human
I no longer see anything, she confessed.
gpt
Rome has quite bewildered me. I can't distinguish a colour, an outline. I don't recognize people. They all seem to whirl round me. Sometimes I feel a need to sit alone for hours in my bird-cage upstairs, to recollect myself. This morning, in the Vatican, I don't know: I remember nothing. It is all grey and fuzzy around me. Then the people in the boarding-house: the same faces every day. I see them and yet I don't see them. I see ... I see Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair Urania ... and Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor, who is always so tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything most exquisite. But my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have to think to myself: Madame von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with the smile of the German Empress--she is rather like her--talking fast and yet with indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently from her lips....
human
You're a good observer,
gpt
Oh, don't say that! said Cornélie, almost vexed.
human
I see nothing and I can't remember. I receive no impressions. Everything around me is colourless. I really don't know why I have come abroad.... When I am alone, I think of the people whom I meet. I know Madame von Rothkirch now and I know Else. Such a round, merry face, with arched eyebrows, and always a joke or a witticism: I find it tiring sometimes, she makes me laugh so. Still they are very nice. And the fair Urania. She tells me everything. She is as communicative ... as I am at this moment. And Rudyard: I see him before me too.
gpt
Rudyard!
human
What is he? Cornélie asked, inquisitively.
gpt
He is so civil, he ordered my wine for me, he can always get one all sorts of cards.
human
Don't you know what Rudyard is?
gpt
No; and Mrs. von Rothkirch doesn't know either.
human
Then you had better be careful,
gpt
Are you a Catholic?
human
No.
gpt
Nor the fair Urania either? Nor Mrs. von Rothkirch?
human
No.
gpt
Well, that is why la Belloni put Rudyard at your table. Rudyard is a Jesuit. Every pension in Rome has a Jesuit who lives there free of charge, if the proprietor is a good friend of the Church, and who tries to win souls by making himself especially agreeable.
human
You can take my word for it, mevrouw continued,
gpt
La Belloni?
human
Our marchesa is a thorough-paced intrigante. Last winter, three English sisters were converted here.
gpt
By Rudyard?
human
No, by another priest. Rudyard is here for the first time this winter.
gpt
Rudyard walked quite a long way with me in the street this morning, said young Van der Staal.
human
I let him talk, I heard all he had to say.
gpt
I am tired of people, she said, with the strange sincerity which was hers.
human
I should like to sleep for a month, without seeing anybody.