He felt humiliated by his failure; a dumb rage filled him when he compared his gray hair and his eyes, surrounded by growing wrinkles, with that pretty boy of science who seemed to drive the countess insane. Women! Their intellectual interest, their exaggerated admiration of fame! A lie! They worshiped talent only when it was well presented in a young and beautiful covering.
Impelled by his obstinacy, Renovales was determined to overcome the resistance. He recalled, without the least remorse, the scene with his wife in the bedroom, and her scornful words that foretold his failure with the countess. Josephina's disdain was only another spur to urge him to continue his course.
Concha kept him off and led him on at the same time. There was no doubt that the master's love flattered her vanity. She laughed at his passionate protestations, taking them in jest, always answering them in the same tone: "Be dignified, master. That isn't becoming to you. You are a great man, a genius. Let the boys be the ones to play the part of the lovesick student." But when enraged at her subtle mockery, he took a mental oath not to come back again, she seemed to guess it and she suddenly assumed an affectionate air, attracting him with an interest that made him foresee the near approach of his triumph.
If he was offended and kept silence, she was the one who talked of love, of eternal passions between two beings of lofty minds, based on the harmony of their thoughts; and she did not cease this dangerous conversation until the master, with a sudden renewal of confidence, came forward offering his love, only to be received with that kindly and still ironical smile that seemed to look on him as a child whose judgment was faulty.
And so the master lived, fluctuating between hope and despair, now favored, now repelled, but always incapable of escaping from her influence, as if a crime were haunting him. He sought opportunities to see her alone with the ingenuity of a college boy, he invented pretexts for going to her house at unusual hours, when there were no callers present, and his courage failed him when he ran into the pretty doctor and felt around himself that sensation of uneasiness which always seizes an unwelcome guest.
The vague hope of meeting the countess at Moncloa, of walking with her a whole afternoon, unmolested by that circle of insufferable people who surrounded her with their drooling worship, kept him excited all night and the next morning, as if a real rendezvous were awaiting him. Would she go? Was not her promise a mere whim that she had immediately forgotten? He sent a note to an ex-minister of State, whose portrait he was painting, to ask him not to come to the studio that afternoon, and after luncheon he got into a cab, telling the cabby to beat the horse, to go full speed, for fear of being late.
He knew that it would be hours before she came, if she did come; but a mad, unreasonable impatience filled him. He thought without knowing why that, by arriving ahead of time, he would hasten the countess's coming.
He got out in the square in front of the little palace of Moncloa. The cab disappeared in the direction of Madrid, up hill along an avenue that was lost in the distance behind an arch of dry branches.
Renovales walked up and down, alone in the little square. The sun was shining in a patch of blue sky, among the heavy clouds. In the places which its rays did not reach, it was cold. The water ran down from the foot of the trees, after dripping from the branches and trickling down the trunks; it was melting rapidly. The wood seemed to weep with joy under the caress of the sun, that destroyed the last traces of the white shroud.
The majestic silence of Nature, abandoned to its own power, surrounded the artist. The pines were swinging with the long gusts of wind, filling space with a murmur, like the sound of distant harps. The square was hidden in the icy shadow of the trees. Up above in the front of the palace some pigeons, seeking the sun above the tops of the pines, swept around the old flagpole and the classic busts blackened by the weather. Then, tired of flying, they settled down on the rusty iron balconies, adding to the old building a white fluttering decoration, a rustling garland of feathers. In the middle of the square a marble swan, with its neck violently stretched toward the sky, threw out a jet, whose murmur seemed to heighten the impression of icy cold which he felt in the shadow.
Renovales began to walk, crushing the frozen crust that cracked under his feet in the shady places. He leaned over the circular iron rail that surrounds a part of the square. Through the curtain of black branches, where the first buds were beginning to open, he saw the ridge that bounds the horizon; the mountains of Guadarrama, phantoms of snow that were mingled with the masses of clouds. Nearer, the mountains of Pardo stood out with their dark peaks, black with pines, and to the left stretched out the slopes of the hills of the Casa de Campo, where the first yellow touches of spring were beginning to show.
