Woman Triumphant Part 33

"You must know good women, Soldevilla: You have been around a great deal in spite of that angel face of yours. You must take me with you. You must introduce me."

"Master!" the youth would exclaim in surprise, "it isn't yet six months since I was married! I never go out at night! How you joke!"

Renovates answered with a scornful glance. A fine life! No youth, no joy! He spent all his money on variegated waistcoats and high collars.

What a perfect ant! He had married a rich woman, since he couldn't catch the master's daughter. Besides, he was an ungrateful scamp. Now he was joining the master's enemies, convinced that he could get nothing more out of him. He scorned him. It was too bad that his protection had caused him so much inconvenience! He was no artist.

And the master went back with new affection to his companions, those merry youths, slandering and disrespectful as they were. He recognized talent in them all.

The gossip about his extraordinary life reached even his daughter, with the rapid spread which anything prejudicial to a famous man acquires.

Milita scowled, trying to restrain the laughter which the strangeness of this change aroused. Her father becoming a rake!

"Papa! Papa!" she exclaimed in a comic tone of reproach.

And papa made excuses like a naughty, hypocritical little boy, increasing by his perturbation his daughter's desire to laugh.

Lopez de Sosa seemed inclined to be indulgent toward his father-in-law.

Poor old gentleman! All his life working, with a sick wife, who was very good and kind, to be sure, but who had embittered his life! She did well to die, and the artist did quite as well in making up for the time he had lost.

With the instinctive freemasonry of all those who lead an easy, merry life, the sport defended his father-in-law, supported him, found him more attractive, more congenial, as a result of his new habits. A man must not always stay shut up in his studio with the irritated air of a prophet, talking about things which n.o.body would understand.

They met each other in the evening during the last acts at the theaters and music halls, when the songs and dances were accompanied by the audience with a storm of cries and stamping. They greeted each other, the father inquired for Milita, they smiled with the sympathy of two good fellows and each went back to his group; the son-in-law to his club-mates in a box, still wearing the dress suits of the respectable gatherings from which they came--the painter to the orchestra seats with the long-haired young fellows who were his escort.

Renovales was gratified to see Lopez de Sosa greeting the most fas.h.i.+onable, highest-priced _cocottes_ and smiling to comic-opera stars with the familiarity of an old friend.

That boy had excellent connections, and he regarded this as an indirect honor to his position as a father.

Cotoner frequently found himself dragged out of his...o...b..t of serious, substantial dinners and evening-parties, which he continued to frequent in order not to lose his friends.h.i.+ps which were his only source of income.

"You are coming with me to-night," the master would say mysteriously.

"We will dine wherever you like, and afterwards I will show you something."

And he took him to the theater where he sat restless and impatient until the chorus came on the stage. Then he would nudge Cotoner, who was sunk in his seat, with his eyes wide open, but asleep inside, in the sweet pleasure of good digestion.

"Listen, look! the third from the right, the little girl--the one in the yellow shawl!"

"I see her. What about her?" said his friend in a sour voice.

"Look at her closely. Who does she look like? Who does she remind you of?"

Cotoner answered with a grunt of indifference. She probably looked like her mother. What did he care about such resemblances. But his astonishment aroused him from his quiet when he heard Renovales say he thought her a rare likeness of his wife, and was indignant at him because he did not recognize it.

"Why, Mariano, where are your eyes?" he exclaimed with no less sourness.

"What resemblance is there between that scraggly girl with her starved face and your poor, dead wife. If you see a sorry-looking bean pole you will give it a name, Josephina,--and there's nothing more to say."

Although Renovales was at first irritated at his friend's blindness, he was finally convinced. He had probably deceived himself, as long as Cotoner did not find the likeness. He must remember the dead woman better than he himself; love did not disturb _his_ memory.

But a few days later he would once more besiege Cotoner with a mysterious air. "I have something to show you." And leaving the company of the merry lads who annoyed his old friend, he would take him to a music hall and point out another scandalous woman who was kicking a fling or doing a _danse du ventre_, and revealed her anemic emaciation under a mask of rouge.

