boarding-house frequented by many
monsignori
and where there was a spiritual atmosphere. Her disappearance gave something forced to the conversation between Rudyard, the German ladies and Cornélie and the latter, during a week that the baroness spent in Naples, changed her place and joined her compatriots at table. The Rothkirchs also changed—because of the draught, as the baroness assured the management; new guests took their places: and among those new elements Urania was left alone at table with Rudyard for lunch and dinner. Cornélie blamed herself and on one occasion had a serious talk with the American girl and warned her. But she did not dare tell her what she had overheard at the ball, and her warning made no impression on Urania. And when Rudyard had obtained the privilege of a private audience with the Pope for Miss Hope, Urania refused to hear another bad word saidabout Rudyard and found him the kindest man she had ever met, Jesuit or not.
But a pall of mystery continued to cloak Rudyard in the hotel, and people could not agree whether he was a jesuit or even whether he was a priest or a layman.
XI
“W HAT DO YOU CARE about those strange people?” he asked.
They were sitting in his studio, Mrs Van der Staal, Cornélie and the girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie poured tea and they talked about Miss Taylor and Urania.
“I’m a stranger to you too!” replied Cornélie.
“You’re not a stranger to me, to us … But I couldn’t care less about Miss Taylor or Urania. Hundreds of ghosts haunt our lives: I don’t see them and feel nothing for them …”
“And aren’t I a ghost?”
“I’ve talked to you too much in Borghese and on the Palatine to think you a ghost.”
“Rudyard is a dangerous ghost,” said Annie.
“He has no hold over us,” replied Duco.
Mrs Van der Staal looked at Cornélie. She understood the look and said, with a laugh,
“No, he has no hold over me either … Yet, if I had had need of religion—I mean church religion—I’d rather be Roman Catholic than Calvinist. But now …”
She did not finish her sentence. She felt safe in this studio, in this soft, multi-coloured swirl of beautiful objects, in their sympathetic presence: she felt in harmony with all of them: with the charming and worldly air of the rather superficial mother and her two beautiful girls: a little doll-like and vaguely cosmopolitan, quite vain aboutyoung marquesses with whom they danced and cycled, and with the son, the brother, so completely different from the three women and yet visibly related in a movement, a gesture, the occasional word. It also struck Cornélie that they accepted each other lovingly as they were; Duco his mother and sister with their stories about the Princesses Golonna and Odescalchi; Mrs Van der Staal and the girls, him, with his old jacket and dishevelled hair. And when he began talking, especially talking about Rome, when he put his dream into words, in words that were almost fit for a book, but which flowed so gradually and naturally from his lips, Cornélie felt harmonious, felt safe, interested, and lost a little of the urge to contradict that his artistic indolence sometimes awakened in her. And apart from that his indolence suddenly seemed to her only apparent, and perhaps affectation, since he showed her sketches, watercolours, none of them finished, but each watercolour vibrant with light, especially with light, with the light of all Italy: the pearly sunsets across the fluid emerald of Venice; Florence’s towers drawn with dreamy vagueness in tender rose-coloured skies; fortress-like Siena blue-black in bluish moonlight; orange sunflares behind St Peter’s, and especially the ruins and in every light: the Forum in fierce sunlight, the Palatine in the evening twilight, the Colosseum mysterious in the night, and then the Campagna: the dream skies and hazy light of the cheerful and sad Campagna, with soft pink mauves, dewy blues, dusky violet, of the brash ochres of
monsignori
and where there was a spiritual atmosphere. Her disappearance gave something forced to the conversation between Rudyard, the German ladies and Cornélie and the latter, during a week that the baroness spent in Naples, changed her place and joined her compatriots at table. The Rothkirchs also changed—because of the draught, as the baroness assured the management; new guests took their places: and among those new elements Urania was left alone at table with Rudyard for lunch and dinner. Cornélie blamed herself and on one occasion had a serious talk with the American girl and warned her. But she did not dare tell her what she had overheard at the ball, and her warning made no impression on Urania. And when Rudyard had obtained the privilege of a private audience with the Pope for Miss Hope, Urania refused to hear another bad word saidabout Rudyard and found him the kindest man she had ever met, Jesuit or not.
But a pall of mystery continued to cloak Rudyard in the hotel, and people could not agree whether he was a jesuit or even whether he was a priest or a layman.
XI
“W HAT DO YOU CARE about those strange people?” he asked.
They were sitting in his studio, Mrs Van der Staal, Cornélie and the girls, Annie and Emilie. Annie poured tea and they talked about Miss Taylor and Urania.
“I’m a stranger to you too!” replied Cornélie.
“You’re not a stranger to me, to us … But I couldn’t care less about Miss Taylor or Urania. Hundreds of ghosts haunt our lives: I don’t see them and feel nothing for them …”
“And aren’t I a ghost?”
“I’ve talked to you too much in Borghese and on the Palatine to think you a ghost.”
“Rudyard is a dangerous ghost,” said Annie.
“He has no hold over us,” replied Duco.
Mrs Van der Staal looked at Cornélie. She understood the look and said, with a laugh,
“No, he has no hold over me either … Yet, if I had had need of religion—I mean church religion—I’d rather be Roman Catholic than Calvinist. But now …”
She did not finish her sentence. She felt safe in this studio, in this soft, multi-coloured swirl of beautiful objects, in their sympathetic presence: she felt in harmony with all of them: with the charming and worldly air of the rather superficial mother and her two beautiful girls: a little doll-like and vaguely cosmopolitan, quite vain aboutyoung marquesses with whom they danced and cycled, and with the son, the brother, so completely different from the three women and yet visibly related in a movement, a gesture, the occasional word. It also struck Cornélie that they accepted each other lovingly as they were; Duco his mother and sister with their stories about the Princesses Golonna and Odescalchi; Mrs Van der Staal and the girls, him, with his old jacket and dishevelled hair. And when he began talking, especially talking about Rome, when he put his dream into words, in words that were almost fit for a book, but which flowed so gradually and naturally from his lips, Cornélie felt harmonious, felt safe, interested, and lost a little of the urge to contradict that his artistic indolence sometimes awakened in her. And apart from that his indolence suddenly seemed to her only apparent, and perhaps affectation, since he showed her sketches, watercolours, none of them finished, but each watercolour vibrant with light, especially with light, with the light of all Italy: the pearly sunsets across the fluid emerald of Venice; Florence’s towers drawn with dreamy vagueness in tender rose-coloured skies; fortress-like Siena blue-black in bluish moonlight; orange sunflares behind St Peter’s, and especially the ruins and in every light: the Forum in fierce sunlight, the Palatine in the evening twilight, the Colosseum mysterious in the night, and then the Campagna: the dream skies and hazy light of the cheerful and sad Campagna, with soft pink mauves, dewy blues, dusky violet, of the brash ochres of
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