The Inevitable. Louis Couperus

      “You must have your way!” the marchesa exclaimed, suddenly, in her sweetest voice, a voice of graceful surrender. “You shall have the rooms for twelve lire. Don’t let us discuss it any more. The rooms are yours. You are Dutch, are you not? We have a Dutch family staying here: a mother with two daughters and a son. Would you like to sit next to them at table?”

      “No, I’d rather you put me somewhere else; I don’t care for my fellow-countrymen when travelling.”

      The marchesa left Cornélie to herself. She looked out of the window, absent-mindedly, glad to be in Rome, yet faintly conscious of the something unhappy and unknown that was going to happen. There was a tap at her door; the men carried in her luggage. She saw that it was eleven o’clock and began to unpack. One of her rooms was a small sitting-room, like a bird-cage in the air, looking out over Rome. She altered the position of the furniture, draped the faded sofa with a shawl from the Abruzzi and fixed a few portraits and photographs with drawing-pins to the wall, whose white-washed surface was broken up by rudely-painted arabesques. And she smiled at the border of purple hearts transfixed by arrows, which surrounded the decorated panels of the wall.

      After an hour’s work her sitting-room was settled: she had a home of her own, with a few of her own shawls and rugs, a screen here, a little table there, cushions on the sofa, books within easy reach. When she had finished and had sat down and looked around her, she suddenly felt very lonely. She began to think of the Hague and of what she had left behind her. But she did not want to think and picked up her Baedeker and read about the Vatican. She was unable to concentrate her thoughts and turned to Hare’s Walks in Rome. A bell sounded. She was tired and her nerves were on edge. She looked in the glass, saw that her hair was out of curl, her blouse soiled with coal and dust, unlocked a second trunk and changed her things. She cried and sobbed while she was curling her hair. The second bell rang; and, after powdering her face, she went downstairs.

      She expected to be late, but there was no one in the dining-room and she had to wait before she was served. She resolved not to come down so very punctually in future. A few boarders looked in through the open door, saw that there was no one sitting at table yet, except a new lady, and disappeared again.

      Cornélie looked around her and waited.

      The dining-room was the original dining-room of the old villa, with a ceiling by Guercina. The waiters loitered about. An old grey major-domo cast a distant glance over the table, to see if everything was in order. He grew impatient when nobody came and told them to serve the macaroni to Cornélie. It struck Cornélie that he too limped with one leg, like the porter. But the waiters were very young, hardly more than sixteen to eighteen, and lacked the waiter’s usual self-possession.

      A stout gentleman, vivacious, consequential, pock-marked, ill-shaven, in a shabby black coat which showed but little linen, entered, rubbing his hands, and took his seat, opposite Cornélie.

      He bowed politely and began to eat his macaroni.

      And this seemed to be the signal for the others to begin eating, for a number of boarders, mostly ladies, now came in, sat down and helped themselves to the macaroni, which was handed round by the youthful waiters under the watchful eye of the grey-haired major-domo. Cornélie smiled at the oddity of these travelling types; and, when she involuntarily glanced at the pock-marked gentleman opposite, she saw that he too was smiling.

      He hurriedly mopped up his tomato-sauce with his bread, bent a little way across the table and almost whispered, in French:

      “It’s amusing, isn’t it?”

      Cornélie raised her eyebrows:

      “What do you mean?”

      “A cosmopolitan company like this.”

      “Oh, yes!”

      “You are Dutch?”

      “How do you know?”

      “I saw your name in the visitors’ book, with ‘la Haye’ after it.”

      “I am Dutch, yes.”

      “There are some more Dutch ladies here, sitting over there: they are charming.”

      Cornélie asked the major-domo for some vin ordinaire.

      “That wine is no good,” said the stout gentleman, vivaciously. “This is Genzano,” pointing to his fiasco. “I pay a small corkage and drink my own wine.”

      The major-domo put a pint bottle in front of Cornélie: it was included in her pension without extra charge.

      “If you like, I will give you the address where I get my wine. Via della Croce, 61.”

      Cornélie thanked him. The pock-marked gentleman’s uncommon ease and vivacity diverted her.

      “You’re looking at the major-domo?” he asked.

      “You are a keen observer,” she smiled in reply.

      “He’s a type, our major-domo, Giuseppe. He used to be major-domo in the palace of an Austrian archduke. He did I don’t know what. Stole something, perhaps. Or was impertinent. Or dropped a spoon on the floor. He has come down in the world. Now you behold him in the Pension Belloni. But the dignity of the man!”

      He leant forward:

      “The marchesa is economical. All the servants here are either old or very young. It’s cheaper.”

      He bowed to two German ladies, a mother and daughter, who had come in and sat down beside him:

      “I have the permit which I promised you, to see the Palazzo Rospigliosi and Guido Reni’s Aurora” he said, speaking in German.

      “Is the prince back then?”

      “No, the prince is in Paris. The palace is not open to visitors, except yourselves.”

      This was said with a gallant bow.

      The German ladies exclaimed how kind he was, how he was able to do anything, to find a way out of every difficulty. They had taken endless trouble to bribe the Rospigliosi porter and they had not succeeded.

      A little thin Englishwoman had taken her seat beside Cornélie.

      “And for you, Miss Taylor, I have a card for a low mass in His Holiness’ private chapel.”

      Miss Taylor was radiant with delight.

      “Have you been sight-seeing again?” the pock-marked gentleman continued.

      “Yes, Museo Kircheriano,” said Miss Taylor. “But I am tired out. It was most exquisite.”

      “My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this afternoon and rest.”

      “I have an engagement to go to the Aventino....”

      “You mustn’t. You’re tired. You look worse every day and you’re losing flesh. You must rest, or you sha’n’t have the card for the low mass.”

      The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman as though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from his lips.

      Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornélie rose:

      “May I give you a glass out of my bottle?” asked the stout gentleman. “Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so, I’ll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce.”

      Cornélie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink a pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed to read her quick thought:

      “It is a good thing,” he said, “to drink a strengthening wine while you are in Rome, where life is so tiring.”

      Cornélie agreed.

      “This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five