- After Santiago got all chopped up by the Vicario brothers' knives, Father Carmen Amador was forced to perform a pretty grisly autopsy and chop poor Santiago up again.
- The autopsy had to be rushed because the body had been lying out in the hot weather, and the smell was disgusting.
- You can probably guess the cause of death without hearing the results of the autopsy. He died from hemorrhaging due to massive cuts to his internal organs. No duh.
- As you probably guessed, the priest is not a very good doctor, and the autopsy goes horribly. He can't even get Santiago's guts back into his body, so he stuffs it with rags. The body is in such bad shape that they have to bury it as soon as possible because it's literally falling apart.
- Meanwhile, our narrator slips off to Maria Alejandrina Cervantes' house again. But she won't have sex with him because he smells just like Santiago. Um…gross.
- Actually, everything smells like Santiago. Especially the Vicario brothers. Even though they should be very happy in their comfortable jail cell, he just can't get the stench of Santiago's death off of them. To make matters worse, they also can't go to sleep.
- Oh, and two more things. Pedro seems to be chronically constipated to the point that he's in inconceivable pain. And Pablo has diarrhea so bad that the toilet can't even contain it. They assume that the Arab community (Santiago's last name—Nasar—is an Arabic name) has poisoned them, but that's pretty unlikely.
- Sure enough, the Arab community is just peacefully mourning the loss of one of their own. No riots here.
- The Vicario family decides to skip town. The dad dies of shame. Pablo marries Prudencia and becomes a goldsmith, and Pedro dies in warfare.
- But what about Bayardo San Román? Everyone in the village seems to think he's the one true victim in this whole fiasco. Whatever, we guess.
- It turns out that during the murder and autopsy, everyone totally forgot about him. By the time they remember him, he's found alone in his house, so drunk that he has to get emergency treatment. And being such a gentleman, he throws everyone out and curses at them as soon as he gets better.
- Bayardo's Mom and sisters come to take him home, making a big fuss the whole way. He's carried out of town in a hammock, looking almost like he's dead. That's the last time anyone sees him.
- After Bayardo leaves, the house the widower Xius once owned starts to fall apart. People steal from it, it crumbles apart, and eventually nothing is left behind.
- Angela, on the other hand, seems to be doing pretty well. Her mom locked her away in a remote village where she became a seamstress, but instead of fading away she became a much more mature and happy person. Angela doesn't hide anything from the people around her. Anything except for who actually deflowered her, that is.
- But the truth is, there was something much worse that she wasn't talking about. She actually fell in love with Bayardo and couldn't forget him ever since he returned Angela to her mother. Funny how love works, isn't it?
- For 17 years Angela sent Bayardo a weekly letter, without receiving a single reply. Then suddenly, one day he showed up! Sure, he was really old and hadn't read a single letter she sent, but he was there in the flesh.