True.
“And said she had no room for your servants, so that they had to stay at an inn.”
Vivi had a good memory. He had forgotten that one.
“Then you came back to Turin; she stayed in France, and she ignored you completely for five years, until Napoleon was exiled. Then suddenly she wanted to live in the palace in Rome and be a Borghese again.” She folded her arms. “I’ll never understand why the pope wouldn’t let you divorce her.”
At the time, he had been furious. But papal princes, for obvious reasons, were held to rather strict standards in marriage. And Pauline had powerful allies in Rome, even after Napoleon’s defeat. He had ceded Rome to Pauline and retired to the Borghese palace in Florence with Livia. And really, he thought, he had had a very nice ten years here. Florence was small and lovely, the pope and his family and Pauline were safely distant in Rome, and Livia was a gentle and dignified companion.
She wasn’t gentle and dignified right now, of course.
“Vivi, please don’t make this any more difficult than it is already,” he said sadly.
Her eyes filled with tears. “Why? I don’t understand. Why do you have to bring her here? Why can’t she leave us alone?” She had been pacing around the room; now she collapsed onto a chaise and buried her face in her hands.
“She needs me,” he said, unconsciously echoing Sophie’s phrase. He sat down next to Livia and put his arm around her. “Vivi, she doesn’t have anyone except Sophie. Her family is in no position to help her. Napoleon is dead—and Sophie tells me that the news of his death nearly killed Pauline all by itself; she was frantically writing the British to try to get permission to visit him on St. Helena and they didn’t let her know he had died until months afterward. Her mother has become a recluse; her older sister died five years ago. Her brother Lucien lost his post at the university and can barely support his own family. The others are scattered across the globe.”
“She has servants, doesn’t she?”
“Would you want to die surrounded by people you were paying?” He squeezed her shoulder. “I don’t want this any more than you do, but it’s my duty. She’s my wife.”
“She didn’t take her duties to her husband very seriously.”
There was no point trying to defend Pauline to Livia. It was like trying to explain the ocean to someone who dwelt inland. Look at that lake. Now imagine it is bigger. A hundred times, a thousand times bigger. Miles deep. The waves are much taller; they can be forty feet high. All the fish are different. All the plants are different. The water is salty, not fresh. And there are tides … At some point, you realize that you cannot explain the ocean to someone who has only seen lakes.
Livia was a lady: virtuous, modest, and conservative. True, she had been living in sin with Camillo for nearly fifteen years, first in Turin, then here in Florence. But in every other way, she was the epitome of a respectable noblewoman. She went to church. She raised her daughters. She entertained graciously in Camillo’s small palace but preferred to be quiet, just the two of them. She was a lake. Pauline was the ocean.
It had occurred to him many, many times that he had married the woman who should have been his mistress and was keeping the woman who should have been his wife.
“Do you really think I should abandon my obligations because she abandoned hers?” he asked her. “And remember, I was not always faithful to her, either. Even before she ran away from Turin. I was away on campaign for over two years, and Napoleon’s officers were not monks.”
“Yes. No.” She leaned her head against him. “It won’t be for long, will it?” She laughed wildly. “What a horrible thing to say. Never mind, Camillo. I’ll try to be good.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Camillo?” A long pause. “Do you think she is still beautiful?”
“I don’t know. Sophie made it clear that she is extremely ill.”
But he couldn’t picture Pauline ugly any more than he could picture her dead.
Sophie had not been fond of the Palazzo Borghese when she first went to Rome, and nothing had happened to improve her opinion of it subsequently. Most of the rooms were closed off now, and there was a desperate attempt to keep Pauline’s suite and the two large reception rooms cheerful, warm, and dry, but it was a losing battle. The first thing that hit Sophie when she returned from Florence and walked into the palazzo was the smell of mildew.
