“There’s no point in cursing fate, but it was a mistake not to have taken control from the beginning. With orders. But you wanted to treat them as equals.”

How many times had Ulloa reproached himself for this? At first he defended himself on the basis of his belief that no man is superior to another. But now, with the results of his stance before his eyes, he couldn’t help but recognize that César was right, and he had been mistaken. Moreover, he knew it was no longer the moment, it was no longer even possible to make any attempt to exercise the authority he had so mindlessly and so hastily discarded.

“At this point, ingeniero, I would advise you to be prudent. Winiktón is no longer eating out of your hand, and that’s natural, since at every opportunity that has arisen you have opposed the desires he shares with those who follow him.”

“But what are those desires?”

“There aren’t many: robbery, murder. It’s a release for them; afterward they can sleep peacefully.”

“But that wasn’t the point. . . .”

“No one remembers what .the point was any more.”

“I do: to strike out against Ciudad Real and beat the ranchers. When we left the church of San Juan, the night of Good Friday, there were a lot of us and we had courage and impetus. We would have triumphed.”

“You really believed the Chamulas were capable of defying their patróns?”

“I thought they were capable of anything when they crucified the boy.”

It repelled him to allude to that. He hadn’t dared prevent it— more out of fascination than out of fear. And he stayed until the end of the ceremony, mute and paralyzed. He let himself be carried away by the same impulse that flung the others against their oppressors. But later, when he became fully conscious that this impulse was the blood of a victim, he was filled with horror. He shared his misgivings with Santiago, and then did not conceal them from Pedro and the other caudillos. He remembered the murmurs of surprise, shock and indignation that his words provoked. And the silence that grew up around him. A silence sometimes broken by Winiktón who argued with him over any triviality. Neither Domingo nor his death were ever mentioned again. Until now, when Fernando was invoking them as winning cards. The incongruence of his conduct made him pause for an instant; he wanted, to feel ashamed but couldn’t. None of the recent events could be understood rationally or assessed morally. He was revolving in an orbit that was alien to his most intimate convictions, his most deeply rooted habits. He did not recognize himself. He was part of the mechanism of an unintelligible world.