Mornings when his wife,
fresh and rosy from her bath, appeared before him almost naked, he
looked at her with greedy eyes.
"Oh, if you were only willing! If you didn't have that foolish prejudice
of yours!"
And his exclamations made her smile, for her feminine vanity was
flattered by this worship. Renovales regretted that his artistic talent
had to go in search of beautiful things when the supreme, definitive
work was at his side. He told her about Rubens, the great master, who
surrounded Elene Froment with the luxury of a princess, and of her who
felt no objection to freeing her fresh, mythological beauty from veils
in order to serve as a model for her husband. Renovales praised the
Flemish woman. Artists formed a family by themselves; morality and the
popular prejudices were meant for other people. They lived under the
jurisdiction of Beauty, regarding as natural what other people looked on
as a sin.
Josephina protested against her husband's wishes with a playful
indignation but she allowed him to admire her. Her abandon increased
every day. Mornings, when she got up, she remained undressed longer,
prolonging her toilette while the artist walked around her, praising her
various beauties. "That is Rubens, pure and simple, that's Titian's
color. Look, little girl, lift up your arms, like this. Oh, you are the
_Maja_, Goya's little _Maja_." And she submitted to him with a gracious
pout, as if she relished the expression of worship and disappointment
which her husband wore at possessing her as a woman and not possessing
her as a model.
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