“I hate this place,” she muttered as she followed the footman who was carrying her bags up to her apartment. “It’s dark. It’s wet. It feels like a crypt. I don’t know why she stays here. She has four other houses, including one right here in Rome. We could be at the villa right now, and her friends would come and visit. No one ever wants to come here.”
But that was why Pauline had moved back to the palazzo, of course. At the Villa Paolina, she had always held open house; everyone was welcome. That was the point of the villa: to be informal, to have no rules, to entertain dukes alongside piano teachers. With Pauline as the center of everything. When you decided that you were ugly and dying, you didn’t want to be the center any longer. You wanted to hide. The majordomo had informed her just now that Pauline hadn’t admitted anyone during the entire time Sophie had been gone.
“She wouldn’t even read her mail,” he told her, worried. “She said no visitors and no letters, unless they were from Florence.”
I’m from Florence, thought Sophie. I’m a walking, talking letter from Florence. An express letter: two grueling, long days in the carriage each way. She wanted a bath. She wanted to lie down on a real bed and read a book that wasn’t shaking up and down while she held it. And it was so hard to pretend for Pauline when she was tired.
She settled for brushing her hair and splashing some water on her face. As she walked into Pauline’s apartments, she could hear Pauline’s voice, querulous and high-pitched. “Is that Sophie? Is she back? I heard a carriage. I heard the door.”
“Yes, it’s me,” she said, following the voice to the bedroom. Four o’clock on a sunny, crisp October day and Pauline was in bed. That was how it was now. Sophie braced herself and managed a smile as she bent over and kissed her cousin. “How are you?”
“What did he say?” Pauline demanded. She gripped Sophie’s hand, hard. “Will he see me?”
“May I at least sit down first?” said Sophie lightly, trying to reclaim her hand.
“Sophie!”
“Yes! He said yes.”
“How is he? Did you see her? Tell me everything!” She finally let go and sank back onto the pillows.
“The prince is well. He is making arrangements to move you to Florence. He asks that your doctor send him a letter describing what you will need.”
Pauline looked at her. After a minute, she said cautiously, “Moving me to Florence? Not just a visit?”
Sophie nodded.
“Where in Florence?” Pauline whispered.
“With him. In the palace. The duchess and her daughters will move out.”
Pauline looked away; Sophie knew that she was crying.
“His hair has gone partly gray,” Sophie said quickly. “But he is still very handsome. He goes riding nearly every day, and he said to tell you that he will take you for drives. The hills around Florence are very beautiful at this time of year.” She groped for something else to say, but the other topics that occurred to her—Camillo’s pretty duchess, the latest grim report from the doctor, the lack of news from Pauline’s far-flung brothers and sisters—were all disasters. She settled for a small cough instead.
Pauline swiped at her eyes and turned back to Sophie. She made a face. “Drives in the hills. I don’t want drives! I want to make amends for my sins. What do you think, Sophie? Will he forgive me?”
“I did,” Sophie said, smiling a little ruefully.
Pauline sighed. “Yes, you did. Many times. And now I am dragging you off to Florence, away from your friends here in Rome.” She looked at Sophie anxiously. “You will come, won’t you, So
phie?”
Sophie gave her an incredulous look. “How could you even think I wouldn’t come?”
“Well.” Pauline picked at the edge of the bedspread. “Camillo and I have not always gotten along very well. And sometimes other people get caught in the middle.”
“He’s changed. You’ve changed. Isn’t that the whole point of this?”
Pauline was silent for a minute. “Do you think this is crazy? For me to go to Camillo, after so many years? I could just stay here, you know. It would be so much easier. Or we could go to Pisa, like last winter. Just the two of us.”
“It’s all arranged,” Sophie said quietly. “It’s what you wanted.”
FIFTEEN
On a cold, rainy day in November, the Prince and Princess Borghese were reunited.
Since Livia was no longer there to remind him of his dignity, Camillo did run downstairs this time. He even went outside, in spite of the rain, and opened the carriage door himself. He had been pacing for hours, ever since he had received word that Sophie and Pauline would arrive today. Every few minutes he would go to the window overlooking the narrow street and peer down. He was trying to prepare himself, to nerve himself—but for what?
Sophie emerged first, then a maid. He peered into the darkened interior. Someone was half-sitting, half-reclining, swathed in shawls and blankets. One shawl covered the lower part of her face. All he could see was a bit of forehead and two enormous dark eyes. Pauline.
He climbed in. “Do you need help getting out? Shall I send for a footman?”
She pulled down the shawl that covered her mouth. “Aren’t you even going to say hello?”
Something held coiled inside him relaxed when he saw her face and heard her tart question. Yes, it was still Pauline. The illness hadn’t eaten her yet.
He made a little half-bow, the best he could do sitting in the carriage. “Welcome to Florence.”
Her hand stole out and touched his wrist. “Thank you for having me.” It was said in a gentle voice that he had almost never heard from her. Thank God she had snapped at him first. Then, briskly, “Yes, I am afraid someone will need to carry me. Not you, Camillo. Though you look better than I had expected.”
“So do you,” he said, before he could stop himself. He didn’t know what he had been picturing, but her face, at least, had not changed much. You could see that she was ill; yet, even shadowed, her eyes were startling for their size and luster; her mouth still curved in the most perfect bow he had ever seen.
She gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t look at me in daylight,” she advised. “I’m yellow.”
He carried her in, despite her protests that he should give her to the footman. She weighed nothing; it was terrifying. He had to keep looking at her face to reassure himself. Her eyes were flashing with indignation; that was good. Perhaps he simply didn’t remember how much she had weighed when they were younger. No, he had to be honest. His body remembered the heft and weight of hers all too well. This new Pauline felt like she was made of wire and paper.
Camillo had prepared an entire set of rooms for Pauline on the first floor of the palace. In one corner, there was a bedroom for her, and a smaller one for a maid or nurse alongside it. The bedroom opened into a large sitting room; the sitting room, in turn, connected on one side to another bedroom, for Sophie, and on the other to a square room he had fitted up as a dining room, with a table that could seat eight. The bedroom faced inward, toward the courtyard; the sitting room and dining room looked out over the street. He thought Pauline would enjoy looking out on some activity.
He carried her through every room, pointing out the various things he had brought for her comfort: a fire screen, pillows for the sofa, footstools, a painting of Napoleon (donated by a Florentine official who was only too happy to get rid of it), a set of china cosmetic boxes that someone had given them as a wedding present, which had been forgotten in the attic of the palace in Rome. Then he took her into her bedroom and showed her his great triumph: a bath, opening directly off the bedroom, with two tubs. “One is for milk,” he said proudly. “The other for water. And there is a tank of water above the milk tub, to rinse you afterward, just as you like.”
She didn’t say anything, but when he finally set her down carefully on the bed, he saw that her eyes were full of tears. Then Sophie came in, and he thought he must have imagined it, because she clapped her hands, laughing.
“Sophie! Come and look at my bathroom! If you are very nice to me, I may let you use it.”
He left her then to rest and refresh herself, and did not see her again until the early evening, when she received him as formally as her condition permitted. She was lying on the chaise in the sitting room, with Sophie seated nearby. The lamps were turned low, and the candelabra stood behind her on the hearth. The myriad shawls had been replaced by a dress and matching coat of deep blue, a color which had always looked well on her. She wore diamond earrings and a diamond band in her hair, and her tiny feet were encased in blue slippers with small diamond buckles. On one hand was a large emerald ring; on the other, two narrow bands studded with sapphires.
He noticed all of these things in great detail, because he was afraid to look at her face.
She patted the chaise. “Come sit here by me.”
