- This is another epistolary chapter, beginning with Celia's observations on life after the Spanish Civil War—dictators in both Cuba and Spain.
- She reflects on her obsessive and persistent letter-writing to a man she no longer knows.
- Celia reports about the tidal wave and how it damaged her piano. She frets about being able to play Debussy again.
- As her letters continue, Celia pushes against her ordinary, dull life. We think the word ennui sums it up.
- In 1946, she gives birth to her son Javier. We haven't heard anything about Javier really up to this point (something worth noting). Now we learn that he takes after Celia's father.
- Celia tells Gustavo that she doesn't know why she was saved from her depression by Jorge. What was it all for?
- Her final reflection in this series of letters has to do with suffering and imagination: can they be separated?