But the life of constraint returned, the hovering hands reappeared,
like a gentle mysterious force. Cornélie wept bitterly and admitted to
herself and admitted to Duco: it could not go on any longer. At one
moment they had not enough to pay the rent of the studio and had to
apply to Urania. Gaps showed in the studio, colours vanished, owing to
the sale of things which Duco had collected with love and sacrifice.
But Lippo Memmi's angel, whom he refused to sell, still shone as of
old, still holding forth the lily, in his gown of gold brocade. Around
him on every side yawned melancholy spaces, with bare nails showing
in the walls. At first they tried to hang other things in the place
of those which had gone but they soon lost the inclination. And, as
they sat side by side, in each other's arms, conscious of their little
happiness but also of the constraint of life with its pushing hands,
they closed their eyes, that they might no longer see the studio which
seemed to be crumbling about them, while in the first cooler days
a sunless chill descended shivering from the ceiling, which seemed
higher and farther away. The easel stood waiting, empty. And they both
closed their eyes and thus remained, feeling that, despite the strength
of their happiness and love, they were being gradually conquered by
life, which persisted in its tyranny and day by day took something
from them. Once, while they were sitting thus, their arms relaxed and
their embrace fell away, as though hands were drawing them apart.
They remained sitting for a long time, side by side, without touching
each other. Then she sobbed aloud and flung herself with her face on
his knees. There was no more to be done life was too strong for them,
speechless life, the life of the soft, persistent constraint, which
surrounded them with so many hands. Their little happiness seemed to be
escaping them, like an angelic child that was dying and sinking out of
their embrace.
She said that she would write to Urania: the Forte-Braccios were at
Nice. He listlessly assented. And, as soon as she received a reply, she
mechanically packed her trunk, packed up her old clothes. For Urania
wrote and told her to come, said that Mrs. Uxeley wanted to see her.
Mrs. Uxeley sent her the money for her journey. She was in a desperate
state of constant nervous sobbing and she felt as if she were being
torn from him, torn from that home which was dear to her and which
was crumbling about her, all through her fault. When she received the
registered letter with the money, she had a nervous attack, complaining
to him like a child that she couldn't leave him, that she wouldn't
leave him, that she could not live without him, that she loved him
for ever, for ever, that she would die, so far away from him. She lay
on the sofa, her arms stiff, her legs stiff, crying out with a mouth
distorted as though by physical pain. He took her in his arms and
soothed her, bathed her forehead, gave her ether to drink, comforted
her, said that everything would be all right again later.... Later?
She looked at him vacantly. She was half mad with grief. She tossed
everything out of the trunk again, all about the room--underclothing,
blouses--and laughed and laughed. He conjured her to control herself.
When she saw his frightened face, when he too began to sob on her
breast, she drew him tightly to her, kissed him and comforted him in
her turn. And everything in her became dulness and lethargy. Together
they packed the trunk again. Then she looked round and, in a gust of
energy, arranged the studio for him, had her bed taken away, pinned
his own sketches to the walls, tried to build up something of what had
gone to pieces around them, rearranged everything, did her best. She
cooked their last meal; she made up the fire. But a desperate threat
of loneliness and desertion reigned over everything. It was all wrong,
it was all wrong.... Sobbing, they fell asleep, in each other's arms,
close against each other.
Next morning he took her to the station. And, when she had stepped into
her compartment, they both of them lost all their self-control. They
embraced each other sobbing, while the guard was waiting to lock the
door. And she saw Duco run away like a madman, pushing his way through
the crowd; and, broken with misery, she threw herself back in her seat.
She was so ill and distressed, so near to fainting, that a lady beside
her came to her aid and bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne....
