“If you get me a cup of coffee,” he exclaimed, finally, “I'll take you to Tivoli for lunch.”

Santa vetoed the idea, saying that she had to bathe and visit her seam-stress.

“You go with a friend, and we'll get together tonight. Let's go, time to get moving … up!”

The client got dressed in a flash, overjoyed to be set free so easily, and Santa passively accepted his goodbye hugs and kisses. By herself, finally, she opened a window, draped a shawl over her shoulders, and sat down on a sofa, crossing her legs and nervously swinging her foot in the air.

Always the same! Always the same horribly cold, disheartening awakenings, in which she could feel the protests of her tired body and of something else that was not exactly her body but that she could feel protesting inside of it … Always the same feeling of disenchantment, of disgust with the idea of continuing this exhausting, insipid, cruel life—a life that forced her to share sexual pleasure with men who did not appeal to her at all. Always these pangs of repentance, but only at awakening, pangs that dissipated thereafter in the course of the day as she slowly got used to the idea of this life again and convinced herself, again, that she could not aspire to any other, and even lost the desire to try, settling into it, one could say, almost physiologically, as if this fate belonged to her. Lately, the scary stories about threats to her health seemed just that, scary stories. A little while longer, and she'd be just like the other girls. What she really needed was a lover to take special care of her, but a lover that she really loved …

She did a quick mental survey of the legion of men who had sworn they loved her. Why had el Jarameño won her heart so easily, when she had only just met him? Why did Rubio, the “decent gentleman” who promised to rent a house for her, attract her at the same time? Why did Hipólito, who had never uttered to her a syllable about love, try to get between her and her suitors, looking and looking at her, sightlessly, with those horrid whitish eyes of a bronze statue without patina?

The organizers of the outing appeared that evening, as punctually as creditors collecting a debt, in the company of el Jarameño. At the same time, four common yellow-flagged rental coaches parked themselves along the curb in front of the house of ill repute.

What a scuffle took place inside the house! Now all the girls wanted to join the merry band and, amid jokes and laughter, a number of hard bargains were driven and the caravan expanded. The expeditioners sent for another coach which, when it arrived, turned out to be dirty, rickety, squeaky, and pulled by two old nags that, according to the authoritative pronouncement of el Jarameño, were not even good enough for a bull to gore.