“Good-morning, Leon.... Alone? Where is Mariquilla? Ah, at Mass of course; I had half thought of going too--but now it is too late.... I will go to the eleven o’clock service at San Prudencio.... But what is the matter? You are pale. Have you quarrelled?... I will sit down a while--tell me, what did you give for those statues? They are lovely. You have certainly a beautiful collection of bronzes.... But tell me, are you going to put more books into this study of yours? It is like the library of Alexandria already. Well! You are not at all like the young men of the present day. A silly set of boys. What will become of the world when the vicious, idle, sickly creatures who are the ornament of society nowadays are the men of their time, I do not know! ... However, there is a greater evil still, for if the young men are frivolous and impudent the old ones are worse; more vicious, more dissipated, and more indolent.... But I am forgetting the matter--a very delicate matter--that I came to speak about, my dear son. Sit down and listen to me for a minute or two.”
The marquesa waving a pretty hand and arm pointed to a seat close by, and Leon, obeying her, prepared to hear what his mother-in-law had to say.
She was a woman of good figure, who had grown suddenly old after a prolonged youth and fallen a victim to those ravages which are severe in proportion as they are staved off. Nevertheless, certain traces of past beauty were still visible in the lady’s face; though her sun was setting behind mists of paint and powder, not always judiciously or skilfully applied, and it was not a glorious evening of life. Her tall figure, which had formerly been dignified, was now bent, as though in anticipation of her descent into the chill tomb, though the steel ribs of a pair of stiff stays did what they could to buttress up the decrepit form. Her eyes, still bright and black, were the only living sparks in the dilapidated mass; they, from time to time, glistened with eagerness and vivacity, reminding one of a flash of true inspiration in the midst of the academic dulness of archaic and commonplace ideas. Her hair, which had long since exchanged its Andalusian blackness for Venetian gold, had now passed from Venetian gold to a dull and powdery white. Her complexion, always coarse and sheenless, was disguised under an artificial texture commingled with various perfumed chemicals intended to deceive the spectator, just as in a theatre the painted scenes simulate the greenery of a glade and even the diaphanous purity of the sky. The effect, successful to a certain point in embellishing the withered cheeks of the faded beauty, failed of its result now and then, because when she smiled the dead whiteness of the paint gave a yellow hue to her teeth, though they were still perfectly sound and even; and she constantly displayed them with her gracious and condescending smile--an old habit that would need to be modified if once that double row of ivory keys should begin to desert, like an army that has had enough of fighting. She was always well and elegantly dressed; she talked indefatigably, attempting--sometimes not without success--to insinuate some more intelligent formula among the flood of empty words that usually form the basis of conversation among such brainless individuals.