Renovales lay down on a divan deep as a niche, between two bookcases and
lined with piles of cushions. As they spoke of Tekli, they recalled
friends in Rome, painters of different nationalities who twenty years
before had walked with their heads high, following the star of hope as
if they were hypnotized. Renovales, in his pride in his strength,
incapable of hypocritical modesty, declared that he was the only one who
had succeeded. Poor Tekli was a professor; his copy of Velasquez
amounted to nothing more than the work of a patient cart horse in art.
"Do you think so?" asked Cotoner doubtfully. "Is his work so poor?"
His selfishness kept him from saying a word against anyone; he had no
faith in criticism, he believed blindly in praise; thereby preserving
his reputation as a good fellow, which gave him the entree everywhere
and made his life easy. The figure of the Hungarian was fixed in his
memory and made him think of a series of luncheons before he left
Madrid.
"Good afternoon, master."
It was Soldevilla who came out from behind a screen with his hands
clasped behind his back under the tail of his short sack coat, his head
in the air, tortured by the excessive height of his stiff, shining
collar, throwing out his chest so as to show off better his velvet
waistcoat. His thinness and his small stature were made up for by the
length of his blond mustache that curled around his pink little nose as
if it were trying to reach the straight, scraggly bangs on his forehead.
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