She wrote regularly to Urania, in Switzerland, at Ostend; and Urania
always wrote back very kindly and offered her assistance. But Cornélie
always declined, afraid of hurting Duco. She, for herself, felt no
such scruples, especially now that it was being borne in upon her that
she would not be able to work. But she understood those scruples in
Duco and respected them. For her own part, however, she would have
accepted help, now that her pride was wavering, now that her ideas
were falling to pieces, too weak to withstand the steady pressure of
life's hardships. It was like a great finger that just passed along
a house of cards: though built up with care and pride, everything
fell flat at the least touch. The only things that stood firm and
unshakable amid the ruins were her love and her happiness. Oh, how she
loved him, how simple was their happiness! How dear he was to her for
his gentleness, his calmness, his lack of irritability, as though his
nerves were strung only to the finer sensibilities of the artist. She
felt so deliciously that it was all imperturbable, that it was all
settled for good. Without that happiness they could never have dragged
their difficult life along from day to day. Now she did not feel that
burden every day, as though they were dragging the load along from
one day to the next. She now felt it only sometimes, when the future
was quite dark and they did not know whither they were dragging the
burden of their lives, in the dusk of that future. But they always
triumphed again: they loved each other too well to sink under the load.
They always found a little more courage; smiling, they supported each
other's strength.
September came and October; and Urania wrote that they were coming back
to San Stefano, to spend a couple of months there before going for the
winter to Nice. And one morning Urania arrived unexpectedly in the
studio. She found Cornélie alone: Duco had gone to an art-dealer's.
They exchanged affectionate greetings:
"I am so glad to see you again!" Urania prattled, gaily. "I am glad to
be back in Italy and to put in a little more time at San Stefano. And
is everything as it used to be, in your cosy studio? Are you happy? Oh,
I need not ask!"
And she hugged and kissed Cornélie, like a child, still lacking the
strength of mind to condemn her friend's too free existence, especially
now, after her own summer at Ostend. They sat beside each other on
the couch, Cornélie in her old tea-gown, which she wore with her own
peculiar grace, and the young princess in her pale-grey tailor-made,
which clung to her figure in a very up-to-date manner and rustled with
heavy silk lining, and a hat with black feathers and silver spangles.
Her jewelled fingers toyed with a very long watch-chain which she wore
round her neck: the latest freak of fashion. Cornélie was able to
admire without feeling envious and made Urania stand up and turn round
in front of her, approved of the cut of her skirt, said that the hat
looked sweet on her and examined the watch-chain attentively. And she
plunged into these matters of _chiffons_: Urania described the dresses
at Ostend; Urania admired Cornélie's old tea-gown; Cornélie smiled:
"Especially after Ostend, eh?" she laughed, merrily.
But Urania meant it seriously: Cornélie wore it with such _chic_! And,
changing the topic, she said that she wanted to speak very seriously,
that perhaps she knew of something for Cornélie, now that Cornélie
would never accept her, Urania's, assistance. At Ostend she had made
the acquaintance of an old American lady, Mrs. Uxeley, a regular type.
She was ninety years of age and lived at Nice in the winter. She was
fabulously rich: an oil-queen's fortune. She was ninety, but still
behaved as if she were forty-five. She dined out, went into society,
flirted. People laughed at her but accepted her because of her money
and her splendid entertainments. All the cosmopolitan colony visited
her at Nice. Urania produced an Ostend casino-paper and read out a
journalistic account of a ball at Ostend, in which Mrs. Uxeley was
called _la femme la plus élégante d'Ostende_. The journalist had been
paid so much for it; everybody laughed and was amused by it. Mrs.
Uxeley was a caricature, but with enough tact to get herself taken
seriously. Well, Mrs. Uxeley was looking for somebody. She always
had a lady companion with her, a girl, a young woman; and already
numberless ladies had succeeded one another in her employ. She had had
cousins living with her, distant cousins, very distant cousins and
total strangers. She was tiresome, capricious, impossible; everybody
knew that. Would Cornélie care to try it? Urania had already discussed
it with Mrs. Uxeley and recommended her friend. Cornélie did not feel
greatly attracted, but thought it worth thinking over. Mrs. Uxeley's
companion was staying till November, when the old thing was returning
through Paris to Nice. And at Nice they would see so much of each
other, Cornélie and Urania. But Cornélie thought it terrible to leave
Duco. She did not think that it would ever work. They were so greatly
attached to each other, so much used to each other. From the money
point of view it would be excellent--an easy life which attracted her,
after that blow to her moral pride--but she could not think of leaving
Duco. And what would Duco do at Nice! No, she couldn't, she simply
couldn't: she must stay with him....
She felt a reluctance to go, like a hand that withheld her. She told
Urania to put the old lady off, to let her look out for somebody
else. She could not do it. What use to her was such a life--socially
dependent, though financially independent--without Duco?
And, when Urania was gone--she was going on to San Stefano--Cornélie
was glad that she had at once declined that stupid, easy life of
dependence as companion to a rich old dotard. She glanced round the
studio. She loved it with its precious colours, its noble antiques
and, behind that curtain, her bed, behind that screen, her oil-stove,
making the space look like a little kitchen; with the bohemianism of
its precious _bibelots_ and very primitive comforts, it had become
indispensable to her, had become her home. And, when Duco came in, she
kissed him and told him about Urania and Mrs. Uxeley. She was glad to
be able to nestle in his arms. He had sold a couple of water-colours.
There was no reason whatever to leave him. He didn't wish it either,
he never would wish it. And they held each other tightly embraced, as
though they were conscious of something that would be able to part
them, an ineluctable necessity, as if hands hovered around them,
pushing them, guiding them, opposing and inhibiting them, a contest of
hands, like a cloud around them both: hands that strove by main force
to sunder their radiant path of life, their coalescent line of life, as
if it were too narrow for the feet of the two of them and the hands
were trying to wrench it asunder, in order to let the broad track
wind apart in two curves. They said nothing: clasped in each other's
arms, they gazed at life, shuddered at the hands, felt the approaching
constraint which already was clouding more closely around them. But
they felt warm in each other's company; they locked up their little
happiness tightly in their embrace and hid it between them, so that the
hands might not point to it, touch it and thrust it aside....
And under their fixed gaze life softly receded, the cloud dispersed,
the hands faded away and disappeared and their breasts heaved a sigh of
relief, while she still remained lying against him and closed her eyes,
as though in sleep....