I am proud to say so."
And the big man drew himself up to his full height and stroked his
beard, as proud of his faithfulness to his wife as other men are of
their good fortune in love.
When they talked about beautiful women in his presence, or looked at
portraits of great foreign beauties, the master did not conceal his
approval.
"Very beautiful! Very pretty to paint!"
His enthusiasm over beauty never went beyond the limits of art. There
was only one woman in the world for him, his wife; the others were
models.
He, who carried in his mind a perfect orgy of flesh, who worshiped the
nude with religious fervor, reserved all his manly homage for his wife
who grew constantly more sickly, more gloomy, and waited with the
patience of a lover for a moment of calm, a ray of sunlight among the
incessant storms.
The doctors, who admitted their inability to cure the nervous disorder
that was consuming the wife, had hopes of a sudden change and
recommended to the husband that he should be extremely kind to her. This
only increased his patient gentleness. They attributed the nervous
trouble to the birth and nursing of the child, that had broken her weak
health; they suspected, too, the existence of some unknown cause that
kept the sick woman in constant excitement.
Renovales, who studied his wife closely in his eagerness to recover
peace in his house, soon discovered the true cause of her illness.
Milita was growing up; already she was a woman.
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