"There is nothing to be afraid of, Cornélie," he said,
convincingly. "That man has no power over you if you refuse, if you
refuse with a firm will. I do not see what he could do. You are quite
free, absolutely released from him. That you ran away so precipitately
was certainly not wise: it will look to him like a flight. Why did you
not tell him calmly that he can't claim any rights in you? Why did you
not say that you loved me? If need were, you could have said that we
were engaged. How can you have been so weak and so terrified? It's not
like you! But, now that you are here, all is well. We are together
now. Shall we go back to Rome to-morrow or shall we remain here a
little first? I have always longed to show you Florence. Look, there,
in front of us, is the Arno; there is the Ponto Vecchio; there is the
Uffizi. You've been here before, but you didn't know Italy then. You'll
enjoy it more now. Oh, it is so lovely here! Let us stay a week or
two first. I have a little money; you need have no fear. And life is
cheaper here than in Rome. Living in this room, we shall spend hardly
anything. I have light enough through this window to sketch by, now
and again. Or else I go and work in the San Marco or in San Lorenzo or
up on San Miniato. It is delightfully quiet in the cloisters. There
are a few excursionists at times; but I don't mind that. And you can
go with me, with a book, a book about Florence; I'll tell you what
to read. You must learn to know Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,
but, above all, Donatello. We shall see him in the Bargello. And
Lippo Memmi's Annunciation, the golden Annunciation! You shall see
how like our angel is to it, our beautiful angel of happiness, the
one you gave me! It is so rich here; we shall not feel that we are
poor. We need so little. Or have you been spoilt by your luxury at
Nice? But I know you so well: you will forget that at once; and we
shall win through together. And presently we shall go back to Rome. But
this time ... married, my darling, and you belonging to me entirely,
legally. It must be so now; you must not refuse me again. We'll go
to the consul to-morrow and ask what papers we want from Holland
and what will be the quickest way of getting married. And meanwhile
you must look upon yourself as my wife. Until now we have been very,
very happy ... but you were not my wife. Once you feel yourself to
be my wife--even though we wait another fortnight for those papers
to sign--you will feel safe and peaceful. There is nobody and nothing
that has any power over you. You're not well, if you really think there
is. And then I'll bet you, when we are married, my mother will make it
up with us. Everything will come right, my darling, my angel.... But
you must not refuse: we must get married with all possible speed."
She was sitting beside him on a sofa and staring out of doors, where,
in the square frame of the tall window, the slender campanile rose like
a marble lily between the dome-crowned harmonies of the Cathedral and
the Battisterio, while on one side the Palazzio Vecchio lay, a massive,
battlemented fortress, amid the welter of the streets and roofs, and
lifted its tower, suddenly expanding into the machicolated summit,
with Fiesole and the hills shimmering behind it in the purple of the
evening. The noble city of eternal grace gleamed a golden bronze in
the last reflection of the setting sun.
"We must get married at once?" she repeated, with a doubting
interrogation.
"Yes, as soon as ever we can, darling."
"But Duco, dearest Duco, it's less possible now than ever. Don't you
see that it can't be done? It's impossible, impossible. It might have
been possible before, some months ago, a year ago ... perhaps, perhaps
not even then. Perhaps it was never possible. It is so difficult to
say. But now it can't be done, really not...."
"Don't you love me well enough?"
"How can you ask me such a question? How can you ask me, darling? But
it's not that. It is ... it is ... it can't be, because I am not free."
"Not free?"
"I am not free. I may feel free later ... or perhaps not, perhaps
never.... My dearest Duco, it is impossible. I wrote to you, you know:
that first meeting at the ball; it was so strange; I felt that ..."
"That what?"
She took his hand and stroked it; her eyes were vague, her words
were vague:
"You see ... he has been my husband."
"But you're divorced from him: not merely separated, but divorced!"
"Yes, I'm divorced; but it's not that."
"What then, dearest?"
She shook her head and hid her face against him:
"I can't tell you, Duco."
"Why not?"
"I'm ashamed."
"Tell me; do you still love him?"
"No, it's not love. I love you."
"But what then, my darling? Why are you ashamed?"
She began to cry on his shoulder:
"I feel...."
"What?"
"That I am not free, although ... although I am divorced. I feel
... that I am his wife all the same."
She whispered the words almost inaudibly.
"But then you do love him and more than you love me."
"No, no, I swear I don't!"
"But, darling, you're not talking sense!"
"Yes, indeed I am."
"No, you're not. It's impossible!"
"It isn't. It's quite possible. And he told me so ... and I felt
it...."
"But the fellow's hypnotizing you!"
"No, it's not hypnotism. It's not a delusion: it's a reality, deep,
deep down within myself. Look here, you know me: you know how I
feel. I love you and you only. That alone is love. I have never
loved any one else. I am not a woman who is susceptible to.... I'm
not hysterical. But with him ... No other man, no man whom I have
ever met, rouses that feeling in me ... that feeling that I am not
myself. That I belong to him, that I am his property, his chattel."
She threw her arms about him, she hid herself like a child in his
breast:
"It is so strange.... You know me, don't you? I can be plucky and I
am independent and I am never at a loss for an answer. But with him
I am no longer sure of myself, I no longer have a life of my own. And
I do what he tells me to."
"But that is hypnotism: you can escape that, if you seriously wish
to. I will help you."
"It is not hypnotism. It is a truth, deep down inside me. It exists
inside me. I know that it is so, that it has to be so.... Duco, it
is impossible. I can't become your wife. I mustn't become your wife
... less now than ever. Perhaps...."
"Perhaps what?"
"Perhaps I always felt like that, without knowing it, that it must
not be. Both for you and for me ... and for him too.... Perhaps that
was what I felt, without knowing it, when I talked as I used to,
about my antipathy for marriage."
"But that antipathy arose from your marriage ... with him!"
"Yes, that's the strange part of it. I dislike him ... and yet...."
"Yet you're in love with him!"
"Yet I belong to him."
"And you tell me that you love me!"
She took his head in her two hands:
"Try to understand. It tires me so, trying to make you understand. I
love you ... but I am his wife...."
"Are you forgetting what you were to me in Rome?..."
"I was everything to you: love, happiness, intense happiness.... There
was the most intense harmony between us: I shall never forget
it.... But I was not your wife."
"Not my wife!"
"No, I was your mistress.... I was unfaithful to him.... Oh, don't
repulse me! Pity me, pity me!"
He had unconsciously made a gesture that frightened her.
"Let me stay like this, leaning against you. May I? I am so tired and
I feel restful, leaning against you like this, my darling. My darling,
my darling ... things will never be as they were. What are we to do?"
"I don't know," he said, in despair. "I want to marry you as soon as
may be. You won't consent."
"I can't. I mustn't."
"Then I don't know what to do or say."
"Don't be angry. Don't leave me. Help me, do, do! I love you, I love
you, I love you!"
She drew him into her arms, in a close, sudden embrace, as though in
perplexity and despair. He kissed her passionately in response.
"O God, tell me what to do!" she prayed, as she, lay hopelessly
perplexed in his embrace.