How many times had she said that to him! Usually she was on the bed, of course. But he remembered distinctly their first meeting, in Paris, in the half-unfurnished room, with the single daybed and two chairs, and all the Bonapartes standing around the walls. Those had been her first words to him: “Come sit here by me.” He remembered them so clearly because he had expected her to speak French and instead she spoke in Italian. And also because from the moment he saw her, he was hopelessly infatuated with her.
He perched gingerly at the foot of the chaise and finally looked at her face. It was yellow, there was no gainsaying it. She wore some powder, but the sallow tinge showed through it. Her cheeks were hollow, and there were deep lines beside her eyes. He knew those lines from his two years in the army; they were the mark of someone living with constant pain.
She lay back, watching him read the tale of her disease in her face. “I told you I was yellow.”
“Not so very much,” he lied.
“It isn’t so noticeable when I wear blue,” she conceded. “But green is out of the question now.”
She sat up a little straighter and held out her hand to him—the pose was familiar. After a moment, he smiled and got up, returning with a pear from a bowl of fruit and nuts on the table. “No apples,” he said, putting it in her hand. “But you still win the beauty contest.”
“Oh,” she said, realizing what he meant. “The statue.” She grimaced. “It’s locked away, you know. I asked your steward not to let visitors see it any longer. I’m jealous of her. Of the old me. And I don’t particularly like her. She was not a nice person.”
Camillo had been jealous of the statue, too. The thought of strangers eyeing his naked wife had not been very pleasant. He sighed. “I never managed to have you and the statue in the same place, you know.”
She handed him back the pear. “She’s prettier.”
“I’d rather have the real you.” He looked down at the fruit. “Would you like some? I could cut it up for you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t eat much these days.”
“Are you comfortable? Is there anything more you need?” He could see, through the open door of the bedroom, a small table already covered with medicine bottles.
“I am fine; I just need to rest for a bit.”
Sophie had tiptoed away and closed the door to the sitting room. They were alone together for the first time since that terrible scene in Turin.
“What now?” he said. “What should we do?”
She kicked off her shoes and wriggled into a slightly less upright position.
“Now we wait for me to die,” she said. “I don’t think we need to do anything. I think it happens by itself.”
* * *
&nbs
p; Life in Florence settled into a bizarre rhythm. There were the sleeping times and the awake times. The sleeping times would run for a period of four or five days. Pauline would doze—she never really slept any longer—for twelve or fourteen hours at a stretch. Her face was constantly puffy; her movements languid. She barely ate at all during these episodes. At first, Camillo thought she was taking laudanum, but Sophie told him that it had been like this for months. The fatigue was so overwhelming that it trumped the pain; she needed very little laudanum until she came “awake” again. Then she would revive, sit up, demand to be carried downstairs, to be dressed, to have music or conversation. The daggers at the corners of her eyes would deepen every hour, but she refused the drug as long as she could. “I have slept enough for five people already,” she would say. Camillo’s chef learned that during the awake times he could tempt her to eat, especially if he made the dishes of her childhood: cod cheeks, or kid stewed in milk, or cheese-and-brandy tarts.
During the awake times, Camillo and Sophie would sit with her far into the night. She liked to talk, and Camillo and Sophie were her audience. Her favorite subject was Elba. She would describe in minute detail the balls she had given for Napoleon, the plays and musicales she had organized, the respectful behavior of all the French and British officers. Sometimes she would tease Sophie about her husband. Camillo thought this was cruel; the man was dead, after all. But Sophie didn’t seem to mind.
“Charles was a brute,” Pauline said one evening. “Sophie’s husband,” she said, in an aside, to Camillo.
“Yes, I know.” He frowned at her. But it was too late.
Sophie looked up from the letters she was sorting; Pauline was being deluged by sympathetic letters from former connections who had heard of her illness. And, thought Camillo cynically, who realized that she was childless, dying, and wealthy. “You only thought he was a brute because he didn’t speak French,” she said.
“You didn’t speak much English,” retorted Pauline.
The Princess of Nowhere Page 21
