It was a room perhaps thirty feet in length and half as broad. My first impression as I stepped over the threshold was that I had stepped across the world—in one brief instant transported from the bare, ramshackle, tumbledown Bohemianism of Greenwich Village, into the semibarbaric, Levantine splendor of some Musselman ruler. The room was carpeted with Oriental rugs; its walls were hung with tapestries; its windows shrouded with portieres. Moorish weapons—only symbols now of the Mohammedan reign over Spain—decorated the walls. Two couches were piled high with vividly colored pillows.
The rugs and all the hangings were somber in tone. The whole room bore an air of splendid, lavish luxury; and yet there was about it something oppressive—a brooding silence, perhaps, or the heavy scent of incense.
“My room of work, señor,” said the little old man softly, closing the door behind us.
I noticed then that there was one other door to the room, in the side wall near the front where there were two very large windows almost like a side skylight; and that this other door stood slightly ajar.
There was a huge fireplace with a blazing log-fire. I think that without its cheery crackle the oppressive feeling of mystery that hung over the room would have been almost unbearable.
“We shall have more light, señor.” The room was lighted only by a wavering yellow glow from the fire. He touched a switch, and from above came a flood of rose-colored light that bathed us in its sensuous warmth.
Over by the windows a large canvas, its face covered with a cloth, stood upon an easel; in front of the easel, nearer the side of the room, by the fireplace, I saw there was a model stand—a small board platform resting on the floor.
“You have a luxurious workshop,” I said casually.
The little old man looked over the room with an appraising, approving eye.
“One must have one’s ease, señor, when one creates.” He turned another switch, and a long row of hooded electric bulbs across the top of the windows cast their brilliant light directly downward upon the shrouded canvas.