At his feet lay the fields of Moncloa, the antique little gardens, the grove of Viveros, bordering the stream. Carriages were moving in the roads below, their varnished tops flashing in the sun like fiery mortar boards. The meadows, the foliage of the woods, everything seemed clean and bright after the recent storm. The all-pervading green tone, with its infinite variations from black to yellow, smiled at the touch of the sun after the chill of the snow. In the distance sounded the constant reports of shotguns that seemed to tear the air with the intensity that is common in still afternoons. They were hunting in the Casa de Campo. Between the colonnades of trees and the green sheets of the meadows, the water flashed in the sun, bits of ponds, glimpses of canals, pools of melted snow, like bright trembling edges of huge swords, lost in the grass.
Renovales hardly looked at the landscape; it had no message for him that afternoon. He was preoccupied with other things. He saw a smart coupé come down the avenue, and he left the belvedere to go to meet it. She was coming! But the coupé passed by him, slowly and majestically without stopping and he saw through the window an old lady wrapped in furs, with sunken eyes and distorted mouth, trembling with old age, her head bobbing with the movement of the carriage. It disappeared in the direction of the little church beside the palace and the painter was alone again.
No! She would not come! His heart began to tell him that there was no use waiting.
Some little girls, with battered shoes, and straight greasy hair that floated around their necks, began to run about the square. Renovales did not see where they came from. Perhaps they were the children of the guardian of the palace.
A guard came down the avenue with his gun hanging from his shoulder, and his horn at his side. Beyond approached a man in black, who looked like a servant, escorted by two huge dogs, two majestic bluish-gray Danes, that walked with a dignified bearing, prudent and moderate but proud of their terrifying appearance. Not a carriage could be seen. Curses!
Seated on one of the stone benches, the master finally took out the little notebook that he always carried with him. He sketched the figures of the children as they ran around the fountain. That was one way to kill time. One after the other he sketched all the girls, then he caught them in several groups, but at last they disappeared behind the palace, going down toward the Caño Gordo. Renovales, having nothing to distract him, left his seat and walked about, stamping noisily. His feet were like ice, this waiting in the cold was putting him in a terrible mood. Then he went and sat down on another bench near the servant in black, who had the two dogs at his knees. They were sitting on their hind paws, resting with as much dignity as real people, watching that gentleman with their gray eyes that winked intelligently, as he looked at them attentively and then moved his pencil on the book that rested on his knee. The painter sketched the two dogs in different postures, giving himself up to the work with such interest that he quite forgot his purpose in coming there. Oh, what splendid creatures! Renovales loved animals in which beauty was united with strength. If he had lived alone and could have consulted his own tastes, he would have converted his house into a menagerie.
The servant went away with his dogs and the artist once more was left alone. Several couples passed slowly, arm in arm, and disappeared behind the palace toward the gardens below. Then a group of school boys that left behind them, as their cassocks fluttered, that odor of healthy, dirty flesh that is peculiar to barracks and convents. And still the countess did not come!
The painter went again to rest his elbows on the balustrade of the belvedere. He would only wait a half an hour longer. The afternoon was wearing away; the sun was still high, but from time to time the landscape was darkened. The clouds that had been confined on the horizon had been let loose and they were rolling through the field of the sky like a flock of sheep, assuming fantastic shapes, rushing eagerly in tumultuous confusion as if they wished to swallow the ball of fire that was slipping slowly over a bit of clear blue sky.
Suddenly, Renovales felt a sort of shock near his heart. No one had touched him; it was a warning of his nerves that for some time had been especially irritable. She was near, was coming he was sure. And turning around, he saw her, still a long way off, coming down the avenue, in black with a fur coat, her hands in a little muff and a veil over her eyes. Her tall, graceful silhouette was outlined against the yellow ground as she passed the trees. Her carriage was returning up the hill, perhaps to wait for her at the top near the School of Agriculture.
As she met him in the center of the square she held out her gloved hand, warm from the muff, and they turned toward the belvedere, chatting.
"I'm in a furious mood, disgusted to death. I didn't expect to come; I forgot all about it, upon my word. But as I was coming out of the President's house I thought of you. I was sure I would find you here. And so I have come to have you drive away my ill humor."
Through the veil, Renovales saw her eyes that flashed hostilely and her dainty lips angrily tightened.
She spoke quickly, eager to vent the wrath that was swelling her heart, without paying any attention to what was around her, as if she were in her own drawing room where everything was familiar.
She had been to see the Prime-Minister to recommend her "affair" to his attention; a desire of the count's on the fulfillment of which his happiness depended. Poor Paco (her husband) dreamed of the Golden Fleece. That was the only thing that was lacking to crown the tower of crosses, keys and ribbons that he was raising about his person, from his belly to his neck, till not an inch of his body was without this glorious covering. The Golden Fleece and then death! Why should they not do this favor for Paco, such a good man, who would not hurt a fly? What would it cost them to grant him this toy and make him happy?
"There aren't any friends any longer, Mariano," said the countess bitterly. "The Prime-Minister is a fool who forgets his old friendships now that he is head of the government. I who have seen him sighing around me like a comic opera tenor, making love to me (yes, I tell the truth to you) and ready to commit suicide because I scorned his vulgarity and foolishness! This afternoon, the same old story; lots of holding my hand, lots of making eyes, 'dear Concha,' 'sweet Concha' and other sugary expressions, just such as he sings in Congress like an old canary. Sum total, the Fleece is impossible, he is very sorry, but at Court they are unwilling."
And the countess, as if she saw for the first time where she was, turned her eyes angrily toward the dark hills of the Casa de Campo, where shots could still be heard.
"And they wonder that people think this way or that! I am an anarchist, do you hear, Mariano? Every day I feel more revolutionary. Don't laugh, for it is no jest. Poor Paco, who is a lamb of God, is horrified to hear me. 'Woman, think what we are! We must be on good terms with the royal house.' But I rise in rebellion; I know them; a crowd of reprobates. Why shouldn't my Paco have the Fleece, if the poor man needs it. I tell you, master, this cowardly, meek country makes me raging mad. We ought to have what France had in '93. If I were alone, without all these trifles of name and position, I would do to-day something that would stir people. I'd throw a bomb, no, not a bomb; I'd get a revolver and–"
"Fire!" shouted the painter, bursting into a laugh.
Concha drew back indignantly.
"Don't joke, master. I'll go away. I'll slap you. This is more serious than you think. This afternoon is no time for jokes."
But her fickle nature contradicted the seriousness that she pretended to give her words, for she smiled slightly, as if pleased at some memory.
"It wasn't wholly a failure," she said after a long pause. "My hands aren't empty. The prime-minister didn't want to make me his enemy and so he offered me a compensation, since the 'Lamb' affair was impossible. A deputy's chair at the next election."
Renovales' eyes opened in astonishment. "For whom do you want that? To whom is that going to be given?"
"To whom?" mimicked Concha with mock astonishment. "To whom! To whom do you suppose, you simpleton! Not for you, you don't know anything about that or anything else, except your brushes. For Monteverde, for the doctor, who will do great things."
The artist's noisy laugh resounded in the silence of the square.
"Darwin a deputy of the majority! Darwin saying 'Aye' and 'No.'"
And after these exclamations his laugh of mock astonishment continued.
"Laugh, you old bear! Open that mouth wider; wag your apostolic beard! How funny you are! And what's strange about that? But don't laugh any longer; you make me nervous. I'll go away, if you keep on like this."
They remained silent for a long while. The countess was not long in forgetting her troubles; her bird-like brain never retained any one impression for long. She looked around her with disdainful eyes, eager to mortify the painter. Was that what Renovales raved over so? Was there nothing more?
They began to walk slowly, going down to the terraced gardens behind the palace. They descended the moss-covered slopes that were streaked with the black flint of the flights of stairs.
