God alone was left to them. God is always there! He takes the humble and the wretched, the despised and the despicable, all into his divinely merciful arms, the whole numberless, infinite procession of those who hunger and thirst for forgiveness. Love and suffering do not win earthly pardon, but they are a road that rises to God.

Hipólito was gesturing and speaking aloud, as if someone could hear him.

Transfigured, his horrid face turned toward heaven and his whitish eyes opened very wide. Delivered from evil and vice at long last, believing at long last that true health, the supreme solution to all problems, lies up there, he kissed the name engraved on the slab again, this time as an eternal farewell, and he repeated it many times:

“Santa! … Santa! …”

And radiant with confidence in the supreme solution, his arms folded and his face turned toward heaven, he prayed for the soul of his beloved Santa, whose name had placed upon his lips the simple, sublime, magnificent prayer that our mothers teach us when we are children, the prayer that not even all of life's accumulated vicissitudes can make us forget:

Santa María, Madre de Dios …

He began very softly, and word by word the rest of his supplication rose to lose itself in the glorious firmament, the colored lights of the evening sky:

Holy Mary, Mother of God

Pray for us sinners …

Guatemala City, 7 April 1900

Villalobos, 14 February 1902