He said nothing of this to her. She noticed his silence, and did not see how much was going on inside him, how deeply he was thinking about her, how deeply he pitied her. She thought she had bored him. And suddenly, she saw around her the bare room with the light fading, the fire extinguished, and her enthusiasm deflated, her fever cooled, and she thought her pamphlet inferior, without force or conviction. How much a word from him would have meant! But he sat there without a word, seemingly uninterested: probably he did not like her style. And she felt sad, desolate, alone, alienated from him, and bitter about that alienation, she felt ready to cry, to sob, and — strangely — in her bitterness she thought of him, her husband, with his handsome face. And she could not stop herself: she wept. He went up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder. She felt something of what was going on inside him, and that his silence was not cold. She told him that she would not be able to stay alone that evening, too awful, too awful … He comforted her; said that there were a lot of good and true things in her pamphlet, that he was not a good judge of such modern questions; that he was only clever when talking about Italy; that he cared so little for people and so much for statues; so little for the new things that were being built for centuries to come, and so much for the ruins that remained of previous centuries. He said this as if apologising. She smiled through her tears, but repeated that she could not stay alone, and that she was going with him to Belloni, to his mother and sisters. And they went out together and walked around together; and he told her, in order to take her mind off things, about his own thoughts, told her anecdotes about Renaissance masters. She did not hear what he was saying, but his voice soothed her. The was something so gentle about his indifference to the modern, which interested her: he had such calm, soothing as balm, in the calm of his soul, which abandoned itself to the golden thread of his dreams — as if that thread were the direction of his life — such calm and softness, that she too became calmer, and looked up at him and smiled.
And however far they were from each other, he following his dream line, she lost in a dark labyrinth — they felt themselves coming closer together, felt their souls coming closer, while their bodies moved side by side along a real street, across Rome in the evening. He put his arm through hers, but despite that gesture supported her.
And as they approached Belloni, she thanked him, without knowing exactly why: for his eyes, for his voice, for their walk, for the comfort that she felt inexplicably, but distinctly emanating from him, and she was glad to have to have gone with him that evening, and to feel the distraction of Belloni’s set dinner around her.
But at night, alone, alone in her bleak rooms, her wretchedness washed over her like a black sea, and looking out at the Colosseum — a dimly discernible arch in the dark night — she sobbed, feeling herself sinking into death-like depths, being washed away, abandoned and alone, sinking and being washed away so high above Rome, above the rooftops, above the dim lights of the nocturnal city, under the clouds of the dark night, as if drifting like a shipwrecked mariner on an ocean that was drowning the whole world and was roaring in lament at the inexorable sky.
XIV
STILL A CALM CAME OVER CORNÉLIE now that her pamphlet was written. She unpacked her cases, made her rooms a little more comfortable and, feeling calmer, she copied out the pamphlet and as she did so improved her style, and even her ideas. After she had worked in the morning, she usually lunched in a little osteria and almost always met Duco van der Staal there, and ate with him at the same table. Usually she dined at Belloni, with the Van der Staals, as a distraction for the evening. At first the marchesa had not acknowledged her, though she tolerated her for dinner at three lire an evening, and slowly she began saying hello to Cornélie, with a bitter-sweet smile, having meanwhile re-let the two rooms on more favourable terms. And Cornélie, in her calmer mood, enjoyed dressing up in the evenings, going to Belloni, seeing Mrs Van der Staal and the girls, hearing stories about the drawing-rooms of Rome, and running her eye over the long tables. And she saw that the guests were different ones, as in a kaleidoscope of transient people. Rudyard had disappeared, owing the marchesa money, no one knew where. The Rothkirchs had gone to Greece, but Urania Hope was still there and sat next to the Marchesa Belloni and with on her other side the nephew, the Prince of Forte-Braccio, Duke of San Stefano, who dined regularly at Belloni. And Cornélie saw that it was like a conspiracy: the marchesa and the prince beleaguering the vain little American from both sides. On a later occasion Cornélie saw two monsignori sitting at the marchesa’s table in animated conversation with Urania, while the marchesa and the prince nodded in agreement. All the guests were talking about it, all eyes were looking in that direction, everyone spied on the manoeuvring and enjoyed the romance.
Only Cornélie was not amused; she had wanted to warn Urania about the marchesa, the prince and the monsignori who had taken Rudyard’s place, but especially about Marriage, even to a prince-duke. And becoming excited she talked to Mrs Van der Staal and the girls, repeating the words of her pamphlet, glowing, bright red with her young hatred against society and the world and people.
Dinner had ended; still talking animatedly she accompanied the Van der Staals — Mrs Van der Staal and the girls and Duco — to the drawing-room, sat down in a corner, continued her conversation, burst out at Mrs Van der Staal, who contradicted her, until she suddenly saw a fat lady — the girls had already nicknamed her the satin frigate — approaching and saying from a distance,
“I beg your pardon, but I wanted to say something … Look, I’ve been coming regularly to Belloni every winter for ten years, from November to Easter, and every evening after dinner — but only after dinner — I sit in this corner, at this table, in this place. So please excuse me, but would you mind if I sat in my usual place …”
And the ‘satin frigate’ smiled sweetly, but when the Van der Staals and Cornélie got up in speechless amazement, she flopped on to the couch with a rustle of satin, bobbed up and down on the springs for a moment, put her crochet work on the table as if planting an English flag on a colony, and said with her most charming smile: