“Thank God!” exclaimed Santa, as if a great weight were removed from her.

“Not so much, Santita, not so much, because it wasn't long until …”

And just as the waltz, returning to the initial motif, died and was buried among the keys by Hipólito's hands, softly accentuating its final measures, a cloud of visitors descended on the house, so that the piano player reserved what remained of his biography for a better occasion, and Santa, still burning with curiosity, had go greet the recent arrivals. The parlor awoke.

That night marked the beginning of the friendship between Santa and Hipólito, the daily chats, her consultations and his advice, and his dedication to her of the three songs—“Welcome,” “I Was Waiting for You,” and “If They Looked at You”—that augmented the musician's reputation and Santa's affection for him. Therefore, when Santa's first serious lover entered the scene (Señor Rubio, by name and also hair color, since he was blond, the sort of man that the other girls of the establishment wanted for themselves), no one became aware of the occurrence faster than Hipólito.

“Hipo,” Santa asked him, “Rubio is offering to rent a house for me if I will go with him, what do you advise?”

The musician almost had a fit of nervous trembling when he heard this.

“Well, Santita, there's no advice for that … Do you like him?”

“He is a fine gentleman, Hipo. You know how he treats me in front of people. You should see how he treats me when we're alone!”

“And what the heck can I see? But it's just as well because … I mean … Do you love him, Santita?”

“Love? … There are lots of ways to love … even though you're shaking your head, Hipo … there are lots and lots of ways!”

“Well, all right, go with him then. Sooner or later it had to be somebody, that's for sure.”

“What's for sure?”

“Your leaving the brothel. Except that the brothel is like jail, the hospital, or hard liquor. It's rough at first, but once you've got a taste for it, nobody can take that taste away … You'll come back to this house, Santita, to this one or a worse one … God forbid, don't get me wrong, I hope it won't turn out that way for you, but sometimes one just doesn't know … Why don't you wait a few more months? Far from missing something, maybe it'll be better, and if Señor Rubio gets tired of waiting and turns his back on you, that will show it wasn't serious. He who truly loves never gets tired of waiting! And, right now, what do you lack, anyway? You've got fabulous health, plenty of customers, Elvira and Pepa treat you well—why not hold out longer, maybe you'll hit the jackpot.”

And, for a while, at least, the twisted theorems of professor Hipólito held sway, reproducing the conventional wisdom of the underworld that had been his academy, preaching shameless atrocities with a straight face. So great was his influence over Santa, that the fellow, Rubio, in spite of the countless advantages in his favor, had to content himself with what the girl deigned to grant him: her manifest preference in public; two full nights a week, starting early, with dinner and the theater. It was the make-believe committed relationship so common among such women in their heyday, so common among all men when their heyday is past. And Hipólito, like the hidden prompter at the theater, slyly directed the action on stage, but because he had to remain hidden, he was unable to counter the well-planned advances of another suitor, the famous and valiant matador, el Jarameño, star of the city's bullring, who had been contracted directly from Spain to delight Mexico's City's bullfight fans every Sunday at the Bucareli bullring. El Jarameño's big spending and amusing conversation got him past Elvira, who preferred not to admit toreros—“guys with pigtails,” as she called them—to her establishment.