ad to paint! When he let his love for truth overcome him and copied
the model as he saw it, he won another enemy, who paid the bill
grumblingly and went away to tell everyone that Renovales was not so
great as people thought. To avoid this he lied in his painting, having
recourse to the methods employed by other mediocre artists and this base
procedure tormented his conscience, as if he were robbing his inferiors
who deserved respect for the very reason that they were less endowed for
artistic production than he.

"Besides, that is not painting, the whole of painting. We think we are
artists because we can reproduce a face, and the face is only a part of
the body. We tremble with fear at the thought of the nude. We have
forgotten it. We speak of it with respect and fear, as we would of
something religious, worthy of worship, but something we never see close
at hand. A large part of our talent is the talent of a dry-goods clerk.
Cloth, nothing but cloth; garments. The body must be carefully wrapped
up or we flee from it as from a danger."

He ceased his nervous walking to and fro and stopped in front of the
picture, fixing his gaze on it.

"Imagine, Pepe," he said in an undertone, looking first instinctively
toward the door, with that eternal fear of being heard by his wife in
the midst of his artistic raptures. "Imagine, if that woman would
undress; if I could paint her as she certainly is."

Cotoner burst into laughter with a look like a knavish friar.

"Wonderful, Mariano, a masterpiece. But she won't. I'm sure she would
refuse to undress, though I admit she isn't always particular."

Renovales shook his fists in protest.

"And why won't they? What a rut! What vulgarity!"

In his artistic selfishness he fancied that the world had been created
without any other purpose than supporting painters, the rest of humanity
was made to serve them as models, and he was shocked at this
incomprehensible modesty. Ah, where could they find now the beauties of
Greece, the calm models of sculptors, the pale Venetian ladies painted
by Titian, the graceful Flemish women of Rubens, and the dainty,
sprightly beauties of Goya? Beauty was eclipsed forever behind the veils
of hypocrisy and false modesty. Women had one lover to-day, another
to-morrow and still they blushed at recalling the woman of other times,
far more pure than they, who did not hesitate to reveal to the public
admiration the perfect work of God, the chastity of the