The strangest thing. Now that she was alone in the coach, going by Plateros and San Francisco Streets where the cafés and hair-cutting establishments were open, brightly lit and crammed with customers; now that she was part of the slow-moving traffic that snaked in luminous slow motion through the center of the great city, now that she was amid the multitude and yet felt more isolated than in the Guipuzcoana—now Santa was sorry that she had cheated on el Jarameño. Why betray him when he loved her so much? Why give up the planned trip to Spain, a trip that would have been something like a honeymoon? And why in the world do it with the inventor, who had never pursued her, instead of with Abascal, whom she mesmerized? And the infinite sadness that sometimes presages the slow onset of an incurable disease, long before there are any apparent symptoms of it, came over Santa for just an instant—an intense instant that forced her to recognize the running sores she had within her, like a fruit that rots from the inside, bored by a worm, while it still looks good on the outside, so that people buy it, taste it, and admire it, but then throw it in the trash as soon as they find the internal decay. How had she become so perverted so quickly if yesterday, just yesterday, she had been so pure? … She did not, could not, answer this question, and she did not want to. She accepted what is with the passive resignation that comes over both the wise and the ignorant, both the humble and the powerful, when facing the secret forces and unfathomable purposes that sweep us like dry leaves down the twisting paths of life. She began to recognize the evil, felt its contours, and accepted the fatal consequences. On the other hand, escaping the ire of el Jarameño filled her with the instinctive happiness that makes us touch and caress our own bodies after a near brush with annihilation. It seemed a miracle. If that knife had not buried itself in the wood of the dresser … why, it would have buried itself in her flesh, in the turgidity of her silk and marble breast that men sought so deliriously, perhaps … or at any other point, any superlative curve or dimple of the myriad that covered her dusky body like resting places for lips that, somehow condemned to madly kiss every inch of her, must stop occasionally to gather strength to go on, and on, and on … What luck to have escaped! … But what if el Jarameño saw her again … would he try to kill her again? … No, he wouldn't try it again! Those things happen the first time or not at all. If the attempt fails, that's it. Both parties are usually happy to leave it at that. Now that the link between them had been broken and she was no longer his mistress, the torero was unlikely to act violently and throw away everything on her account.