Louis Couperus

“ She, railing against marriage, had always, inwardly, felt herself to be married ... not by a signature, in accordance with the law, but according to an age-old law, a primeval right of man [299] over woman, a law and a right of flesh and blood and the very marrow of the bones. Oh, above that immovable physical truth her soul had blossomed its blossom of white daisies and lilies; and that blossom also was the intense truth, the lofty truth of happiness and love! But the daisies and lilies blossomed and faded: the soul blossoms for but a single summer. The soul does not blossom for a lifetime. ”

“ And Cornélie felt for her because she was suffering, because she was no longer a small insignificant person, whose line of life happened to cross her own. She took her in her arms, comforted her, the weeping little princess, as with a new friendship; she accepted her in her life as a friend, no longer as a small insignificant person. And, when Urania, staring wide-eyed, remembered Cornélie’s warning, Cornélie treated that warning lightly and said that Urania ought to show more courage. Tact, she possessed, innate tact. But she must be courageous and face life as it came.... ”

“ Gone the dear walks through ruins and museums, the trips to Frascati, Naples, Amalfi! Gone the dear, fond life of poverty in the big studio, among the gleaming colours of the old brocades and chasubles, of the old bronzes and silver! Gone the gazing together at his water-colour of The Banners, she with her head on his shoulder, within his arm, living his art with him, enjoying his work with him! Gone the ecstasy of the night in the pergola, in the star-spangled night, with the sacred lake at their feet! Life was not to be repeated. ”

“ When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now, in his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued their dream among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati, beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found love with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of him. ”

“ As she lay there, she did not look as if she had ever exerted the strength to give a new path to her life: a pale, delicate woman, slender, with drooping movements, lying on a sofa in her not very fresh dressing-gown, with its faded pink and its rumpled lace. And yet there was a certain poetical fragrance about her personality, despite her weary eyes and the limp outlines of her attire, despite the boarding-house room, with its air of quickly improvised comfort, a comfort which was a matter of tact rather than reality and could be packed away in a single trunk. ”

“ In the freedom of those mornings, when she felt herself released from the old woman—vain, selfish, insignificant, ridiculous—who was as the caricature of her life, she felt that in Urania’s friendship she was finding herself again, she became conscious of being at Nice, she contemplated the garish bustle around her with clearer eyes and she lost the unreality of the first days. At such times it was as though she saw herself again for the first time, in her light serge walking-dress, sitting in the garden, her gloved fingers playing with the tassels of her sunshade. ”

“ Cornélie, however, grew fidgety and sought for words:
“It is beautiful here,” she stammered.
“Oh, it’s very beautiful!” he replied, calmly, without seeing that she was constrained. “So green, so spacious, so peaceful: those long avenues, those vistas of avenues, like an antique arch, over yonder; and, far away in the distance, look, St. Peter’s, always St. Peter’s. It’s a pity about those queer things lower down: that restaurant, that milk-tent. People spoil everything nowadays.... Let us sit down here: it is so lovely here.” ”

“ She, a virgin, had become his wife, had been initiated into womanhood by him. And she felt that he had branded her as his own, she felt it in her blood and in the marrow of her bones. She confessed to herself that she had never forgotten him. During the first lonely days in Rome, she had longed for his kisses, she had thought of him, had conjured up his virile image before her mind, had persuaded herself to believe that, by exercising tact and patience and a little management, she could have remained his wife....
Then the great happiness had come, the gentle happiness of perfect harmony!... ”

“ She bent towards her lover with a smiling caress, with a curve of her arm, with a proffering of her lips, with something intensely alluring, with a velvety languor of love which he would never have suspected in her, after her cold, jesting flirtation with him, Gilio. She was now leaning on Duco’s arms, on his breast, with her face against his.... Oh, how her kiss filled Gilio with flame and fury! This was no longer her icy lack of sensuous response towards him, Gilio, in the camera degli sposi. And he could restrain himself no longer: he would at least disturb their moment of happiness. ”

