Page "Strange Pilgrims" Paragraph 19

One day while the narrator was having breakfast in the morning at the Havana Riviera Hotel, a gigantic wave crushed down " like an explosion of dynamite " on the shore and picked up several cars.

Under one of smashed cars was found a smashed a woman wearing " a gold ring shaped like a serpent, with emerald eyes ".

And her eyes and ring reminded the narrator " an unforgettable woman " who used to wear " a similar ring on her right forefinger " whom he met thirty-four years earlier in Vienna which was an old imperial city then.

When she was asked " how she had come to be in a world so distant and different from the windy cliffs of Quindio, she answered " I sell my dreams.

" Selling dream was her only trade.

She was the third of eleven children born to a prosperous shopkeeper in old Caldas.

In her childhood her dreams began to show oracular qualities.

In her youth she turned her dreams into a source of earnings.

One night she told the narrator to leave Vienna.

Considering her conviction real, the narrator boarded the last train to Rome that same night and " considered himself a survivor of some catastrophe ".

Later the narrator happened to meet Pablo Neruda and they found that woman ; by then the woman earned affluence by selling dreams.

Anyway they spent time together for some days.

One day Neruda " dreamed about that woman who dream ( ed )" s. Later after Neruda " took his leave ", the narrator met the woman and she said " I dreamed he ( Neruda ) was dreaming about me.

" After that day, the narrator never met her again.

After the Havana Riviera disaster, the narrator met the Portuguese ambassador with whom that woman wearing a snake ring come and he asked him " what did she do?

" He ( the ambassador ) answered with a certain disenchantment " Nothing ," " she dreamed.