mmand, she pressed the
button herself. The cracking of her bones could be heard as she wrapped
herself up in the bed-clothes.

Renovales was left in utter darkness, and feeling his way, he got into
bed too. He no longer implored, he remained silent, angry. The tender
compassion that made him put up with his wife's nervous attacks had
disappeared. What more did she expect of him? How far was it going to
go? He lived the life of a recluse, restraining his healthy passion,
keeping a chaste fidelity out of habit and respect, seeking an outlet in
the ardent vagaries of his fancy, and even that was a crime! With the
acumen of a sick woman, she saw within him, divining his ideas,
following their course, tearing off the veil behind which he concealed
those feasts of fancy with which he passed his solitary hours. This
persecution reached even his brain. He could not patiently endure the
jealousy of that woman who was embittered by the loss of her youthful
freshness.

She began her weeping again in the darkness. She sobbed convulsively,
tossing the clothes with the heaving of her breast.

His anger made him insensible and hard.

"Groan, you poor wretch," he thought with a sort of relish. "Weep till
you ruin yourself. I won't be the one to say a word."

Josephina, tired out by his silence, interjected words amid her sobs.
People made fun of her. She was a constant laughing-stock. How his
friends who hung on his words, and the ladies who visited him in his
studio, laughed when they heard him enthusiastically praising beauty in
the presence of his sickly, broken-down wife! What did she amount to in
that house, that terrible pantheon, that home of sorrow? A poor
housekeeper who watched out for the artist's comforts. And he thought
that he was fulfilling his duty by not keeping a mistress, by staying at
home, but still abusing her with his words that made her an object of
derision. If her mother were only alive! If her brothers were not so
selfish, wandering about the world from embassy to embassy, satisfied
with life, paying no attention to her letters filled with complaints,
thinking she was insane because she was not contented with a
distinguished husband and with wealth!

Renovales, in the darkness, lifted his hands to his forehead in despair,
infuriated at the sing-song of her unjust words.

"Her mother!" he thought. "It's lucky that intolerable old dame is under
the sod forever. Her brothers! A crowd of rakes that are al