close to you, hoping something of me might remain after me — in a being, in a feeling, in a cell! My raging feelings magnified my sense of the fleeing life a hundredfold, so that I reached the highest pitch of sensitivity: I could hear the hidden whispers and murmurings, and read the thoughts of that filthy woman on her brow, and perceive the disgust you were feeling. And it was a savage delight of mine to force you to embrace me and kiss me, that I might see your lying and your treachery. I took the medicine because I long for the end!

A fit of coughing overwhelmed

her; froth came from her lips and she fell back upon the pillows. My hair stood on end at the horror of what I had heard, and I began staring at the empty medicine bottle beside the glass. The bottle had been nearly empty since the day before, with only a few drops left in it — and I am certain I had asked Leonie to fetch another that day. I began calling out to her that she was deluded, that she was mistaken in hurling this monstrous accusation.

And I saw her face, with its sunken features, above the pillows — smiling at me.

I went out to fetch the doctor, and when he came she was in her death agony. And the house filled once more with the kinswomen, and they washed her and dressed her in her clothes and laid her in the coffin and called me to see her. I lifted a veil that lay over her face and met her anew — I met the old Marusia. She had slipped free of her sick body and returned to it after death. I wept and wept; I found again the tears I had when I was a child.

And my companion went on talking until the bar emptied of people, and we went out into the street as the lights of dawn came rushing on, and Octavio saw me home.

The months passed. Tonight is a new Christmas Eve, and I remembered my friend's old tale in that bar. I remembered the tale because I saw beside him a pale companion with no color to her. He presented me to her and invited me to his table. I sat ill at ease, because the presence of this second wife kept me from the pleasure of talking about his first. We drank together, then rose; and when we reached Saint John's Avenue I heard her bid him turn up the collar of his coat lest the cold do him harm. And I felt as if iced water were running in my veins when I heard him say: