When the former martoma and his wife left the cave they were deeply moved and drunk. At a certain distance, a distance she no longer wanted to close, Teresa followed them. The couple stopped every time the old man reeled and needed Felipa’s support to keep walking. Teresa laughed at his clumsy efforts to keep his balance, to go forward. And she made no move to help, no considerate gesture. It seemed humiliating and contemptible to serve an Indian.

Teresa entered the hut only to collect her things: a rebozo, a small bundle of clothing. Immersed as she was in drunkenness, Felipa was unaware of her guest’s actions.

Taking pains not to brush against anything, not even with the hem of her clothing, Teresa took her last steps through the hut. She placed the wide bowl she ate from, shining clean, on a shelf. And she left.

She walked along the road thinking about how the Cifuentes family would receive her. Had Idolina missed her? How grateful she would be for a longed-for smile of happiness. But she didn’t count on it too much. The one thing she could count on was Isabel’s reproach and perhaps the quick slap that concluded her fits of temper.

And if they would not take her in? Teresa was paralyzed by the possibility. Then she recovered and kept on walking, careful of the stones she had to sidestep, the mud puddles, the thorns. She was not thinking about anything any more.

In Ciudad Real, emotions were no longer running as high and the sight of an Indian did not arouse the Caxláns’ fury, only the same disdainful indifference as before. An Indian had ceased to be a sign of danger.

Teresa crossed the first streets without anyone’s paying any particular attention to her. Perhaps a lady she walked by (who had known her in her patróns’ house) gave the distracted half-smile one gives to the piece of furniture that is always there.

Teresa stepped into the entryway of her masters’ house, sticking close to the wall so as not to be noticed. But her arrival in the kitchen caused such a stir among the servants that Isabel had to find out about it.