Inevitable

by Louis Couperus

  “Really, prince … I can’t at such short notice …”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at him for a long time.

  “Shall I be very frank?”

  “Of course.”

  They had already passed the post office a number of times. The street was eerily quiet, and there were no pedestrians. He looked at her quizzically.

  “Well then,” she said, “we are in serious financial difficulties. At the moment we have nothing. I have lost my capital and the little I have earned from writing an article has gone. Duco works hard, but he is engaged on a largescale work and is earning nothing. He is expecting money in a few months. But at the moment we have nothing Nothing at all. That’s why I went down to a shop by the Tiber this morning to ask how much the dealer would give for a couple of antique paintings that Duco wants to sell. He is reluctant to part with them. But there’s no alternative. So you see that I cannot come. I would not like to leave him, and than I have no money for the journey or a decent wardrobe …”

  He looked at her. He had first been struck by her burgeoning beauty; he was now struck by the fact that her skirt was rather worn, her blouse was no longer fresh, although she was wearing a couple of roses in her belt.

  “Gesù mio!” he exclaimed. “And you tell me that so calmly, so serenely …”

  She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “What do you want me to do? Whine about it?”

  “But you are a woman … a woman worthy of respect!” he exclaimed. “How is Van der Staal coping with it?”

  “He’s a little depressed. He has never experienced financial problems. And it is stopping him from working with all his talent. But I hope I am some support to him in this unfortunate period. So you see, prince, that I cannot come to San Stefano.”

  “But why did you not write to us? Why did you not ask us for money?”

  “It is very sweet of you to say that, the idea never even occurred to us.”

  “Too proud?”

  “Too proud, yes.”

  “But what a situation! What can I do to help you? Can I give you a few hundred lire? I have a few hundred on me. And I shall tell Urania that I have given them to you.”

  “No, prince, thank you. I am very grateful, but I cannot accept.”

  “Not from me?”

  “No.”

  “Not from Urania?”

  “Not even from her.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to earn my money and cannot accept alms.”

  “A fine principle. But only for now.”

  “I shall stick to it.”

  “May I say something?”

  “What is it?”

  “I admire you. More than that. I love you.”

  She made a gesture with her hand and frowned.

  “Why can’t I say that to you? An Italian does not keep his love hidden inside. I love you. You are more beautiful and nobler and loftier than I could ever imagine a woman … Don’t be angry: I am not asking anything of you. I’m a bad lot but at the moment I really feel something inside that you see on our old family portraits. A chance remaining atom of chivalry. I ask nothing of you. I am just saying to you, on behalf of Urania too: you can always count on us. Urania will be angry that you did not write to her.”

  They went to the post office and she bought a few stamps.

  “There go my last few soldi,” she said with a laugh and showed her empty purse. “We needed them for some letters to an exhibition-organising committee in London. Will you walk me home?”

  She suddenly saw that there were tears in his eyes.

  “Accept two hundred lire from me!” he begged.

  She declined with a smile.

  “Are you eating at home?” he asked.

  She gave him a funny look.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He did not want to ask any more questions, for fear of offending her.

  “It would be very sweet of you,” he said, “if you would dine with me tonight. I’m bored. At present I have no close friends in Rome. Everyone is away. Not in the Grand-Hôtel, but in a cosy restaurant where they know me. I’ll call for you at seven o’clock. Be a darling, and do it! For my sake!”

  He could not hold back his tears.

  “I’d be delighted,” she said softly, with her smile.

  They stood in the doorway of the house on Via del Babuino, where the studio was. He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it fervently. Then he tipped his hat and left hurriedly. She slowly climbed the stairs, fighting back her emotion, before entering the studio.

  XXIX

  SHE FOUND DUCO lying listlessly on the sofa. He had a bad headache and she sat down beside him.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “The man was prepared to give eighty lire for the Memmi, he said: but he maintained that the triptych panel was not by Gentile da Fabriano; he remembered seeing the panel at your studio.”

