What happened in those days, among all the other festivities and attractions of the circus, a traveling exhibition of a girl who had disobeyed her parents and had become a spider arrived in the city. Not only did the price of seeing an angel cost less than the price of seeing one, but people were also allowed to ask her all they wanted about her impossible situation, and were even allowed to look at her from all sides so that no one would have any doubt about the truth or falsehood of her horror. She was a terrible tarantula, as big as a big sheep, and her head was that of a sad virgin. What was most heartbreaking was not her amazing figure, but her genuine, pitiful voice, in which she described all the details of her misfortune. When he was quite a boy, he had left his parents' house without telling anyone to go to a dance, and after dancing all night without asking permission, as he was returning through a forest, a terrible lightning suddenly tore the sky in two, and through the crack came a bolt of burning sulfur that transformed him into this strange spider. Those who had a shred of kindness in their souls threw chunks of meat into his mouth - that was the only thing that kept him alive for so long. A scene that contained so much human truth and such a terrible lesson that it could easily defeat the display of a haughty angel, who rarely looks down on mortals. Moreover, the miracles attributed to the angel were only a kind of mental disorder. For example, a blind man who had not regained his sight, but had grown three new teeth; or a crippled man who could not walk but was almost winning the lottery; or a leper whose wounds had sprouted sunflowers. These miraculous events, like consolation prizes, were almost like farce or joke - and as a result of all this, the angel's honor and reputation fell into the dust - and then, with the arrival of the girl who had been transformed into a spider, all his fame and glory collapsed completely. Thus Padre Gonzaga was forever freed from his insomnia, and the Pelayos' courtyard remained empty for three days and three nights while the rain poured down incessantly and the crabs crawled around their bedroom.
The owners of the house, however, had no reason to lament. With the money they had earned, they built a splendid two-story house, with a porch and a garden, and high wire mesh to keep the crabs out in the winter, and iron bars on the windows to keep out any stray angels. Near the city, Pelaio built a dense labyrinth for raising rabbits, resigned himself forever to the work of a butler, and Elisenda bought a pair of high-heeled shoes and a lot of rainbow-colored silk.
The wide dress, the kind of dress worn by the most elite and desirable women in those days on Sundays. The chicken coop was not the only thing that did not attract their attention. If they washed it with chemicals and repeatedly burned the tears of the brain inside it, it was not at all to worship this angel, but to drive away the stench of the pile of dung - which still hung everywhere like a ghost, and which was making the new building look like a house of filth. At first, when their child learned to walk, they were very careful not to let him get too close to the chicken coop. After a while, they gradually began to lose their fear, and they got used to the smell. Before the child's second tooth came out, he would go play in the chicken coop, the bars of the cage having been torn apart by carelessness. The angel never made any contact with any other mortal, but rather kept a distance, and he still does not make much contact; but after losing all his misconceptions, just as a dog endures all the insults and abuses of a child with great patience, so the angel endured this child with great patience. At the same time, the water stung both of them. The doctor who came to see the child's illness could not resist the temptation to listen to the angel's heartbeat, and when he heard so much whistling and so much noise in his chest, the doctor did not think it was possible for him to live. What struck him most was the logic and nature of these two wings. They were so natural that they seemed to be absolutely necessary parts of any human being, and he wondered why other people did not have any wings.