The silence was deathlike. The water murmured as it flowed from the trunks of the trees, forming little streams that trickled down hill, almost invisible in the grass. In some shady spots there still remained piles of snow, like bundles of white wool. The shrill cries of the birds sounded like the scratching of a diamond on glass. At the edge of the stairways, the pedestals of black, crumbling stone recalled the statues and urns they had once supported. The little gardens, cut in geometric figures, stretched out the Greek square of their carpet of foliage on each level of the terrace. In the squares, the fountains spurted in pools surrounded by rusted railings, or flowed down triple layers with a ceaseless murmur. Water everywhere,—in the air, in the ground, whispering, icy, adding to the cold impression of the landscape, where the sun seemed a red blotch of color devoid of heat.
They passed under arches of vines, between huge dying trees covered to the top with winding rings of ivy that clung to the venerable trunks, veneered with a green and yellow crust. The paths were bounded on one side by the slope of the hill, from the top of which came the invisible tinkling of a bell, and where from time to time there appeared on the blue background of the sky the massive outline of a slowly moving cow. On the other, a rustic railing of branches painted white bounded the path and, beyond it, in the valley, lay the dark flower beds with their melancholy solitude and their fountains that wept day and night in an atmosphere of old age and abandon. The closely matted brambles stretched from tree to tree along the slopes. The slender cypresses, the tall pines with their straight trunks, formed a thick colonnade, a lattice through which the sunlight flitted, a false unearthly light, that striped the ground with bands of gold and bars of shadow.
The painter praised the spot enthusiastically. It was the only corner for artists that could be found in Madrid. It was there that the great Don Francisco had worked. It seemed as though at some turn in the path they would run into Goya, sitting before his easel, scowling ill-naturedly at some dainty duchess who was serving as his model.
Modern clothes seemed out of keeping with this background. Renovales declared that the correct apparel for such a landscape was a bright coat, a powdered wig, silk stockings, walking beside a Directoire gown.
The countess smiled as she listened to the painter. She looked about with great curiosity; that was not a bad walk; she guessed it was the first time she ever saw it. Very pretty! But she was not fond of the country.
To her mind the best landscape was the silks of a drawing room and, as for trees, she preferred the scenery at the Opera to the accompaniment of music.
"The country bores me, master. It makes me so sad. If you leave Nature alone to itself it is very commonplace."
They entered a little square in the center of which was a pool, on the level of the ground, with stone posts that marked where there had once been a railing. The water, swollen by the melting snow, was overflowing the stone curb, and reached out in a thin sheet as it started down hill. The countess stopped, afraid of wetting her feet. The painter went ahead, putting his feet in the driest places, taking her hand to guide her, and she followed him, laughing at the obstacle and picking up her skirts.
As they continued their way down another path, Renovales kept that soft little hand in his, feeling its warmth through the glove. She let him hold it, as if she did not notice his touch, but still with a faint expression of mischievousness on her lips and in her eyes. The master seemed undecided, embarrassed, as if he did not know how to begin.
"Always the same?" he asked weakly. "Haven't you a little charity for me to-day?"
The countess broke out in a merry laugh.
"There it comes. I was expecting it; that's why I hesitated to come. In the carriage I said to myself several times: 'My dear, you're making a mistake in going to Moncloa; you will be bored to death; you may expect declaration number one thousand.'"
Then she assumed a tone of mock indignation.
"But, master, can't you talk about anything else? Are we women condemned to be unable to talk with a man without his feeling obliged to pour out a proposal?"
Renovales protested. She might say that to other men, but not to him, for he was in love with her. He swore it; he would say it on his knees, to make her believe it. Madly in love with her! But she mimicked him grotesquely, raising one hand to her breast and laughing cruelly.
"Yes, I know, the old story. There's no use in your repeating it; I know it by heart. A volcano in my breast, impossible to live without you—if you do not love me, I will kill myself. They all say the same thing. I never saw such a lack of originality. Master, for goodness sake, do not be so commonplace! A man like you saying such things!"
