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 on till November, when the old thing went back
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 attached
to each other, so 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....