had
charge of cleaning the studios,--the only servants that Renovales had
kept. There was no dust, none of the close atmosphere of a house that
has long been closed. Everything appeared bright and clean, as if life
had not been interrupted in that house. The sun and air had been pouring
in the windows, driving out that atmosphere of sickness which Renovales
had left when he went away and in which he fancied he could feel the
trace of the invisible garb of death.

It was a new house, like the one he had known before in form, but as
fresh as a recently constructed building.

Outside of his studio nothing reminded him of his dead wife. He avoided
going into her chamber; he did not even ask who had the key. He slept in
the room that had formerly been his daughter's in a small, iron bed,
delighted to lead a modest, sober life in that princely mansion.

He took breakfast in the dining room at one end of the table, on a
napkin, oppressed by the size and luxury of the room which now seemed
vast and useless. He looked at the chair beside the fireplace, where the
dead woman had often sat. That chair with its open arms seemed to be
waiting for her trembling, bird-like little body. But the painter did
not feel any emotion. He could not even remember Josephina's face
exactly. She had changed so much! The last, that skeleton-like mask, was
the one he recalled the best, but he thrust it aside, with the
selfishness of a strong, happy man, who does not want to sadden his life
with unpleasant memories.

He did not see her picture anywhere in the house. She seemed to have
evaporated forever without leaving the least trace of her body on the
walls that had so often supported her tottering steps, on the stairways
that hardly felt the weight of her feet. Nothing; she was quite
forgotten. Within Renovales, the only trace of the long years of their
union that remained was an unpleasant feeling, an annoying memory that
made him relish all the more his new existence.

His first days in the solitude of the house brought new, intense joys.
After luncheon he would lie down on the couch in the studio, watching
the blue spirals of cigar smoke. Complete liberty! Alone in the world!
Life wholly to himself, without any care or fear. He could go and come
without a pair of eyes spying on his actions, without being reproached
with bitter words. That little door of the studio, which he used to
watch in terror, no longer opened, to let in his enemy. He