XLIII
SHE WROTE REGULARLY to Urania, in Switzerland, to Ostend, and Urania always wrote back so sweetly and offered her help. But Cornélie invariably rejected it, frightened as she was of hurting Duco. She herself felt easier about it, especially now she realised that she was incapable of working. But she understood Duco’s attitude and respected it. Personally, though, she would have accepted, now her pride was wavering anyway, now her ideas were crumbling, too weak for the unremitting pressure of the daily grind. It was like a great finger brushing against a house of cards: every thing that had been built with care and pride, collapsed at the slightest touch. All that remained standing were her love and happiness, unshakeable amid the ruins. Oh, how she loved him, how simple and true their love was! How precious he was to her, for his softness, his even temper, as if his nervous tension served only to experience art with greater delicacy. She had a wonderful feeling that his calm was imperturbable, had been found for all time. Without that happiness they would never have been able to drag themselves through their difficult existence from day to day. As it was they did not feel the daily weight, as if they were pulling the load forward together, from one day to the next. As it was they felt the weight only occasionally, when the following day was completely dark and they did not know where they were dragging their burden of existence into the darkness of that future. But over and over again they won through: they loved each other too much to collapse under the load. Again and again they took heart: with a smile they supported each other’s strength.
September came, and October, and Urania wrote to say that they were returning to San Stefano and would stay for a month or two, before going to Nice for the winter. And one morning, unexpectedly, Urania came into the studio. She found Cornélie alone: Duco had gone to see an art dealer. They greeted each other warmly.
“I’m so happy to see you again!” chattered Urania cheerfully. “I’m happy to be back in Italy and to stay a little longer at San Stefano. And is everything as it was in your cosy studio? Are you happy? Oh, I needn’t ask …!”
And exuberant as a child she embraced Cornélie, never finding it in her heart to disapprove of her friend’s over-free lifestyle, especially not now, after her own summer in Ostend … They sat side by side on the sofa, Cornélie in her old
peignoir, which she wore with her own unique grace, and the young princess in her light-grey tailored suit that clung fashionably to her shape, its heavy silk lining rustling, with her silver sequined hat with black feathers, her jewelled fingers, playing with a very long watch chain that she wore round her neck: the very latest fashion. Cornélie was able to admire without jealousy and she made Urania stand up and twirl round in front of her, and loved the cut of her skirt; she said that her hat looked absolutely charming on her and studied the chain closely. And she became absorbed in talk of chiffons; Urania described the outfits worn in Ostend … and Urania admired Cornélie’s old peignoir. Cornélie laughed. “Particularly after Ostend, I suppose?” she joked. But Urania was serious and meant it: Cornélie wore it with such style! And, changing the subject, she said she wished to speak very seriously. That she knew of something that might suit Cornélie, since Cornélie never wanted to accept her help. In Ostend she had met an elderly American lady, Mrs Uxeley, quite a character. She was ninety and spent her winters in Nice. She was wealthy: a petrol-empire fortune. She was ninety, but still acted as if she were forty-five. She went out, appeared in society, flirted. People laughed at her, but accepted her, for the sake of her money and her magnificent parties. In Nice the whole cosmopolitan colony came to her place. Urania took out an Ostend casino magazine and read out a news item about a ball in Ostend in which Mrs Uxeley was called ‘la femme la plus élégante d’Ostende’. The journalist had received a certain sum for this, the whole world laughed and enjoyed itself. Mrs Uxeley was a caricature, but with enough tact to be taken seriously. Well, Mrs Uxeley was looking for someone. She always had a companion with her, a young woman, and there had been an endless succession of such ladies. She had had cousins with her, distant cousins, very distant cousins and total strangers. She was difficult, capricious, impossible: it was common knowledge. Would Cornélie like to try? Urania had already raised it with Mrs Uxeley and recommended her friend. Cornélie did not find the prospect very appealing, but it was worth thinking about. Mrs Uxeley’s companion was staying on till November, when ‘the old thing’ returned to Nice via Paris. And in Nice they, Cornélie and Urania, would see a lot of each other. But Cornélie was appalled by the thought of leaving Duco. She thought it would never be possible, they were so accustomed to each other. Financially it would be an ideal solution — an easy life that appealed to her after the blow to her moral pride — but she could not think of leaving Duco. And what would Duco do in Nice! No, she simply couldn’t: she would stay with him … She felt a reluctance to go, as if a hand were restraining her. She told Urania to put off the old lady, tell her to look for someone else. She couldn’t do it. What good was such a life — dependent but financially independent, without Duco! And when Urania had gone — she was continuing on to San Stefano — Cornélie was glad that she had immediately refused this stupid, easy, dependent life of lady’s companion to a rich old battleaxe. She looked round the studio. She loved its beautiful colours, its noble old objects, and behind that curtain her bed and behind that screen her paraffin stove, which served as a kitchen. With its bohemian mix of precious knick-knacks and very primitive comforts, it had become indispensable to her, her home. And when Duco came home, and she put her arms round him, she told him about Urania and Mrs Uxeley, happy to nestle against him. He had sold some watercolours. There was absolutely no reason to leave him. He did not want her to, either, he would never want it. And they held each other tight, as if they could feel something that might separate them, an inexorable necessity, as if hands were floating around them, pushing, guiding, restraining and defending, a battle of hands, like a cloud around the two of them; hands trying to sunder violently their glistening lifeline, their merged lifeline, though too narrow for both their feet, and the hands would wrest them apart, making the single great line spiral apart into two. They said nothing: in each other’s arms they looked at life, shuddered at the hands, felt the approach of that pressure, already piling up more densely around them. But they felt each other’s warmth: in their close embrace they hugged their little happiness, hid it between them, so that the hands could not point to it, touch it, push it …