Renovales was crushed by her mocking mimicry. But Concha, as if she took pity on him, hastened to add, in an affectionate tone:
"Why should you have to be in love with me? Do you think I shall esteem you less if I relieve you from an obligation that all men who surround me feel under? I like you, master; I need to see you; I should be very sorry if we quarreled. I like you as a friend; the best of all, the first. I like you because you are good; a great big boy; a bearded baby who doesn't know even the least bit about the world, but who is very, very talented. I've wanted for a long time to see you alone, to talk with you quite freely, to tell you this. I like you as I like no one else. When I am with you, I feel a confidence such as no other man inspires in me. Good friends, brother and sister, if you will. But don't put on such a gloomy face! Look pleasant, please! Give one of your laughs that cheer my soul, master!"
But the master remained sullen, looking at the ground, running the fingers of his hand through his thick beard.
"All that's a lie, Concha," he said rudely. "The truth is that you are in love, you're mad over that worthless Monteverde."
The countess smiled, as if the rudeness of these words flattered her.
"Well, yes, Mariano. We like each other; I believe I love him as I never loved any man. I have never told anyone; you are the first one to hear it from me, because you are my friend, because somehow or other I tell you everything. We like each other or, rather, I like him much more than he does me. There is something like gratitude in my love. I don't deceive myself, Mariano! Thirty-six years! I venture to confess my age to you. However, I am still presentable; I keep my youth well, but he is much younger. Years younger and I could almost be his mother."
She was silent for a moment, almost frightened at this difference between her lover's age and hers, but then she added with a sudden confidence:
"He likes me, too, I know. I am his adviser, his inspiration; he says that with me he feels a new strength for work, that he will be a great man, thanks to me. But I like him more, much more than he does me; there is almost as great a difference in our affections as there is in our ages."
"And why do you not love me?" said the master tearfully. "I worship you, the tables would be turned. I would be the one to surround you with constant idolatry, and you would let me worship you, caress you, as I would an idol, my head bowed at its feet."
Concha laughed again, mocking the artist's hoarse voice, his passionate expression, and his eager eyes.
"Why don't I love you? Master, don't be childish. There's no use in asking such things, you cannot dictate to Love. I do not like you as you want me to, because it is impossible. Be satisfied to be my best friend. You know I show a confidence in you that I do not show to Monteverde. Yes, I tell you things I would never tell him."
"But the other part!" exclaimed the painter violently. "What I need, what I am hungry for,—you, your beauty, real love!"
"Master, contain yourself," she said with affected modesty. "How well I know you! You're going to say some of those horrid things that men always say when they rave over a woman. I'm going away so as not to hear you."
Then she added with maternal seriousness, as if she wanted to reprimand his violence:
"I am not so crazy as people think. I consider the consequences of my actions carefully. Mariano, look at yourself, think of your position. A wife, a daughter who will marry one of these days, the prospect of being a grandfather. And you still think of such follies! I could not accede to your proposal even if I loved you. How terrible! To deceive Josephina, the friend of my school-days! Poor thing, so gentle, so kind,—always ill. No, Mariano, never. A man cannot enter such compromising affairs, unless he is free. I could never feel like loving you. Friends, nothing more than friends!"
"Well, we will not be that," exclaimed Renovales impetuously. "I will leave your house forever. I will not see you any longer. I will do anything to forget you. It is an intolerable torment. My life will be calmer if I do not see you."
"You will not go away," said Concha quietly, certain of her power. "You will remain beside me just as you always have, if you really like me, and I shall have in you my best friend. Don't be a baby, master, you will see that there is something charming about our friendship that you do not understand now. I shall give you something that the rest do not know,—intimacy, confidence."
And as she said this, she put one hand on the painter's arm and drew closer to him, searching him with her eyes in which there was a strange, mysterious light.
A horn sounded near them; there was swift rush of heavy wheels. An automobile shot past them at full speed, following the highroad. Renovales tried to make out the figures in the car, hardly larger than dolls in the distance. Perhaps it was López de Sosa, who was driving, perhaps his wife and daughter were those two little figures, wrapped in veils, who occupied the seats.
The possibility of Josephina's having passed through the background of the landscape without seeing him, without noticing that he was there, forgetful of everything, an imploring lover, overcame him with the sense of remorse.
