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 their love,
they were 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 di 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 headgear withdrawn in the twilight
of their sunshades, and admired the Princess di 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.