  “The man’s talking nonsense,” he replied. “Or he’s trying to get my Gentile for nothing …Cornélie, I really can’t sell them.”

  “Alright Duco, then we’ll find some other way,” she said, putting her hand on his forehead that was contorted by his headache.

  “Perhaps a few smaller things, a few knick-knacks…” he groaned.

  “Perhaps…Shall I go back again this afternoon?”

  “No, no … I’ll go. But really, we can buy such things, but can never sell them.”

  “No Duco,” she admitted, laughing. “But yesterday I inquired what I could get for a couple of bracelets and I’ll sell them this afternoon. And then we’ll be able to manage for a month. But I wanted to tell you something. Do you know who I met?”

  “No.”

  “The prince.”

  He frowned.

  “I don’t like that blackguard,” he said.

  “I’ve told you before, Duco: I don’t think he’s a blackguard. And I don’t believe he is. He invited us to dinner tonight, very simply.”

  “No, I don’t feel like it …”

  She was silent. She got up, boiled water on a paraffin stove and made tea.

  “My dear Duco, I rather neglected lunch. A cup of tea and a sandwich is all I can offer you. Are you very hungry?”

  “No,” he said evasively.

  She hummed as she poured tea into an antique cup. She cut the bread and took him tea on the sofa. Then she sat next to him, also with a cup in her hand.

  “Cornélie, would it be better if we had lunch in the osteria …?”

  Laughing, she showed him her empty purse.

  “Here are the stamps,” she said.

  Disheartened, he flung himself on the cushions.

  “My lovely man,” she went on. “Don’t be so down. This afternoon I’ll have money again, from the bracelets. I should have sold them before. Really, Duco, it’s nothing. Why didn’t you work? It would have cheered you up.”

  “I wasn’t in the mood and I’ve got a headache …”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said,

  “The prince was angry that we hadn’t written to him for help. He wanted to give me two hundred lire …”

  “I hope you refused?” he said, furious.

  “Of course,” she said calmly. “He invited us to stay at San Stefano, where they are spending the summer. I refused that too.”

  “Why?”

  “I wouldn’t have any clothes … But you wouldn’t want to go anyway, would you?”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  She drew his head to her and stroked his forehead. A broad area of reflected afternoon light shone through the studio window from the blue sky outside and the studio seemed to be alive with dusty light, in which the silhouettes stood out with their immobile gestures and unchanging emotions. The relief embroidery on the chasubles and stoles, the purple and azure blues of Gentile’s triptych panel, the mystical luxuriance of Memmi’s angel in its robe of heavily creasing brocade, the golden lily stem in the fingers—were like a pil
ed treasure house of colour and shone in that reflected light like handfuls of jewels. On the easel was the watercolour of Banners, fine and noble. And as they sat there on the sofa, he with his head leaning against her, both of them drinking tea, they were harmoniously happy against that background of art. And it seemed incredible that they were worrying about a few hundred lire, since he was glowing within with a jewel-like colour, and her smile was like a sheen. But his eyes were discouraged and his hand hung limply.

  She went out for a little while that afternoon, but soon returned home, telling him that she had sold the bracelets and that he now need not worry. And she sang and moved cheerfully about the studio. She had bought some things: an almond cake, rusks, half a bottle of port. She had brought them home in a basket and sang as she unpacked them. Her liveliness roused him: he got up and suddenly positioned himself in front of Banners. He looked at the light and reckoned that he still had an hour left to work. A wave of delight rose in him as he surveyed the watercolour: there were lots of good, beautiful things in it. It had breath and delicacy; it was modern without the gimmicks of modernism: there was a thought in it and yet a purity of a line and grouping. And the colour had a calm distinction: purple and grey and white; violet and grey and white; dark, dusk, light; night, dawn, day. The day particularly, the day dawning up there on high, was full of a white, confident sun: a white certainty, in which the future became clear. But the streamers, flags and standards and banners were like a cloud, fanning out with heraldic pride over the ecstatic heads of the women fighters …He sought out his colours, sought out his brushes, and worked solidly until there was no light left. And he sat down beside her, happy, content. In the twilight they drank some of the port and ate some of the cake. He had an appetite, he said: he was hungry …

  At seven there was a knock at the door. He started, went to the door, and the prince came in. Duco’s forehead clouded, but the prince saw nothing in the darkening studio. Cornélie lit a lamp.

