andy. Suddenly he would drink it at one gulp, pay the waiter and go
out, with the haste of one who has swallowed a drug. And once more he
would begin his explorations, peering with greedy eyes at all the women
who passed alone, turning around to follow the course of run-down heels,
the flutter of dark and mud-splashed skirts. At last he would start with
sudden determination, he would disappear almost on the heel of some
woman always of the same appearance. The boys knew the great artist's
preference: little, weak, sickly women, graceful as faded flowers, with
large eyes, dull and sorrowful.

A story of strange mental aberration was forming about him. His enemies
repeated it in the studios; the throng which cannot imagine that
celebrated men lead the same life as other people, and like to think
that they are capricious, tormented by extraordinary habits, began to
talk with delight about the hobby of the painter Renovales.

In all the houses of prostitution, from the middle class apartments,
scattered in the most respectable streets, to the damp, ill-smelling
dens which cast out their wares at night on the Calle de Peligros,
circulated the story of a certain gentleman, provoking shouts of
laughter. He always came muffled up mysteriously, following hastily the
rustle of some poor starched skirts which preceded him. He entered the
dark doorway with a sort of terror, climbed the winding staircase which
seemed to smell of the residues of life, hastened the disrobing with
eager hands, as if he had no time to waste, as if he was afraid of dying
before he realized his desire, and all at once the poor women who looked
askance at his feverish silence and the savage hunger which shone in his
eyes, were tempted to laugh, seeing him drop dejectedly into a chair in
silence, unmindful of the brutal words which they in their astonishment
hurled at him; without paying any attention to their gestures and
invitations, not coming out of his stupor till the woman, cold and
somewhat offended, started to put on her clothes. "One moment more."
This scene almost always ended with an expression of disgust, of bitter
disappointment. Sometimes the poor puppets of flesh thought they saw in
his eyes a sorrowful expression, as if he were going to weep. Then he
fled precipitously, hidden under his cloak in sudden shame, with the
firm determination not to return, to resist that demon of hungry
curiosity which dwelt within him and could not see a woman's