His blind eyes did not tell him that the candle had burnt down into the candlestick and was about to sputter its last gasp, but his instincts told him that he was almost there, that Santa was almost his, that one more step was all that stood between him and his ultimate triumph. He controlled his eagerness and, timid as a newlywed, slid softly into the bed … but as soon as he felt Santa's warmth and the multiple contacts of her body, the volcano inside of him exploded. With strident fragments of exultant laughter and intermittent, truncated, barely audible murmurings he launched himself onto Santa, whose pain had become so horrendous that, despite all her resolutions to endure anything for Hipólito's sake, she reared up in the sheets wet with tears and perspiration, and pushed him away.

“I can't, Hipo, I can't … It would be better to kill me!”

Miraculously, the same limitless love that had exploded inside the blind man now calmed him in an instant. Through a heroic act of sheer willpower, he tamed the charging horses of his desire and, kissing Santa's forehead serenely, it was he who explained the terrible reasons why they must go no further:

“You're right, my Santa, I was forgetting that you're sick. Forgive me and rest, poor thing! For me, it's enough just to have you here with me … That's it, rest on my arm … that's it, Santa, that's it … rest … sleep …”

That night had to be among the purest and most chaste of Santa's life, purified by her pain, which did not let up for hours, and saturated with the love of Hipólito, who did not dare move at all in his determination to provide her the rest required by her ailing body and spirit. Neither of them slept, although both simulated sleep with their immobility and their closed eyes. Occasionally, she felt a pang of pain and he, of desire, but both resisted firmly and wordlessly. Santa's thoughts rambled through the bright future that we all want and need, a recompense for her long suffering; Hipólito's thoughts went there, too, in recompense for his long and patient waiting. The day that she had promised him had finally arrived!