Isabel, who, though she would never have avowed it, felt herself to be the cause of this latest setback in her daughter’s health, took leave of her as if she had been offended. From the doorway she declared that she was not going to worry about such an ungrateful person, who so abused the patience of those who had the unfortunate obligation of attending to her. Idolina answered, sitting up in bed with her eyes flaming, that she would only be grateful if they let her die in peace. Isabel hesitated a moment without giving voice to the answer that was swelling her throat with rage. In the end she turned her back and left the room with a slam of the door.

This scene achieved what the doctors had strived for in vain: the girl reacted. She was galvanized by a new plan: she wanted to attend the party, erupt with her tragic face amidst the happiness of others. She would not say a word, but who could fail to interpret her presence as an accusation flung by the dead at the living. Who would not see the girl as a victim?

Teresa was horrified. It was a reckless act. Idolina’s condition would worsen, punishment would rain down upon the two of them. None of these reasons made a dent in the invalid’s resolve. Only when the Indian woman expressed the fear that the promises of the ashes would not be fulfilled did Idolina’s determination weaken.

But not to the point of giving up the plan entirely. Her isolation had been bearable until then because her bedroom was a refuge against people like her stepfather whom she found hateful. But from the depths of her seclusion, Idolina had always longed for company, tenderness, intimacy, friendship. In every echo of the footsteps that rang out on the sidewalk, she waited for the sound of the person who would come to free her. She had learned to distinguish, with a solitary person’s terrible sharpness of perception, the hurry of those who were young, joyful, going out in search of happiness, and the hurry of the anguished, those who are rushing to postpone their destiny. In the authoritarian harshness with which their canes struck the paving stones she recognized the gentlemen’s rank and she could gauge a man’s self-assurance by the scrape of his spurs. And in the most furtive, the most imperceptible shuffling, she read the barefoot humility of a servant or an Indian.

Though Teresa would run to lean over the balcony and describe what she saw, those figures continued to move across the recluse’s dreams, nameless and faceless.