and pieces of paper full of sketches. The painter noticed the direction of my gaze and with a single movement of his elbow he swept away all the picturesque disorder that was on the table. Then, with a few kicks, he nudged the faces of those unbearable women I so often meet at the queen’s soirees, and those of the foolish men who stick to me like the plague with all their tedium and mediocrity. As if aware of my sudden aversion, the painter stood in front of these pictures; he looked ashamed. Of his untidiness? Of the worthless people thanks to whom he made his money? I glanced at him. I started to tremble once more. In order to give myself time to get over it, I asked the painter to have a fire lit.
The royal painter, in his elegant suit, even if it was a little too tight a fit, contrasted strangely with the untidiness and the intimacy of his studio. He prepared the fire himself, saying that the servant used up too much wood. Oh, he was so tight fisted, that stout little man from Aragon! We still hadn’t looked at each other.
A long cobweb stretched between two canvases, and there were more in the corners of the room. Next to the fireplace I discovered a half-written letter: Amigo Martín, Maldita sea, hijo de tu madre, what rubbish you write about my Aragonese relatives, you ass . . . This man is untidy, blasphemous, and what is more, doesn’t have a full grasp of grammar, I thought. You could hear the crackling of the fire and the whispering of the damp wood where the flames started to lick it. The pieces of wood were like his arms; the pieces of wood were like his peasant’s fingers. The greedy flames licked them; the flames sucked them.
The man was watching the fire. I raised my veil. He didn’t stop watching the flames, but as he did so I had the feeling that he was looking straight at me, that in that fire he could see the slightest movement of my face.
“Don Francisco, he venido . . .” I said to interrupt his scrutiny. “I’ve come because . . .”
But the painter went out of the room without a word. After a short while, a servant entered with a tray laden with cheeses, little cakes, and a carafe of wine. The painter closed the door behind him. With one of the sleeves of his Sunday suit he cleaned the table, which was covered in colored stains, and offered me the repast.
“Help yourself, please.”
He sat down in front of the fireplace. He still hadn’t so much as looked at me.
“Don Francisco, I’ve come because . . .”
“Whatever your Highness says,” he said, interrupting me as he moved his chair closer to the fireplace.
“I have come in order to ask you to paint me.” He stayed seated, without moving.
“I want you to paint . . .”
The painter looked at the fire, as if he hadn’t heard me. “I want you to paint my face.”
“Madam, I do not do portraits of . . .”
Did he say dolls? I wasn’t sure, because I had interrupted him.
“I am not asking you for a portrait, rather . . .”
“Now I am painting the portrait of the Marchioness of Pontejos,” he said without turning round, “as well as a portrait of the family of the dukes of Osuna, and I have six more commissions.”
Any closer and he would have fallen straight into the fireplace.
“Don Francisco, you have not understood me. I have come so that you can make up my face. Paint me, as you have never painted anyone so beautifully. I have to dine with the queen, and I wish her to die of envy.”
Now he looked straight at me. His self-assuredness was cracking. I laughed and he became a little infected by my hesitant joy. At that moment he appeared to me as a totally inexpert lad.
Although a milky light was gushing through the window, he lit a few candles, let fall a few drops of wax on a zinc plate and pressed the candles to them. With this improvised candleholder he lit up one side of my face. I offered him the basket in which I carried my boxes of powders and paints. In silence he picked a color, mixed it with others, and drew a frame around my eyes. Like me, when I was little and used to paint my doll, I thought.