Two months had passed like this. It was January; and these were busy
days for Cornélie, because Mrs. Uxeley was soon to give one of her
celebrated evenings and Cornélie's free hours in the morning were
now taken up with running all sorts of errands. Urania generally
drove with her; and she came to rely upon Urania. They had to go to
upholsterers, to pastry-cooks, to florists and to jewellers, where
Cornélie and Urania selected presents for the cotillon. Mrs. Uxeley
never went out for this, but occupied herself with every trifling
indoor detail; and there were endless discussions, followed by more
drives to the shops, for the old lady was anything but easy to please,
vain as she was of her fame as a hostess and afraid of losing it
through the least omission.
During one of these drives, as the victoria was turning into the Avenue
de la Gare, Cornélie started so violently that she clutched Urania's
arm and could not restrain an exclamation. Urania asked her what she
had seen, but she was unable to speak and Urania made her get out at a
confectioner's to drink a glass of water. She was very nearly fainting
and looked deathly pale. She was not able to continue her errands; and
they drove back to Mrs. Uxeley's villa. The old lady was displeased at
this sudden fainting-fit and grumbled so that Urania went off alone
to complete the errands. After lunch, however, Cornélie felt better,
made her apologies and accompanied Mrs. Uxeley to an afternoon tea.
Next day, when she was sitting with Mrs. Uxeley and a couple of
friends on the Jetée, she seemed to see the same thing again. She
turned as white as a sheet, but retained her composure and laughed
and talked merrily.
These were the days of the preparations. The date of the entertainment
drew nearer; and at last the evening arrived. Mrs. Uxeley was trembling
with nervousness like a young girl and found the necessary strength to
walk through the whole villa, which was all light and flowers. And with
a sigh of satisfaction she sat down for a moment. She was dressed. Her
face was smooth as porcelain, her hair was waved and glittered with
diamond pins. Her gown of pale-blue brocade was cut very low; and
she gleamed like a reliquary. A triple rope of priceless pearls hung
down to her waist. In her hand--she was not yet gloved--she held a
gold-knobbed cane, which was indispensable when she wanted to rise. And
it was only when she rose that she showed her age, when she worked
herself erect by muscular efforts, with that look of pain in her face,
with that twinge of rheumatism which shot through her. Cornélie, not
yet dressed, after a last glance through the villa, blazing with light,
swooning with flowers, hurried to her room and, already feeling tired,
dropped into the chair in front of her dressing-table, to have her
hair done quickly. She was irritable and told the maid to hurry. She
was just ready when the first guests arrived and she was able to join
Mrs. Uxeley. And the carriages rolled up. Cornélie, at the top of the
monumental staircase, looked down into the hall, where the people
were streaming in, the ladies in their long evening-wraps--almost
more expensive even than their dresses--which they carefully gave up
in the crowded, buzzing cloakroom. And the first arrivals came up the
stairs, waiting so as not to be the very first, and were beamed upon
by Mrs. Uxeley. The drawing-rooms soon filled. In addition to the
reception-rooms, the hostess' own rooms were thrown open, forming in
all a suite of twelve apartments. Whereas the corridors and stairs
were adorned only with clumps of red and white and pink camellias,
in the rooms the floral decorations were contained in hundreds of
vases and bowls and dishes, which stood about on every hand and,
with the light of the shaded candles, gave an intimate charm to the
entertainment. That was the speciality of Mrs. Uxeley's decorations
on great occasions: the electric light not used; instead, on every
hand candles with little shades, on every hand glasses and bowls
full of flowers, giving the effect of a fairy garden. Though perhaps
the main outlines were broken, a most charming effect of cosiness
was gained. Small groups and couples could find a place everywhere:
behind a screen, in a loggia; you constantly found a spot for privacy;
and this perhaps explained the vogue of Mrs. Uxeley's parties. The
villa, suitable for giving a court ball, was used only for giving
entertainments of a luxurious intimate character to hundreds of people
who were quite unknown to one another. Each little set chose itself
a little corner, where it made itself at home. A very tiny boudoir,
all in Japanese lacquer and Japanese silk, was aimed at generally, but
was at once captured by Gilio, the Countess di Rosavilla, the Duchess
di Luca and Countess Costi. They did not even go to the music-room,
where a concert formed the first item. Paderewski was playing, Sigrid
Arnoldson was to sing. The music-room also was lighted by shaded
candles; and everybody whispered that, in this soft light, Mrs. Uxeley
did not look a day over forty. During the interval she simpered to two
very young journalists who were to describe her party. Urania, sitting
beside Cornélie, was addressed by a Frenchman whom she introduced to
her friend: the Chevalier de Breuil. Cornélie knew that Urania had
met him at Ostend and that his name was coupled with the Princess
di Forte-Braccio's. Urania had never mentioned De Breuil to her, but
Cornélie now saw, by her smile, her blush and the sparkle in her eyes,
that people were right. She left them to themselves, feeling sad when
she thought of Urania. She understood that the little princess was
consoling herself for her husband's neglect; and she suddenly thought
this whole life of make-believe disgusting. She longed for Rome, for
the studio, for Duco, for independence, love and happiness. She had
had it all; but it had been fated not to endure. Everything around her
was like one great lie, more brilliant than at the Hague, but even more
false, brutal and depraved. People no longer even pretended to believe
the lie: here they showed a brutal sincerity. The lie was respected,
but nobody believed in it, nobody put forward the lie as a truth;
the lie was nothing more than a form.
