“For the sake of art, donna,” said Zinzaga, “you must forsake not only modesty; you must forsake all your feelings!”
“But I can’t, Don Zinzaga! Not this. I can’t stand by the window and expose myself!”
“Expose yourself. Really, Donna Butronza, one might suppose that you’re afraid of the eyes of the crowd, which, if you think about it, you could say . . . From the perspective of both art and reason, donna, it is clear that . . .” And here Zinzaga said something that even a very clever person would be unable to catch or paraphrase. Something perfectly proper but utterly unintelligible.
Flailing her arms, Carolina began to run around the room, as if she were afraid that they would undress her by force.
“I clean his brushes, his palettes, his rags. I dirty my dresses on his paintings. I give lessons in order to feed him. I sew costumes for him, I put up with the smell of hemp oil, I model for him for days on end, I do everything, but . . . naked? Naked? No!”
“I’ll divorce you, you red-haired Harpyess!” shouted Butronza.
“But where am I to go?” gasped Carolina. “After you’ve given me money to go back to Berlin, you can divorce me.”
“Fine! I’ll finish Susanna and I’ll pack you off to that Prussia of yours, the land of cockroaches, rotten sausage, and roundworm!” shouted Butronza, accidentally jabbing his elbow into Zinzaga’s chest. “You cannot be my wife if you can’t sacrifice yourself for art! Diablo!”
Weeping and clutching her head, Carolina sank into a chair.
“What have you done?” roared Butronza. “You’re sitting on my palette!”
Carolina jumped up. There where she had been sitting was the palette, covered with freshly mixed paints. (Oh, ye gods! What a subject for a great Portuguese painting!) Zinzaga darted out of suite 148, overjoyed that he was not an artist and grieving with all his heart that he was a novelist who still hadn’t eaten dinner.
Zinzaga was about to walk back into suite 147 when he was intercepted by the resident of suite 113, the pale, anxious, trembling wife of Peter Petruchenzo-Petrurio, actor-to-be of the royal theaters.
“What’s the matter?” Zinzaga asked.
“Oh, Don Zinzaga! Such a misfortune! What am I to do? My Peter is hurt!”
“Hurt how?”
“He was practicing taking a fall when he hit his temple against a chest.”
“The poor wretch!”
“He’s dying! What am I to do?”
“Get him to a doctor, donna!”
“He won’t go! He doesn’t believe in medicine and, well, he owes money to all the doctors.”
“Go to a pharmacy, then, and buy a lead compress. That helps with bruises.”
“How much is that going to cost?”
“It’s cheap, very cheap, donna.”
“Thank you. You’ve always been a good friend to dear Peter! We still have a bit of the money left that he received after he performed for Count Barabanta-Alimonda. I don’t know whether it’s enough, though. Could you . . . could you lend us a bit of money for that tin compress?”
“Lead compress, donna.”
“We’ll pay you back soon.”
“I can’t, donna. I spent the last of my money on three reams of paper.”
“Goodbye, then!”
“ !” said Zinzaga and bowed.
The wife of the actor-to-be of the royal theaters had turned away from Zinzaga to be immediately replaced by the resident of suite 101, the wife of the singer, cellist, and flutist Ferdinand Lay, the Portuguese Offenbach-to-be.
“What can I do for you?” Zinzaga inquired.
The wife of the singer and musician was wringing her hands. “Don Zinzaga,” she said, “would you be so kind, would you be
so good, can you get my miserable husband to pipe down? You’re his friend. Maybe you can make him stop. He’s been shamelessly roaring at the top of his lungs from first thing this morning. I can’t get a moment of peace because of his singing. Our child can’t sleep. That big baritone of his has got my nerves completely on edge! For heaven’s sake, Don Zinzaga! I’m embarrassed to look my neighbors in the eyes . . . Their children can’t get any sleep either. Can you believe it? Please, come with me! Maybe you can get him to stop.”
“At your service, donna!” Zinzaga replied, and offering his arm to the wife of the singer-musician, they set off together for suite number 101. There, between the bed, which took up half the room, and the cradle, which took up another quarter of the room, stood a music stand. On the music stand lay some yellowed sheet music. The Portuguese Offenbach-to-be was reading from the sheet music and singing. It was difficult to understand at first what he was singing. It was hard to say how he felt about it. But the sweat on his red face and the earsplitting uproar he made suggested that it was in a rage, a fury, an agony that he sang. He sang and he suffered. He beat time with his right foot and he beat time with his fists, raising them high in the air and knocking the sheet music off the stand. He stretched out his neck, squinted, screwed his mouth up, thumped his gut . . . A little person lay in the cradle, accompanying his frenzied father with yelps, squeals, and squeaks of his own.
“Don Lay, isn’t it time to take a rest?” Zinzaga inquired, walking in.
Lay did not hear him.
“Don Lay, isn’t it time to take a rest?” Zinzaga repeated.
“Get him out of here!” sang Lay and pointed to the cradle with his chin.
“What are you rehearsing?” asked Zinzaga, trying to outshout Lay. “What are you re-hears-ing?”
Lay choked and fell silent. He stared at Zinzaga.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I? I—well, isn’t it time for you to take a rest?”
“And what business is that of yours?”
“I’m sure you’re tired, Don Lay! What are you rehearsing?”
“A cantata, dedicated to Her Excellency, Countess Barabanta-Alimonda. But what business is that of yours?”
“It’s night, you know. Time to sleep, you’d have to say—”
“I must sing until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Sleep won’t get us anywhere. Let those who wish to sleep sleep, but—for the glory of Portugal, and maybe even that of the entire world—I must not sleep—”
“But dearest,” his wife interrupted, “I need to sleep. Our child needs to sleep! Your singing is so loud that it is impossible to sit through it, much less sleep!”
“When you’re ready for sleep, you’ll sleep!” Having said that, he went back to stomping his foot and singing.
Zinzaga plugged his ears and dashed out of suite number 101 like a madman. Back in his own room, he beheld a touching tableau. There was his Amaranta, sitting at the table and making a clean copy of one of his novellas. Tears flowed from her large dark eyes—fat drops fell on the rough draft.
“Amaranta!” he cried, grabbing her hand. “Is it possible that the pathetic little protagonist of my pathetic little novella could move you to tears? Is it possible, Amaranta?”
“No, I’m not crying over your protagonist.”
“What is it then?” asked the disappointed Zinzaga.
“My friend, Sophia Ferdrabantero-Neracruts-Rozga, the wife of your friend the sculptor, broke the statue that her husband intended to present to Count Barabanta-Alimonda, and unable to bear her husband’s grief . . . poisoned herself with sulfur matches!”
“Poor statue! Wives, the devil take the lot of you and those blasted trailing dresses of yours that are forever getting caught on everything! Wait, she poisoned herself? Damn it, that’s a theme for a novel! On the other hand, no, much too trivial. We are all mortal, my dear. If not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow, it’s all the same: One day your friend would have died anyway. Dry your eyes and, instead of crying, listen to me.”