When she came home she found the prince's card. It was an ordinary
civility after yesterday evening, her unexpected visit to the
Palazzo Ruspoli, and she did not give it a second thought. She was
in a pleasant frame of mind, pleased with herself, glad that her work
would appear first as an article in Het Recht der Vrouw [1]--she would
publish it as a pamphlet afterwards--and glad that she had made Duco
happy with the Memmi. She changed into her tea-gown and sat down by the
fire in her musing attitude and thought of how she could carry out her
great plans. To whom ought she to apply? There was an International
Women's Congress sitting in London; and Het Recht der Vrouw had sent
her a prospectus. She turned over the pages. Different feminist leaders
were to speak; there would be numbers of social questions discussed:
the psychology of the child; the responsibility of the parents; the
influence on domestic life of women's admission to all the professions;
women in art, women in medicine; the fashionable woman; the woman at
home, on the stage; marriage- and divorce-laws.
In addition the prospectus gave concise biographies of the speakers,
with their portraits. There were American, Russian, English, Swedish,
Danish women; nearly every nationality was represented. There were
old women and young women; some pretty, some ugly; some masculine,
some womanly; some hard and energetic, with sexless boys' faces; one
or two only were elegant, with low-cut dresses and waved hair. It was
not easy to divide them into groups. What impulse in their lives had
prompted them to join in the struggle for women's rights? In some,
no doubt, inclination, nature; in an occasional case, vocation;
in another, the desire to be in the fashion. And, in her own case,
what was the impulse?... She dropped the prospectus in her lap and
stared into the fire and reflected. Her drawing-room education passed
before her once more, followed by her marriage, by her divorce....
What was the impulse? What was the inducement?... She had come to it
gradually, to go abroad, to extend her sphere of vision, to reflect,
to learn about art, about the modern life of women. She had glided
gradually along the line of her life, with no great effort of will
or striving, without even thinking much or feeling much.... She
glanced into herself, as though she were reading a modern novel,
the psychology of a woman. Sometimes she seemed to will things, to
wish to strive, as just now, to pursue her great plans. Sometimes
she would sit thinking, as she often did in these days, beside her
cosy fire. Sometimes she felt, as she now did, for Duco. But mostly
her life had been a gradual gliding along the line which she had to
follow, urged by the gentle pressure of the finger of fate.... For
a moment she saw it clearly. There was a great sincerity in her: she
never posed either to herself or to others. There were contradictions
in her, but she recognized them all, in so far as she could see
herself. But the open landscape of her soul became clear to her at
that moment. She saw the complexity of her being gleam with its many
facets.... She had taken to writing, out of impulse and intuition;
but was her writing any good? A doubt rose in her mind. A copy of
the code lay on her table, a survival of the days of her divorce; but
had she understood the law correctly? Her article was accepted; but
was the judgement of the editress to be trusted? As her eyes wandered
once again over those women's portraits and biographies, she became
afraid that her work would not be good, would be too superficial,
and that her ideas were not directed by study and knowledge. But she
could also imagine her own photograph appearing in that prospectus,
with her name under it and a brief comment: writer of The Social
Position of Divorced Women, with the name of the paper, the date and
so on. And she smiled: how highly convincing it sounded!
But how difficult it was to study, to work and understand and act and
move in the modern movement of life! She was now in Rome: she would
have liked to be in London. But it did not suit her at the moment
to make the journey. She had felt rich when she bought Duco's Memmi,
thinking of the payment for her article; and now she felt poor. She
would much have liked to go to London. But then she would have missed
Duco. And the congress lasted only a week. She was pretty well at home
here now, was beginning to love Rome, her rooms, the Colosseum lying
yonder like a dark oval, like a sombre wing at the end of the city,
with the hazy-blue mountains behind it.
Then the prince came into her mind and for the first time she thought
of yesterday, saw that evening again, an evening of jesting and
champagne: Duco silent and sulky, Urania depressed and the prince
small, lively, slender, roused from his slackness as an aristocratic
man-about-town and with his narrow carbuncle eyes. She thought him
really pleasant; once in a way she liked that atmosphere of coquetry
and flirtation; and the prince had understood her. She had saved
Urania, she was sure of that; and she felt the content of her good
action....
She was too lazy to dress and go to the restaurant. She was not very
hungry and would stay at home and sup on what was in her cupboard:
a couple of eggs, bread, some fruit. But she remembered Duco and that
he would certainly be waiting for her at their little table and she
wrote him a note and sent it by the hall-porter's boy....
Duco was just coming down, on his way out to the restaurant, when
he met the little fellow on the stairs. He read the note and felt
as if he was suffering a grievous disappointment. He felt small and
unhappy, like a child. And he went back to his studio, lit a single
lamp, threw himself on a broad couch and lay staring in the dusk at
Memmi's angel, who, still standing on the chair, glimmered vaguely
gold in the middle of the room, sweet as comfort, with his gesture
of annunciation, as though he sought to announce all the mystery that
was about to be fulfilled....