She felt so miserable and abandoned that she hid her face again in her pillow, still tepid where her head had lain, and she cried her heart out with deep sobs that shook her beautiful, curled-up body; she cried a torrent of tears from varying origins—some from a touch of hysteria, childhood memories, and a secret mourning for her lost purity.

The release of nervous tension that weeping brings and the exhaustion of her energies over the course of the whole day combined to make Santa drowsy and offered a sort of imitation slumber similar to what one sees in afflicted children: a few final sobs and delayed, intermittent sighs surfacing occasionally, only to fade and then evaporate, as if hurrying off to rejoin the pain that had originally engendered them but that was now finally receding. Therefore, she was not fully aware of the mysterious noises that filled her new residence in the afternoon, nor of the visitors who arrive at such houses at that time of day: dealers in jewelry of uncertain provenance; bullfighters who are not admitted during the evening hours because better-paying customers (who believe every bullfighter a potential murderer) might become alarmed; young men of good family who are taking their first steps on the path of sinful pleasures; model husbands and family men who cannot resist another taste of the piquant fruit they learned to relish when young; and finally, true aficionados who long to be alone with the prostitutes and imagine themselves their only lovers, even though the acts they desire and the pallid, sleepless appearance of the objects of their affections both clearly signal their lascivious nightly commerce.

A murmur arose from the street below, confused and somewhat distant, thanks to the garden that separated the house from the streaming traffic; thanks, as well, to Santa's high window with its lacey curtains facing away from the street and towards the irregular panorama of the city's roofscape: tiles and terraces, a fantastical immensity of chimneys, water tanks, flower pots, clothes hung out to dry, unexpected ladders and doors, church towers, flagpoles, signs with monstrously huge lettering, and remote balconies with windows that, at such a distance, seemed shattered into sparkling fragments by the oblique rays of the sun, a sun already descending between the crests and plumes of the mountains on the backdrop of the horizon.

Santa's drowsiness was interrupted by someone knocking imperiously on the door.

“Who is it?” she asked, annoyed, lifting herself on an elbow without leaving the bed. But then recognizing the voices of Pepa and the owner, she got up to open the door.

The owner, Elvira—whom Santa had not seen since the fair at San Angel, when Elvira had affectionately invited her to come live at this house—had something mannish in her intonation and gestures. She wore a loose dress, held a cigar in her teeth, and sported diamond earrings the size of hazelnuts. Much bossier even than Pepa, she leaned in Santa's face.

“So you refused to eat lunch, and you shut yourself up in here all afternoon, huh? I'll forgive you this time as long as it never happens again, understand? We're not here to do whatever we feel like, and you don't make your own decisions any more, or why did you come? They're going to bring you a silk gown and silk stockings, too, and a blouse so fine you can't imagine, and embroidered slippers … Has she bathed yet?” she asked, turning to Pepa, then back to Santa: “Magnificent! But it doesn't matter whether you've bathed already, hija. Every evening when you get dressed to go down, wash yourself again, and use plenty of water, hija, plenty of water!”