Yes, they would leave. Now, for the first time, Idolina was certain that freedom, her freedom, was possible. She had to win it and the only way would be to follow Julia’s orders to the letter. Did Julia want Idolina to eat her food? Very well, Idolina wouldn’t leave a single crumb on the plate, though it still repelled her to eat so much and, even more than that, to admit to others, to her mother, that she was hungry. Julia forbade her to lie down during the day. From the chair’s rigidity, the girl gazed nostalgically at the fluffy pillows, the sheets invitingly folded back. But she refused to give in. When the fatigue of her position grew unbearable, she stood up and, rejecting the nana’s support, tried out a few steps across the room. Alone—at last she was able to walk alone! She did it in front of Isabel, her eyes brilliant with defiance.

“You see?” she exclaimed, shaken with rage. “My will is more powerful than yours. I’ve turned out to be the stronger one.”

Isabel left the room, wounded by the tone of the words, though she didn’t understand their scope or their significance.

Absorbed in their confabulations, Idolina and Julia forgot what was going on around them. But Isabel was attentive to the rumors in the street, the gossip the city was bubbling over with.

Idolina’s recovery had been so swift and in some way so inexplicable that it could not have failed to elicit comment. Most of the reactions were malicious, and Isabel waited almost impatiently for the opportunity to convey them to Julia.

The opportunity didn’t take long to present itself. Julia came and went in the Cifuentes house as if she were its owner. But her favorite place was the sewing room. It was so nice there, the atmosphere was so warm and protected. The furniture was inviting; it wasn’t severe like the furnishings in the parlor. And the carpet, worn from long use, had lost its colors so aristocratically. Isabel rightly preferred the room as well. She spent hours there bent over her embroidery frame, making tiny stitches until the sun’s light dimmed. The servants had been instructed not to enter the room unless they were expressly called for. But those orders didn’t matter to Julia, who did as she pleased.

Isabel knew how to avenge the intrusion. In her sly Coleta way, very smooth, very sweet, very calm, she delivered one pinprick after another to the vanity, the pride, every bit of the vulnerable, sensitive surface the other woman exposed.

“The people of Ciudad Real are incomparable,” Isabel exclaimed exaggeratedly. “There’s no one like them for coming up with nicknames.”

“In small towns there’s no other form of entertainment,” Julia yawned.