In the moments after he is stabbed, as Santiago lies in his death throes on the kitchen floor, the family dogs try to get into the kitchen to eat the man’s guts. In her frustration, Plácida Linero has the dogs shot.
In the absence of the town physician, the priest is placed in charge of performing an autopsy on Santiago’s body, damaging the already mutilated body even more. The autopsy must be done immediately, as there is no way to preserve the body in the intense tropical heat. The autopsy is described as a “massacre.” The priest, who studied medicine and surgery before entering seminary, is not qualified to perform the operation, and the tools are not adequate. However, the priest’s report is accepted as evidence. He reports that seven of Santiago’s many stab wounds were fatal. A deep stab in his right hand looked “like a stigma of the crucified Christ.” When the body is sewn up again, it looks completely unrecognizable.
The narrator goes to visit María Alejandrina Cervantes and finds her eating ravenously as a way to deal with her grief. The narrator goes to visit María Alejandrina Cervantes and finds her eating ravenously as a way to deal with her grief. He falls asleep and has a strange dream about a child chewing corn "like a nutty nuthatch, kind of sloppy, kind of slurpy," and wakes up to find Maria undoing the buttons of his shirt. However, she stops suddenly, saying that she can't make love to him because he smells like Santiago. In fact, everything in the town smells of Santiago. Pedro and Pablo, trapped in their jail cell, are driven mad by the smell, which they cannot remove from their bodies no matter how much they scrub with soap and rags. Pablo is tormented by diarrhea, and the brothers fear he has been poisoned by someone from the Arab immigrant community. The Arabs have been peaceful, but it is suspected they will try to avenge the death of one of their own. The mayor visits the Arab families and finds them perplexed and in mourning. One...