Without stopping to put on her shoes and stockings she went to look at the clock in her boudoir, her heart sank when she saw that it only marked one. Still so early! She calculated how long it would be till sunrise; then she shut herself into her boudoir. Who can tell what she did there? In the silence of the night and of empty rooms the clocks, with their regular ticking, like breathing, seem to live and watch. Perched on the chimney-shelves, these bronze personages, with faces like masks with twelve eyes, would make us believe that they can hear and understand by the same internal organs which produce that ceaseless and rythmical beat. The clock in María’s boudoir was the only witness to her proceedings; the portrait of Leon even knew nothing about them, for it hung with its face to the wall. The clock heard her, then, as she opened and shut various trunks; heard the pleasant splash of water as it flowed into the marble bath and over the rounded limbs of a human statue, dancing and rippling like the waters of a fountain in which alabaster tritons and nymphs disport themselves among translucent jets, cascades, and clouds of spray. The impudent rogue of a clock chuckled to itself as it steadily snapped its hundred teeth; it was long since it had heard such music. Then it smelt the faint, sweet savour of perfumes—it was long since that scent had been used there.
María returned to the boudoir carrying the light with her, and her first glance was at the dial near which she placed the candle. A quarter past two. Oh, what a bore is a clock that insists on telling you that it is very early! She had wrapped herself in an ample white sheet like a cloak, which helped to produce a reaction after the cold bath; her face was a little blue, but none the less charming, and her small hands clutched the wrapper to gather it round her, as a dove folds her grey wings over her white breast. The reaction from cold water is rapid and complete. She soon felt warm again, and then, as the reversed portrait caught her eye, she raised her arms to take it down—but it was too high. She mounted on a chair to reach it, and we have it on the authority of the clock that his mistress in her light attire was a charming figure which he opened his twelve eyes wide to gaze at.
María unhooked the portrait and, turning it round, set it upon a chair. There, as if he were present in the flesh, were the manly bust, the clever head, the deep honest eyes of Leon Roch; it was like the sudden entrance of a living person. María was strangely startled; all her blood rushed to her heart, leaving her veins empty and chill; breathless and rigid, she looked at the picture as though it were the apparition of some one long dead, or the embodiment of a face in a dream. It did not frown at her but gazed with a serene and kind expression—the natural expression of a warm and loyal nature. María stooped forward; her face was close to the portrait—then she drew back; with her hand she wiped off a little dust, and having done this, she kissed her husband—once, twice, thrice, on different parts of his face. At that instant she heard a dull, smothered chuckle—it was the clock, taking a deeper breath with the hoarse effort that is preparatory to its striking.
Three o’clock! the creature was growing more amiable and was getting the better of its mania for asserting that it was early. The house, as has been said, was on the outskirts of the city, and she could hear the cocks crowing to proclaim the end of this miserable, dreary, never-ending night.
“It will soon be day,” thought María. “As soon as it is day I will set out.”
Then she proceeded to dress. All the things that Pilar had brought were lying on the chairs, and, but that there were on the walls three several pictures of St. Joseph, the room might have been taken for that of a woman of the world after a night of dissipation.
María examined the colours of the silk stockings and finally selected the blue pair which she pulled over the rosy feet. Shoes were a more difficult matter; she tried the boots and shoes—happily her friend’s foot seemed to be the twin brother to her own—but she doubted as to the particular pair—boots or shoes? A question as important as the greater alternative: Heaven or Hell?
After much hesitation the boots were definitely discarded and she decided on the shoes—high shoes of bronze kid, Louis XV. shape, and embroidered with steel—gems in their way. María looked at them for a long time and then put them on. She had very pretty feet—prettiest of all when bare—still, she must have shoes on as a social necessity, though it was not de rigeur in the days of Venus; and María looked down with satisfaction at the artificial beauties of feet with which not Daphne herself could have run, but which, nevertheless, were pretty enough to behold. She placed her foot firmly on the ground, contemplating the ankle; she turned on her heel and moved the pointed toe, almost like a thimble; the foot as well as the face has an expression of its own. María was satisfied and gave her mind to other matters.
Stays; coiffure; two important matters which could not be attended to together. The first is sometimes a question of strength; the second a sublime work of art. María began with the more serious matter, and it needed no hydraulic pressure to imprison her slender waist. The hair-dressing was a greater difficulty. She seated herself at the dressing-table in a meditative attitude, with her hands raised like a priest who pauses to pray before touching some sacred object, and at length, after various attempts she succeeded in restoring to some extent the structure that Juana had achieved the previous evening—a perfectly simple knot, as it had to be in the absence of various articles of the toilet. But it was becoming, and that was the main point. No puffs or padding.
The rest of her toilet was on the lines of last night’s rehearsal: the black silk dress, with its linings and trimmings of straw colour; the hat, which might have been the creation of fairy hands.... Nothing could be better or more bewitching. María gazed at herself in astonishment; she was a different woman! It could not be she who was so beautiful. It was magic. Nay, a good Catholic could not believe in magic! It was a special mercy of Heaven, a providential interposition, to enable her to carry out a meritorious purpose. It could be none other than God who had lent her such exceptional beauty and such brilliant and becoming attire. Superstition clung to her soul as a limpet sticks by suction to a rock.