The gap seemed to widen every day, and Don Carlos was chagrined to notice yet again that he was becoming an old man with a pot belly, his worst nightmare come true. He looked at himself in the mirror, and loose flesh hung where straps of muscle had once bound his bones. He seemed constantly tired, but pushed himself hard, because he couldn't let it show. Men won't follow if you lack vitality, and nobody will respect you, he believed. He heard a splash in the next room, where his wife was bathing behind closed doors, attended by her maids. Don Carlos imagined streams of foaming liquid flowing across her smooth pink skin. It was immensely flattering to be married to a young woman, but Don Carlos was unable to conceal advancing age, and sometimes feared that people were laughing up their sleeves at him. Some days he felt better than any young man in the world, but other times his feet dragged and he found himself over the hill.
