Twenty minutes later, when the bus stopped at the National Auditorium, it occurred to Fima how ridiculous it had been to come out on a day like this without an umbrella. Or to promise the proprietress of the café that the weather would brighten up. On what grounds? Suddenly a fine, burnished sliver of reddish light pierced the clouds and dazzled him by setting fire to a window high up in the Hilton tower. Though dazzled, he could see a towel waving on the railing of a balcony on the tenth or twentieth floor, and he sensed in his nostrils the precise scent of the woman who had just dried herself on it. Look, he said to himself, nothing is ever really wasted, nothing gets written off, and there is scarcely a moment without some minor miracle. Maybe everything is for the best after all.