Felipe Alfau - Chromos

La Torre disregarded the objection. He took out his wallet and said: “I did not ask the statutes of your profession. I simply asked you to tell me what pass you taught that young imbecile. However, I take it that you are a caballero and that is worth something, but somehow I have forgotten the price.”

And the fencing master told him.

The next morning La Torre met his opponent in a secluded spot in El Retiro. They crossed swords and the pass the poor fellow had learned was his passport to oblivion.

When La Torre saw the young man lying on the grass, bleeding and very pale, he recalled his face. He murmured: “Serrano scared you with a well-aimed shot for the same indiscretion, but you went too far with me.”

It had been a gentlemen’s affair.

Since that time many serious people called La Torre an assassin when they spoke of him and refused to shake hands with him. Some would get up and depart when he entered a place where they were. This seemed to please La Torre beyond words.

It was at the studio of La Torre that Paco Serrano met Clotilde Bonafé one afternoon.

Clotilde had been posing for La Torre all afternoon but he had painted very little. She was reclining on a couch when Paco rang the bell.

There was some confusion and Clotilde started to hide. Her husband was no less a person than Don Melitón Bonafé, the famous Bonafé, a ferocious congressman who boasted a beard like a bib. He had introduced the scola di bravura in the Spanish congress, and when swept by inspiration and eloquence, his voice thundered, his white hair and beard shook threateningly and people compared him to Moses. At such moments he was irresistible. It is said that once, while talking about some taxes, the two lions at the entrance of the building walked wearily away to the zoological gardens and there talked two other lions into taking their post.

As has been recorded, when the bell rang, Clotilde tried to hide, but La Torre, who was fond of theatrical situations, stopped her with authority:

“Why hide, my dear? If it is your husband, I will introduce him to you and then kill him. If it is somebody else, they are not going to find out anything they don’t know already. They will have to take me as I am. I am never ashamed of anything I do.”

“But I might be ashamed.”

His eyes outlined his own figure on a big mirror: “What? Don’t be such a donkey,” and indignantly he flung the door open.

When Paco entered La Torre exclaimed sadly: “Of course; it had to be the one person that would not be shocked. Next time wear a big white beard, Serrano.”

Paco looked tired and showed a great deal of white at the temples. He sat on the couch close to the naked figure of Clotilde.

La Torre, in a light jacket and balloon corduroy trousers, was pouring some drinks while relating an anecdote which concerned the respectable person of Don Melitón Bonafé.

It seems that La Torre had painted Clotilde as Mary Magdalene, very lightly clad, and the picture appeared among others in an exhibition.

Congressman Bonafé saw it. He liked it immensely and he bought it on the spot. The picture found a place of honor in the marital bedroom at the head of the solid, methodic bed, and Don Melitón praised it constantly. Next to Saint Joseph, Mary Magdalene had been his favorite character in religious history, according to La Torre.

On the money from the purchase of the picture, Clotilde and La Torre had a noisy time, but the painter never forgave the inspired congressman for not discovering the likeness between the picture and his wife. It involved a bad implication for his art and besides had robbed the situation of possibilities. He contented himself with calling him a bearded ox.

La Torre, having finished his anecdote, handed a glass of brandy to Paco and held another one for Clotilde: “But listen, Paco, you must have seen her husband at the congress.”

“I never notice anything at the congress. I always go to sleep there from the moment I enter until they wake me up when the session is over. It is the only opportunity a good deputy gets to catch up on sleep.”

“But with the noise he makes, you must have noticed him. He must have awakened you sometimes.”

“Is that the one?” Paco laughed loudly and La Torre caught up with him. “I should have known it. He has interfered with my sleep more than once and I wish I could even matters with him.” His hand drifted to Clotilde’s thigh.

“You will.” He offered the drink to Clotilde. “Drink this one. It will brace you up.” He spoke to Paco: “You know? This woman is played out today. When she arrived this afternoon she pleaded exhaustion. I have never known her to be like that before. Perhaps it is because her husband arrived yesterday.”

“Did he bore her, or amuse her?”

“You had better ask her that”

Clotilde told them: “He got back last night from Paris where he had been for a week on business and. ”

“And he was not as old as you thought,” they chorused.

“Not a bit,” she cried in a pampered voice. “He. ”

“Now, now!” I shook an admonishing finger. “All right, all right,” and Garcia hummed quickly through a couple of pages: “It wasn’t so much, see?” He continued:

“With that big beard, too. The rogue!”

“I think we will all have to grow beards, La Torre, to save face before this competition.” He drank the brandy at one swallow and handed the glass back to La Torre for a refill. “But doesn’t he know anything about this arrangement between you two?”

“You know the old rhyme.” La Torre quoted: “ ‘All Madrid knew it, all Madrid but him.’ ”

“I suppose he would be jealous, eh?”

“In private I don’t know, but in public for sure. He is one of those typical husbands who walk with their wives, their chin nailed to their shoulder, watching them.”

“And with that beard hanging down his shoulder, he must look like a hussar.”

“Hmm. ” handing Paco his drink.

“Some people take marriage too seriously.”

“Are you speaking for yourself, Serrano?”

“No, of her. What the devil! She does not give me a moment’s peace. It is all right during the honeymoon, but not years after.”

“You know? For some people marriage is but the official acknowledgment of mutual obscenity.”

“Poor boy! I don’t blame her. You are so very, very. ”

“So very what?” lifting an eyebrow.

“You know,” stretching herself.

“I would like to crave peace with a woman like yours.” He looked at Paco who was caressing one of Clotilde’s hairy thighs. Her eyes were closed. “If I can relieve you,” he pointed at Clotilde, “we might swap for a while.”

“Impossible. I wish we could oblige you, but she can’t see that. No detrimental implication intended for your charms, but merely a matter of principle.”

“Well, I thought it would only be fair. You are going to get Clotilde anyway. Tomorrow you will be together and I shall be left to look for another married woman model.”

“Please!” I stopped Garcia. “Don’t go and transpose the words now. That would be the last blow.”

With astounding docility, he crossed out a line with his pencil and then said that he might tone down the whole thing in the final draft. When he resumed his reading, I think he missed a few lines:

“It is hell to live with her. She is a neurotic, a case for a doctor. ”

“Or for a painter.”

“Perhaps, but she certainly is a case of bad nerves.”

“From what I know, I think it runs in the family. Look at her brother for instance.”

“But he is not quite as bad. He is the type that won’t jump out of a window and I wouldn’t stick my finger in his mouth. He is an idiot, but Julieta. ”