In this story by Paz Latorena, a runaway maid falls in love with a cobbler whose shop she had sheltered in during a rainstorm. After hearing her tragic story and feeling guilty about cohabitating with her, the cobbler proposes marriage. He uses poverty as an excuse to delay the marriage, and in the meantime they live happily together. She learns his true feelings when, after arranging for her former employer to “secretly” give him enough to get married, he doesn’t tell her. Themes include love, passion, social conventions, poverty, control, deception, disillusionment, female empowerment.
An interesting question is why didn’t the cobbler use the gifted money to marry the woman. Some reviewers attribute this to stubborn pride, his insisting on paying for the license out of his own earnings rather than using the señorita’s money. A more likely reason is that he had changed his mind about getting married. His offer to marry the woman was made on the spur of the moment and primarily motivated by sympathy and guilt. He could well be happy with the convenience, control and flexibility their informal relationship provides, and doesn’t want to change it. The cobbler’s deceit empowers the woman who smiles looking down on the puny sins of man as she disappears into the sunset.