They were in the great sombre dining-room, with the almost black
tapestries, with the almost black panels of the ceiling, with the
almost black oak carvings, with the black, monumental chimney-piece
and, above it, the arms of the family in black marble. The light of
two tall silver candlesticks on the table merely cast a gleam over
the damask and crystal, but left the remainder of the too large room
in a gloomy obscurity of shadow, piled in the comers into masses of
densest shadow, with a fainter shadow descending from the ceiling like
a haze of dark velvet that floated in atoms above the candle-light.
The ancestral antiquity of San Stefano hovered above them in this
room like a palpable sense of awe, blended with a melancholy of black
silence and black pride. Here their words sounded muffled. This still
remained as it always had been, retaining as it were the sacrosanctity
of their aristocratic traditions, in which Urania would never dare
to alter anything, even as she hardly ventured to open her mouth to
speak or eat. They waited for a moment. Then a double door was opened.
And there entered like a spectral shade an old, grey man, with his
arm in the arm of the priest walking beside him. Old Prince Ercole
approached with very slow and stately steps, while the chaplain
regulated his pace by that stately slowness. He wore a long black
coat of an old-fashioned, roomy cut, which hung about him in folds,
something like a cassock, and on his silvery grey hair, which waved
over his neck, a black-velvet skull-cap. And the others approached him
with the greatest respect: first the marchesa; then Urania, whom he
kissed on the forehead, very slowly, as though he were consecrating
her; then Gilio, who submissively kissed his father's hand. The old
man nodded to young Hope, who bowed, and glanced towards Cornélie.
Urania presented her. And the prince said a few amiable words to her,
as though he were granting an audience, and asked her if she liked
Italy. When Cornélie had replied, Prince Ercole sat down and handed his
skull-cap to Giuseppe, who took it with a deep bow. Then they all sat
down: the marchesa and the chaplain opposite Prince Ercole, who sat
between Cornélie and Urania; Gilio next to Cornélie; Bob Hope next to
his sister:
"My legs don't show," he whispered.
"Ssh!" said Urania.
Giuseppe, revivified in his former dignity, standing at a sideboard,
solemnly filled the plates with soup. He was back in his element; he
was obviously grateful to Urania; he wore a distinguished air, as of
one whose mind is at peace, and looked like an elderly diplomatist in
his dress-coat. He amused Cornélie, who thought of Belloni's, where he
used to become impatient when the visitors were late at meals and to
rail at the young greenhorns of waiters whom the marchesa engaged for
economy's sake. When the two footmen had handed round the soup, the
chaplain stood up and said grace. Not a word had been spoken yet. They
ate the soup in silence, while the three servants stood motionless.
The spoons clinked against the plates and the marchesa smacked her
lips. The candles flickered now and again; and the shadow fell more
oppressively, like a haze of black velvet. Then Prince Ercole addressed
the marchesa. And turn by turn he addressed them all, with a kindly,
condescending dignity, in French and Italian. The conversation became
a little more general, but the old prince continued to lead it. And
Cornélie noticed that he was very civil to Urania. But she remembered
Gilio's words:
"Papa nearly had a stroke, because old Hope haggled over Urania's
dowry. Ten millions? Five millions? Not three millions! Dollars? No,
lire!"
And the prince suddenly struck her as the grey-haired egoism of San
Stefano's glory and aristocratic pride, struck her as the living shade
of the past that loomed behind him, as she had felt it that afternoon,
when she stood gazing with Urania into the deep, blue lake: an exacting
shade; a shade demanding millions; a shade demanding a new increment
of vitality; a spectral parasite who had sold his depreciated symbols
to gratify the vanity of a new commercial house, but who, in his
distinction, had been no match for the merchant's cunning. Their title
of princess and duchess for less than three million lire! Papa had
almost had a stroke, Gilio had said. And Cornélie, during the measured,
affable stiffness of the conversation led by Prince Ercole, looked from
the old prince and duke, seventy years of age, to the breezy young
Far-Westerner, aged eighteen, and from him to Prince Gilio, the hope of
the old house, its only hope. Here, in the gloom of this dining-room,
where he was bored and moreover still out of temper, he seemed small,
insignificant, shrunken, a paltry, distinguished little _viveur_; and
his carbuncle eyes, which could sparkle merrily with wit and depravity,
now looked dully, from under their drooping lids, upon his plate, at
which he picked without appetite.
