Because of this simple and irretrievable lapse, Isabel placed Julia on a plane of absolute inferiority. Therefore she could permit herself to reject the friendship that this parvenu of ambiguous aspect and reputation was offering her.

With her eyes half-closed—aloof, bored—Isabel listened to the other woman’s picturesque anecdotes, the little witticisms Julia tried to distract her with. But she was too old, she had suffered too much to be seduced by the chimes of laughter that rang out aröund her. How greatly she preferred solitude, a monologue with her familiar shadows, reviewing the minutia of her misfortunes.

Jealousy was the electric shock that provoked the corpse’s last spasm. After all, the wife reasoned, what can this woman take from me? I’ve had no part of Leonardo for many years. If someone’s going to get some use out of him, what do I care who she is? Wasn’t my husband chasing around after Indian girls like a colt on the loose? Now he’ll calm down, he’ll have a regular querida. Let him have his fill of her. Is he making me look ridiculous in the eyes of Ciudad Real? Someone else looks even more ridiculous, and he’s not complaining. Go ahead, Leonardo, be as shameless as you want, squander your money on this little whim of yours. You know very well that at the end of the day when you’re flat broke you’ll have no right to expect anything from me.

But while these arguments did their part to appease the rebellions and fears of Isabel’s self-love, they left a distaste, a bitter memory that was certainly not conducive to a sympathetic understanding between the two women.

“There’s nothing to be done with that woman,” Julia had to accept in discouragement. But other ways of breaching the barrier remained to be examined. For example, Doña Mercedes Solórzano. From the beginning she had exhibited a loyalty to Julia that was perhaps too conspicuous to be sincere. But even if it were sincere, her status as a servant, the lowliness of the functions she performed made Julia’s interaction with her a double-edged sword. Julia tried to conceal that interaction while maintaining a hidden complicity with the procuress because she was afraid— and rightly so—of making an enemy of her.

The news of an inhabitual presence in the house reached Idolina’s bedroom. A visitor in the Cifuentes house? How is such a thing possible? How did she get past Leonardo’s mistrust and Isabel’s standoffish nature?)

“She came to inform on me,” thought Idolina, who was unable even to imagine that other people established relationships with each other or had interests of which she was not the crux.