But she looked at him obstinately while she protested at his words. Is it ever too late for anything while one lives? And there are men of such supreme energy that they are like tropical regions where death is known but not old age, and they are forever renewing themselves, like the springtime. They have that commanding will which imagination obeys; and imagination is the artist who touches up the dull grey canvas of existence with the colors of his crazy palette.
Elena’s face was close to him, her eyes searching his. For a moment he was troubled. Then, with a gesture of negation, he took possession of himself.
“What you say, my dear friend, is very interesting. But men who are really energetic do not care to be revived to false springtimes. That always brings complications.”
As they went on talking she alluded again to her past experiences.
“If I were to tell you my life! Of course every woman cherishes the belief that her history needs only to be adequately told in order to make the most interesting novel ever written. I don’t pretend that my experiences have invariably been interesting. But they have made me unhappy because there was always such a disproportion between what I thought I deserved and what life gave me.”
She paused, as if a painful thought had suggested itself.
“Don’t think that I am one of those parvenues who hunger for the pleasures and comforts that they have never enjoyed. Quite the contrary! I need luxury and money in order to live, because I had them when I was a child. Then, when I was a young girl I was very poor. What struggles I went through to win my way back to the position I had formerly occupied! The position I had been educated to.... And the struggle never ends.... All kinds of catastrophes repeat themselves until I am sick of them ... and all the while I am farther and farther away from the place that should belong to me in life. Here I am now, in one of the most god-forsaken corners of the earth, leading an existence that must be very like that of the people who lived in the most primitive times.... And yet you blame me!”
Robledo took up his own defence.
“I am your friend, and your husband’s. When I see you heading in a wrong direction, I merely give you some good advice. The game you are playing with these men is a dangerous one.”
He indicated clearly enough that he was talking about the men sitting at the other end of the room with Torre Bianca.