"... I can remember Andrea. As blind as I am, I can see her. I wanted to marry her, but you know all that folly. That was the year we got almost no corn at all." Bitterness and rotten teeth and food left over from breakfast clogged his speech and yet Angelina understood him and listened because she felt sick and lonely. "What a stupid man I was." He chuckled. "I sold her, sold my Andrea. Slave ... I was her slave and I sold her. What if she loved somebody else? I still wanted her. Can you remember a beautiful face?" He stirred painfully on his bed. "I was nineteen--that was the year I killed my father. Out of my head ... I sold her." His voice had slowed, the gravity of those days pressing him. "God, that was a dreadful year...." "What ever became of Andrea?" Angelina asked, taking a piece of toast from his tray. They were having breakfast together. "She died in Manzanillo ... typhoid." He felt the weight of Angelina's body on the bed and groped to touch her. "My eyes are worse today. Those glasses haven't helped much. I'll have to have another pair made." Angelina forgot to listen; Chavela came for the dishes, rattling things and talking at the same time. "There's no beef to eat today," she said. "Marcelino says there's been no slaughtering." "We must have some eggs," said Angelina. "Chickens lay eggs even when there's shooting. I suppose you could have someone kill a chicken or two." Chavela inspected her tray of soiled dishes blankly. "An omelette," she suggested. "Better a hen," said Angelina. "Chavela ... cigarette," said Fernando. Chavela gazed questioningly at Angelina. "Give him a cigarette, Chavela." "Sí ... right away." Chavela's bare feet retreated soundlessly, the dishes rattling. She wondered if all of them were to be killed at Petaca, ignominiously, falling about the fountain, bleeding on the cobbles, moaning. She tripped on a crack, hurt her toe and swore furiously. Angelina lost herself in reverie. She saw the rays of sun, the bedroom, a picture on the wall; she saw Petaca as a fort and imagined herself stealthily opening the gate, fleeing across fields to the lagoon; she would cross it in a dugout ... on the other side it was dark; she was alone, weeping. She felt her way through the bush and a hand reached toward her, the fingers transparent, evolving into a dog's paw ... finally, a dog trotted beside her. "Mona, la Mona," she whispered. "What did you say?" Fernando asked. "Nothing," she said. She walked to the door and went slowly toward the serpentine fountain and leaned over it and stared at the fish that huddled under greenery. Sloshing water with her hand, she gazed about her. The dog was there. It followed her upstairs, to her door. Breathlessly, she slammed the door. Breathing fast, she opened her wardrobe and removed her fur; she stroked it and kissed it and laid it on the bed. Lying beside it, she said: