Nevertheless Cornélie recovered her calmness when her pamphlet was
finished. She unpacked her trunks, arranged her rooms a little more
snugly and, now more at her ease, rewrote the pamphlet and, in the
revision, improved her style and even her ideas. When she had done
working in the morning, she usually lunched at a small _osteria_,
where she nearly always met Duco van der Staal and had her meal with
him at a little table. As a rule she dined at Belloni's, beside the
Van der Staals, in order to obtain a little diversion. The marchesa
had not bowed to her at first, though she suffered her to attend her
_table-d'hôte_, at three lire an evening; but after a time she bowed
to Cornélie again, with a bitter-sweet little smile, for she had relet
her two rooms at a higher price. And Cornélie, in her calmer mood,
found it pleasant to change in the evening, to see Mrs. Van der Staal
and the girls, to listen to their little stories about the Roman
_salons_ and to cast a glance over the long tables. And they saw that
the guests were ever again different, as in a kaleidoscope of fleeting
personalities. Rudyard had disappeared, owing money to the marchesa, no
one knew whither; the Von Rothkirches had gone to Greece; but Urania
Hope was still there and sat next to the Marchesa Belloni. On her other
side was the nephew, the Prince of Forte-Braccio, Duke of San Stefano,
who dined at Belloni's every night. And Cornélie saw that a sort of
conspiracy was in progress, the marchesa and the prince laying siege
to the vain little American from either side. And next day she saw two
_monsignori_ seated in eager conversation with Urania at the marchesa's
table, while the marchesa and the prince nodded their heads. All the
visitors commented on it, every eye was turned in that direction,
everybody watched the manoeuvres and delighted in the romance.
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, repeating phrases out of her
pamphlet, glowing with her red young hatred against society and people
and the world.
Dinner was over; and, still eagerly talking, she went with the Van
der Staals--mevrouw and the girls and Duco--to the drawing-room, sat
down in a corner, resumed her conversation, flew out at mevrouw, who
had contradicted her, and then suddenly saw a fat lady--the girls had
already nicknamed her the Satin Frigate--come towards her with a smile
and say, while still at some distance:
"I beg your pardon, but there's something I want to say. Look here, I
have been to Belloni's regularly every winter for the last ten years,
from January to Easter; and every evening after dinner--but _only_
after dinner--I sit in _this_ corner, at _this_ table, on _this_ sofa.
I hope you won't mind, but I should be glad to have my own seat now."
And the Satin Frigate smiled amiably; but, when the Van der Staals and
Cornélie rose in mute amazement, she dumped herself down with a rustle
on the sofa, bobbed up and down for a moment on the springs, laid her
crochet-work on the table with a gesture as though she were planting
the Union Jack in a new colony and said, with her most amiable smile:
"Very much obliged. So many thanks."
Duco roared, the girls giggled, but the Satin Frigate merely nodded to
them good-humouredly. And, not even yet realizing what had happened,
astounded but gay, they sat down in another comer, the girls still
seized with an irrepressible giggle. The two æsthetic ladies, in the
evening-dress and the Jaegers, who sat reading at the table in the
middle of the room, closed their two books with one slam, rose and
indignantly went away, because people were laughing and talking in the
drawing-room:
"It's a shame!" they said, aloud.
And, angular, arrogant and grimy, they stalked out through the door.
"What strange people!" thought Duco, smiling. "Shadows of people!...
Their lines curl like arabesque through ours. Why do they cross our
lines with their petty movements and why are ours never crossed by
those which perhaps would be dearest to our souls?..."
He always took Cornélie back to the Via dei Serpenti. They walked
slowly through the silent, deserted streets. Sometimes it was late in
the evening, but sometimes it was immediately after dinner and then
they would go through the Corso and he would generally ask her to come
and sit at Aragno's for a little. She agreed and they drank their
coffee amid the gaiety of the brightly-lit café, watching the bustle
on the pavement outside. They exchanged few words, distracted by the
passers-by and the visitors to the café; but they both enjoyed this
moment and felt at one with each other. Duco evidently did not give
a thought to the unconventionality of their behaviour; but Cornélie
thought of Mrs. Van der Staal and that she would not approve of it or
consent to it in one of her daughters, sitting alone with a gentleman
in a café in the evening. And Cornélie also remembered the Hague and
smiled at the thought of her Hague friends. And she looked at Duco,
who sat quietly, pleased to be sitting with her, and drank his coffee
and spoke a word now and again or pointed to a queer type or a pretty
woman passing....
One evening, after dinner, he suggested that they should all go to the
ruins. It was full moon, a wonderful sight. But mevrouw was afraid
of malaria, the girls of foot-pads; and Duco and Cornélie went by
themselves. The streets were quite empty, the Colosseum rose menacingly
like a fortress in the night; but they went in and the moonlight blue
of the night shone through the open arches: the round pit of the arena
was black on one side with shadow, while the stream of moonlight
poured in on the other side, like a white flood, like a cascade; and
it was as though the night were haunted, as though the Colosseum were
haunted by all the dead past of Rome, emperors, gladiators and martyrs;
shadows prowled like lurking wild animals, a patch of light suggested
a naked woman and the galleries seemed to rustle with the sound of
the multitude. And yet there was nothing and Duco and Cornélie were
alone, in the depths of the huge, colossal ruin, half in shadow and
half in light; and, though she was not afraid, she was obsessed by
that awful haunting of the past and pushed closer to him and clutched
his arm and felt very, very small. He just pressed her hand, with his
simple ease of manner, to reassure her. And the night oppressed her,
the ghostliness of it all suffocated her, the moon seemed to whirl
giddily in the sky and to expand to a gigantic size and spin round
like a silver wheel. He said nothing, he was in one of his dreams,
seeing the past before him. And silently they went away and he led her
through the Arch of Titus into the Forum. On the left rose the ruins of
the imperial palaces; and all around them stood the black fragments,
with a few pillars soaring on high and the white moonlight pouring
down like a ghostly sea out of the night. They met no one, but she
was frightened and clung tighter to his arm. When they sat down for a
moment on a fragment of the foundation of some ancient building, she
shivered with cold. He started up, said that she must be careful not to
catch a chill; and they walked on and left the Forum. He took her home
and she went upstairs alone, striking a match to see her way up the
dark staircase. Once in her room, she perceived that it was dangerous
to wander about the ruins at night. She reflected how little Duco had
spoken, not thinking of danger, lost in his nocturnal dream, peering
into the awful ghostliness. Why ... why had he not gone alone? Why had
he asked her to go with him? She fell asleep after a chaos of whirling
thoughts: the prince and Urania, the fat satin lady, the Colosseum
and the martyrs and Duco and Mrs. Van der Staal. His mother was so
ordinary, his sisters charming but commonplace and he ... so strange!
So simple, so unaffected, so unreserved; and for that very reason so
strange. He would be impossible at the Hague, among her friends. And
she smiled as she thought of what he had said and how he had said it
and how he could sit quietly silent, for minutes on end, with a smile
about his lips, as though thinking of something beautiful....
But she must warn Urania....
And she wearily fell asleep.