ection.

On reaching the Via Nazionale, Kennedy took his leave and Caesar
remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, who had the air of
a bully, started in to make fun of the Italians, and to mimic their bows
and salutes; then he said that he had an engagement with a woman and
made haste to take his leave.

When he had gone, the grave Spaniard with the sour face, said to Caesar:

"That chap is like the dandies here; that's why he imitates them so
well."

Afterwards Cortes talked about his studies in painting; he didn't get
on well, he had no money, and anyway Rome didn't please him at all.
Everything seemed wrong to him, absurd, ridiculous.

Caesar, after he had said good-bye to him, murmured: "The truth is that
we Spaniards are impossible people."

XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF A POPE

Two or three days later Caesar met the Spaniard Cortes in the Piazza
Colonna. They bowed. The thin, sour-looking painter was walking with a
beardless young German, red and snub-nosed. This young man was a painter
too, Cortes said; he wore a green hat with a cock's feather, a blue
cape, thick eyeglasses, big boots, and had a certain air of being a
blond Chinaman.

"Would you like to come to the Doria gallery with us?" asked Cortes.

"What is there to see there?"

"A stupendous portrait by Velazquez."

"I warn you that I know nothing about pictures."

"Nobody does," Cortes declared roundly. "Everybody says what he thinks."

"Is the gallery near here?"

"Yes, just a step."

In company with Cortes and the German with the green hat with the cock's
feather, Caesar went to the Piazza del Collegio Romano, where the Doria
palace is. They saw a lot of pictures which didn't seem any better to
Caesar than those in the antique shops and the pawnbrokers', but which
drew learned commentaries from the German. Then Cortes took them to a
cabinet hung in green and lighted by a skylight. There was nothing to
be seen in the cabinet except the portrait of the Pope. In order that
people might look at it comfortably, a sofa had been installed facing
it.

"Is this the Velazquez portrait?" asked Caesar.

"This is it."

Caesar looked at it carefully. "That man had eaten and drunk well before
his portrait was painted," said Caesar; "his face is congested."

"It is extraordinary!" exclaimed Cortes. "It is something to see, the
way this is done. What boldness! Everything is red, the cape, the cap,
the curtains in the background....