She thanked the lady, apologized for the trouble she had given and,
seeing the other passengers staring at her with compassionate eyes,
she mastered herself, sat huddled in her corner and gazed vacantly
through the window. She went on, stopping nowhere, only alighting to
change trains. Though hungry, she had not the energy to order food at
the stations. She ate nothing and drank nothing. She travelled a day
and a night and arrived at Nice late the following evening. Urania was
at the station and was startled to see Cornélie look grey and sallow,
dead-tired, with hollow eyes. And she was most charming: she took
Cornélie home with her, looked after her for some days, made her stay
in bed and went herself to tell Mrs. Uxeley that her friend was too
unwell to report herself. Gilio came for a moment to pay Cornélie his
respects; and she could not do other than thank him for these days
of hospitality and care under his roof. And the young princess was
like a sister, was like a mother and fed Cornélie up with milk and
eggs and strengthening medicines. Cornélie let her do as she liked,
remained limp and indifferent and ate to please Urania. After a few
days, Urania said that Mrs. Uxeley was coming to call that afternoon,
being anxious to see her new companion. Mrs. Uxeley was alone now,
but could wait until Cornélie's recovery. Cornélie dressed herself as
well as she could and with Urania awaited the old lady's arrival. She
entered gushingly, with a torrent of words; and, in the dim light of
Urania's drawing-room, Cornélie was unable to realize that she was
ninety years old. Urania winked at Cornélie, who only smiled faintly
in return: she was afraid of this first interview. But Mrs. Uxeley, no
doubt because Cornélie was a friend of the Princess of Forte-Braccio,
was very easy-mannered, very pleasant and free of all condescension
towards her future companion; she enquired after Cornélie's health in
a wearisome profusion of little exclamations and sentences and bits of
advice. Cornélie, in the twilight of the lace-shaded standard-lamps,
took her in with a glance and saw a woman of fifty, with the little
wrinkles carefully powdered over, in a mauve-velvet gown embroidered
with dull gold and spangles and beads. On the brown, waved chignon was
a hat with a white aigrette. Her jewels kept on sparkling, because she
was very fussy, very restless in her movements. She now took Cornélie's
hands and began to talk more confidentially. So Cornélie would come the
day after to-morrow. Very well. She was accustomed to pay a hundred
dollars a month or five hundred francs, never less, but also never
more. But she could understand that Cornélie would want something now,
for new clothes: would she order what she wanted at this address and
have it put down to Mrs. Uxeley's account? A couple of ball-dresses,
two or three less dressy evening-frocks: in short, everything. The
Princess Urania would tell her all about it and would go with her. 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_!
Ninety years old! How the woman must suffer, during the hours of her
long toilet, while she was being made up into that caricature! Urania
said that it was all false: the hair, the bust. And Cornélie felt a
loathing at having to live for the future beside this woman, as though
beside an ignominy. In the happiness of her love, a great part of her
energy had become relaxed, as though their dual happiness--Duco's and
hers--had unfitted her for any further struggle for life and diminished
her zest for life; but it had refined and purified something in her
soul and she loathed the sight of so much show for so vain and petty
an object. And it was only necessity itself--the inevitability of the
things of life, which urged and pushed her with a guiding finger along
a line of life now winding solitary before her--that gave her the
strength to hide within herself her sorrow, her longing, her nostalgia
for everything that she had left behind. She did not talk about it
to Urania. Urania was so glad to see her, looked upon her as a good
friend, in the loneliness of her stately life, in her isolation among
her aristocratic acquaintances. Urania accompanied her enthusiastically
to dressmakers' establishments and shops and helped her to choose her
new outfit. She did not care about it all. She, an elegant woman, a
woman of innate elegance, who in her outward appearance had always
fought against poverty and who, in the days of her happiness, was able,
with the aid of a fresh ribbon, to wear an old blouse gracefully,
was utterly indifferent to everything that she was now buying on
Mrs. Uxeley's account. To her it was as though these things were not
for her. She let Urania ask and choose; she approved of everything.
She allowed herself to be fitted as though she had been a doll. She
greatly disliked having to spend money at a stranger's expense. She
felt lowered and humiliated: all her haughty pride of life was gone.
