Woman Triumphant | Page 4

eyes of the worshipers, weeping in supplication, would
see the celestial figures move with mysterious life on their blackened
background, as they implored from them wondrous miracles.
The master made his way toward the Hall of Velásquez. It was there
that his friend Tekli was working. His visit to the Museo had no other
object than to see the copy that the Hungarian painter was making of
the picture of Las Meninas.
The day before, when the foreigner was announced in his studio, he had
remained perplexed for a long while, looking at the name on the card.
Tekli! And then all at once he remembered a friend of twenty years
before, when he lived in Rome; a good-natured Hungarian, who
admired him sincerely and who made up for his lack of genius with a
silent persistency in his work, like a beast of burden.
Renovales was glad to see his little blue eyes, hidden under his thin,
silky eyebrows, his jaw, protruding like a shovel, a feature that made
him look very much like the Austrian monarchs--his tall frame that
bent forward under the impulse of excitement, while he stretched out
his bony arms, long as tentacles, and greeted him in Italian:
"Oh, maestro, caro maestro!"

He had taken refuge in a professorship, like all artists who lack the
power to continue the upward climb, who fall in the rut. Renovales
recognized the artist-official in his spotless suit, dark and proper, in his
dignified glance that rested from time to time on his shining boots that
seemed to reflect the whole studio. He even wore on one lapel of his
coat the variegated button of some mysterious decoration. The felt hat,
white as meringue, which he held in his hand, was the only discordant
feature in this general effect of a public functionary. Renovales caught
his hands with sincere enthusiasm. The famous Tekli! How glad he was
to see him! What times they used to have in Rome! And with a smile of
kindly superiority he listened to the story of his success. He was a
professor in Budapest; every year he saved money in order to go and
study in some celebrated European museum. At last he had succeeded
in coming to Spain, fulfilling the desire he had cherished for many
years.
"Oh, Velásquez! uel maestro, caro Mariano!"
And throwing back his head, with a dreamy expression in his eyes, he
moved his protruding jaw covered with reddish hair, with a voluptuous
look, as though he were sipping a glass of his sweet native Tokay.
He had been in Madrid for a month, working every morning in the
Museo. His copy of Las Meninas was almost finished. He had not been
to see his "Dear Mariano" sooner because he wanted to show him this
work. Would he come and see him some morning in the Museo?
Would he give him this proof of his friendship? Renovales tried to
decline. What did he care for a copy? But there was an expression of
such humble supplication in the Hungarian's little eyes, he showered
him with so many praises of his great triumphs, expatiating on the
success that his picture Man Overboard! had won at the last Budapest
Exhibition, that the master promised to go to the Museo.
And a few days later, one morning when a gentleman whose portrait he
was painting canceled his appointment, Renovales remembered his
promise and went to the Museo del Prado, feeling, as he entered, the
same sensation of insignificance and homesickness that a man suffers
on returning to the university where he has passed his youth.

When he found himself in the Hall of Velásquez, he suddenly felt
seized with religious respect. There was a painter! The painter! All his
irreverent theories of hatred for the dead were left outside the door. The
charm of those canvases that he had not seen for many years rose
again--fresh, powerful, irresistible; it overwhelmed him, awakening his
remorse. For a long time he remained motionless, turning his eyes from
one picture to another, eager to comprise in one glance the whole work
of the immortal, while around him the hum of curiosity began again.
"Renovales! That's Renovales!"
The news had started from the door, spreading through the whole
Museo, reaching the Hall of Velásquez behind his steps. The groups of
curious people stopped gazing at the pictures to look at that huge,
self-possessed man who did not seem to realize the curiosity that
surrounded him. The ladies, as they went from canvas to canvas,
looked out of the corner of their eyes at the celebrated artist whose
portrait they had seen so often. They found him more ugly, more
commonplace than he appeared in the engravings in the papers. It did
not seem possible that that "porter" had