Woman Triumphant | Page 5

talent and painted women so
well. Some young fellows approached to look at him more closely,
pretending to gaze at the same pictures as the master. They scrutinized
him, noting his external peculiarities with that desire for enthusiastic
imitation which marks the novice. Some determined to copy his soft
bow-tie and his tangled hair, with the fantastic hope that this would
give them a new spirit for painting. Others complained to themselves
that they were beardless and could not display the curly gray whiskers
of the famous master.
He, with his keen sensitiveness to praise, was not long in observing the
atmosphere of curiosity that surrounded him. The young copyists
seemed to stick closer to their easels, knitted their brows, dilated their
nostrils, and moved their brushes slowly, with hesitation, knowing that
he was behind them, trembling at every step that sounded on the inlaid
floor, full of fear and desire that he might deign to cast a glance over
their shoulders. He divined with a sort of pride what all the mouths
were whispering, what all the eyes were saying, fixed absent-mindedly

on the canvases only to turn toward him.
"It's Renovales--the painter Renovales."
The master looked for a long while at one of the copyists--an old man,
decrepit and almost blind, with heavy convex spectacles that gave him
the appearance of a sea-monster, whose hands trembled with senile
unsteadiness. Renovales recognized him. Twenty years before, when he
used to study in the Museo, he had seen him in the same spot, always
copying Los Borrachos. Even if he should become completely blind, if
the picture should be lost, he could reproduce it by feeling. In those
days they had often talked together, but the poor man could not have
the remotest suspicion that the Renovales whom people talked so much
about was the same lad who on more than one occasion had borrowed a
brush from him, but whose memory was scarcely preserved in his mind,
mummified by eternal imitation.
Renovales thought of the kindness of the chummy Bacchus and the
gang of ruffians of his court, who for half a century had been
supporting the household of the copyist, and he fancied he could see
the old wife, the married children, the grandchildren--a whole family
supported by the old man's trembling hand.
Some one whispered to him the news that was filling the Museo with
excitement and the copyist, shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, raised
his moribund glance from his work.
And so Renovales was there, the famous Renovales! At last he was
going to see the prodigy!
The master saw those grotesque eyes like those of a sea-monster, fixed
on him, with an ironical gleam behind the heavy lenses. The grafter! He
had already heard of that studio, as splendid as a palace, behind the
Retire What Renovales had in such plenty had been taken from men
like him who, for want of influence, had been left behind. He charged
thousands of dollars for a canvas, when Velásquez worked for three
pesetas a day and Goya painted his portraits for a couple of doubloons.
Deceit, modernism, the audacity of the younger generation that lacked

scruples, the ignorance of the simpletons that believe the newspapers!
The only good thing was right there before him. And once more
shrugging his shoulders scornfully, he lost his expression of ironical
protest and returned to his thousandth copy of Los Borrachos.
Renovales, seeing that the curiosity about him was diminishing, entered
the little hall that contained the picture of Las Meninas. There was
Tekli in front of the famous canvas that occupies the whole back of the
room, seated before his easel, with his white hat pushed back to leave
free his throbbing brow that was contracted with a tenacious insistence
on accuracy.
Seeing Renovales, he rose hastily, leaving his palette on the piece of
oil-cloth that protected the floor from spots of paint. Dear master! How
thankful he was to him for this visit! And he showed him the copy,
minutely accurate but without the wonderful atmosphere, without the
miraculous realism of the original. Renovales approved with a nod; he
admired the patient toil of that gentle ox of art, whose furrows were
always alike, of geometric precision, without the slightest negligence or
the least attempt at originality.
"Ti piace?" he asked anxiously, looking into his eyes to divine his
thoughts. "È vero? È vero?" he repeated with the uncertainty of a child
who fears that he is being deceived.
And suddenly calmed by the evidences of Renovales' approval, that
kept growing more extravagant to conceal his indifference, the
Hungarian grasped both of his hands and lifted them to his breast.
"Sono contento, maestro, sono contento."
He did not want to let Renovales go. Since he had had the generosity to
come and