She felt sorry for him; and her mind went back to the golden bridal
chamber. She despised him a little. She looked upon him not so much
as a man who could not obtain what he wanted but rather as a naughty
boy. And he must feel jealous of Bob, she reflected: jealous of his
young blood, which tingled in his cheeks, of his broad shoulders and
his broad chest. But still he amused her. He could be very agreeable,
gay and witty and vivacious, when in the mood, vivacious in his words
and in his wits. She liked him, when all was said. And then he was
good-hearted. She thought of the bracelet and especially the thousand
lire, always remembered, with a certain emotion, how touched she had
been during that walk up and down past the post-office, how touched by
his letter and his generous assistance. He had no back-bone, he was not
a man to her; but he was witty and he had a very good heart. She liked
him as a friend and a pleasant companion. How dejected and moody he was
I But then why would he venture on those silly enterprises?...
She spoke to him now and again, but could not succeed in rousing
him from his depression. For the rest, the conversation dragged on
stiffly and affably, always led by Prince Ercole. The dinner came to
an end; and Prince Ercole rose from his chair. Giuseppe handed him his
skull-cap; every one said good night to him; the doors were opened and
Prince Ercole withdrew, leaning on his chaplain's arm. Gilio, still
angry, disappeared. The marchesa, still terrified of Cornélie, also
disappeared, making the _jettatura_ at her in the folds of her dress.
And Urania took Cornélie and Bob back with her to her own drawing-room.
They all three breathed again. They all talked freely, in English:
the boy said in despair that he wasn't getting enough to eat, that
he dared not eat enough to stay his hunger; and Cornélie laughed,
thinking him jolly, because of his wholesomeness, while Urania hunted
out some biscuits for him and a piece of cake left over from tea and
promised that he should have some cold meat and bread before they went
to bed. And they relaxed their minds after the pompous stately meal.
Urania said that the old prince never appeared except at dinner, but
that she always looked him up in the morning and sat talking to him
for an hour or playing chess with him. At other times he played chess
with the chaplain. She was very busy, Urania. The reorganizing of the
house-keeping, which used to be left to a poor relation, who now lived
at a _pension_ in Rome, took up a lot of her time. In the mornings, she
discussed a host of details with Prince Ercole, who, notwithstanding
his secluded life, knew about everything. Then she had consultations
with her architect from Rome about the restorations to be effected in
the castle: these consultations were sometimes held in the old prince's
study. Then she was having a big hostel built in the town, an _albergo
dei poveri_, a hostel for old men and women, for which old Hope had
given her a separate endowment. When she first came to San Stefano she
had been struck by the ruinous, tumble-down houses and cottages of the
poorer quarters, leprous and scabby with filth, eaten up by their own
poverty, in which a whole population vegetated like toadstools. She was
now building the hostel for the old people, finding work on the estate
for the young and healthy and looking after the neglected children; she
had built a new school-house. She talked about all this very simply,
while cutting cake for her brother Bob, who was tucking in after his
formal dinner. She asked Cornélie to come with her one morning to see
how the _albergo_ was progressing, to see the new school, run by two
priests who had been recommended to her by the _monsignori_.
Through the pointed windows the town loomed faintly in the depths
below; and the lines of the cathedral rose high into the sultry,
star-spangled night. And Cornélie thought to herself:
"It was not only for a shadow and an unsubstantial shade that she came
here, the rich American who thought titles so nice,' the child who used
to collect patterns of the queen's ball-dresses--she hides the album
now that she is a 'black' princess--the girl who used to trip through
the Forum in her white serge tailor-made, without understanding either
ancient Rome or the dawn of the new future."
And, as Cornélie went to her own room through the silent heavy darkness
of the Castle of San Stefano, she thought:
"I write, but she acts. I dream and think; but she teaches the
children, though it be with the aid of a priest; she feeds and houses
old men and women."
Then, in her room, looking out at the lake under the summer night all
dusted with stars, she reflected that she too would like to be rich
and to have a wide field of labour. For now she had no field, now she
had no money and now ... now she longed only for Duco; and he must
not leave her too long alone in this castle, amid all this sombre
greatness, which oppressed her as with the weight of the centuries.