ch the gentlemen of her coterie
pulled him to pieces, declaring that he was an idiot and that his book
was a Harlequin's coat, a series of excerpts from other men, poorly
basted together, with the daring of ignorance. They, too, were stung by
envy, in their senile, silent love, by the triumph of that stripling who
carried off their idol, whom they had worshiped with a contemplative
devotion that gave new life to their old age.

Renovales was angry with himself. He tried in vain to overcome the habit
that made him turn his steps every afternoon toward the countess's
house.

"I'll never go there again," he would say when he was back in his
studio. "A pretty part you're playing, Mariano! Acting as a chorus to a
love duet, in the company of all these senile imbeciles. A fine aim in
life, this countess of yours!"

But the next day he would go back, thinking with a sort of hope of
Monteverde's pretentious superiority, and the disdainful air with which
he received his fair adorer's worship. Concha would soon get tired of
this mustached doll and turn her eyes on him, a man.

The painter observed the transformation of his nature. He was a
different man, and he made every effort to keep his family from noticing
this change. He recognized mentally that he was in love, with the
satisfaction of a mature man who sees in this a sign of youth the
budding of a second life. He had felt impelled toward Concha by the
desire of breaking the monotony of his existence, of imitating other
men, of tasting the acidity of infidelity, in a brief escape from the
stern imposing walls that shut in the desert of married life which was
every day covered with more brambles and tares. Her resistance
exasperated him, increasing his desire. He was not exactly sure how he
felt; perhaps it was merely a physical attraction and added to that the
wound to his pride, the bitterness of being repelled when he came down
from the heights of virtue, where he had held his position with savage
pride, believing that all the joys of the earth were waiting for him,
dazzled by his glory and that he had only to hold out his arms and they
would run to him.

He felt humiliated by his failure; a dumb rage filled him when he
compared his gray hair and his eyes, surrounded by growing wrinkles,
with that pretty boy of science who seemed to drive the countess insane.
Women! Their intellectual interest, their exaggerated admiration of
fame! A lie! They worshiped talent only w