near the
Exhibition Hall.

The night before he had dined at the Albercas'--almost a formal banquet
in honor of his entrance into the Academy, at which many of the
distinguished gentlemen who formed the countess's coterie were present.
She seemed radiant with joy, as if she were celebrating a triumph of her
own. The count treated the famous master with greater respect than ever;
he had just advanced another step in glory. His respect for all honorary
distinctions made him admire that Academic medal, the only distinction
he could not add to his load of insignia.

Renovales spent a bad night. The countess's champagne did not agree with
him. He had gone home with a sort of fear, as if something unusual was
awaiting him which his uneasiness could not explain. He took off the
dress clothes which had been torturing him for several hours and went to
bed, surprised at the vague fear that followed him even to the
threshhold of his room. He saw nothing unusual around him, his room
presented the same appearance it always did. He feel asleep, overcome by
weariness, by the digestive torpor of that extraordinary banquet, and he
did not awake at all during the night; but his sleep was cruel, tossed
with dreams that perhaps made him groan.

On awakening, late in the morning, at the steps of his servant in the
dressing room, he realized by the tumbled condition of the bed-clothes,
by the cold sweat on his forehead and the weariness of his body what a
restless night he had passed amid nervous starts.

His brain, still heavy with sleep, could not unravel the memories of the
night. He knew only that he had had unpleasant dreams; perhaps he had
wept. The one thing he could recall was a pale face, rising from among
the black veils of unconsciousness, around which all his dreams were
centered. It was not Josephina; the face had the expression of a person
of another world.

But as his mental numbness gradually disappeared, while he was washing
and dressing, and while the servant was helping him on with his
overcoat, he thought, summoning his memories with an effort, that it
might be she. Yes, it was she. Now he remembered that in his dream he
had been conscious of that perfume which had followed him since the day
before, which accompanied him to the Academy, disturbing his reading,
and which had gone with him to the banquet, running between his eyes and
Concha's like a mist, through which he looked at her, without seeing
her.

The cool