They lit the candle, and Santa counted coins and bank notes amounting to four hundred eleven pesos and change—their future assured for an entire year, at least! But the fictitious happiness soon evaporated, and they went back to their places on the sofa, took each other's hands, and pressed their bodies together. The miserable little room was illuminated now. Jaws was pecking at the coins and bank notes on the table. What good would they be, anyway, with no one to spend them?

It had to be late, because the old building was so silent.

Santa spoke nervously, all of a sudden, her gaze apparently fixed on the money, though in fact, she was looking far beyond, at the gloomy distance:

“If I die … don't interrupt me, Hipo, it's not what I want, either … but if I die, swear that you'll bury me in the cemetery of my village, in Chimalistac, just as near as you can to my mother … Do you swear?”

And the blind man swore, with a clear voice and firm intonation, but protesting with his expression, pulling Santa into his lap and hugging her furiously, as if he were already locked in combat, one on one, against forces emanating from the earth that wanted to swallow her up.

Unable to remain upright because of the pain, Santa lay down on the bed, and Hipólito said he would lie down in a minute.

“Give me your hand, Hipo, don't leave me alone,” Santa begged him from between the sheets. And Hipólito went to the bed, knelt at the side of it so that he wouldn't make her uncomfortable, and buried his monstrous face in the covers. Neither spoke any more, but both of them thought the same thoughts, keeping totally still, squeezing their hands, oh, so tightly, so that neither of them could go anywhere without the other. The candle was almost gone, and its dying agony produced an intense alternation of light and dark. On the table, Jaws had fallen asleep, nestled in Hipólito's pile of useless capital, the dove's little head tucked under one wing.

When Jenaro got home with a pair of sandwiches so that they would have at least something in their stomachs, the scene saddened him so much that he felt the urge to kneel as Hipólito had done. But he noiselessly slipped into his own room where, for the first time in his life he was visited by insomnia and lay there sweating without a wink of sleep all night. The imposing silence of the night, of the house, and of his patrones made a powerful impression on him, and he even imagined for a moment that Santa and Hipólito had both died, and he along with them … that everyone was dead.

What a cheerful looking hospital! Its new, modern façade, accented by the old church to one side of it, the tranquil plaza in front of it, the sunlit gardens of its first courtyard, and the extreme cleanliness that one can smell as well as see throughout the building—everything about it contrasted with the melancholy appearance of other hospitals. Santa, who was gravely ill and facing major surgery, naturally arrived with her heart in her hands. She had only seen one other hospital, Morelos Hospital, a sinister-looking place, indeed, and the bright appearance of this one raised her spirits: