In the afternoon Beneventura listens to confession. Deep down in his heart he is a liberal. It seems to him that people often take as sin something that is not. Then they have reason to berate themselves and to feel cleansed. But their true sins they keep hidden. He finds it interesting to hear how during the confession the confessor justifies himself. But generally he considers this listening process as the most tiresome part of his service work. That is why it is so pleasant now, towards evening, to sit in an empty church garden, drink wine and sense all God’s creatures come to life. Thus, relaxed and carried away by his thoughts, Beneventura becomes intoxicated, and not only from the wine, and decides to clear his head by taking a short walk along the narrow street.

On the opposite side of the street, a woman of indeterminate age is sitting against a house wall, the whole front of her body soiled, her face all bloodied. She sits there smiling. For a brief moment Beneventura thinks – perhaps he should not disturb her obviously pleasant preoccupation. But his love of fellow men takes precedence, and Beneventura crosses the street to approach her.

At least one of her teeth has been knocked out, which makes her smile, to say the least, unforgettable. She claims to have tripped over a rope stretched between two cars precisely at that moment when she had been thinking to herself how good life was. She lives close by.

What goes through Matilde’s mind at that very instant?

They have sent the priest to me too soon. Ow, how it hurts.

Stop grinning like an idiot, Matilde, he will think that you have lost your mind and he won’t help you get to your apartment.

What goes through Beneventura’s mind? Totally drunk. Tripped over a string ... Probably her old man had punched her in the face for being drunk. But she lies intelligently.

“Please help me get to my apartment,” Matilde lisps. Beneventura refuses to walk directly into a wolf ’s lair. He offers to take her to the church and to call the ambulance for her.

She washes her face in a washroom beside the cloakroom.

What madness, she really has lost one tooth, but otherwise there is nothing else wrong with her face. Her upper lip will probably turn black and blue. She cleans off her clothes and re-enters the church to tell Beneventura that she has no need for an ambulance.

He does not respond.

She stands with her back to the altar, her lips pinched to stop the bleeding, her bleaching-gone-wrong green hair shining in a special way, a blood-stained phosphorescent blue scarf thrown over her shoulders.