In this story by Paz Latorena,a runaway maid falls in love and moves in with a poor cobbler whose shop she had sheltered in during a rainstorm. After hearing her tragic story and feeling guilty about the “enormous wrong” he had done her by living together, the cobbler promises to marry her as soon as he can save enough for the license and other fees. She learns his true feelings when, after her former employer “secretly” gifts him the money he needs, he says nothing about it. Themes include love, passion, social conventions, guilt/shame, poverty, control, deception, empowerment.
The story is set in late 1920s Manilla. We are told that at that time, even in the slums, living together out of wedlock was considered socially unacceptable. An interesting question is why the cobbler didn’t use the gifted money to marry the woman. Some reviewers attribute this to male 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 have been happy with the convenience, control and flexibility their informal relationship provided, and didn’t want to change it. The cobbler’s deceit empowers the woman, who smiled looking down on the puny sins of man as she was driven away into the falling darkness.