"How about this one?" the master would implore, almost in terror as if he doubted his own eyes. "Don't you think she looks something like her?

Doesn't she remind you of her?"

His friend broke out angrily:

"You're crazy. What likeness is there between that poor little woman, so good, so sweet and so refined, and this low creature?"

Renovales, after several failures which made him doubt the accuracy of his memory, did not dare to consult his friend. As soon as he tried to take him to a new show, Cotoner would draw back.

"Another discovery? Come, Mariano, get these ideas out of your head. If people found out about it, they would think that you were crazy."

But defying his wrath, the master insisted one evening with great obstinacy that he must go with him to see the "Bella Fregolina," a Spanish girl, who was singing at a little theater in the low quarter, and whose name was displayed in letters a meter high in the shop windows of Madrid. He had spent more than two weeks watching her every evening.

"I must have you see her, Pepe. Just for a minute. I beg you. I am sure that this time you won't say that I am mistaken."

Cotoner gave in, persuaded by the imploring tone of his friend. They waited for the appearance of the "Bella Fregolina" for a long time, watching dances and listening to songs accompanied by the howls of the audience. The wonder was reserved till the last. At last, with a sort of solemnity, amid a murmur of expectation, the orchestra began to play a piece well known to all the admirers of the "star," a ray of rosy light crossed the little stage and the "Bella" entered.

She was a slight little girl, so thin that she was almost emaciated. Her face, of a sweet melancholy beauty, was the most striking thing about her. Beneath her black dress, covered with silver threads, which spread out like a broad bell, you could see her slender legs, so thin that the flesh seemed hardly to cover the bones. Above the lace of her gown her skin, painted white, marked the slight curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the prominent collar bones. The first thing you saw about her were her eyes, large, clear, and girlish, but the eyes of a depraved girl, in which a licentious expression flickered, without, however, hurting their pure surface. She moved like an overgrown school-girl, arms akimbo, bashful and blus.h.i.+ng and in this position she sang in a thin, high voice, obscene verses which contrasted strangely with her apparent timidity.

This was her charm and the audience received her atrocious words with roars of delight, contenting themselves with this, without demanding that she dance, respecting her hieratic stiffness.

When the painter saw her appear he nudged his friend.

He did not dare to speak, waiting for his opinion anxiously. He followed his inspection out of the corner of his eye.

His friend was merciful.

"Yes, she is something like her. Her eyes,--figure,--expression; she reminds me of her. She is very much, like her. But the monkey face she is making now! The words! No, that destroys all likeness."

And as if he were angry that that little girl without any voice and without any sense of shame, should be compared to the sweet Josephina, he commented with sarcastic admiration on all the cynical expressions with which she ended her couplets.

"Very pretty! Very refined!"

But Renovales, deaf to these ironical remarks, absorbed in the contemplation of "Fregolina," kept on poking him and whispering:

"It's she, isn't it? Just exactly; the same body. And besides, the girl has some talent; she's funny."

Cotoner nodded ironically: "Yes, very." And when he found that Mariano wanted to stay for the next act and did not move from his seat, he though of leaving him. Finally he stayed, stretching out in his seat with the determination to have a nap, lulled by the music and the cries of the audience.

An impatient hand aroused him from his comfortable doze. "Pepe, Pepe."

He shook his head and opened his eyes ill-naturedly. "What's the matter?" In Renovales' face he saw a honeyed, treacherous smile, some folly that he wanted to propose in the most pleasing manner.

"I thought we might go behind the scenes for a minute: we could see her at close range."

His friend answered him indignantly. Mariano thought he was a young buck; he forgot how he looked. That woman would laugh at them, she would a.s.sume the air of the Chaste Susanna, besieged by the two old men.

Renovales was silent, but in a little while he once more aroused his friend from his nap.

"You might go in alone, Pepe. You know more about these things than I do. You are more daring. You might tell her that I want to paint her portrait. Think, a portrait with my signature!"

Cotoner started to laugh, in sheer admiration of the princely simplicity with which the master gave him the commission.