She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly from his mastery,
to fly from the emanation of that dominion which, mysteriously but
irrevocably, wiped away with his caress all that was in her of will,
energy and self. She remembered having felt the same thing in the
old days: rebellion and anger when he became angry and coarse, but
an eclipse of self when he caressed her; an inability to think when
he merely laid his hand upon her head; a swooning away into a vast
nothingness when he took her in his arms and kissed her. She had felt
it from the first time of seeing him, when he stood before her and
looked down upon her with that light irony in the smile of his eyes and
his moustache, as though he took pleasure in her resistance--at that
time prompted by flirting and fun, soon by petulance, later by anger
and fury--as though he took pleasure in her futile feminine attempts to
escape his power. He had at once realized that he ruled this woman. And
she had found in him her master, her sole master. For no other man
pressed down upon her with that empire which was of the blood, of the
flesh. On the contrary, she was usually the superior. She had about
her a cool indifference which was always provoking her to destructive
criticism. She had a need for fun, for cheerful conversation, for
coquetry, for flirtation; and, always a mistress of quick repartee,
she invited the occasion for repartee; but, apart from this, men
meant little to her and she always saw the absurd side of each of
them, thinking this one too short, that one too tall, a third clumsy,
a fourth stupid, finding something in every one of them to rouse her
laughter, her mockery or her criticism. She would never be a woman to
give herself to many. She had met Duco and given herself to him with
her love, wholly, as one great inseparable golden gift; and after
him she would never fall in love again. But before Duco she had met
Rudolph Brox. Perhaps, if she had met him after Duco, his mastery
would not have swayed her. She did not know. And what was the good
of thinking about it. The thing was as it was. In her blood she was
not a woman for many; in her blood she was the wife, the spouse, the
consort. Of the man who had been her husband she was in her flesh and
in her blood the wife; and she was his wife even without love. For she
could not call this love: she gave the name of love only to that other
passion, that proud, tender and intense completion of life's harmony,
that journey along one golden line, the marriage of two gleaming
lines.... But the phantom hands had risen all about them in a cloud,
the hands had mysteriously and inevitably divided their golden line;
and hers, a winding curve, had leapt back, like a quivering spring,
crossing a darker line of former days, a sombre line of the past,
a dark track full of unconscious action and fatal bondage. Oh,
the strangeness, the most mysterious strangeness of those lines of
life! Why should they curl back, force her backwards to her original
starting-point? Why had it all been necessary?
She had but one thought: to take to flight. She did not see the
inevitability of those lines and the fatality of those paths and
she did not wish to feel the pressure of the phantom hands that rose
about her. To fly, to turn up the dusky path, back to the point of
separation, back to Duco, and with him to rebraid and twist the two
lost directions into one pure movement, one line of happiness!...
To fly, to fly! She told Urania that she was going. She begged Urania
to forgive her, because it was she who had recommended her to the old
woman whom she was now suddenly leaving. And she told Mrs. Uxeley,
without caring for her anger, her temper or her words of abuse. She
admitted that she was ungrateful. But there was a vital necessity which
compelled her suddenly to leave Nice. She swore that it existed. She
swore that it would mean unhappiness, even ruin, were she to stay. She
explained it to Urania in a single sentence. But she did not explain
it to the old woman and left her in an impotent fury which made her
writhe with rheumatic aches and pains. She left behind her everything
that she had received from Mrs. Uxeley, all the superfluous wardrobe
of her dependence. She put on an old frock. She went to the station
like a criminal, trembling lest she should meet him. But she knew
that at this hour he was always at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless she went
in a closed cab and she took a second-class ticket for Florence. She
telegraphed to Duco. And she fled.
She had nothing left but him. She could never again count upon
Mrs. Uxeley; and Urania had behaved coolly, not understanding that
singular flight, because she did not understand the simple truth,
Rudolph Brox' power. She thought that Cornélie was making things
difficult for herself. In the circle in which Urania lived, her sense
of social morality had wavered since her liaison with the Chevalier
de Breuil. Hearing the Italian law of love whispered all around
her, the law that love is as simple as an opening rose, she did not
understand Cornélie's struggle. She no longer resented anything that
Gilio did; and he in his turn left her free. What was happening to
Cornélie? Surely it was all very simple, if she was still fond of her
divorced husband! Why should she run away to Duco and make herself
ridiculous in the eyes of all their acquaintances? And so she had
parted coolly from Cornélie; but still she missed her friend. She
was the Princess di Forte-Braccio; and lately, on her birthday,
Prince Ercole had sent her a great emerald, out of the carefully kept
family-jewels, as though she were becoming worthy of them gradually,
stone by stone! But she missed Cornélie and she felt lonely, deadly
lonely, notwithstanding her emerald and her lover....
Cornélie fled: she had nothing in the world but Duco. But in him she
would have everything. And, when she saw him at Florence, at the Santa
Maria Novella Station, she flung herself on his breast and clung to him
as to a cross of redemption, a saviour. He led her sobbing to a cab;
and they drove to his room. There she looked round her nervously,
done up with the overstrain of her long journey, thinking every
minute that Rudolph would come after her. She told Duco everything,
opened her heart to him entirely, as though he were her conscience, as
though he were her soul, her god. She nestled up against him, she told
him that he must help her. It was as though she were praying to him;
her anguish went up to him like a prayer. He kissed her; and she knew
that manner of comforting, she knew that tender caressing. She suddenly
fell against him, utterly relaxed; and so she continued to lie, with
closed eyes. It was as though she were sinking in a lake, in a blue
sacred lake, mystic as the Lake of San Stefano in the sleeping night,
powdered with stars. And she heard him say that he would help her;
that there was nothing in her fears; that that man had no power over
her; that he would never have any power over her, if she became his,
Duco's, wife. She looked at him and did not understand what he was
saying. She looked at him feverishly, as though he had awakened her
suddenly while she lay sleeping for a second in the blue calmness
of the mystic lake. She did not understand, but, dead-tired, she hid
her face against his arm again and fell asleep.
She was dead-tired. She slept for two hours immovably, breathing
deeply, upon his breast. When he shifted his arm, she just moved her
head heavily, like a flower on a weary stalk, but she slept on. He
stroked her forehead, her hair; and she slept on, with her hand in
his. She slept as if she had not slept for days, for weeks.