“ You should try to forget our hotel, to forget Belloni and all our fellow-visitors and yourself. When anybody first arrives here, he has all the usual trouble about the hotel, his rooms, the table-d’hôte, the vaguely likable or dislikable people. You’ve got over that now. Clear your mind of it. And try to feel only the atmosphere of Rome. It’s as if the atmosphere had remained the same, notwithstanding that the centuries lie piled up one above the other. First the middle ages covered the antiquity of the Forum and now it is hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century craze for travel. ”

“ Urania had looked very handsome, with her clear, fresh complexion, her shining eyes and gleaming teeth, clad in a close-fitting frock in the latest fashion, blue-black spangles on black tulle, as though she were moulded in a cuirass: the prince said, a siren with a mermaid’s tail. And the people at the other tables had stared across at theirs, for everybody knew Virgilio di Forte-Braccio; everybody knew that he was going to marry a rich American heiress; and everybody had noticed that he was paying great attention to the slender, fair-haired woman whom nobody knew. ”

“ It’s another law that rules us. It’s a law that rules you especially; a law which, without our ever suspecting it, brings us together again, even though it does so by a very strange, roundabout path, along which you, especially, have strayed. That law rules you especially. I am convinced that you still love me, or at least that you are still in love with me. I feel it, I know it as a fact: don’t try to deny it. It’s no use, Cornélie. And I’ll tell you something besides: I am in love with you too and more so than ever. I feel it when you’re flirting with those fellows. ”

“ Oh, I see the pergola! Do you promise to improve?”
“I shall be good.”
“And amusing?”
He heaved a sigh:
“Poor Gilio!” he sighed. “Poor buffoon!”
She laughed. In the pergola were Urania and Bob Hope. The pergola, overgrown with creeping vine and rambler roses hanging in crimson clusters, displayed a row of marble caryatides and hermes—nymphs, satyrs and fauns—whose torsos ended in slender, sculptured pedestals, while their raised hands supported the flat roof of leaves and flowers. In the middle was an open rotunda like an open temple; the circular balustrade was also supported by caryatides ”

“ Cornélie suggested that they should dine at home now and then: it was cheaper. When they returned home, she was enchanted that her installation took up so little room, hardly six feet by six, with that little bed behind the curtain. They were very cheerful that evening. The bohemianism of it all amused them. They were in Italy, the land of sunshine, of beauty, of lazzaroni, of beggars who slept on the steps of a cathedral; and they felt akin to that sunny poverty. They were happy, they wanted for nothing. They would live on nothing, or at any rate on very little. ”

“ But this happiness softened all that pride in their soaring souls, as if their happiness were strewing blossoms all around it. They lived in a dream, first among the marbles in the museum, then on the flower-strewn cliffs of Amalfi, on the beach of Capri or on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento, with the sea roaring at their feet and, in a pearly haze, yonder, vaguely white, as though drawn in white chalk, Castellamare and Naples and the ghost of Vesuvius, with its hazy plume of smoke. ”

“ One morning, when Cornélie was crossing the Piazza di Spagna, where the sunshine streamed along the cream-coloured front of the Trinita de’ Monti and down the monumental staircase, where only a few beggars and the very last flower-boy sat dreaming with blinking eye-lids in a shady corner, she saw the prince coming towards her. He bowed to her with a smile of gladness and hastened up to speak to her:
“How glad I am to meet you! I am in Rome for a day or two, on my way to San Stefano, to see my father on business. Business is always a bore; and this is more so than usual. Urania is at Nice. ”

“ They went on, through a room hung with tapestries; the prince pointed to a ceiling by Ghirlandajo: the apotheosis of the only pope of the house of San Stefano. Next through a hall of mirrors, painted by Mario de’ Flori. The dusty, musty smell of an ill-kept museum, with its atmosphere of neglect and indifference, stifled the breath; the white-silk window-curtains were yellow with age, soiled by flies; the red curtains of Venetian damask hung in moth-eaten rags and tatters; the painted mirrors were dull and tarnished; the arms of the Venetian glass chandeliers were broken. ”

“ Cornélie was the only one who was not amused. She would have liked to warn Urania against the marchesa, the prince and the monsignori who had taken Rudyard’s place, but especially against marriage, even marriage with a prince and duke. And, growing excited, she spoke to Mrs. van der Staal and the girls, repeated phrases out of her pamphlet, glowing with her red young hatred against society and people and the world. ”