Summary

Joana and Otavio are sitting together in their house late one evening. Joana feels a sense of darkness in this moment, which reminds her of, when she was a child, wandering around her aunt’s house in the middle of the night, looking for water, and bumping into furniture. The two begin to talk, both sensing that their relationship is about to reach its conclusion. Joana says to him: “’It seems to me that you only came to give me a child’” (170), continuing the proposal that she had voiced to Lidia. Joana and Otavio begin to argue about their relationship and what would happen to the hypothetical child, and Joana has a quick memory of when she was a girl, with her father.

They reach an apparent end to the argument, and neither are sure where to proceed from there...