She sat next to him on a sofa, staring outside, where in the square frame of the tall window, the slender bell tower rose like a marble lily among the harmonious interplay of the domes of the Duomo and the Baptistery, while to the side the Palazzo Vecchio, a crenellated fortress, sat massively among a swirl of streets and roofs, raising its tower spire that suddenly spread out at a high level. Beyond it the hills of Fiesole, hazy in evening violet. The noble, graceful city glowed dull golden bronze in the last rays of sunshine.
“We must get married as soon as possible?” she repeated hesitantly, questioningly.
“Yes, as soon as possible, my darling …”
“But Duco, my dear Duco, it’s less possible now than ever. Can’t you see that it’s impossible, impossible … It might have been possible, before, months ago, a year ago … Perhaps … perhaps not even then, perhaps it could never have been possible. It’s so difficult to say this. But it’s really not possible now …”
“Don’t you love me enough?”
“How can you ask … How can you ask, my darling? But it’s not that … It’s … It’s … it’s impossible, because I’m not free …”
“Not free …”
“I’m not free … Perhaps I’ll feel free later … Perhaps not, perhaps never … My dear Duco, I can’t. I wrote to you about it, didn’t I, that first meeting at the ball … It was so strange … Despite everything I felt that …”
“That what …”
She took his hand and stroked it, her eyes vague, her words vague.
“You see … despite everything he was my husband.”
“But you are separated, completely, divorced!”
“Divorced, yes. But that’s not the point …”
“But what is it then, my love …?”
She shook her head and buried her face in his chest.
“I can’t say, Duco …”
“Why not?”
“I’m ashamed …”
“Tell me, are you still in love with him?”
“No, it’s not love. I love you.”
“But what is it then, my love! Why are you ashamed?”
She began crying as she held him.
“I feel …”
“What …”
“That I’m not free, even though … I’m divorced. Despite everything I feel like his wife.”
She whispered almost inaudibly.
“But then you love him, and more than me.”
“No, I swear to you I don’t!”
“But how is that possible then, my love!”
“It’s possible.”
“No, it’s not possible! It’s impossible!”
“It’s possible. It’s a fact. And he told me … and I felt it…”
“He’s hypnotising you!”
“No, it’s not hypnosis. It’s not intoxication … it’s a reality, deep inside me. You see … you know me: you know what I’m like … I love only you. That’s the only love. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’m not a woman who’s susceptible to … who’s hysterical. But with him … Not one man, no one I have ever met provokes that feeling in me, the feeling that I’m not myself. That I belong to him. That I’m his property, his chattel.”
She threw her arms round him, and hid like a child in his arms.
“It’s so strange … You know me, don’t you … I can be brave, can’t I? And I’m independent, and I’m never lost for words. With him I know nothing, I am nothing anymore. And I do as he says …”
“That’s hypnosis: you can break free of that if you truly want to. I’ll help you …”
“It’s not hypnosis. It’s a truth, deep inside me. It lives deep within me. I know that that’s how it is, that it cannot be otherwise … Duco, it’s impossible. I can’t be your wife. I have no right to be your wife. Now less than ever. Perhaps …”
“Perhaps?”
“… I’ve always felt this, unconsciously. That I did not have the right. Not for you … or for myself … or for him … Perhaps that was what I felt unconsciously while I was spouting my slogans: my antipathy to marriage.”
“But surely that antipathy stemmed from your marriage … to him!”
“Yes. That’s the strange thing. I don’t like him … and yet …”
“And yet you’re in love with him!!”
“And yet I belong to him …”
“And you say you love me!!”
She took his head in her hands.
“Try to understand. It’ll make me so tired if you don’t understand. I love you … But I’m his wife …”
“Are you forgetting what you were for me, in Rome?”
“Your everything, love, happiness, deep happiness … Such deep harmony: I shall never forget it … But I wasn’t your wife.”
“Not my wife!!”
“I was your mistress … I was unfaithful to him … Don’t push me away! Have pity!”
Without realising, he had made a gesture that alarmed her.
“Let me stay like this, close to you like this … May I …? I’m so tired, and I feel calm lying against you like this, my darling. My darling, my darling … it will never be like it was. What are we to do!”
“I don’t know,” he said despairingly. “I wanted to marry you, as soon as possible. You don’t want to.”
“I can’t. I haven’t the right.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“Don’t be angry. Don’t leave me alone! Help me, please! I love you, I love you, I love you!”
She suddenly gave herself fully as if in helplessness and despair. And he returned her kisses passionately …
“Oh God, tell me what I’m to do!” she prayed helplessly in his embrace.
