"I don't know, papa; she's probably crying up stairs," she would answer
naively.
And in some corner of the upper story, in the bedroom, beside the bed or
among the clothes in the wardrobe, the husband would find her, sitting
on the floor with her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed on the wall as
if she were looking at something invisible and mysterious that only she
could see. She was not crying, her eyes were dry and enlarged with an
expression of terror, and her husband tried in vain to attract her
attention. She remained motionless, cold, indifferent to his caresses,
as if he were a stranger, as if there were a hopeless gap between them.
"I want to die," she said in a serious, tense tone. "I am of no use in
the world; I want to rest."
The deadly resignation would change a moment later into furious
antagonism. Renovales could never tell how the quarrel began. The most
insignificant word on his part, the expression of his face, silence
even, was all that was needed to bring on the storm. Josephina began to
speak with a taunting accent that made her words cut like cold steel.
She found fault with the painter for what he did and what he did not do,
for his most trifling habits, for what he painted, and presently,
extending the radius of her insults to include the whole world, she
broke out into denunciations of the distinguished people who formed her
husband's clientele and brought him such profits. He might be satisfied
with painting the portraits of those people, disreputable society men
and women.
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