now it’s all right. We’re together now. Shall we go back to Rome tomorrow, or shall we stay here for bit? I’ve always longed to show you Florence. Look, there’s the river Arno in front of us, there’s the Ponte Vecchio, there is the Uffizi. You’ve already been here but you didn’t know Italy then. You’ll get more from it now. Oh, it’s so beautiful here. We’ll stay here for a few weeks first. I’ve got a little money, so you needn’t be afraid. It’s cheaper here than in Rome. Here in this room we’ll spend almost nothing. By this window I have enough light to sketch now and then. Or I’ll go and work in San Lorenzo or San Marco, or above the city around San Miniato. It’s wonderfully calm in the cloisters — there are occasionally a few tourists, but that doesn’t disturb me. And you’ll come with me, with a book, a book on Florence: and I’ll tell you what to read. You must get to know Donatello, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti too, but mainly Donatello. We’ll see him in the Bargello museum. And the Annunciation of Lippo, the golden Annunciation! You’ll see how much it looks like our beautiful lucky angel that you gave me! There’s such wealth here; we shan’t feel poor. We need so little. Or have you been spoiled by the luxury you lived in Nice? But I know you, you’ll forget it all at once, and we’ll fight our way through together. And later we’ll go back to Rome. But when we do … we’ll be man and wife, my darling, and you’ll be mine completely, before the law too. We must, you can’t refuse me any longer. We’ll go to the consul tomorrow and ask what papers we need from Holland and how we can get married as soon as possible. And in the meantime I shall regard you as my wife. True, up to now we’ve been very happy … but you weren’t my wife. And I feel you are my wife — even though we have to wait a few more weeks for those papers before we can sign on the dotted line — then you’ll feel safe and calm. No one and nothing will have a hold over you. You must be ill to think so. And I’m convinced that when we’re married, mama will make it up with us. It will all come right, my darling, my angel … But you mustn’t say no, we must get married as soon as possible.”

She sat next to him on a sofa, staring outside, where in the square frame of the tall window, the slender bell tower rose like a marble lily among the harmonious interplay of the domes of the Duomo and the Baptistery, while to the side the Palazzo Vecchio, a crenellated fortress, sat massively among a swirl of streets and roofs, raising its tower spire that suddenly spread out at a high level. Beyond it the hills of Fiesole, hazy in evening violet. The noble, graceful city glowed dull golden bronze in the last rays of sunshine.

“We must get married as soon as possible?” she repeated hesitantly, questioningly.

“Yes, as soon as possible, my darling …”

“But Duco, my dear Duco, it’s less possible now than ever. Can’t you see that it’s impossible, impossible … It might have been possible, before, months ago, a year ago … Perhaps … perhaps not even then, perhaps it could never have been possible. It’s so difficult to say this. But it’s really not possible now …”

“Don’t you love me enough?”

“How can you ask … How can you ask, my darling? But it’s not that … It’s … It’s … it’s impossible, because I’m not free …”

“Not free …”

“I’m not free … Perhaps I’ll feel free later … Perhaps not, perhaps never … My dear Duco, I can’t. I wrote to you about it, didn’t I, that first meeting at the ball … It was so strange … Despite everything I felt that …”

“That what …”

She took his hand and stroked it, her eyes vague, her words vague.

“You see … despite everything he was my husband.”

“But you are separated, completely, divorced!”

“Divorced, yes. But that’s not the point …”

“But what is it then, my love …?”

She shook her head and buried her face in his chest.

“I can’t say, Duco …”

“Why not?”

“I’m ashamed …”

“Tell me, are you still in love with him?”

“No, it’s not love. I love you.”

“But what is it then, my love! Why are you ashamed?”

She began crying as she held him.

“I feel …”

“What …”

“That I’m not free, even though … I’m divorced. Despite everything I feel like his wife.”

She whispered almost inaudibly.

“But then you love him, and more than me.”

“No, I swear to you I don’t!”

“But how is that possible then, my love!”

“It’s possible.”

“No, it’s not possible! It’s impossible!”

“It’s possible. It’s a fact. And he told me … and I felt it…”

“He’s hypnotising you!”

“No, it’s not hypnosis. It’s not intoxication … it’s a reality, deep inside me. You see … you know me: you know what I’m like … I love only you. That’s the only love. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’m not a woman who’s susceptible to … who’s hysterical. But with him … Not one man, no one I have ever met provokes that feeling in me, the feeling that I’m not myself. That I belong to him. That I’m his property, his chattel.”

She threw her arms round him, and hid like a child in his arms.

“It’s so strange … You know me, don’t you … I can be brave, can’t I? And I’m independent, and I’m never lost for words. With him I know nothing, I am nothing anymore. And I do as he says …”

“That’s hypnosis: you can break free of that if you truly want to. I’ll help you …”

“It’s not hypnosis. It’s a truth, deep inside me. It lives deep within me. I know that that’s how it is, that it cannot be otherwise … Duco, it’s impossible. I can’t be your wife. I have no right to be your wife. Now less than ever. Perhaps …”

“Perhaps?”

“… I’ve always felt this, unconsciously. That I did not have the right. Not for you … or for myself … or for him … Perhaps that was what I felt unconsciously while I was spouting my slogans: my antipathy to marriage.”

“But surely that antipathy stemmed from your marriage … to him!”

“Yes. That’s the strange thing. I don’t like him … and yet …”

“And yet you’re in love with him!!”

“And yet I belong to him …”

“And you say you love me!!”

She took his head in her hands.

“Try to understand. It’ll make me so tired if you don’t understand. I love you … But I’m his wife …”

“Are you forgetting what you were for me, in Rome?”

“Your everything, love, happiness, deep happiness … Such deep harmony: I shall never forget it … But I wasn’t your wife.”

“Not my wife!!”

“I was your mistress … I was unfaithful to him … Don’t push me away! Have pity!”

Without realising, he had made a gesture that alarmed her.

“Let me stay like this, close to you like this … May I …? I’m so tired, and I feel calm lying against you like this, my darling. My darling, my darling … it will never be like it was. What are we to do!”

“I don’t know,” he said despairingly. “I wanted to marry you, as soon as possible. You don’t want to.”

“I can’t. I haven’t the right.”

“Then I don’t know.”

“Don’t be angry. Don’t leave me alone! Help me, please! I love you, I love you, I love you!”

She suddenly gave herself fully as if in helplessness and despair. And he returned her kisses passionately …

“Oh God, tell me what I’m to do!” she prayed helplessly in his embrace.