Woman Triumphant | Page 3

steps, how he feared to leave the easel, lest people
might notice the gaping soles of his boots that left his feet uncovered.
He passed through the vestibule and opened the first glass door.
Instantly the noises of the world outside ceased; the rattling of the
carriages in the Prado; the bells of the street-cars, the dull rumble of the
carts, the shrill cries of the children who were running about on the
slopes. He opened the second door, and his face, swollen by the cold,
felt the caress of warm air, buzzing with the vague hum of silence. The
footfalls of the visitors reverberated in the manner peculiar to large,
unoccupied buildings. The slam of the door, as it closed, resounded like
a cannon shot, passing from hall to hall through the heavy curtains.
From the gratings of the registers poured the invisible breath of the
furnaces. The people, on entering, spoke in a low tone, as if they were
in a cathedral; their faces assumed an expression of unnatural
seriousness, as though they were intimidated by the thousands of
canvases that lined the walls, by the enormous busts that decorated the
circle of the rotunda and the middle of the central salon.
On seeing Renovales, the two door-keepers, in their long frock-coats,
started to their feet. They did not know who he was, but he certainly
was somebody. They had often seen that face, perhaps in the
newspapers, perhaps on match-boxes. It was associated in their minds
with the glory of popularity, with the high honors reserved for people
of distinction. Presently they recognized him. It was so many years
since they had seen him there! And the two attendants, with their caps

covered with gold-braid in their hands and with an obsequious smile,
came forward towards the great artist.
"Good morning, Don Mariano. Did Señor de Renovales wish
something? Did he want them to call the curator?" They spoke with
oily obsequiousness, with the confusion of courtiers who see a foreign
sovereign suddenly enter their palace, recognizing him through his
disguise.
Renovales rid himself of them with a brusque gesture and cast a glance
over the large decorative canvases of the rotunda, that recalled the wars
of the 17th century; generals with bristling mustaches and plumed
slouch-hat, directing the battle with a short baton, as though they were
directing an orchestra, troops of arquebusiers disappearing downhill
with banners of red and blue crosses at their front, forests of pikes
rising from the smoke, green meadows of Flanders in the
backgrounds--thundering, fruitless combats that were almost the last
gasps of a Spain of European influence. He lifted a heavy curtain and
entered the spacious salon, where the people at the other end looked
like little wax figures under the dull illumination of the skylights.
The artist continued straight ahead, scarcely noticing the pictures, old
acquaintances that could tell him nothing new. His eyes sought the
people without, however, finding in them any greater novelty. It
seemed as though they formed a part of the building and had not moved
from it in many years; good-natured fathers with a group of children
before their knees, explaining the meaning of the pictures; a school
teacher, with her well-behaved and silent pupils who, in obedience to
the command of their superior, passed without stopping before the
lightly clad saints; a gentleman with two priests, talking loudly, to
show that he was intelligent and almost at home there; several foreign
ladies with their veils caught up over their straw hats and their coats on
their arms, consulting the catalogue, all with a sort of family-air, with
identical expressions of admiration and curiosity, until Renovales
wondered if they were the same ones he had seen there years before,
the last time he was there.
As he passed, he greeted the great masters mentally; on one side the

holy figures of El Greco, with their greenish or bluish spirituality,
slender and undulating; beyond, the wrinkled, black heads of Ribera,
with ferocious expressions of torture and pain--marvelous artists,
whom Renovales admired, while determined not to imitate them.
Afterwards, between the railing that protects the pictures and the line of
busts, show-cases and marble tables supported by gilded lions, he came
upon the easels of several copyists. They were boys from the School of
Fine Arts, or poverty-stricken young ladies with run-down heels and
dilapidated hats, who were copying Murillos. They were tracing on the
canvas the blue of the Virgin's robe or the plump flesh of the
curly-haired boys that played with the Divine Lamb. Their copies were
commissions from pious people; a genre that found an easy sale among
the benefactors of convents and oratories. The smoke of the candles,
the wear of years, the blindness of devotion would dim the colors, and
some day the