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The Professor has liked the last few letters. “This is something else,” he says, “now your cousin is really letting herself go, showing her face a bit.” He also praises the delicate handwriting once again, and when he does, Carlos lowers his eyes.

“So . . . you think there’s a chance?”

“Of what?”

“Of making her fall in love.”

“Making her fall in love? Who?”

“Making him fall in love, I mean. You know, Juan Ramón. The Spanish poet.”

“Oh! Well . . . who knows? But one thing’s for sure: the beguiling eye of this covered lady has been unveiled! No doubt about that!”

Carlos goes to ask for his advice every week, whenever Georgina receives a letter or is getting ready to write one. I’ve never met such a solicitous cousin before, the Professor says every time he sees Carlos join the queue. He always comes alone, but Cristóbal doesn’t mention José’s absence. He seems to remember him only one morning when he insists on rewriting a particular passage of the next letter and Carlos refuses.

“You see, she wants to write it without anybody’s help,” he insists.

“But she’s not making you come all the way out here every week for no reason.”

“Well . . . actually, Georgina doesn’t know I come to see you.”

Cristóbal raises his eyebrows.

“Oh! So she doesn’t know I exist?”

“No.”

“And if she doesn’t know, how do you transmit the wisdom gained from our chats?”

“Well . . . I pretend it’s my idea, you know? I ask her, she shows me the poet’s most recent letter or one of her numerous drafts, I gently offer an opinion . . . When she listens to me, the look in her eyes . . .”

He stops himself.

“Go on, say it, say it. The look in your cousin’s eyes. You know, we’ve talked so much about her and I still don’t know even know what color her eyes are. I’m curious. What is this cousin of yours like? And don’t tell me she’s beautiful and shapely; that’s old news.”

Carlos accepts the cigarette the Professor offers him. He allows himself to speak of her only as long as it takes him to get from his first puff to when the ember of the cigarette almost burns his fingers. In that interval he has time to describe her in intricate detail. Georgina’s whole life, summed up in the life of a cigarette. When Carlos drops the butt to the ground, Cristóbal bursts into laughter.

“So she’s got blond hair and blue eyes, does she? I thought your friend said she had a darker complexion.”

Carlos doesn’t look away. For the first time he feels a rush of genuine pride.

“He can say whatever he likes. Who would know better than her cousin?”

Cristóbal looks serious all of a sudden.

“True, true. What’s more, it’s clear you love her. Unlike your friend—he doesn’t like her all that much.”

“You think so?”

“A blind man could see it,” says the Professor, and refuses to utter another word.