jerkin. He was a lofty soul, enclosed in a
phlegmatic body that never tormented him with nervous desires nor
disturbed the calm of his work with violent passions. When he died the
good Dona Juana, his wife, died too, as though they sought each other,
unable to remain apart after their long, uneventful pilgrimage through
the world.

Goya "had lived." His life was that of the nobleman-artist--a stormy
novel, full of mysterious amours. His pupils, on parting the curtains of
his studio, saw the silk of royal skirts on their master's knees. The
dainty duchesses of the period resorted to that robust Aragonese of
rough, manly gallantry to have him paint their cheeks, laughing like mad
at these intimate touches. When he contemplated some divine beauty on
the tumbled bed, he transferred her form to the canvas by an
irresistible impulse, an imperious necessity of reproducing beauty; and
the legend that floated about the Spanish artist connected an
illustrious name with all the beauties whom his brush immortalized.

To paint without fear or prejudice, to take delight in reproducing on
canvas the glory of the nude, the lustrous amber of woman's flesh with
its pale roses like a sea-shell, was Renovales' desire and envy; to live
like the famous Don Francisco--a free bird with restless, shining
plumage in the midst of the monotony of the human barn-yard; in his
passions, in his diversions, in his tastes, to be different from the
majority of men, since he was already different from them in his way of
appreciating life.

But, ah! his existence was like that of Don Diego--unbroken, monotonous,
laid out by level in a straight line. He painted, but he did not live.
People praised his work for the accuracy with which he reproduced
Nature, for the gleam of light, for the indefinable color of the
atmosphere, and the exterior of things; but something was lacking,
something that stirred within him and fought in vain to leap the vulgar
barriers of daily existence.

The memory of the romantic life of Goya made him think of his own life.
People called him a master; they bought everything he painted at good
prices, especially if it was in accordance with some one else's tastes
and contrary to his artistic desire; he enjoyed a calm existence, full
of comforts; in his studio, almost as splendid as a palace, the facade
of which was reproduced in the illustrated magazines, he had a wife who
was convinced of his genius and a daughter who was almost