But this time, at least, Julia’s motives were different. She had grown used to wandering alone through the vast house, arranging its every corner to suit herself. She was irritated by the presence of a witness. Not because she was doing anything wrong. What was wrong with receiving visits from Leonardo Cifuentes or having conversations with Doña Mercedes Solórzano? Why, then, was she being spied on like this?

For in Julia’s eyes César Santiago was a spy. She found him suddenly behind her, silent, cunning, as if waiting to surprise her at something. She was sure he took advantage of her absences to snoop around the rooms and that he listened behind doors whenever he could. But he was skilled at slipping away, and Julia could never accuse him of anything in front of Fernando. So she took revenge in her own way. She forgot to order the maids to change her guest’s sheets or mend his socks; his breakfast coffee was almost always cold, and sometimes César had to sleep on the sofa in the parlor because the key to his room couldn’t be found anywhere.

César didn’t put up any protest but pretended to sympathize with Julia over these irregularities. If she didn’t immediately hit upon a plausible excuse (stammering, as she offered it, so it would be less convincing), César invented one to safeguard her prestige and his own dignity. But he smelled the intrigue that was being carried on against him and attributed it to motives that were more base than those which in fact existed.

For César, the truth of the rumors going around Ciudad Real about La Alazana’s conduct was so patent that the only proof he lacked was precise knowledge of the occasions she took advantage of to commit adultery with Leonardo and the means she employed to keep the affair hidden.

His avowed admiration for Ulloa increased his disdain for Julia. How is it possible, he said to himself, that a man of such quality married a woman who is so common and so ill-natured? But that being the case, at the very least it would have been logical for the woman to live in a state of perpetual adoration and gratitude for the man who had lowered himself to her level. Yet nothing like that happened. Julia was thoroughly incapable of appreciating Fernando’s good qualities and treated him with an absolute lack of respect. As if incited by bitterness, she didn’t miss an opportunity to wound him with cruel sarcasm or ironic observations. César, who had lived in a world in which women are submissive or, at the very least, hypocritical, found her attitude scandalously unjustifiable.