The governor fell like a log into the soft bed, where his shoes, jacket, vest, and previously unbuttoned shirt were laboriously removed.

“You think I'm drunk, huh? No, I'm only a bit fuzzy is all, and I'll be fine in a minute … The proof is that I hear it's raining and that I'm asking you to undress completely, completely except for the stockings … and tell the truth … you're name's not really Santa, is it? Tell me … your story … how you came here …”

Santa did not need to refuse his demands or answer his question, because no sooner had the governor said these things than he fell asleep again, this time like the drunk who is out until tomorrow. On tiptoes so that she wouldn't awaken him, Santa turned off the lamp and began to undress in the darkness, overjoyed to think that no one would have her that first night. Suddenly in the darkness she put her hand to her neck and stealthily, as if she feared being seen in spite of the darkness, reached into her chemise, paused for a moment until reassured by the governor's steady breathing, and then pulled out a scapulary that she could no longer wear, that she had to hide. Poor little rag, faded and tattered like her own purity, witness to happier times, a keeper of relics that, in the end, had not protected her, a companion to her maidenly sighs and the palpitations of her first love! She kissed it chastely and repeatedly, the way we kiss a thing we will not see again, and hid it in some mysterious place in her sinner's boudoir.

Outside and far away, the sound of string instruments floated on the night air as somewhere, no doubt, a party continued, defying the bad weather, playing music as sad as her own story. Her story, which the old drunk had wanted to hear …

It had stopped raining, but the dull dripping from railings and cornices could still be heard outside. And at the drain in the middle of the courtyard, with its tile perforated by five holes in the shape of a cross, the water still hurled itself down as if escaping, as if hiding in darkness, not wanting to witness what went on in the building.

Two

Her story …

It was the old story of poor girls who are born in the country, and grow up in the fresh air, amid breezes and flowers, ignorant, chaste, and strong, cared for by our eternally affectionate mother earth, with wild birds for their friends, and with dreams as simple and pure as the violets that grow hidden along the banks of a river, the sort of small river that rocks the cradles of these girls so softly, so lovingly, running behind the rustic little houses where they grow up, before slipping away; rivers that run angrily in autumn, turbulent and foaming, but pensive and blue in the springtime, as if concerned that so much aquatic wealth that might move mills, power factories, and irrigate fields will instead flow unrevealed away, away to the sea. Imagine that, the sea!