The true drama of our time is indifference, tedium, sullen apathy, the Sloth of those who live without disgrace but without praise, or rather who are either never alive or become sterile like the tree painted by Donizetti in the background of the painting. It produces neither shoots, nor leaves nor fruit. It is an unproductive spurious shoot. It does not reach high into the sky, but uprooted is silhouetted against grey surroundings. In the foreground there are two women. One, seated and with her back to us, could bring to mind the splendid Bagneuse by Ingres were she not so resignedly listless, with her head bowed, almost forced to look downwards from under the heavy head of hair which from the parting falls onto her chest in two thick dark locks.
The other woman is lying down but is so wearied by laziness that she could be the same person drawn in another pose. The smooth splendour of her body, the beauty of her face, the soft shine of her thick long hair, make her even more guilty. She is cowardly and yielding. She believes in nothing, she desires nothing, she wants to do nothing, be it either good or evil, thereby bringing on herself the worst Evil, that of our "frigid society", colourless, tasteless and indifferent.
In its pictorial beauty, the picture manages to transmit a sense of desolation where everything is mournful inertia and nothing appears desirable.
