She too had stopped, turning back to smile and invite him with a gesture to follow her.
Robledo’s expression showed that he was alternating between surprise and doubt.
Could it be?... But he had thought her dead years ago! No, it was impossible. He had been thinking of her that very afternoon, that was why he had made this mistake.... It would be too extraordinary a coincidence....
He was still eyeing her, believing that he recognized the past in certain lines of that faded face, and confused by others which he did not recognize. But those eyes! Those eyes!
The woman smiled once more, slightly moving her head, and repeating her silent invitations. Impelled by curiosity, Robledo involuntarily made a scarcely perceptible gesture of acceptance, and she walked on. But she had taken only a few steps when she stopped before the screen door leading into a bar of squalid appearance through the smeared windows of which he saw vapid faces staring. Standing at the door of this place she winked at him and then disappeared into the interior of the filthy establishment.
Robledo stood hesitant. It disgusted him to think of having the slightest of relations with this woman, but at the same time his curiosity about her made him uncomfortable. He felt certain that if he went away without speaking with her he would forever be tormented by a persistent doubt, he would always regret not having made sure whether this phantom of Elena had really been Elena herself.
And fear of being obsessed by this doubt turned the scale of his indecision.... With a violent push he swung open the door.
Tables, a decrepit cane settee against the wall; dingy mirrors, and a counter behind which were numerous shelves full of bottles, guarded by a woman, old and monstrously fat, her face mottled with pimples and scabs.
Robledo recognized the place as one of those frequented by women, who though dependent on the day’s chance meetings for their sustenance, still wish to preserve a certain independence, though often enough they are glad to accept the services of the proprietress of the saloon to which they bring patrons, as adviser and procuress.
A waiter of effeminate appearance was serving the clients who at this moment were two; one, a young woman so ghastly pale that it seemed the hollows and joints of her skull would soon show through the tight-drawn transparent skin. In the intervals between her convulsive coughs she puffed hungrily at a cigarette. At another table sat a woman, now old and abject, who perhaps had been handsome in her youth. She too, like the woman Robledo had followed, still preserved a distinctive slenderness, but her clothes and general appearance indicated a more advanced stage of poverty. She was drinking, with slow gulps, the contents of a large glass, closing her eyes and rolling her head on the back of the divan as though she were drunk.