“I want her to open her eyes, Jenarito, and see flowers, lots of them! And then when she sees me … maybe I won't look so ugly.”

Jenaro hardly breathed so as not to wake them up! The sound that his agile bare feet made running back and forth was almost imperceptible. He imprisoned poor Jaws in his own room to keep the dove from loudly cooing or flying around, and he set about decorating the terrace and the room in which the lovers slept. His method lacked rhyme or reason, order or concert, and obeyed only the impulse of his turbulent fantasies, but the truth is that a professional florist probably could not have made the bedroom more beautiful. It was a joy to the eye, delightful to the scent, a bit like a garden, a bit like a church, most of all like a village festival. At about nine o'clock, he put the final touches on his work and threw open the door and window of the room to let in the sun and Jaws. The breakfast coffee had been served on the table bristling with flowers.

Santa was the first to awaken, and in the pleasant somnolence that follows sleep, she probably imagined that she was dreaming. She inhaled deeply with an expression of satisfaction, opened her eyes, took one look at the flowers, and shut them fast, grinning at so unexpected a spectacle.

Jenaro launched Jaws at the bed, where he fluttered to rest on the pillows, and, knocking loudly on the already open door, the boy announced with excited shouts, that breakfast was served:

“Here's your coffee with milk!”

Hipólito, too, lifted his eyelids, but calculating that Jenaro's boisterousness meant the flowers had made a big hit with Santa, he closed them again so that his horrid whitish eyes would not spoil things. And although he did feel that Santa was sitting up, he never imagined why. How, after all, could one imagine anything so delightful! Santa sat up and, without the slightest hint of disgust or repugnance, she took hold of him, held him in her bare arms, profoundly moved and crying, and she kissed his blind eyes—the eyes that were condemned to never, ever see her—and they opened wide, trying so hard to see, just one instant, sweet Lord! … And the tears of Santa, whose face was suspended over his, rained into his eyes, and they were immediately absorbed, the way raindrops are absorbed into barren earth that has been thirsty for years.

That moment inaugurated a dreamy existence that lasted only days, during which they did not so much live as resuscitate. Santa's feminine instincts came out through her pain, which did not let up; Hipólito did not need sight to count himself a happy man; and Jenaro leapt and frolicked like a carefree lamb. Those days just flew past, full of planning and projects for the future. Santa would sew, sweep, and cook—she was already doing so in her eager imagination—Jenaro would run errands, and Hipólito would continue to work nights at Elvira's house.