FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  
ou have found a husband who worships you. Master, take lots of care of her. Be good to her so that she may get well and pretty. Take care of her or we shall quarrel." VI Renovales had finished reading the evening papers in bed as was his custom, and before putting out the light he looked at his wife. She was awake. Above the fold of the sheet he saw her eyes, unusually wide open, fixed on him with a hostile stare, and the little tails of her hair, that stuck out under the lace of her night-cap straight and sedate. "Aren't you asleep?" the painter asked in an affectionate tone, in which there was some anxiety. "No." And after this hard monosyllable, she turned over in the bed with her back to him. Renovales remained in the darkness, with his eyes open, somewhat disturbed, almost afraid of that body, hidden under the same sheet, lying a short distance from him, which avoided touching him, shrinking with manifest repulsion. Poor little girl! Renovales' better nature felt tormented with a painful remorse. His conscience was a cruel beast that had awakened, angry and implacable, tearing him with scornful teeth. The events of the afternoon meant nothing, a moment of thoughtlessness, of weakness. Surely the countess would not remember it and he, for his part, was determined not to slip again. A pretty situation for a father of a family, for a man whose youth was past, compromising himself in a love affair, getting melancholy in the twilight, kissing a white hand like an enamored troubadour! Good God! How his friends would have laughed to see him in that posture! He must purge himself of that romanticism which sometimes mastered him. Every man must follow his fate, accepting life as he found it. He was born to be virtuous, he must put up with the relative peace of his domestic life, must accept its limited pleasures as a compensation for the suffering his wife's illness caused him. He would be content with the feasts of his thought, with the revels in beauty at the banquets served by his fancy. He would keep his flesh faithful though it amounted to perpetual privation. Poor Josephina! His remorse at a moment of weakness which he considered a crime, impelled him to draw closer to her, as if he sought in her warmth and contact a mute forgiveness. Her body, burning with a slow fever, drew away as it felt his touch, it shriveled like those timid molluscs that shrink and hide at the least touch. She
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Renovales
 

weakness

 

moment

 
remorse
 
pretty
 
husband
 

romanticism

 

posture

 

laughed

 

friends


accepting
 
virtuous
 

follow

 

relative

 

mastered

 

troubadour

 

Master

 

compromising

 

family

 

father


situation
 

affair

 

worships

 
enamored
 

domestic

 
melancholy
 
twilight
 

kissing

 

limited

 

contact


warmth

 

forgiveness

 
sought
 
impelled
 

closer

 
burning
 

molluscs

 

shrink

 

shriveled

 

considered


Josephina

 

caused

 
illness
 

content

 
feasts
 
thought
 

suffering

 

determined

 
pleasures
 

compensation