They finished their supper and each couple went off in a different direction. Manuel accompanied La Justa as far as the Calle de Jacometrezo, where she lived.
As they reached the entrance to the house Manuel was about to take leave, averting his glance, when she said to him: “Wait.” The watchman opened for them, she gave him ten céntimos, he gave her a long wax match after lighting it in his lantern, and she and Manuel began to ascend the staircase. The flickering light of the wax match made the shadows of the two fall alternately huge and small upon the walls. Reaching the third floor La Justa opened a door with a latch-key and they both entered a narrow room with an alcove. La Justa lighted an oil lamp and sat down; Manuel followed her example.
Never had Manuel felt so wretched as on that night. He could not understand why La Justa had asked him to come up with her; he felt inhibited in her presence and did not dare to ask her anything.
After they had exchanged a few indifferent words, Manuel managed to say to her:
“And your father?”
“He’s well.”
All at once, without any warning, La Justa burst into tears. She must have been overwhelmed by an irrepressible desire to tell Manuel her life’s story, and so she did, with many a sigh and broken word.
The butcher’s son, after taking her out of the shop where she worked, had dishonoured her and infected her with a loathsome disease; then he abandoned her and escaped to Madrid. A single recourse remained open to her: she must go to the hospital. When her father went to San Juan de Dios and saw her lying flat on her back with rubber tubes thrust into her open groins, he was on the point of killing her then and there, and in a voice vibrating with fury declared that his daughter was dead to him. She burst into disconsolate tears; a woman in a neighbouring bed said to her: “Why don’t you go into the business?” But her only answer was to weep harder than ever. When she was discharged she went back to the workshop, but the forelady would have none of her. It was now night, and she left the place ready for anything. She happened to be on the Calle Mayor; a man happened by, swinging a cane, and said to her: “Come along with me.” They walked down the street together, and that man brought her to the station; they climbed to the top story and walked through a dark corridor into a room lighted by electricity. It was full of women who were chatting and laughing with the officials. At the end of some time a gentleman began to read a list and the women filed out. Only some twenty or thirty of the most filthy and tattered remained. They were ordered down several flights of stairs and locked into a cell.
“I spent a desperate night there,” concluded La Justa. “The next day they took me to be examined and gave me a certificate.”