Louis Couperus - Inevitable

She followed a lackey upstairs. The wide corridor was hung with family portraits. The door of the drawing-room was open. The prince came to meet her.

“Forgive me, your Highness,” she said calmly, putting out her hand: his eyes were as small as squeezed carbuncles, he was white with rage, but he controlled himself and pressed his lips briefly on the hand she proffered.

“Forgive me,” she continued. “I must speak to Miss Hope urgently …”

She entered the drawing-room; Urania was there, blushing, embarrassed.

“You understand,” smiled Cornélie, “I wouldn’t have dared disturb you, had it not been a matter of great importance. A matter between women … but important nonetheless!” she joked and the prince said something cloyingly gallant in reply. “May I speak to Miss Hope alone for a moment?”

The prince looked at her. He suspected antipathy, even enmity in her. But he bowed, with his cloying smile, and said that he would leave the ladies alone for a moment. He withdrew into another room.

“Cornélie, what’s wrong?” asked Urania hectically.

She grasped both of Cornélie’s hands and looked at her anxiously.

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Cornélie severely. “I’ve nothing to talk to you about. I just had a suspicion and was sure you wouldn’t keep your promise. I wanted to be certain whether you were here or not … Why did you come?”

Urania began crying.

“Stop crying!” whispered Cornélie unrelentingly. “For God’s sake stop crying. What you’ve done is as reckless as can be …”

“I know …” admitted Urania nervously, drying her tears.

“Why did you do it then?”

“I couldn’t help it.”

“Alone with him, here, in the evening …! A well-known good-for-nothing …”

“I know!”

“What do you see in him?”

“I love him …”

“You only want to marry him for his title. You’re compromising yourself for the sake of his title. What if he does not respect you as his wife-to-be this evening? What if he forces you to be his mistress?”

“Cornélie …. quiet …!”

“You’re a child, a reckless child. And your father lets you travel alone. To see ‘dear old Italy’ … You’re American, liberal, fine; you go boldly travelling round the world on your own: fine, but you’re not a woman yet, you’re a child!”

“Cornélie …”

“Come with me; say you’re going with me. For some urgent reason. Or no … best say nothing. Stay. But I’ll stay too …”

“Yes, you stay too …”

“We’ll call him.”

“Yes.”

Cornélie rang and a lackey appeared.

“Tell his Excellency that we are awaiting him.”

The man left. After a while the prince entered. He had never been treated like this in his own house. He was seething with rage, but remained extremely courteous and outwardly calm.

“Has the important matter been dealt with?” he asked with a hypocritical smile in his small eyes.

“Yes, thank you for your discretion in leaving us alone for a moment,” said Cornélie. “Now I have spoken to Miss Hope, I am reassured about her opinion … Oh, I expect you would like to know what we were talking about?!”

The prince raised his eyebrows. Cornélie had spoken coquettishly, wagging her finger, smiling, and the prince looked at her and suddenly saw that she was beautiful.

Not with the striking beauty and freshness of Urania Hope, with a more complex attractiveness: that of a married woman, divorced, but very young, that of a woman of the fin de siècle , with a touch of perversity in her deep grey eyes, operating beneath very long eyelashes, that of a woman with an exceptional grace in the fractured lines of her tired, languid, morbid charm: a woman who knew life, a woman who — he was sure of it — saw through him; who spoke to him — for whom she felt antipathy — coquettishly in order to please him, win him over, unconsciously, out of pure femininity. He saw her as beautiful and perverse, and he admired her, sensitive as he was to different types of women. He suddenly found her more beautiful and less banal than Urania, and much more distinguished, and not so naively susceptible to his title, something he found so absurd in Urania. He was suddenly at ease with her, his rage subsided: he enjoyed having two beautiful women with him instead of one, and he joked in return, said he was burning with curiosity, had listened at the door, but had unfortunately not caught anything … Cornélie laughed merrily, behaved coquettishly in return and looked at her watch. She mentioned leaving, but at the same time sat down, unbuttoned her coat and said to the prince:

“I’ve heard so much about your miniatures; now the opportunity presents itself: may I see them?”

The prince was willing, enchanted as he was by her eyes, her voice, on fire, aflame in a moment.

“But …” said Cornélie, “my escort is waiting outside at the gate. He did not want to come up, he does not know you … It is Mr Van der Staal …”

The prince smiled at her. He knew the rumours at Belloni. He had no doubt that there was a liaison between Van der Staal and signora De Retz. He knew that they cared nothing for convention. And he conceived a great liking for Cornélie.

“But I’ll have Mr Van der Staal invited up at once.”

“He’s waiting in the gateway,” said Cornélie. “He won’t want …”

“I’ll go myself,” said the prince, in a lively, helpful manner.

He went. The two ladies were left behind. Cornélie took off her coat, but kept her hat on, since her hair would be a mess. She looked in the mirror.

“Have you got your powder with you?” she asked Urania.

Urania took her ivory case out of her pocket and gave it to Cornélie. And while Cornélie quickly powdered her face, Urania looked at her friend, uncomprehending. She remembered the serious impression Cornélie had immediately made on her, making a study of Rome … later writing a pamphlet on the Women’s question and the Condition of the Divorced Woman … Then her warnings against Marriage and against the prince. And now she suddenly saw her as a charming, fickle woman, irresistibly attractive, more enchanting than really beautiful, full of coquetry in the depths of her grey eyes whose gleam moved up and down beneath the curling eyelashes, dressed simply in a dark silk blouse and linen skirt, but with such style and undeniable coquettishness, such distinction and yet a fragile line of charm, that she scarcely recognised her …

But the prince had come in and brought Duco with him, reluctant, nervous, not knowing what had happened, not understanding how Cornélie had acted. He saw her sitting there calmly, smiling and immediately explaining to him that the prince was to show her his miniatures.

Duco said frankly that he was not interested in miniatures. His angry tone led the prince to suspect he was jealous. And this suspicion spurred the prince on to woo Cornélie. And he acted as if he were showing the miniatures only to her, as if he were showing her his antique lace. She particularly admired the lace, and rubbed it with her delicate fingers. She asked him to tell them about his grandmothers, who had worn the lace. Had they had adventures? He told her of one that made her laugh heartily: he repeated a few anecdotes, spirited, catching fire under her gaze, and she laughed. In the atmosphere of that large drawing-room, the prince’s study — his desk stood there — with the candles lit, flowers arranged for Urania, a tingle of perverse merriment and airy joie de vivre was born. But only between Cornélie and the prince. Urania had fallen silent, and Duco did not say a word. Cornélie was a revelation to him too. He had never seen her like this — not at the Christmas ball, not at dinner, not in his studio, not on their excursions, or in their restaurant. Was she one woman, or ten?