In a fit of heroic self-sacrifice, preferring to suffer himself if it kept his loved one from suffering, he muttered sullenly:

“Let's go in a coach. Jenaro can ride with the driver, because I'll need him to guide me when we get there.”

Neither he nor el Jarameño said anything as they sat side by side in the vehicle. Whenever the rough ride jostled them together, their mutual revulsion quickly separated them. Perhaps the torero already had intimations of the piano player's intentions regarding Santa and treated him with hostility for that reason. Perhaps he had been alerted by the mysterious magnetic field that alerts us in a café or a theater, at a dance or in whatever public place, that someone there, one among thousands, ardently desires to have the woman whom we love, who belongs only to us. And at the moment of mutual recognition, a current of homicidal hatred flows between him and us. Expressions of defiance flair on bloodless faces. A minute more, and the hatred could explode, annihilating everything. Hatred for love, ancient, incurable, eternal …

Because Hipólito was blind, and because, even had he not been, nothing was visible inside the dark coach, they could not look at each other, and their bodies reflexively repelled each other. Meanwhile, the only light inside the coach came as they passed under the electric street lights and a few rays entered randomly through the small windows in the doors, like dirty water thrown from a second story window by bare, anonymous arms, that wets only a small area of pavement and is quickly absorbed.

The inspector was not in. That night his deputy was on duty instead, a sleepy, unshaven fellow of indeterminate age and with a high opinion of himself. He wore a wool scarf around his neck and, stuck to his forehead, one of those visors often used by watchmakers, jewelers, engravers, and people with an illness that necessitates protection from electric lights. He was reading a periodical or pamphlet of some kind.

“Good evening to you, gents,” said el Jarameño upon entering the office and approaching the wooden grill that divided it in two, separating the public from the employees who worked there.

“First, take off your hat, my friend. You're in a government office,” spat a clerk who approached the grill from the other side, curious to see what chance had brought them a bullfighter, as el Jarameño's small braid and accent indicated him to be.

“Well … er …,” began el Jarameño with a frown, removing his hat and giving his pigtail a little flip as he rubbed the nape of his neck in a gesture characteristic of toreros, “it's that a couple of agents of … er, public order, I guess … have brought you a girl as healthy as a ripe peach … which has got to be a mistake, right? Because …”

“Man alive! It's el Jarameño!” announced the deputy inspector, just then, with recognition and excitement as he put aside his reading, got up from the desk, and eagerly stepped over to the grill. He was an avid fan of bullfights.