Renovales, standing up, drew away from her, looking at that woman with terror in his eyes, and finally threw himself on a couch, with his face in his hands.
The girl, hearing him sob, was afraid and ran toward the models' room to take off those clothes, to flee. The man must be mad.
The master was weeping. Farewell, youth! Farewell desire! Farewell dreams; enchanting sirens of life, that have fled forever. Useless the search, useless the struggle in the solitude of life. Death had him in his grasp, he was his and only through him could he renew his youth. These images were useless. He could not find another to call up the memory of the dead like this hired woman whom he had held in his arms—and still, it was not she!
At the supreme moment, on the verge of reality, that indefinable something had vanished, that something which had been enclosed in the body of his Josephina, of his maja, whom he had worshiped in the nights of his youth.
Immense, irreparable disappointment flooded his body with the icy calm of old age.
Fall, ye towers of illusion! Sink, ye castles of fancy, built with the longing to make the way fair, to hide the horizon! The path still remained unbroken, barren and deserted. In vain would he sit by the roadside, putting off the hour of his departure, in vain would he bow his head that he might not see. The longer his rest, the longer his fearful torment. At every hour he was destined to gaze at the dreaded end of the last journey—unclouded, undisturbed—the dwelling from which there is no return—the black, greedy abyss—death!
FOOTNOTE:
[A] The life of this character is the theme of La Horda, by the same author.