LIII
THE FOLLOWING DAY as Cornélie walked through Florence with Duco and they entered the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, viewed the Loggia dei Lanzi and stopped by the Uffizi to see Memmi’s Annunciation, at his side she seemed to feel the perceptions of the past bursting irresistibly into flower. It was as though their lifelines, which had sprung apart, had through human force bent back together into a single path, and along that path the white poppies and white lilies sprang up with a tender, gently mystical recognition, almost like a dream. And yet it was slightly different from what had been. The pressure of a grey cloud seemed to hang between her and the deep-blue sky that stretched like strips of ether, swathes of lofty trembling air above the narrow streets, above the domes and towers and spires. She had lost her former fretfulness; she was filled with a sense of remembrance, a heavy brooding in her head, and anxiety about what was to happen. She had a kind of sultry, stormy premonition, and after they had had a bite to eat after their walk, she dragged herself up the steps, wearier than she had ever felt in Rome, to Duco’s room. And she suddenly saw a letter lying on the table, addressed to her! But what an address! It was such a violent shock that she began to tremble all over, and stuffed the letter into her pocket even before Duco had entered the room behind her … She took off her hat and told Duco that she needed something from her suitcase, which was out in the hall. He asked if she needed his help. But she refused and went out of the room into the narrow hall. By the small window that looked out over the Arno, she took out the letter … It was the only place where she could read undisturbed for a moment. And again she read that address, in his handwriting, which she knew, big, broad, heavy characters … The name that she used abroad was her maiden name, and she called herself Madame De Retz van Loo. But on this letter she was abruptly addressed as: Baronne Brox, 37 Lung’ Arno Torrignani, Florence. She blushed deeply. She had borne that name for a year … But why did he call her that now? What was the logic of that title, which in law she no longer bore? What did he mean, what did he want …? And at the small window she read his short but imperious letter. He wrote to say that he took great exception to her flight, particularly since their last conversation. He wrote that in that last conversation she had ceded all rights over herself to him, that she had not contradicted him and she had shown with her kiss and her embrace that she considered herself his wife, in the same way as he considered her his wife. He wrote to say that he would not hold the independent life that she had lived for a year in Rome against her, as at that time she had still been free. But that he was insulted that she still considered herself free now, and that he would not accept the insult of her flight. That he commanded her to return. That he had no right in law to do so, but that he was doing so because he did nonetheless have a right, a right she could not deny and had not denied, but on the contrary had acknowledged with her kiss. He had been given her address by the concierge of the Villa Uxeley, with whom she had left it. And he ended by telling her again that she must return to Nice, to him, at the Hôtel Continental. That if she did not he would come to Florence and she would be responsible for the consequences of her refusal. Her knees were knocking: she was on the verge of collapse. Should she show the letter to Duco, or hush it up …? But she had to decide. He called out from the room, to ask what was taking her so long, in the hall. And she went in and was too weak not to throw herself into his arms. She showed him the letter. Leaning against him sobbing, she felt his rage and fury rising, she saw the swelling of the veins in his temples, his fists clenching, until he had screwed the letter into a ball and thrown it on the ground. He told her not to be afraid; he said he would protect her. He too regarded her as his wife. The only thing that mattered was how she saw herself from now on. She said nothing, just went on sobbing, broken as she was with exhaustion, alarm, headache. She got undressed, and went to bed: her teeth were chattering with fever. He darkened the room a little by drawing the curtains and told her to go to sleep. His voice was angry and she thought he was angry at her dithering. She sobbed herself to sleep. But in her sleep she felt the terror in herself and the inexorable pressure. As she slept she dreamt of what she might reply, if she wrote to Brox. But she was not clear what; she got no further than a vague plea for mercy. When she woke, she saw Duco near her bed. She took his hand and there was calmness in her. But she had no hope. She had no confidence in the days to come … She looked at him, and saw his gloom, the way he was locked in himself, as she had never seen him … Oh, their happiness was over! That fateful day when he had seen her off at the station in Rome, they had said farewell to their happiness. Gone, gone! Gone the sweet walks through ruins and museums, the trips to Frascati, Naples, Amalfi! Gone the dear sweet intimacy of their poverty in the big studio, amid the flickering colours of the old brocades and chasubles, the old silvers and bronzes! Gone their peering together at the watercolour Banners, she with her head on his shoulder, in his arms, living his art together with him, enjoying his work with him! Gone the ecstasy of the night in the pergola, in the star-sprinkled night, the sacred lake at their feet! There was no more repeating life! They were trying in vain to repeat it here in this room, in Florence, in the Palazzo, in vain even for Memmi’s holy angel, shooting its golden ray! They were repeating their life, their happiness, their love in vain; in vain they had forced together the lifelines that had sprung apart! They were still circling each other for a while, in a single despairing arabesque … It was gone, gone …! He sat gloomy and severe beside her bed, and she knew, he felt powerless, because she did not feel herself his wife. His mistress …! Oh, she had felt that involuntary rejection when she had spoken that word. Hadn’t he wanted to marry her all along? But unconsciously she had always felt that it was impossible, that she had no right. Beneath the proliferation of acerbic slogans in her feminist phase that had been the unconscious truth. She, while inveighing against marriage, had deep down always felt married. Not according to the law or a signature, but according to an ancient law, a primeval right of man over woman, a law and a right of blood and flesh and deepest marrow! Oh, above that immovable physical truth her soul had blossomed with white poppies and lilies, and that blossoming too was the innermost truth, the exalted truth of happiness and love. But the poppies and lilies faded: the soul blossoms for only a single summer. The soul does not blossom for a lifetime. It may blossom before life, or it may blossom after life, but in life the soul blossoms for only a single summer! She had blossomed, and it was over! And in her body, which was alive, in her body that survived, she felt the truth in her very marrow! He sat beside her bed, but he had no right, now the lilies had faded. She was devastated with pity for him … She took his hand and kissed it tenderly and sobbed over it. He said nothing. He could think of nothing to say. It would all have been simple, if she had wanted to become his wife. As it was he could not help her. As it was he could see his happiness headed for destruction, and he stood and watched: there was nothing to be done. Like a crumbling ruin it was slowly collapsing … It was over! It was over!