And he was back to his old refrain, building castles in the air, planning an idyllic future, drawing imaginary floor plans, even blueprints, for their enchanted dwelling, with this piece of furniture here, that one over there, and they'd do this in the morning, that in the afternoon, something else in the evening … the dream.

As she always did when the blind man gave free rein to his passionate visions and these, in turn, soothed her feminine sensibility like a flock of cooing doves and mitigated the sting of her shameful profession, Santa averted her eyes from Hipólito's ugliness in order not to break the spell and let her hand float between his. The piano player held her hand as if it were a sacred relic, caressing it lightly with his fingertips, and occasionally, very infrequently, lowering his head to kiss it slowly, more than respectfully, devoutly, without ceasing to speak.

Every once in a while, Santa would ask something like:

“And after that, Hipo? What will we do after that?”

“After that? …”

Why, after that they'd start all over again, doing the same things all over without ever getting tired of it, without ever needing to seek entertainment because they'd already had enough of that to last them a lifetime.

“All we'll need to do is the simple natural stuff, Santita, and we'll be astonished that you can be happy with so little. Okay, but when we finally get tired of all that, because they do say that you get tired of anything sooner or later—not that I necessarily believe it, mind you—well, then the big surprise will be … but I'm not going to tell you because I bet you ten to one you'll never guess …”

Several of the girls indicated that they were hungry. Pepa consulted her watch and saw, to her astonishment, that it was close to eleven o'clock. No way! They had to let the girls eat and had to let her reprovision herself with cigars. With some difficulty and the offer of a fat tip, the bailiff was made to reappear. Couldn't they have something to eat?

Why, of course they could. What did they want? They made a list: sandwiches, beer, coffee with shot of liquor for Hipólito, Banqueros del Destino cigars for Pepa. The girls went to the window to watch the bailiff go off across the courtyard, deserted and gloomy at this hour, carrying the list and a five-peso note.