  “Scusi, prince,” she said. “I’m embarrassed to say that Duco doesn’t feel like going out—he’s been working and is tired—I had no one to take a message to you to say we could not accept your invitation.”

  “But you can’t be serious! I had so looked forward to seeing you both. What else am I to do with my evening …?”

  And with his torrent of words, his complaints of a spoiled child wanting its own way, he began to persuade the reluctant, stiff Duco. Duco finally got up, shrugged his shoulders, smiled pityingly, almost insultingly, but gave way. But he could not suppress his feeling of reluctance; his jealousy at the swift repartee of Cornélie and the prince was still intense, like a pain. In the restaurant he was silent at first. Still, he made an effort to join in the conversation, remembering what Cornélie had said to him on that momentous day in the osteria: that she loved him, Duco; that she looked up to him, that she did not even compare the prince with him; but … that he was not cheerful and witty … And feeling his superiority because of that memory, despite his jealousy he smiled and rather talked down to the prince and tolerated his charm and flirtatiousness, because it amused Cornélie, that quick wordplay and those snappy sentences succeeding each other like the dialogue in a French play.

  XXX

  THE NEXT DAY the prince was due to go to San Stefano and early in the morning Cornélie wrote him the following note:

  Dear Prince,

  I come to you with a request. Yesterday morning you were kind enough to offer me your help. At the time I felt able to refuse your friendly offer. But I hope that you will not find it terribly whimsical if today I turn to you to ask you to lend me what you were prepared to offer yesterday.

  Lend me two hundred lire. I hope to be able to return them to you as soon as possible. Of course you need not keep it secret from Urania, but do not let Duco know about it. Yesterday I tried to sell my bracelets, but only sold one, for very little. The goldsmith was offering too low a price, but I was forced to part with one for forty lire, as I hadn’t a sou! And now I am appealing to your friendship and asking you to put the two hundred lire in an envelope and allowing me to collect them PERSONALLY from the concierge. Please accept my sheerest thanks in advance.

  What an entertaining evening you provided us with yesterday. An hour or two of friendly chat over an excellent dinner does me the world of good. However happy I feel, our present situation with its money worries sometimes oppresses me, though I keep up appearances for Duco’s sake. Fretting about money disturbs his work and undermines his energy. That is why I talk to him as little as possible about it, and so ask you expressly to keep this small secret from him.

  CORNÉLIE DE RETZ

  When she went out later that morning she headed immediately for Palazzo Ruspoli.

  “Has his Highness already left?”

  The concierge bowed respectfully, familiarly.

  “An hour ago, signora. His Excellency left behind with me a letter and a package, to give to you if you should call. Allow me to fetch them …”

  He went and soon returned and handed Cornélie the package and letter. She went off down a side street of the Corso, opened the envelope and among a number of banknotes found a letter:

  My Dear Madam,

  I am so happy that you turned to me and I’m sure Urania will approve. I believe I am acting entirely in her spirit in sending you not two hundred, but a thousand lire, with the most humble request that you accept them and keep them for as long as you choose. Since I do not of course dare say: accept them as a gift. Still, I am bold enough to send you a souvenir. For when I read that you had felt obliged to sell your bracelet, the news pained me so terribly that without a second thought I dropped into Marchesini’s and as best I could chose a bracelet, which I beg you on my knees to accept. You must not refuse your friend this. Keep my bracelet secret from both Urania and Van der Staal.

  Once again accept my deepest thanks for deigning to accept my help and rest assured that I greatly appreciate this token of your favour.

  Your very humble servant,

  VIRGILIO DI F B

  Cornélie opened the package: in a velvet case she saw a bracelet in Etruscan style: a slim gold band set with pearls and sapphires.

  XXXI

  IN THE HEAT OF MAY the spacious studio, facing north, was cool, while the city outside was scorching. Duco and Cornélie did not go out before nightfall when they started thinking about going for dinner somewhere. Rome was quiet: Roman society was away, the tourists had gone. They saw no one and their days flowed past. He worked hard; Banners was finished: the two of them, arms around each other’s waists, her head on his shoulder, sat in front of it, with swelling, smiling pride in those final days before the watercolour was to be sent to the International Exhibition in Knightsbridge, London. There had never been such pure harmony in their feelings for each other, such a unity of like-mindedness as now when his great project was finished. He felt that he had never done such noble work, so sure and unhesitating, with such strength in himself and yet so tender, and he was grateful to her. He admitted to her that he would never have been able to work in this way if she had not shared his thoughts and feelings in the hours spent reflecting, the hours spent staring at the procession, the women’s theory that developed from the night that crumbled down in columns to the City of nothing but new whiteness and glowing glass buildings. His soul was at rest now that he had done such great and noble work. And both of them felt pride: pride in their lives, in their independence, in that work of lofty and distinguished art. In their happiness there was a large element of conceit and of looking down at people, the crowd, the world. Particularly for him. In her there was something quieter and more humble, though outwardly she showed herself as proud as he was. Her article on the Social Situation of the Divorced Woman had appeared as a pamphlet and had been a success. Her name was applauded among progressive women. But what she had done did not make her as proud as Duco’s art made her, and proud of him, and proud of their life and happiness.

  As she re
ad the reviews of her pamphlet in Dutch newspapers and magazines—often disagreeing with her, but never dismissive, and always acknowledging her authority to speak out on this matter—as she re-read her pamphlet, a doubt rose in her about her own conviction. She felt how difficult it is to be pure in fighting for a cause, the way those symbolic women, there in the watercolour, went into battle. She felt she had written fresh from her own suffering, her own experience, and solely from her own suffering and experience; she realised that she had generalised her own feeling about life and suffering, but without a deeper vision of the core of things; not out of pure conviction, but rather out of bitterness and anger; not from reflection, but from sad dreaming about her own fate: not out of love for women, but rather out of petty hate for society. And she remembered Duco’s original silence; his silent disapproval, his intuitive feeling that the source of her inspiration was not pure, but full of the bitterness and murkiness of her own experience. Now she respected that intuition; now she realised his true purity; now she felt him—because of his art—to be exalted, noble, without ulterior motives in his actions, creating beauty for its own sake. But she also felt that she had roused him to this. That was her pride and happiness and she loved him even more deeply. But she was humble about herself. She felt her womanly nature, which prevented her from going on fighting for the goal of Women. And again she thought of her upbringing, her husband, their short but unhappy married life … and she thought of the prince. She felt herself to be so many people, and would have liked to be one. She lurched from contradiction to contradiction and admitted to herself: she did not know herself. It created a dusky melancholy in the days of her happiness …

  The prince … Had she not asked him with only apparent pride not to tell Urania that she was living with Duco, because she would tell her herself? In fact she was afraid of Urania’s opinion … She was annoyed by the dishonesties of petty everyday life: she called the intersection of her line and those of other, petty people: petty everyday life. Why when she came to such an intersection did she feel as if by instinct that honesty was not always sensible? Where were her pride and self-confidence—not apparent, but real—the moment she was afraid of Urania’s criticism, the moment she feared that the criticism could harm her in some way? And why did she not mention Virgilio’s bracelet to Duco? She did not tell him about the thousand lire, since she knew that money matters oppressed him, and that he did not want to borrow from the prince. Because if he got to know of this he would not be able to work with his usual energy and gusto and concentration … As it was he had worked untroubled and her silence had been for a noble aim. But why did she not mention Gilio’s bracelet …?