She was afraid of what they would say of her in the circle of Mrs.
Uxeley's friends, afraid lest they knew of her independent ideas, of
her cohabitation with Duco, afraid of Mrs. Uxeley's opinion. For Urania
had had to be honest and tell everything. It was only on Urania's eager
recommendation that she had been taken by Mrs. Uxeley. She felt out of
place, now that she would once more dare to play her part among all
those people; and she was afraid of giving herself away. She would have
to make believe, to conceal her ideas, to pick her words; and she was
no longer accustomed to doing so. And all for that money. All because
she had not had the energy, living with Duco, to earn her own bread
and, gaily, independently, to cheer him in his work, in his art. Oh,
if she could only have managed to do that, how happy she would have
been! If only she had not allowed the wretched languor that was in
her blood to increase within her like a morbid growth: the languor of
her upbringing, her superficial, showy, drawing-room education, which
had unfitted her for everything whatsoever! By temperament she was a
creature of love as well as a woman of sensuousness and luxury, but
there was more of love in her than of luxury: she would be happy under
the simplest conditions if only she was able to love. And now life had
torn her away from him, gradually but inexorably. And now her sensuous,
luxurious nature was gratified, but in dependence; yet it no longer
satisfied her cravings, because she could not satisfy her soul. In
that lonely soul a miserable dissatisfaction sprang up like a riotous
growth. Her only happiness was his letters, letters of longing but
also letters of comfort. He wrote expressing his longing, but he also
wrote enjoining courage and hope. He wrote to her every day. He was
now at Florence, seeking his consolation in the Uffizi, in the Pitti
Palace. He had found it impossible to stay in Rome; the studio was now
locked up. At Florence he was a little nearer to her. And his letters
were to her a love-story, the only novel that she read; and it was as
though she saw his landscapes in his style, the same dim blending of
colour and emotion, the pearly white, misty, dreamy distances filled
with light, the horizon of his longing, as though his eyes were ever
gazing at the vista in which she, on the night of departure, had
vanished as in a mauve-grey sunset, a sky of the dreary Campagna. In
those letters they still lived together. But she could not write to
him in this strain. Though she wrote to him daily, she wrote briefly,
telling him ever the same things in other words: her longing, her weary
indifference. But she wrote of the happiness which she derived from his
letters, which were her daily bread.
She was now with Mrs. Uxeley and occupied in the gigantic villa two
charming rooms overlooking the sea and the Promenade des Anglais.
Urania had helped her to arrange them. And she lived in an unreal
dream of strangeness, of non-existence alone with her soul, of unlived
actions and gestures, performed according to the will of others. In the
mornings she went to Mrs. Uxeley in her boudoir and read her the French
and American papers and sometimes a few pages of a French novel. She
humbly did her best. Mrs. Uxeley thought that she read very nicely,
only she said that Cornélie must cheer up a bit, that her melancholy
days were over now. Duco was never mentioned and Mrs. Uxeley behaved
as though she knew nothing. The great boudoir looked through the open
balcony windows over the sea, where, on the Promenade, the morning
stroll was already beginning, with the gaudy colours of the parasols
striking a shrill note against the deep-blue sea, an expensive sea, a
costly tide, waves that seemed to exact a mint of money before they
would consent to roll up prettily. The old lady, already painted,
bedizened and bewigged, with a white lace wrap over her wig against the
draught, lay in the black and white lace of her white silk tea-gown on
the piled-up cushions of her sofa. In her wrinkled hand she held the
lorgnette, with her initials in diamonds, through which it amused her
to peer at the shrill patches of the parasols outside. Now and then,
when her rheumatism gave a twinge, she suddenly distorted her face into
one great crease of wrinkles, under which the smooth enamel of her
make-up almost cracked, like crackle-china. In the daylight she seemed
hardly alive, looked like an automatic, jointed, stiff-limbed doll,
which spoke and moved mechanically. She was always a trifle tired in
the mornings, from never sleeping at night; after eleven she took a
little nap. She observed a strict _régime_; and her doctor, who called
daily, seemed to revive her a little every day, to enable her to hold
out until the evening. In the afternoon she drove out, alighted at the
Jetée, paid her visits. But in the evening she revived with a trace of
real life, dressed, put on her jewels and recovered her exuberance, her
little exclamations and simpers. Then came the dances, the parties, the
theatre. Then she was no more than fifty.
