How could she have assented to such a disgraceful thing?
"I won't have it!" she cried angrily. "Destroy it, Mariano, destroy it."
But Mariano seemed on the point of weeping too. Destroy it! Who could
demand such a foolish thing? That figure was not she; no one would
recognize her. What was the use of depriving him of a signal triumph?
But his wife did not listen to him. She was rolling on the floor with
the same convulsions and moans as on the night of the stormy scene, her
hands were clenched like a crook, her feet kicked like a dying lamb's
and her mouth, painfully distorted, kept crying hoarsely:
"I won't have it! I won't have it! Destroy it!"
She complained of her lot with a violence that wounded Renovales. She, a
respectable woman, submitted to that degradation as if she were a street
walker. If she had only known! How was she going to imagine that her
husband would make such abominable proposals to her!
Renovales, offended at these insults, at these lashes which her shrill,
piercing voice dealt his artistic talent, left his wife, let her roll on
the floor and with clenched fists, went from one end of the room to the
other, looking at the ceiling, muttering all the oaths, Spanish and
Italian, that were in current use in his studio.
Suddenly he stood still, rooted to the floor by terror and surprise.
Josephina, still naked, had jumped on the picture with the quickness of
a wild cat. With the first stroke of her finger nails, she scratched the
canvas from top to bottom, mingling the colors that were still soft,
tearing off the thin shell of the dry parts.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89