Cornélie wandered through the rooms by herself, went up to Mrs. Uxeley
for a moment, in accordance with her habit, whispered to ask how she
felt, whether she wanted anything, if everything was going well, then
continued on her way through the rooms. She was standing by a vase,
rearranging some orchids, when a woman in black velvet, fair-haired,
with a full throat and bosom, spoke to her in English:
"I am Mrs. Holt. I dare say you don't know my name, but I know
yours. I very much want to make your acquaintance. I have often been
to Holland and I read Dutch a little. I read your pamphlet on The
Social Position of Divorced Women and I thought a good deal of what
you wrote most interesting."
"You are very kind. Shall we sit down? I remember your name too. You
were one of the leaders of the Women's Congress in London, were
you not?"
"Yes, I spoke about the training of children. Weren't you able to
come to London?"
"No, I did think about it, but I was in Rome at the time and I couldn't
manage it."
"That was a pity. The congress was a great step forward. If your
pamphlet had been translated then and distributed, you would have
had a great success."
"I care very little for success of that kind."
"Of course, I can understand that. But the success of your book is
also for the good of the great cause."
"Do you really mean that? Is there any merit in my little book?"
"Do you doubt it?"
"Very often."
"How is that possible? It is written with such a sure touch."
"Perhaps just for that reason."
"I don't understand you. There's a vagueness sometimes about Dutch
people which we English don't understand, something like a reflection
of your beautiful skies in your character."
"Do you never doubt? Do you feel sure of your ideas on the training
of children?"
"I have studied children in schools, in crèches and in their homes
and I have acquired very decided ideas. And I work in accordance with
these ideas for the people of the future. I will send you my pamphlet,
containing the gist of my speeches at the congress. Are you working
on another pamphlet now?"
"No, I regret to say."
"Why not? We must all fight shoulder to shoulder, if we are to
conquer."
"I believe I have said all that I had to say. I wrote what I did on
impulse, from personal experience. And then ..."
"Yes?"
"Then things changed. All women are different and I never approved
of generalizing. And do you believe that there are many women who can
work for a universal object with a man's thoroughness, when they have
found a lesser object for themselves, a small happiness, such as a
love to satisfy their own ego, in which they can be happy? Don't you
think that every woman has slumbering inside her a selfish craving
for her own love and happiness and that, when she has found this,
the outside world and the future cease to interest her?"
"Possibly. But so few women find it."
"I believe there are not many. But that is another question. And I
do believe that an interest in universal questions is a pis-aller
with most women."
"You have become an apostate. You speak quite differently from what
you wrote a year ago."
"Yes, I have become very humble, because I am more sincere. Of course
I believe in certain women, in certain choice spirits. But would the
majority not always remain feminine, just women and weak?"
"Not with a sensible training."
"Yes, I believe that it lies in that, in the training...."
"Of the child, of the girl."
"I believe that I have never been educated and that this constitutes
my weakness."
"Our girls should be told when still very young of the struggle that
lies before them."
"You are right. We--my friends, my sisters and I--had the 'safety'
of marriage impressed upon us at the earliest possible moment. Do you
know whom I think the most to be pitied? Our parents! They honestly
believed that they were having us taught all that was necessary. And
now, at this moment, they must see that they did not divine the future
correctly and that their training, their education was no education
at all, because they failed to inform their children of the struggle
which was being waged right before their eyes. It is our parents
that are to be pitied. They can mend nothing now. They see us--girls,
young women of twenty to thirty--overwhelmed by life; and they have
not given us the strength for it. They kept us sheltered as long as
possible under the paternal wing; and then they began to think of
our marriage, not in order to get rid of us, but with a view to our
happiness, our safety and our future. We are indeed unfortunate, we
girls and women who were not, like our younger sisters, told of the
struggle that lay just before us; but I believe that we may still
have hope in our youth and that our parents are unhappier and more
to be pitied than we, because they have nothing more to hope for and
because they must secretly confess that they went astray in their love
for their children. They were still educating us according to the past,
while the future was already so near at hand. I pity our parents and I
could almost love them better for that reason than I ever did before."