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Updated: May 17, 2025
All this was irritating and exhausting, and made daily life unpleasant. Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black.
Was she really married? Cotoner saw Josephina making her way across the room, looking impatiently among the shoulders of the guests, her face tinged with a hectic flush. His instinct of a master of ceremonies warned him that danger was at hand. "Take my arm, Josephina. Let's go outside for a breath of fresh air. This is unbearable."
A girl who had been educated at the school of the Sacred Heart in Paris, who spoke English, a little German, and spent the day reading when she did not have to clean a pair of gloves or make over a dress! Didn't she want to get married? Was she so well satisfied with that fourth-story apartment, that wretched cell so unworthy of their name? Josephina smiled sadly. Get married!
For three days he worked with a mad fever, with his eyes unnaturally wide open, as if he meant to devour the graceful outlines with his sight. Josephina, accustomed now to being naked, posed with unconscious abandon, with that feminine shamelessness which hesitates only at the first step. Oppressed by the heat, she slept while her husband kept on painting.
It was a new idea to her that any value was attached to old furniture, for Sara lived very much out of the world of fads and collectors. But she did not forget what Aunt Josephina had said. The winter passed away. Aunt Josephina plainly enjoyed her visit, whatever the Sheldons felt about it. In March her son returned, and Aunt Josephina went home to him.
His voice shook with wrath, as if he could not stand the atmosphere of that house where the only distractions he found were the pleasant memories that took him away from it. Cotoner's insistence finally forced him to call a doctor who was a friend of his. Josephina was provoked, divining the cause of their anxiety. She felt strong. It was nothing but a cold; the coming of winter.
And walking around to the other side of the bed, he tried again to take Josephina in his arms, thinking he could calm her, now that she seemed less furious and that her angry words were broken by tears. It was a useless effort. The delicate form slipped out of his hands, repelling them with a feeling of horror and repugnance. "Let me alone. Don't touch me. I loathe you."
But in vain he poured colors on his palette and took up brushes and prepared canvases. He did nothing but daub; he could make no progress, as if he had forgotten his art. He kept turning his head anxiously, thinking that Josephina was going to enter suddenly, to continue that interview in which she had laid bare the greatness of her soul and the baseness of his own.
Looking around with anxiety, she thought of the terrible beasts which had trod upon that sand. Suddenly came a frightful roar and a black beast leaped forth from the deep vomitory. Josephina clung to her husband, with a shriek of terror, and all laughed. It was Simpson, an American painter, who bent over, walking on all fours, to attack his companions with fierce cries. "Do you remember, Pepe?"
Cotoner hummed a tune, pretending to be thinking of something else; López de Sosa began to look for a piece of music on the piano, talking about it to change the subject. He too seemed to be aware of the matter. "She doesn't come because she doesn't have to come," said Josephina from her corner. "Your father manages to see her every day, so that she won't forget us."
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