“You really won't dance with what's her name?”

“I swear I won't, I swear … but you've got to promise me …” and he whispers who-knows-what in her ear, something so depraved that not even a couple such as this wants to hear it said aloud.

Time flies, five minutes expire, and they must separate, putting an end to the scene. She gets up brusquely and hurries back to work, tearing herself away from the powerful magnet of his body, which she continues to contemplate from the doorway, hungering for him but resigned to not having him for now. Then, she runs away, hurling herself into the night, leaving the revolving doors spinning as if unsure whether to follow the fugitive or comfort the one left behind. Now, if this individual has a shred of decency, he will maintain a tragic pose after her departure, hat thrown back, hands grasping his hair, elbows on the table, gazing vaguely at the thin, snaking trail of beer that his beloved left behind when she escaped … If he is totally rotten, on the other hand, he will smile, not at the trail of beer, but at the wrinkled five-peso note that the woman has “forgotten” on the table.

The waiter (something of a philosopher, shall we say) approaches and begins to wipe up the spilled beer, taking orders.

“Another beer, small?”

Moments before one o'clock, the musicians appear in a compact line near the bar, holding their respective instruments, coats, and umbrellas. Several put their instrument cases on the bar, cases that because of their blackness and their odd shapes—containing a trumpet and a violin—suggest, perhaps, in this setting, coffins for deformed fetuses. The bartender who well knows what to serve them, jokes and smiles as he gets them their tequila, insulting them playfully, while the musicians no more than acknowledge him, calling him by the nickname that they themselves invented in honor of his nationality.

“How are you doing, Ravioli?”

The theaters have ended their shows and expelled their spectators. Here, too, incivility reigns. The employees hurry to turn out the lights and open the curtains of the spectators' boxes after only a few moments, releasing odors of humidity and various undetermined substances. They begin to close the outside doors, so that the laggards, leaving too slowly, will understand that it is all over. Did you pay to be entertained, and were you? Fine, then out of here, because nobody owes anybody a cent! People hurry out before the lights go off and the doors close, and the awaiting coaches swirl forward to receive them. Men whistle, horses snort, drivers shout. The police are there on foot wearing peeved expressions, giving directions more through gestures than words, which would not be heard anyway. Here one of them grabs a horse's bridle, there another one admonishes a driver or calls for help from his colleagues on horseback—who are stationed in pairs at every street corner—to come deal with the problem. Coaches and pedestrians, after a brief moment of jocular goodbyes, spread out through the streets of the city, headed for homes or cafés. The flow of people and coaches rouses sleeping neighborhoods, but their number diminishes quickly, as each person goes his own way and nocturnal silence regains its empire. The façades of theaters and places of diversion that once blazed with electric light stand in darkness.