They remained motionless for a long while in silence, leaning on the rough wooden railing, watching through the colonnade of the trees the bright, cherry-red sun, as it sank, lighting up the horizon with a blaze of fire. The leaden clouds, seeing it on the point of death, assailed it with treacherous greed.
Concha watched the sunset with the interest that a sight but seldom seen arouses.
"Look at that huge cloud, master. How black it is! It looks like a dragon; no, a hippopotamus; see its round paws, like towers. How it runs! It's going to eat the sun. It's eating it! It has swallowed it now!"
The landscape grew dark. The sun had disappeared inside of that monster that filled the horizon. Its waving back was edged with silver, and as if it could not hold the burning star; it broke below, pouring out a rain of pale rays. Then, burned by this digestion, it vanished in smoke, was torn into black tufts, and once more the red disc appeared, bathing sky and earth with gold, peopling the water of the pools with restless fiery fishes.
Renovales, leaning on the railing with one elbow beside the countess, breathed her subtle fragrance, felt the warm touch of her firm body.
"Let's go back, master," she said with a suggestion of uneasiness in her voice. "I feel cold. Besides, with a companion like you, it's impossible to stay still."
And she hastened her step, realizing from her experience with men the danger of remaining alone with Renovales. His pale, excited face warned her that he was likely to make some reckless, impetuous advance.
In the square of Caño Gordo they passed a couple going slowly down the hill, very close together, not yet daring to walk arm in arm, but ready to put their arms around each other's waists as soon as they disappeared in the next path. The young man carried his cloak under his arm, as proudly as a gallant in the old comedies; she, small and pale, without any beauty except that of youth, was wrapped in a poor cloak and walked with her simple eyes fixed on her companion's.
"Some student with his girl," said Renovales. "They are happier than we are, Concha."
"We are getting old, master," she said with feigned sadness, excluding herself from old age, loading the whole burden of years on her companion.
Renovales turned toward her in a final outburst of protest.
"Why should I not be as happy as that boy? Haven't I a right to it? Concha, you do not know who I am; you forget it, accustomed as you are to treat me like a child. I am Renovales, the painter, the famous master. I am known all over the world."
And he spoke of his fame with brutal indelicacy, growing more and more irritated at her coldness, displaying his renown like a mantle of light that should blind women and make them fall at his feet. And a man like him had to submit to being put off for that simpleton of a doctor?
The countess smiled with pity. Her eyes, too, revealed a sort of compassion. The fool! The child! How absurd men of talent were!
"Yes, you are a great man, master. That is why I am proud of your friendship. I even admit that it gives me some importance. I like you. I feel admiration for you."
"No, not admiration, Concha, love! To belong to each other! Complete love."
She continued to laugh.
"Oh, my boy; Love!"
Her eyes seemed to speak to him ironically. Love does not distinguish talents; it is ignorant and therefore boasts of its blindness. It only perceives the fragrance of youth, of life in its flower.
"We shall be friends, Mariano, friends and nothing more. You will grow accustomed to it and find our affection dear. Don't be material; it doesn't seem as if you were an artist. Idealism, master, that is what you need."
And she continued to talk to him from the heights of her pity, until they parted near the place where her carriage was waiting for her.
"Friends, Mariano, nothing more than friends, but true friends."
When Concha had gone, Renovales walked in the shadows of the twilight, gesticulating and clenching his fists, until he left Moncloa. Finding himself alone, he was again filled with wrath and insulted the countess mentally, now that he was free from the loving subjection that he suffered in her presence. How she amused herself with him! How his friends would laugh to see him helplessly submissive to that woman who had belonged to so many! His pride made him insist on conquering her, at any cost, even of humiliation and brutality. It was an affair of honor to make her his, even if it were only once, and then to take revenge by repelling her, throwing her at his feet, and saying with a sovereign air, "That is what I do to people who resist me."
But then he realized his weakness. He would always be beaten by that woman who looked at him coldly, who never lost her calm and considered him an inferior being. His dejection made him think of his family, of his sick wife, and the duties that bound him to her, and he felt the bitter joy of the man who sacrifices himself, taking up his cross.
His mind was made up. He would flee from the woman. He would not see her again.