“What is there to see there?”
“A stupendous portrait by Velázquez.”
“I warn you that I know nothing about pictures.”
“Nobody does,” Cortés declared roundly. “Everybody says what he thinks.”
“Is the gallery near here?”
“Yes, just a step.”
In company with Cortés and the German with the green hat with the cock’s feather, Cæsar went to the Piazza del Collegio Romano, where the Doria palace is. They saw a lot of pictures which didn’t seem any better to Cæsar than those in the antique shops and the pawnbrokers’, but which drew learned commentaries from the German. Then Cortés took them to a cabinet hung in green and lighted by a skylight. There was nothing to be seen in the cabinet except the portrait of the Pope. In order that people might look at it comfortably, a sofa had been installed facing it.
“Is this the Velázquez portrait?” asked Cæsar.
“This is it.”
Cæsar looked at it carefully. “That man had eaten and drunk well before his portrait was painted,” said Cæsar; “his face is congested.”