But these were her good days. Sometimes, after a night of insufferable
pain, she remained in her bedroom, with yesterday's enamelling
untouched, her bald head wrapped in black lace, a black satin
bed-jacket hanging loosely around her like a sack; and she moaned
and cried and shrieked and seemed to be begging for release from her
torments. This lasted for a couple of days and occurred regularly every
three weeks, after which she gradually revived again.
Her fussy conversation was limited to a constantly recurrent discussion
of all sorts of family-matters, with appropriate annotations. She
explained to Cornélie all the family-connections of her friends,
American and European, but she enlarged more particularly upon the
great European families which she numbered among her acquaintances.
Cornélie could never listen to what she was saying and forgot the
pedigrees again at once. It was sometimes unendurably tedious to have
to listen for so long; and only for this reason, as though she were
forced to it, Cornélie found the energy to talk a little herself,
to relate an anecdote, to tell a story. When she saw that the old
woman was very fond of anecdotes, riddles, and puns, she collected
as many as she could from the _Vie parisienne_ and the _Journal pour
rire_ and kept them ready to hand. And Mrs. Uxeley thought her very
entertaining. Once, as she noticed Duco's daily letter, she referred
to it; and Cornélie suddenly discovered that the old lady was devoured
with curiosity. Then she quietly told her the truth: her marriage,
her divorce, her independent ideas, her meeting and her life with
Duco. The old woman was a little disappointed because Cornélie spoke
so simply about it all. She merely advised her to live discreetly and
correctly now. What people said about former incidents did not matter
so very much. But there must be no occasion for gossip now. Cornélie
promised meekly. And Mrs. Uxeley showed her her albums, with her own
photographs, dating back to her young days, and the photographs of all
sorts of men. And she told her about this friend and that friend and,
vain-gloriously, allowed the suggestion of a very lurid past to peep
through. But she had always lived discreetly and correctly. That was
her pride. And what Cornélie had done was wrong....
The hour or so from eleven to half-past twelve was a relief. Then the
old woman regularly went to sleep--her only sleep in the twenty-four
hours--and Urania came to fetch Cornélie for a drive or a walk along
the Promenade or to sit in the Jardin Public. And it was the only
moment when Cornélie more or less appreciated her new-found luxury
and took pleasure in the gratification of her vanity. The passers-by
turned round to stare at the two young and pretty women in their
exquisite serge frocks, with their fashionable head-gear withdrawn
in the twilight of their sunshades, and admired the Princess of
Forte-Braccio's glossy victoria, irreproachable liveries and spanking
greys.
Gilio maintained a reserved and respectful attitude towards Cornélie.
He was polite but kept a courteous distance when he joined the two
ladies for a moment in the gardens or on the Jetée. After the night
in the pergola, after the sudden flash of his angry knife, she was
afraid of him, afraid also because she had lost much of her courage
and haughtiness. But she could not answer him more coldly than she
did, because she was grateful to him as well as to Urania for the care
shown her during the first few days, for their tact in not at once
surrendering her to Mrs. Uxeley and in keeping her with them until she
had recovered some of her strength.
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. 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. Then with her
finger-tips she felt his letter of that morning, between the strips
of gathered lace in front of her bolero, and just crushed the hard
envelope against her breast, as something belonging to him that was
caressing her.
And it was not to be denied: she saw herself and Nice around her; she
became sensible of new life: it was not unreal, even though it was not
actual to her soul; it was a sorrowful comedy, in which she--dismally,
feebly, listlessly--played her part.