The wall clock, with its large pendulum and sonorous mechanism, took charge of the operating room at that point, it seemed—firm, deliberate, and tireless, an almost human presence:

“Tick … tock … tick … tock … tick … tock!”

The clock's ticking alternated with the squeal of surgical scissors slicing living flesh and pincers clamping their little steel teeth into it. Only the voice of the surgeon challenged the dominance of the clock, when he raised it to request or command what was urgently needed:

“Curved pincers! … Clear the blood! … Cotton! … Tie this off! … Another scalpel! … Sponge!”

The silence returned, and again, because the surgeon's audible breathing was rapid but quiet, the clock took charge—firm, deliberate, tireless, and almost human:

“Tick … tock … tick … tock … tick … tock!”

Santa was letting out a very soft, continuous, hoarse little sound with occasional louder cries and groans when the scalpel and scissors bit into delicate parts of her, as if, no matter how anesthetized, no matter how obliterated her consciousness and immobilized her muscles, her nerve endings could still feel what was happening and lament what they were suffering.

Hipólito, who could not see and only hear the clock, began to hallucinate. At first, he was able to identify it as a wall clock with a loud pendulum, but gradually it seemed to him a giant rodent gnawing diabolically at the structure of the building. It fell stealthily silent when someone spoke, then immediately renewed its destructive labor:

“Tick … tock … tick … tock … tick … tock!”

Then, he perceived it as a clock again, but one that gnawed at lives rather than marking the hours. A gnawer of lives, that's exactly what it was! It would destroy Santa, and him, too, and the doctors, and the whole world … simply because we don't pay any attention to it and just let it gnaw and gnaw, day and night, whether we are awake or asleep, whether we are happy or sad, gradually reducing us to nothing:

“Tick … tock … tick … tock … tick … tock!”

Then it happened. The patient's respiration stopped just as the brilliantly executed operation was reaching completion.

“Doctor,” blurted the anesthetist, “the patient isn't breathing.”

Then ensued the agitation and confusion that accompanies all catastrophes: running, agglomerations, hushed urgencies. First, they tried the modern scientific procedures for resuscitation, pulling her tongue out of the way and administering artificial respiration. Then, the traditional methods, such as pressure on the ribcage, prescribed in the old treatises. All in vain! Now, they threw open the doors and windows that had been closed to maintain a sterile environment, and the outside air rushed in to hear the news. The trees in the courtyard swayed outside the windows, as if shrouding the deceased with the whisper of their leaves in the breeze.

Santa, who had gone to sleep hoping for health and life, had crossed the last, awesome threshold.

Not remembering Hipólito's blindness, the doctors permitted him to approach her corpse: