eleven o'clock in the morning
PART I It was eleven o'clock in the morning when Mariano Renovales reached the Museo del Prado . Several years had passed since the famous painter had entered it . The dead did not attract him ; very interesting they were , very worthy of respect , under the glorious shroud of the centuries , but art was moving along new paths and he could not study there under the false glare of the skylights , where he saw reality only through the temperaments of other men . A bit of sea , a mountainside , a group of ragged people , an expressive head attracted him more than that palace , with its broad staircases , its white columns and its statues of bronze and alabaster -- a solemn pantheon of art , where the neophytes vacillated in fruitless confusion , without knowing what course to follow .