This beautiful ghost reigned over the Malpasso clientele for some time. Every day there was a new touch: a flower in her hair, a delicate ring on her finger, some lace, a feather. By now, everyone knew how the beautiful woman had once stood at the window-sill with a geranium over her ear. What a lucky old man!

This entertainment, however, soon came to an end. One day when the old people were sitting, as they usually did, around a table with their noses in their tattered cards, occasionally shouting peevishly at those playing billiards to stop their ruckus, a tall, massive woman dressed in black came cautiously in through the glass door. A clump of celery stalks protruded out of her shopping bag. She wore an ugly shapeless hat and brittle, grey, unkempt locks of hair framed a sour yellow face. She didn’t go near the bar, moving slowly about the room until she stopped in front of the table of old men, remaining perfectly still as she stared at them, her two large hands clutching the shopping bag. The old man turned white, holding his breath, and pulled his head down further into the collar of his coat. He appeared to want to slide off of his seat and under the table. The onlookers understood that she must be his wife.

They had imagined her to be ugly, but not this ugly! They were indignant, and since they’d chased after a beautiful ghost for all this time, the reality of her now disturbed them and they too looked at her suspiciously. But the woman paid no attention to either their glares or their words, nor did she notice when the veterinarian stood up to offer her his seat. The shopping bag she held in her gnarled hands swayed slightly as she held her husband in a fixed and threatening stare.

Finally, her lips barely moving, she began to interrogate him. One question followed another without his having a chance to answer even one of them. So this was his headquarters, right? She knew it was here that he came to spin his tall tales, the old fool. Oh, she knew everything. And she didn’t much care, to tell the truth. But why was he the one that came off looking good in the story? Marriage notoriously doesn’t always work out, and he might not be happy, but neither was she. Fate! In any case, these ‘gentlemen’ had no business interfering.

As she spoke she didn’t look at anyone else, as if the ‘gentlemen’ were not there. Her glare was reserved for her husband, who continued to shrink down in his chair, sliding down slowly and stretching his legs ever deeper under the table. What they needed to know, she went on, was that she had always been like this, had never suffered any illness. She was as healthy as an ox. She had always been ugly and tough, it was useless to pretend otherwise. Everyone is born with a destiny, and he married her as she was, only a little younger and with quite a bit of money. The money was still there and so was the wife. Life isn’t rosy. And had never been rosy, nor any better than it was now.