Louis Couperus

“ He forgave her for not being artistic, but he was sorry that she had never found herself, that she did not know what she was, who she was, what her life should be, or where the line of her life wound, the only path which she ought to tread, as every life follows one path. Oh, how often, if a person would let herself go, like a flower, like a bird, like a cloud, like a star which so obediently ran its course, she would find her happiness and her life, even as the flower or the bird finds them, even as the cloud drifts before the sun, even as the star follows its course through the heavens! ”

“ She could hardly believe in herself, but she saw herself. Deep down within herself, hidden even from Urania, she concealed her longing, her home-sickness, her stifling discontent. She sometimes felt ready to burst into sobs. But she listened to Urania and joined in her laughter and talk and looked up with a smile at Gilio, who stood in front of her, mincing to and fro on the tips of his shoes and swinging his walking-stick behind his back. Sometimes, suddenly—as a vision whirling through the crowd—she saw Duco, the studio, the happiness of the past fading away for one brief moment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What do inferior people matter to you, Cornélie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh, I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't matter whether I understand you. But I do feel that this isn't right. I ask you not to see the prince any more. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 dreams 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. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ She learnt with him to distinguish and to feel nature, art, all Rome; and, when a symbolic impulse overmastered him, she surrendered herself to it entirely. He planned a large sketch of a procession of women, mounting along a line of life that wound up a hill: they seemed to be moving out of a crumbling city of antiquity, whose pillars, joined by a single architrave, quivered on high in a violet haze of evening dusk; they seemed to be releasing themselves from the shadow of the ruins fading away on the horizon into the void of night ”

“ 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." ”

“ The horizons became wider, like a world; a fitful breeze blew away some of the orange-blossom breath. The road became broad, easy and level. The castle lay extended like a fortress, like a town, behind its pinnacled walls, with gate within gate. They drove in, across a courtyard, under an archway into a second courtyard. And Cornélie received a sensation of awe, a vision of pillars, arches, statues, arcades and fountains. They alighted.
Urania ran out to meet her, embraced her, welcomed her affectionately and took her up the stairs and through the passages to her room. ”

“ There was his photograph; there, on the wall, were two of his water-colours—the sea at Sorrento and the skies over Amalfi—done in those days which had been like poems. She would be safer with him. When she was with Duco, she would not feel Rudolph, her husband, in her blood. For she felt Duco in her soul; and her soul would be the stronger! She would feel Duco in her soul, in her heart, in all the most fervent part of her life and gather from him her uppermost strength, like a sheaf of gleaming swordblades! ”

“ 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 replied, in a bantering tone. "I believe there is a blessing on their marriage."
"The blessing of his holiness," said the marchesa, naively, not understanding.
"Of course: the blessing of his holiness ... and of Heaven."
"I thought you were not religious?"
"Sometimes, when I think of their marriage, I become very religious. What peace for the Princess Urania's soul when she became a Catholic! What happiness in life, to marry il caro Gilio! There is still peace and happiness left in life." ”

“ She felt that what she had written was inspired by her own experience, by her own suffering and by these only; she saw that she had generalized her own sense of life and suffering, but without deeper insight into the essence of those things: not from pure conviction, but from anger and resentment; not from reflection, but after melancholy musing upon her own fate; not from her love of her fellow-women, but from a petty hatred of society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But he had peopled his loneliness so densely with his dreams that he had never felt unhappy because of it; and, even as he loved roaming alone among the ruins and along the country-roads, so he cherished the privacy of his lonely studio, with the many silent figures on an old panel of some triptych, on a tapestry, or on the many closely hung sketches all around him, all with the charm of their lines and colours, all with the silent gesture of their movement and emotion and all blending together in twilit corners or a shadowy antique cabinet. ”

“ She made a gesture with her hand and wrinkled her brows.
"Why mayn't I tell you so? An Italian does not keep his love concealed. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and superior to anything that I could ever imagine any woman to be.... Don't be angry with me: I am not asking anything of you. I am a bad lot, but at this moment I really feel the sort of thing that you see in our old family-portraits, an atom of chivalry which has survived by accident. I ask for nothing from you. I merely tell you—and I say it in Urania's name as well as my own—that you can always rely on us. ”

“ We are living so delightfully here, living for your art. We want nothing more than each other and your art and Rome. I am so very fond of Rome now; I am quite altered. There is something here that is always attracting me afresh. At San Stefano I felt home-sick for Rome and for our studio. You must choose a new subject ... and get to work again. When you're doing nothing, you sit thinking—about social ethics—and that doesn't suit you at all. It makes you so different. And then such petty, conventional ideas. To get married! Why, in Heaven's name, should we, Duco? You know my views on marriage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And she rose, affecting the young woman, simpering through her long-handled lorgnette, but meanwhile leaning hard on her sunshade, working herself with a muscular effort along the stick of her sunshade, with a sudden twitch of rheumatism which uncovered all sorts of wrinkles. Urania saw her to the hall and came back shrieking with laughter; and Cornélie also laughed, but only listlessly. She really didn't care: she was more amazed at Mrs. Uxeley than amused. Ninety years old! What an energy, worthy of a better object, to remain elegant: la femme la plus élégante d'Ostende! ”

“ 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's hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century craze for travel. ”

“ I see ... I see Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair Urania ... and Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor, who is always so tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything most exquisite. But my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have to think to myself: Mrs. von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with the smile of the German Empress—she is rather like her—talking fast and yet with indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently from her lips...."
"You're a good observer," said Van der Staal.
"Oh, don't say that!" said Cornélie, almost vexed. ”

“ He was jealous of their happiness, jealous above all of him. And how gentle and tender she was, she who considered him, Gilio, good enough for her amusement, to flirt with, a clown: she, the devilish woman, was angelic to the man she loved! 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.... ”