Woman Triumphant (La Maja Desnuda)

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

He lived in Holland, studying its museums, which he had never seen: then, with the caprice of a wandering bird, he went down to Italy where he enjoyed several months of easy life, without any work, visiting studios, receiving the honors due a famous master, in the same places where once he had struggled, poor and unknown. Then he moved to Paris, finally attracted by the countess, who was spending the summer at Biarritz with her husband.

Concha's epistolary style grew more urgent. She had numerous objections to a prolongation of the period of their separation. He must come back; he had traveled enough. She could not stand it without seeing him; she loved him; she could not live without him. Besides, as a last resource, she spoke to him of her husband, the count, who, in his eternal blindness, joined in his wife's requests asking her to invite the artist to spend a while at their house in Biarritz. The poor painter must be very sad in his bereavement and the kindly nobleman insisted on consoling him in his loneliness. In his house, they would divert him; they would be a new family for him.

The painter lived for a great part of the summer and all the autumn in the welcome atmosphere of that home which seemed created for him. The servants respected him, seeing in him the true master. The countess, delirious after his long absence, was so reckless that the artist had to restrain her, urging her to be prudent. The noble Count of Alberca was unceasing in his sympathy. Poor friend! Deprived of his companion! And by his expression he shared the horror he felt at the possibility of being left a widower, without that wife who made him so happy.

At the beginning of winter Renovales returned to his house. He did not experience the slightest emotion on entering the three great studios, on passing through those rooms, which seemed more icy, larger, more hollow, now that they were stirred by no other steps than his own. He could not believe that a year had passed. All was the same as if he had been absent for only a few days. Cotoner had taken good care of the house, setting to work the concierge and his wife and the old servant who had charge of cleaning the studios,—the only servants that Renovales had kept. There was no dust, none of the close atmosphere of a house that has long been closed. Everything appeared bright and clean, as if life had not been interrupted in that house. The sun and air had been pouring in the windows, driving out that atmosphere of sickness which Renovales had left when he went away and in which he fancied he could feel the trace of the invisible garb of death.

It was a new house, like the one he had known before in form, but as fresh as a recently constructed building.

Outside of his studio nothing reminded him of his dead wife. He avoided going into her chamber; he did not even ask who had the key. He slept in the room that had formerly been his daughter's in a small, iron bed, delighted to lead a modest, sober life in that princely mansion.

He took breakfast in the dining room at one end of the table, on a napkin, oppressed by the size and luxury of the room which now seemed vast and useless. He looked at the chair beside the fireplace, where the dead woman had often sat. That chair with its open arms seemed to be waiting for her trembling, bird-like little body. But the painter did not feel any emotion. He could not even remember Josephina's face exactly. She had changed so much! The last, that skeleton-like mask, was the one he recalled the best, but he thrust it aside, with the selfishness of a strong, happy man, who does not want to sadden his life with unpleasant memories.

He did not see her picture anywhere in the house. She seemed to have evaporated forever without leaving the least trace of her body on the walls that had so often supported her tottering steps, on the stairways that hardly felt the weight of her feet. Nothing; she was quite forgotten. Within Renovales, the only trace of the long years of their union that remained was an unpleasant feeling, an annoying memory that made him relish all the more his new existence.

His first days in the solitude of the house brought new, intense joys. After luncheon he would lie down on the couch in the studio, watching the blue spirals of cigar smoke. Complete liberty! Alone in the world! Life wholly to himself, without any care or fear. He could go and come without a pair of eyes spying on his actions, without being reproached with bitter words. That little door of the studio, which he used to watch in terror, no longer opened, to let in his enemy. He could close it, shutting out the world; he could open it and summon in a noisy, scandalous stream, all that he fancied—hosts of naked beauties, to paint in a wild bacchanalian rout, strange, black-eyed Oriental girls to dance in morbid abandon on the rugs of the studio, all the disordered illusions of his desire—the monstrous feasts of fancy which he had dreamed of in his days of servitude. He was not sure where he could find all this, he was not very eager to look for it. But the consciousness that he could realize it without any obstacle was enough.

This consciousness of his absolute freedom, instead of urging him into action, kept him in a state of calm, satisfied that he could do everything, without the least desire to try anything. Formerly he used to rage, complaining of his fetters. What things he would do if he were free! What scandals he would cause with his daring! Oh, if he only were not married to a slave of convention who tried to apply rules to his art with the same formality which she had for her calls and her household expenses!