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Updated: May 9, 2025
Cotoner had desired to bury Josephina beside her mother in the same inclosure where the stone that covered the "lamented genius of diplomacy" was growing tarnished. He wanted her to rest among her own. On the way, Renovales felt a sort of anguish.
Cotoner went away with a resigned expression and when he returned an hour later, he found Renovales in the model's room arranging some clothes. The old painter lined up his packages on the table. He put the confectionery in antique plates and took the bottles out of their wrappers. "You are served, sir," he said with ironical respect. "Do you wish anything else, sir?
His friends, the cardinals whom he visited frequently, took pity on "Poor Signor Cotoner" and for a few lire bought a picture of the Pontiff horribly ugly, to present it to some village church where it would arouse great admiration since it came from Rome and was by a painter who was a friend of His Eminence.
The Countess of Alberca took especial care to let every one know that her only relation with the painter was a friendship which grew constantly colder and more formal. "He's crazy," she said. "He's finished. There's nothing left of him but a memory of what he once was." Cotoner in his unswerving friendship was indignant at hearing such comment on the famous master. "He isn't drinking.
Besides, he missed the company of Cotoner, who had gone to a historic little town in Castile, where with a comic pride he received the honors due to genius, living in the palace of the prelate and ruining several pictures in the Cathedral by an infamous restoration. His loneliness made Renovales remember the Alberca woman with all the greater longing.
She, poor woman, with her simple faith, cleaned it, worshiped it, waiting for the hour of magic transformation to move them to a palace. The painter glanced about the chamber calmly. He found nothing unusual there, nothing that moved him. Cotoner had prudently hidden the chair in which Josephina died.
Cotoner lied compassionately. Yes, it was she, at last he saw her well enough. She, but more beautiful than in life. Josephina had never looked like that. Now it was Renovales who looked with surprise and pity. Poor Cotoner! Unhappy failure pariah of art, who could not rise above the nameless crowd and whose only feeling was in his stomach! What did he know about such things?
"Very difficult," murmured Renovales. "I tell you it is very difficult. There are so many obstacles to struggle against." Cotoner leaned forward with a confidential expression. "And besides, there's the mistress," he said in a quiet voice, looking at the door with a sort of fear. "I don't believe Josephina would be very much pleased with this picture and its pack of models."
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. This Soldevilla was Renovales' favorite pupil "his weakness" Cotoner called him.
Often when Cotoner came in, he would surprise him by the serene shamelessness with which he sang some one of the licentious songs he had learned in Rome, and the painter of the Popes, smiling like a faun, joined in the chorus, applauding at the end these ribald verses of the studio.
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