Inevitable by Louis Couperus Page A

panel of a triptych, definitely by Lippo Memmi, which he had discovered in a shop down by the Tiber: the angel of the Annunciation, almost as beautiful as the one in the Uffizi, kneeling in the last sweep of his flight, with the lily stalk in his hands. But the shopkeeper wanted two hundred lire for it and he was only prepared to offer fifty. And yet the dealer had not mentioned the name of Memmi: he had no idea that the angel was by Memmi …
    Cornélie had not been listening and suddenly she said,
    “I’m going to Palazzo Ruspoli …”
    He looked up in surprise.
    “Why?”
    “To ask for Miss Hope.”
    He was speechless with amazement and stared at her open-mouthed.
    “If she’s not there …” Cornélie went on, “then it’s all right. If she’s there … if she went after all, then I’ll ask to speak to her urgently …”
    He did not know what to say, finding her impulse so strange, so eccentric, so futile a twisting arabesque to crossthe arabesques of insignificant, indifferent people, that he was at a loss for words. Cornélie looked at her watch.
    “It’s past eight-thirty. If she goes after all, she’ll go about this time.”
    She motioned to the waiter and paid. She buttoned her coat and got up. He followed her.
    “Cornélie,” he began, “isn’t what you’re proposing to do rather odd? It’ll get you into all sorts of trouble.”
    “If we were always deterred by a bit of trouble, no one would ever do a good deed.”
    They walked on in silence, he angry at her side. They did not talk: he thought what she was planning was simply crazy: she thought he was weak for not wanting to protect Urania. She thought of her pamphlet, of Women, and she wanted to protect Urania from marriage, from that prince. And they walked down the Corso, towards Palazzo Ruspoli. He became nervous, made a last attempt to restrain her, but she was already asking the guard:
    “Is the
signore principe
at home?”
    The man looked at her suspiciously.
    “No,” he said brusquely.
    “I have a feeling he is. If so, please ask whether Miss Hope is with his Excellency. Miss Hope was not at home; I have a feeling that she is coming to visit the prince this evening and I need to speak to her urgently … on a matter that cannot be put off. Here …
la signora
De Retz …” She presented her card. She spoke with such aplomb, portrayed Urania’s visit with such calm and simplicity, as if it happened every evening that American girls visited Italian princes, and as if she were convinced that the guard was acquainted with the custom. The manwas completely non-plussed, bowed, took the card and withdrew. Cornélie and Duco waited in the gateway.
    He admired her calm. He found what she was doing eccentric, but there was a certainty about her eccentricity that showed in a quite different light. So would he never understand her, never grasp anything or know anything for certain, in the shifting and intangible vagueness of her self? He would never have been able to say those few words to the guard. How had she found the tact, that lofty, serious tone in addressing that imposing doorman with his cane and three-cornered hat! She did it with the same ease, the same familiar amiability with which she ordered dinner from the waiter in their little restaurant … The guard returned.
    “Miss Hope and His Excellency would like you to come upstairs …”
    She looked at Duco with a smile, triumphantly, amused at his confusion.
    “Are you coming?”
    “No,” he stammered. “I’ll wait for you here.”
    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