Hipólito's unseeing eyes had closed, meanwhile, his chin had sunk into his chest, and his arms dangled limply from his shoulders as if belonging to an empty shirt on a clothes hanger.

All one heard in the room was Santa's agitated breathing as she hurriedly dressed and the complex sounds that each garment made as she put it on. The blind man's expert ear completely compensated for his absent sight, translating each small noise into an exact mental image of what Santa was doing, almost as if he were touching her or helping her dress. That is why, like a little child who wants adults not to notice his presence, Hipólito remained totally immobile, hoping that Santa would not ask him to get out and leave her alone. And in his mind, with his blind eyes tightly shut, he saw everything when Santa took off her house blouse, standing briefly naked before donning a nicer silk one that announced its quality by rubbing crisply and noisily against her clean flesh. In his mind's eye, Hipólito saw the girl sit down to wrestle on her tight silk stockings, making the chair creak; he saw her lace up and buckle her corset, making its cords hum in the eyelets as she pulled hard to narrow her waist; he saw her drop a slip over her underclothes and saw her take a dress, a hat, a coat, and gloves out of the wardrobe.

“Hipo,” exclaimed Santa with her back to the piano player, “to prove we're more than friends I'm going to tell you a secret. Depending on something that I'm about to find out, I might leave the house to go with Rubio. We kind of made up last night at the dance and he wants me to live with him. He insists. And you yourself told me it was a good idea, remember? So if I do, you won't hate me, right? I mean, if something happens to me, I can still count on you, can't I?”

“Santa, you can always count on me. You don't have to ask your dog or your slave if you can count on them. But one condition, or I guess it's a favor. Let me know where you're going to be so I can visit you, just every once in a while … every week, maybe, or every month. Will you?”

“Yes, Hipo, don't worry, but careful you don't say a word about this, okay? You can't imagine how jealous they are of me since I came back. Tomorrow we'll talk, okay? By the piano, like before, with you playing the dances you made up for me … Got to go, or my man will get impatient!”

They were walking out together into the courtyard when Santa, giving in to a sudden impulse, grabbed the blind man's hand and pulled him back into her room.

“What's going on, Santita? You forgot something?”

Instead of replying, Santa overcame her revulsion, shut her eyes, and fulfilling a charitable obligation, kissed Hipólito right on the lips. Then, grabbing her skirt, she bustled out of the room, leaving the blind man petrified and breathless, his squalid, ill-clad body leaning against the wall, his eyes wide open, his arms rigid, as if a firing squad had just executed him but his body was taking a long time to fall.