“They killed my brother, Monseñor! You sent him to his death!”

People were shaking their heads in commiseration. Those closest to Benita made an effort to console her.

“The will of God. . . .”

“The will of God. . . .”

“The will of God. . . .”

The syllables followed one another mechanically, without inflection, without conviction.

“Damnation!” Benita replied in a fury. “It was not the will of God. It was the jealousy of these good-for-nothings”—she pointed to the Palacio Episcopal. “Not one of them had his talent.”

Inside, the housekeeper choked back an exclamation of rage.

“Let her talk,” Don Alfonso said with a gesture of agreement. “I think she’s right.”

“With people feeling the way they do,” Doña Cristina replied, “that woman could stir them up. And they will rise up against us, Monseñor.”

All her years of service to the clergy had made her feel like an integral part of it.

“Wouldn’t this be the right time for you to speak to her, calm her down?”

An exorcism, anything, she finally stammered—she didn’t know exactly what procedures the Church followed with those possessed by the devil. Don Alfonso had to smile.

“Let her in. But only her! I don’t want the others getting my rug dirty!”

Benita did not kneel when she was in the bishop’s presence. She did not even bend down to kiss his ring. She was no longer weeping and her gaze was firm and direct.

“Not even a burial, Monseñor,” she began, in a neutral and glacial voice. “The vultures are going to eat him like a dead animal.”

And suddenly the frenzy came over her again.

“It’s your fault! You sent him to his death!”

Doña Cristina rushed forward to silence this irreverence with a slap. But it was no longer necessary. Benita had fallen onto the sofa, weeping.

“You killed him out of envy,” she repeated, her voice muffled by the plush cushions.

“Monseñor!” Doña Cristina implored.

Don Alfonso watched with patient attention as the pulsation of rage slowly lost its intensity. In the end it would be extinguished, and all the more quickly the more it was bled by accusations.

“I can’t bear it,” the housekeeper moaned, her face hidden among the folds of her apron as she blindly searched her way out of the room.

It wasn’t that someone was insulting Don Alfonso, who, in this case, if it seemed best to him, could swallow the insults. It was his dignity, his purple robes, the respect and submission that the faithful owe to their Holy Mother. No, Doña Cristina could not bear it.

When His Excellency was left alone with Benita, he moved toward her, little by little. The sobs had become a regular, rhythmic, evenly spaced breathing, the breathing of a person who is asleep.