"Take that!" and he ran his sword through the old chipped picture, making two gashes replace the challenging eyes.

Then he added a few gashes more for good measure....
That same evening, his godfather having been invited to supper, the notary spoke of a certain portrait acquired a few months before in the neighborhood of Jativa, a city that he had always regarded with interest on account of the Borgias having been born in one of its suburbs.

The two men were of the same opinion.

That almost infantile prelate could have been no other than Caesar Borgia, made Archbishop of Valencia when sixteen years old by his father, the Pope.

On their first free day they would examine the portrait with particular attention....
And Ulysses, hanging his head, felt every mouthful sticking in his throat.
For the fanciful lad, a pleasure even more intense and substantial than his lonely games in the garret was a visit to his godfather's home; to his childish eyes, this godparent, the lawyer, Don Carmelo Labarta, was the personification of the ideal life, of glory, of poesy.