A long and painful silence followed. The master did not know what to say. Timidity and emotion weighed on his will. She seemed no less disturbed. That great room, so silent and imposing with its ma.s.sive, superb decorations, different from anything she had seen, frightened her. She felt the vague terror which precedes an unknown operation.

Besides, she was disturbed by the man's glowing eyes fixed on her, with a quiver on his cheeks and a twitching of his lips, as if they were tormented by thirst.

She soon recovered from her timidity. She was used to these moments of shamefaced silence which came with the lone meeting of two strangers.

She knew these interviews which begin hesitatingly and end in rough familiarity.

She looked around with a professional smile, eager to end the unpleasant situation as soon as possible.

"When you will. Where shall I undress?"

Renovales started at the sound of her voice, as if he had forgotten that that image could speak. The simplicity with which she dispensed with explanations surprised him likewise.

His son-in-law did things well; he had brought her well coached, callous to all surprises.

The master showed her the way to the model's room and remained outside, prudently, turning his head without knowing why, so as not to see through the half-opened door. There was a long silence, broken by the rustle of falling clothes, the metallic click of b.u.t.tons and hooks.

Suddenly her voice came to the master, smothered, distant with a sort of timidity.

"My stockings too? Must I take them off?"

Renovales knew this objection of all models when they undressed for the first time. Lopez de Sosa, carrying his desire of pleasing his father to the extreme, had spoken to her of giving her body wholly and she undressed without asking any further explanations, with the calm of accepted duty, thinking that her presence there was absurd for any other purpose.

The painter came out of his silence; he called to her uneasily. She must not stay undressed. In the room there were clothes for her to put on.

And without turning his head, reaching his arm through the half open door he pointed out blindly what he had left. There was a pink dress, a hat, shoes, stockings, a shirt.

Pepita protested when she saw these cast-off garments, showing an aversion to putting on those underclothes which seemed worn and old.

"The shirt, too? The stockings? No, the dress is enough."

But the master begged her impatiently. She must put them all on; his painting demanded it. The long silence of the girl proved that she was complying, putting on these old garments, overcoming her repugnance.

When she came out of the room she smiled with a sort of pity, as if she were laughing at herself. Renovales drew back, stirred by his own work, bewildered, feeling his temples throbbing, fancying that the pictures and furniture were whirling about him.

Poor "Fregolina"! What a delightful clown! She felt like laughing at the thought of the storm of cries which would burst out in her theater if she should appear on the stage dressed in this fashion, of the jests of her friends if she should come into one of their dinners in these clothes of twenty years ago. She did not know these styles, and to her they seemed to belong to a remote antiquity. The master leaned over the back of a chair.

"Josephina! Josephina!"

It was she, such as he kept her in his memory--as she was that happy summer in the Roman mountains, in her pink dress and that rustic hat which gave her the dainty air of a village girl in the opera. Those fashions at which the younger generation laughed were for him the most beautiful, the most artistic that feminine taste had ever produced; they recalled the spring of his life.

"Josephina! Josephina!"

He remained silent, for these exclamations were born and died in his thoughts. He did not dare to move or speak, for fear this apparition of his dreams would vanish. She, smiling, was delighted at the effect her appearance had on the painter and seeing her reflection in a distant mirror, recognized that in this strange costume she did not look at all badly.

"Where shall I go? Sitting or standing?"

The master could hardly speak; his voice was hoa.r.s.e, labored.

She could pose as she wished. And she sat down in a chair adopting a posture which she considered very graceful--her cheek on one hand, her legs crossed, just as she was wont to sit in the green room of the theater, showing a bit of open-work pink silk stocking under her skirt.

That too reminded the painter of the other.

It was she! She sat before his eyes in bodily form, with the perfume of the form he loved.

From instinct, from habit, he took up his palette and a brush stained with black, trying to trace the outlines of that figure. Ah, his hand was old, heavy, trembling! Where had his old time skill fled, his drawing, his striking qualities? Had he really ever painted? Was he truly the painter Renovales? He had suddenly forgotten everything. His head seemed empty, his hand paralyzed, the white canvas filled him with a terror of the unknown. He did not know how to paint; he could not paint. His efforts were useless; his mind was deadened. Perhaps,--some other day. Now his ears hummed, his face was pale, his ears were red, purple, as if they were on the point of dripping blood. In his mouth he felt the torment of a deathly thirst.

The "Bella Fregolina" saw him throw down his palette and come toward her with a wild expression.

But she felt no fear; she knew those distorted faces. This sudden rush was no doubt part of the program; she was warned when she went there after her friendly conversation with the son-in-law. That gentleman, so serious and so imposing, was like all the men she knew, as brutal as the rest.

She saw him come to her with open arms, take her in a close embrace, fall at her feet with a hoa.r.s.e cry, as if he were stifling; and she, gently and sympathetically encouraged him, bending her head, offering her lips with an automatic loving expression which was the implement of her profession.

The kiss was enough to overcome the master completely.

"Josephina! Josephina!"

The perfume of the happy days rose from her clothes, surrounding her adorable person. It was her form, her flesh! He was going to die at her feet, suffocated by the immense desire that swelled within him. It was she; her very eyes--her eyes! And as he raised his glance to lose himself in their soft pupils, to gaze at himself in their trembling mirror, he saw two cold eyes, which examined him, half closed with professional curiosity, taking a scornful delight from their calm height in this intoxication of the flesh, this madness which groveled, moaning with desire.

Renovales was thunderstruck with surprise; he felt something icy run down his back, paralyzing him; his eyes were veiled with a cloud of disappointment and sorrow.

Was it really Josephina whom he had in his arms? It was her body, her perfume, her clothes, her beauty, pale as a dying flower. But no, it was not she! Those eyes! In vain did they look at him differently, alarmed at this sudden reaction; in vain they softened with a tender light, trained by habit. The deceit was useless; he saw beyond, he penetrated through those bright windows into the depths; he found only emptiness.

The other's soul was not there. That maddening perfume no longer moved him; it was a false essence. He had before him merely a reproduction of the beloved vase, but the incense, the soul, lost forever.

Renovales, standing up, drew away from her, looking at that woman with terror in his eyes, and finally threw himself on a couch, with his face in his hands.

The girl, hearing him sob, was afraid and ran toward the models' room to take off those clothes, to flee. The man must be mad.

The master was weeping. Farewell, youth! Farewell desire! Farewell dreams; enchanting sirens of life, that have fled forever. Useless the search, useless the struggle in the solitude of life. Death had him in his grasp, he was his and only through him could he renew his youth.

These images were useless. He could not find another to call up the memory of the dead like this hired woman whom he had held in his arms--and still, it was not she!

At the supreme moment, on the verge of reality, that indefinable something had vanished, that something which had been enclosed in the body of his Josephina, of his _maja_, whom he had worshiped in the nights of his youth.

Immense, irreparable disappointment flooded his body with the icy calm of old age.

Fall, ye towers of illusion! Sink, ye castles of fancy, built with the longing to make the way fair, to hide the horizon! The path still remained unbroken, barren and deserted. In vain would he sit by the roadside, putting off the hour of his departure, in vain would he bow his head that he might not see. The longer his rest, the longer his fearful torment. At every hour he was destined to gaze at the dreaded end of the last journey--unclouded, undisturbed--the dwelling from which there is no return--the black, greedy abyss--death!

FOOTNOTE:

[A] The life of this character is the theme of _La Horda_, by the same author.