“No, sir. I will tell you what happened. My late uncle was not a bad man, but when he was angry he was capable of anything, even failing to remove his hat in the presence of the Holy Sacrament. Then, one day, shortly before he died, he discovered that a slave had stolen one of his oxen. You can imagine his reaction. He was shaking all over, he turned bright red, and started foaming at the mouth—I remember it as if it were yesterday. Just then, an ugly, long-haired man, in shirtsleeves, came up to him and asked for some water. My uncle, God rest his soul, told the man that he could go drink from the river or, for all he cared, go to hell. The man looked at my uncle, raised his hand menacingly, and laid this curse upon him: ‘All your wealth will last no more than seven years and a day, as sure as this thing here is the Seal of Solomon.’ And he showed my uncle the Seal of Solomon tattooed on his arm. That’s what caused it, sir; it was the evil man’s curse that caused it.”

Bacamarte fixed the woman with eyes as sharp as daggers. When she finished, he politely offered her his hand, as if to the wife of the viceroy himself, and invited her to come and speak to her cousin. The unfortunate woman believed him, and he took her to the Casa Verde and locked her up in the hallucination wing.

News of the illustrious Bacamarte’s duplicity struck terror into the souls of the townspeople. No one wanted to believe that, for no reason, with no apparent animosity, the alienist had locked up in the Casa Verde a lady of perfectly sound mind, whose only crime had been to intercede on behalf of a poor unfortunate wretch. The matter was discussed on street corners and in barbershops; a whole web of romantic intrigue was concocted, tales of amorous overtures that the alienist had once made to Costa’s cousin, to Costa’s outrage and the lady’s disdain. And this was his revenge. It was as clear as day. But the alienist’s austere and studious lifestyle seemed to belie such a hypothesis. Nonsense! Surely that was just a façade. And one particularly credulous person even began to mutter that he knew a few other things, too, but he wouldn’t say what they were since he wasn’t absolutely certain, but he knew them nonetheless, and could almost swear they were true.

“Since you’re such a close friend of his, can’t you tell us what’s happening, what happened, what reason . . . ?”