And here’s a strange thing: while she lived, our differing temperaments weakened the ties between us, which were based principally on necessity and habit. Death, with its great spiritual power, changed everything. Rufina now seemed to me like the bride in the Song of Songs who descends from Lebanon, and the divergence between us was replaced by a complete fusion of our beings. I seized upon the image; it filled my soul, and with it she filled my life, where once she had occupied so little space and for so little time. It was a defiant challenge to my evil star; I was building the fortress of destiny on solid, indestructible rock. Please understand me: everything that had, up until then, depended on the exterior world was naturally precarious: roof tiles fell when hammocks swayed, surplices turned their backs on sacristans, widows’ vows fled arm in arm with friends’ dogmas, lawyers’ cases came but fleetingly or sank without trace; finally, children were born dead. But the image of a dead woman was immortal, and with it I could defy the malicious gaze of misfortune. I held happiness captive in my hands, its great condor wings beating the air, while owl-like misfortune flapped its wings and vanished into night and silence . . .

One day, however, while convalescing from a fever, I had the notion of drawing up an inventory of my dead wife’s possessions. I began with a little box that hadn’t been opened since she had died five months previously. I found inside a large number of odds and ends: needles, threads, scraps of lace, a thimble, a pair of scissors, a prayer of Saint Cyprian, a list of clothes, other bits and pieces, and a bundle of letters tied with a blue ribbon. I undid the ribbon and opened the letters: they were from Gonçalves . . . Ah, it’s noon already! I must finish; my manservant will be back at any moment, and then that would be that. No one can imagine how time rushes by in these circumstances; minutes fly like fleeting empires, and, more importantly on this occasion, the leaves of paper fly with them.