Catalina, who does not release her hold on Domingo, who uses him as a shield, approaches the prone, bloodless image of Christ. She does not lower her eyelids before it; for some time now she has no longer feared to look into the face of mystery. And this body, crushed by suffering, demolished by death, does not move her. She despises its flaccid muscles which were unable to triumph, its white skin whose delicacy did not protect its owner from lacerations and in which each laceration has festered and become a gaping wound.

Around Catalina the women are wailing. What are they asking this deaf, defenseless, lifeless man for? That he protect them from the very ones who crucified him? That he help them bear their burden of suffering and misery when he could not even bear his own cross? Why don’t they leave him to the tomb that is crying out for him and return with Catalina to Tzajal-hemel? Catalina does not understand. And the women remain there, stubborn. Some of them, the neediest ones, perhaps, lick the blood on the feet, the hands, the side. Then they stand erect as if they had fortified themselves with a sacrament.

Moving with the throng of the faithful, Catalina and Domingo reach the place where Xaw Ramírez Paciencia is officiating, with a basin of water thick with rose petals. He holds the basin in his left hand and with his right hand he sprinkles the faces of the congregation.

Catalina received the benediction without looking at Xaw. She feared that her former rival would recognize her in his moment of triumph and reject her. She enveloped as much of herself as she could in her woolen headcloths. Xaw distractedly traced out the gesture. For him there existed no more than a single head, bowed, successive and anonymous: that of his people, over whom he had recovered his power.

It was Domingo’s turn. As the sacristan was preparing to sprinkle his face, the basin (precariously balanced in Xaw’s clumsy, rheumatic fingers) tilted until it spilled completely over the boy, covering him with water and petals. The sacristan let out a kind of moan of fatigue, pain and impatience. Domingo did not dare wipe away the liquid that was flattening his hair and running down his temples. The witnesses were paralyzed by alarm at the singularity of the situation. Catalina abruptly took off her woolen headcloth—leaving her face uncovered—and tried to wipe Domingo’s face with it. Many arms stopped her. Xaw, who had not recognized her, who had not even looked at her (because all of his attention, questioning, humble, was turned toward the boy), let the empty basin fall to the ground and knelt before him. With an almost inaudible syllable, he implored the boy to permit him to continue carrying out his duty.