f over her head and he in a cape
and a slouch hat. She would be his grisette; she would imitate the
carriage and stride of a woman of the streets and they would go to the
lowest districts like two night-hawks, and they would drink, would get
into a brawl; he would defend her and they would go and spend the night
in the police station.

The painter looked shocked. What nonsense! But she insisted on her wish.

"Laugh, master, open that great mouth of yours, you ugly thing. What is
strange about what I said? You, with all your artist's hair and soft
hats, are humdrum, a peaceful soul that is incapable of doing anything
original in order to amuse yourself."

When she thought of the couple they had seen one afternoon at Moncloa,
she grew melancholy and sentimental. She, too, thought it would be fun
to play the grisette, to walk arm in arm with the master as if she were
a poor dressmaker and he a clerk, to end the trip in a picnic park, and
he would give her a ride in the green swing, while she screamed with
pleasure, as she went up and down with her skirts whirling around her
feet. That was not foolishness. Just the simplest, most rustic pleasure!

What a pity that they were both so well known. But what they would do,
at least, was to disguise themselves some morning and go house-hunting
in some low quarter, like the Rastro, as if they were a newly married
couple. No one would recognize them in that part of Madrid. Agreed,
master?

And the master approved of everything. But the next day, Concha received
him with confusion, biting her lips, until at last she broke out into
hearty laughter at the recollection of the follies she had proposed.

"How you must laugh at me! Some days I am perfectly crazy."

Renovales did not conceal his assent. Yes, she was a trifle crazy. But
with all her absurdities that made him alternate between hope and
despair, she was more attractive, with her merry nonsense, and her
transitory fits of anger, than the woman at home, implacable, silent,
shunning him with ceaseless repugnance, but following him everywhere
with her weeping, uncanny eyes, that became as cutting as steel, as soon
as, out of sympathy or remorse, he gave the least evidence of
familiarity.

Oh, what a heavy, intolerable comedy! Before his daughter and his
friends they had to talk to each other, and he, looking away, so that
their eyes might not meet, scolded her gently, for not following the
advice of the doctors. At first