Next day, when Duco met Cornélie at the osteria, she was very cheerful
and excited. She told him that she had already received a reply from
the woman's paper to which she had sent her pamphlet the week before
and that her work was not only accepted but would be paid for. She
was so proud at earning money for the first time that she was as
merry as a little child. She did not speak of the previous evening,
seemed to have forgotten Urania, but felt an exuberant need to talk.
She formed all sorts of great plans: to travel about as a journalist,
to fling herself into the movement of the great cities, to pursue every
reality, to have herself sent by some paper as a delegate to congresses
and festivals. The few guilders which she was earning already made
her intoxicated with zeal; and she would like to make a lot of money
and do a great deal and consider no fatigue. He thought her simply
adorable: in the half light of the osteria, as she sat at the little
table eating her gnocchi, with in front of her the mezzofiasco of
pale-yellow wine of the country, her usual languor acquired a new
vivacity which astonished him; her outline, half-dark on the left,
lighted on the right by the sunshine in the street, acquired a modern
grace of drawing which reminded him of the French draughtsmen: the
rather pale face with the delicate features, lit up by her smile,
faintly indicated under the sailor hat, which slanted over her eyes;
the hair, touched with gold, or a dark light-brown; the white veil
raised into a rumpled mist above; her figure, slender and gracious
in the simple, unbuttoned coat, with a bunch of violets in her blouse.
The manner in which she helped herself to wine, in which she addressed
the cameriere--the only one, who knew them well, from seeing them
daily--with a pleasant familiarity; the vivacity replacing her languor;
her great plans, her gay phrases: all this seemed to shine upon him,
unconstrained and yet distinguished, free and yet womanly and, above
all, easy, as she was at her ease everywhere, with an assimilative
tact which for him constituted a peculiar harmony. He thought of
the evening before, but she did not speak of it. He thought of that
revelation of her coquetry, but she was not thinking of coquetry. She
was never coquettish with him. She looked up to him, regarded him as
clever and exceptional, though not belonging to his time; she respected
him for the things which he said and thought; and she was as matter of
fact towards him as one chum towards another, who happened to be older
and cleverer. She felt for him a sincere friendship, an indescribable
something that implied the need of being together, of living together,
as though the lines of their two lives should form one line. It was
not a sisterly feeling and it was not passion and to her mind it
was not love; but it was a great sense of respectful tenderness, of
longing admiration and of affectionate delight at having met him. If
she never saw him again, she would miss him as she would never miss
any one in her life. And that he took no interest in modern questions
did not lower him in the eyes of this young modern Amazon, who was
about to wave her first banner. It might vex her for an instant,
but it did not carry weight in her estimation of him. And he saw
that, with him, she was simply affectionate, without coquetry. Yet
he would never forget what she had been like yesterday, with the
prince. He had felt jealousy and noticed it in Urania also. But she
herself had acted so spontaneously in harmony with her nature that
she no longer thought of that evening, of the prince, of Urania,
of her own coquettishness or of any possible jealousy on their side.
He paid the bill--it was his turn--and she gaily took his arm and
said that she had a surprise in store for him, with which he would
be very pleased. She wanted to give him something, a handsome, a very
handsome keepsake. She wanted to spend on it the money she was going
to receive for her article. But she hadn't got it yet ... as though
that mattered! It would come in due time. And she wanted to give him
his present now.
He laughed and asked what it could be. She hailed a carriage and
whispered an address to the driver. Duco did not hear. What could it
be? But she refused to tell him yet.
The vetturino drove them through the Borgo to the Tiber and stopped
outside a dark little old-curiosity-shop, where the wares lay heaped
up right out into the street.
"Cornélie!" Duco exclaimed, guessing.
"Your Lippo Memmi angel. I'm getting it for you. Not a word!"
The tears came to his eyes. They entered the shop.
"Ask him how much he wants for it."
He was too much moved to speak; and Cornélie had to ask the price
and bargain. She did not bargain long: she bought the panel for a
hundred and twenty lire. She herself carried it to the victoria.
And they drove back to his studio. They carried the angel up the
stairs together, as though they were bearing an unsullied happiness
into his home. In the studio they placed the angel on a chair. Of a
noble aspect, of a somewhat Mongolian type, with long, almond-shaped
eyes, the angel had just knelt down in the last stir of his flight;
and the gold scarf of his gold-and-purple cloak fluttered in the
air while his long wings quivered straight above him. Duco stared at
his Memmi, filled with a two-fold emotion, because of the angel and
because of her.
And with a natural gesture he spread out his arms:
"May I thank you, Cornélie?"
And he embraced her; and she returned his kiss.