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, repeated 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 nick-named 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 November 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 corner, the girls still
seized with an irrepressible giggle. The two æsthetic ladies, with
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, to sit 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.