And who of all these would have the better justified their existence?... That woman of novellesque biography, whose brain was incapable of remembering exactly either her origin or her adventures? Or they, those peaceful ruminants, who had done on earth what it was required of them that they do, and who as a result had won a degree, at least, of happiness?...
But he was not allowed to go on with his meditations. The waiter had been summoned to the street by a man gesticulating from the other side of the window, and now he came back with a worried expression to murmur a few words in the proprietress’s ear.
“Fly away, my doves!” the woman suddenly cried out from behind her counter to the clients nearest her. Then excitedly she explained that the police were making a haul of all the women of the quarter, and might visit her establishment. A faithful friend had just brought the warning.
The consumptive girl threw away her cigarette, and escaped like a frightened doe. As she went she broke into even more painful coughing. The drunken woman opened her eyes, looked about her, and closed them again, murmuring,
“Let them come! A decent woman can sleep just as well in the police station as here!”
Elena made haste to run for cover. But even though she was scared, she walked toward the door with a certain dignity at the thought that there was a man behind her. She did not wish to be confused with the others.
When he found himself alone, Robledo gave the waiter a bank-note, and went away without waiting for the change. Arrived on the boulevard, he looked unavailingly this way and that. Elena had disappeared.... He would never see her again.... When she died he would receive no news of her death. He would have to live all the rest of his life without knowing for a certainty whether she were still alive.... Yet, after this encounter it was easy to divine her end. Undoubtedly she was of the number of those who leave this life by tragic means but without noise, without anyone’s even mentioning their names.
“And so this is Elena,” he said to himself. “An Elena, who, like the heroine of the poets of old, brought about war between men, in a far away corner of the globe....”
Doubt was troubling him with its questions. Had this woman been really bad, fully conscious of her perversity? Had she been simply hungry for the pleasures of life, and ambitious, making her way over the fallen bodies of others without knowing what she was treading under foot?
While he was looking for a taxi, he said to himself by way of conclusion,