The prince, happy and hectic, talked a lot, pointed here, pointed there with his whip, smacked his lips at the horses, asked Cornélie things, whether she liked the area … The horses, flexing their muscular hind legs, slowly made headway. The castle, massive and monumental, extended in front of them. The lake dropped from sight. The horizons became wider, like a world; the hint of a breeze blew away something of the scent of orange blossom. The road became wide, easily negotiable, level. The castle extended like a fort, like a town, behind its turreted walls with gate after gate. They drove in, across a courtyard, under an arch into a second courtyard, and through a second arch into a third. Cornélie was enveloped by a sense of awe, a vision of columns, arches, statues, arcades and fountains. They alighted.
Urania came to meet her, embraced her, welcomed her warmly and led her up the stairs and down the corridor to her room. The windows were open; she looked out at the lake, the town and the cathedral. Again Urania kissed her and sat her down. And it struck Cornélie that Urania had become thin and no longer had her former dazzling young American girlish beauty, with that unconscious element of coquettishness in her eyes, her smile, her clothing. She had changed. She had lost a little weight, and was not as striking as before, as if her beauty had been a short-lived manifestation, more to do with freshness than with line. But if she had lost her sheen she had gained a certain distinction, a certain style: something that surprised Cornélie. Her gestures were calmer, her voice softer, her mouth seemed smaller and was not constantly opening to reveal white teeth; her outfit was the essence of simplicity: a blue skirt and a white blouse. Cornélie found it difficult to comprehend that the young Princess di Forte-Braccio, Duchess of San Stefano, was Miss Urania Hope from Chicago. A melancholy had descended on her that was very flattering, even though she was less beautiful. And Cornélie felt that there was some unhappiness that tempered her and gave her more depth, but that she also fitted tactfully into her new surroundings. She asked Urania if she was happy. Urania said yes, with her melancholy smile that was so new and surprising. And she talked about herself. They had had a pleasant winter in Nice. But with a cosmopolitan group of friends, because although her new family was very kind, they were very condescending and Virgilio’s friends — especially the women — excluded her almost insultingly. She had realised even at her wedding that the aristocracy would tolerate her, but that people would never forget that she was the daughter of Hope, the stocking-manufacturer from Chicago. She had seen that she was not the only one who even though she was now a princess was tolerated and tolerated only for her millions: there were others like her. She had not made friends. People had come to her at homes and balls: everyone was the best of friends and thick as thieves with Gilio; the ladies called him by his first name, laughed with him, flirted with him and seemed to think it a very good idea that he had married several millions … With Urania they were barely, brusquely polite. The women particularly, the gentlemen were easier-going. But it hurt her, particularly when those high-ranking aristocratic women — all the famous names in Italy — treated her with condescension, and always managed to exclude her from all intimacy, every intimate gathering, every intimate collaboration on parties for charity. Once everything had been discussed, they would ask the Princess di Forte-Braccio to join in, and offered her the place she deserved, with scrupulous exactness indeed. They treated her clearly as a princess and equal in the eyes of the world, the public. But in their own coterie she remained Urania Hope. And the few other bourgeois millionaire elements came to call, of course, but she kept them at bay and Gilio approved. And what had Gilio said when she had complained of her plight to him? That with tact she would certainly win a position for herself, but with great patience and after many, many years. Now she cried, with her head on Cornélie’s shoulder: oh, she thought, she would never win, with all those proud women! And anyway what was she, a Hope, compared to all those famous families who together created Italy’s ancient glory and who, like the Massimos, claimed a pedigree that went back to the Romans?
Was Gilio good to her? Certainly, but he had immediately treated her as “his wife”. All his charm, all his jollity was for others: he never talked much to her. And the young princess wept: she felt lonely, and was sometimes homesick for America. She had invited her brother to stay with her, a nice lad of seventeen, who had come over for her wedding and had travelled through Europe, before leaving for his farm out West. He was her favourite, and he consoled her, but he would be going in a few weeks’ time. What would she have left then? Oh, how glad she was that Cornélie had come! And how well she looked, more beautiful than she had ever seen her! Van der Staal had accepted: he would be coming in a week. She asked in a whisper whether they were considering getting married. Cornélie was adamant that they would not; she would not marry, she would never marry again. And suddenly, with complete honesty, not being able to dissemble with Urania, she announced that she was no longer living at Via dei Serpenti, but in Duco’s studio. Urania was shocked by that break with convention, but she regarded her friend as a woman who could do things that others could not. So just their happiness and love, she whispered as if afraid, without social sanction? Urania remembered Cornélie’s imprecations against marriage and before that, against the prince. But surely she liked Gilio a little now? Oh, she, Urania, would no longer be jealous. She thought it was marvellous that Cornélie had come, and Gilio too, who was bored, had also greatly looked forward to seeing her. Oh no, Urania was no longer jealous …
And with her head on Cornélie’s shoulder, and her eyes still full of tears, she seemed to be asking only for a little friendship, a little kindness, a few words of affection and cherishing, the rich American child, who now bore the name of an ancient Italian dynasty. And Cornélie felt for her, because she was suffering, because she was only a small human being whose lifeline happened to cross hers. She wrapped her arms round her, she comforted her — the weeping princess — as if with a new friendship: she took her into her life as a friend, no longer as a little person. And when Urania, with a wide stare, recalled Cornélie’s warning, Cornélie interrupted her, and said that she, Urania, must have more courage. She had tact, innate tact. But she must be brave, must face up to life …
They got up, and at the open window, arms round each other, they looked out. The bells of the cathedral pealed through the air; the cathedral rose noble and proud above the low writhing mass of roofs, a gigantic cathedral for such a little town: an immense symbol of the power of spiritual authorities over the reverently kneeling town of roofs. And the awe that had filled Cornélie in the courtyard, among the arcades, statues and fountains, filled her again, because a fame and grandeur, dying, yet not dead, in decay but not yet consumed, seemed to rise in dusky shadows from the blue of the lake, from the centuries-old structure of the cathedral, along the orange-covered hills to the castle, where a foreign young woman stood and felt disheartened, but whose millions were required by this shadow of greatness in order to survive for a few more generations …