Prilidiano’s siesta was shorter than usual that afternoon, but it was not without its disturbing phantoms, which was normal, far too normal. It was pure habit, as with children. And this man, so important for Argentine history in his century, had a great deal of the child about him. He was plump, impetuous, imprudent, fearful, a slave to his passions, the plaything of the wildest fantasies. Every day he conjured up this theater of horror within the confines of his villa at the top end of San Isidro village: but only while the sun shone, because he always slept a dreamless sleep for all the hours when it was below the horizon. He was unmarried, with no close family, and no servants since he had placed himself in the hands of Facunda Lopez, who had started out as his cook, but by now had also taken over the duties of maid, housekeeper, gardener, and even groom. Facunda was a well-rounded woman of around forty years, who had no need to learn any erotic tricks to keep her master in the palm of her hand, because he was already there, and always would be. Whenever she talked to herself — and sometimes when she was speaking out loud too, as she was no model of discretion — she called the painter “Repetido,” because he always made love in exactly the same way, without any variation, and never missed a day, with his childlike insatiability. She went to him, without fail, when his siesta was coming to an end; she watched him pretending to be asleep for a moment, then flung herself on him.
For several months now, Prilidiano had been painting a picture for his own pleasure. It was the first time he had done this, without the painting being commissioned. Just for himself, not to be sold. This had unnerved him somewhat: at first he had doubts as to what kind of art might emerge from this gratuitous act. Painting with his usual excruciating meticulousness, he watched as the image slowly took shape, and it was just like any other. Perhaps it was art after all. He worked even more slowly than usual, because he was painting in his spare time. His original idea had been to paint Facunda sleeping her siesta naked. Naturally, the painting was and always would be his secret. But precisely in order not to let slip even a fraction of that secret, which was far more valuable than the canvas itself, he wanted to paint Facunda a second time, in the same bed, alongside the first figure. Muddleheaded as he was, he did not realize that this meant he would be portraying two women rather than the same one twice. By the time he caught on, it was too late. This totally confused him. He was a genius, but things like this were always happening to him. At least he had learned his lesson. And since he truly was the Repetido, he went on learning it siesta after siesta.
Although not unknown, visits to the villa were rare. When the Englishman turned up in mid-afternoon, the two inhabitants of the house were still sleepy. Facunda came out to hold his horse. She asked him who he was and what he wanted. After he had told her, Clarke began to feel it was impertinent of her to insist so much on whether he really wished to see the painter. Of course he did. Did he wish to see him, or to have his portrait painted? If the latter were the case, he would need to learn to be patient. He had chosen the slowest artist in the world. Annoyed at this unwanted and trivial advice, Clarke strode into the living room without waiting for the woman to invite him in, and sat down. Within a minute, the artist appeared. Clarke thought it must be his son, but it was the man himself. He was not in the least as Clarke had imagined him: a plump, dark-skinned youngster, turning bald although no one would have taken him to be more than twenty-five, and with the asymmetrical, slanted eyes of a lunatic. He had no manners, but the Englishman had enough for them both. Clarke explained he had been given the address by an aunt of the house owner, and then launched into discreet praise of the painter’s work. This was the first time that Prilidiano had heard anything of the sort. He agreed with everything he was told, with a charming ingenuousness. Facunda, who had apparently disappeared for good, suddenly reappeared in the room with a bottle of chilled claret and two glasses. In the twinkling of an eye, the two men downed half the bottle. As he warmed to his visitor, the painter confessed he was thinking of traveling to Europe to become a little less ignorant. Clarke spoke strongly against the idea. Prilidiano had all he needed for his development in Argentina. The artistic scene in Europe was exhausted; before much longer all the old world painters would start emigrating to the new. What about technique? the painter asked. He already had more than enough. And the old masters? When it came down to it, the Englishman said, they were not worth the effort. They continued in this vein for some time. Prilidiano was sorry he did not have any of his paintings in the house to show his enthusiastic admirer. He did have one, that of the two Facundas, but that was not finished and besides, it was not something to show to others. What he could offer were a few works hanging on the walls of the living room. Clarke stood up politely. They turned out to be pictures woven in wool and esparto grass by Manuelita Rosas, who had given them to the painter. Clarke stared at them without the slightest idea of what to say. They were abominable, wretched. Over the previous few days he had seen perhaps half a dozen portraits by Prilidiano in Buenos Aires salons. He thought them better than Reynolds and Gainsborough put together, the sign of true genius, not so much for the incredible psychological insight into their sitters they demonstrated, though that in itself was sublime, but for the way they created a surface. In that, they were beyond compare. Prilidiano achieved a visual clarity that was pure visibility, a way of taking the surface to the surface of the picture and making the two come together, of creating painting at the precise point where the viewer was — unbeknown to himself — wishing it might be realized. The painter’s triumph went far beyond the teasing interplay of ingenuity and knowledge. Manuelita’s ridiculously labored woolen offerings were the exact opposite. Could it be out of sarcasm that the genius had them hung in his living room, and was showing them off in this way? Clarke found it impossible to decide.
Once they had exhausted their discussion about painting, they sat down again and turned to the visitor’s plans. Clarke was a naturalist, and his intention was to travel into the hinterland to study several animals, and one in particular, which a number of scientific institutions in Europe were interested in.
“Well,” Prilidiano said lightheartedly, “if you take a good embalmer along with you, I suppose you’ll be able to get some fine specimens.”
No, that was not the Englishman’s intention at all. He said that the last thing he wanted to do was to embalm anything. He was not aiming to collect things, quite the opposite. He briefly outlined the new theory according to which some animals were descended from others, which meant there was no point in preserving them in any one fixed form. Nor was there any point taking them off somewhere else because according to another, complementary theory, in ancient times all the continents had been joined together as one. . the painter’s mind was filled with confusion. His guest might just as well have been talking Greek. He preferred to change topics, especially as something had occurred to him.