Caray, Caray!

Hugo asks Eloisa what she is doing in his house. It's a little late for visitors. Eloisa says that she came to warn him that Arturo plans to invest in the mine and then he will betray Hugo. He should be careful of the documents that he signs. Hugo says that Eloisa shouldn't put herself at risk on his behalf. It's late; she should go home. Eloisa asks to stay. Hugo says he is busy with the situation here. His baby suffers from a terrible illness. 'Catalepsy?,' says Eloisa, 'what Hugo had?'
'How did you know that?' asks Hugo.
'You told me. Don't you remember? The night you were so nervous. You told me Hugo had catalepsy and you let him be buried alive.' (I hope this dashes any illusions Hugo had about Eloisa. She obviously wasn't shocked at this admission of Alcides.)

At Arturo's house, Margot is about to make a conquest of Arturo. (What she has on gives the words, 'push-up bra' a whole new meaning.) Just as things are about to get underway, there is a knock at the door and in comes Hercu-less. Averting his eyes from Margot, he tells Arturo that he followed Eloisa from the Taverna and she went to the Hacienda Montenegro. Arturo is impactado.

Hugo explains that having the baby in the chamber is a long process. She will wake up slowly. Eloisa says that Alcides has changed so much. Before, he thought only of himself even to the extent of letting his brother die. Now look at how he went half crazy trying to save the life of this baby. Unfortunately, Hugo has no choice but to play into Eloisa's conclusion about what is keeping him with Soledad. He says that it is different now that he has a child. He goes on to say that Hugo was a bad person. Eloisa asks if Alcides still thinks that the spirit of his dead brother is pursuing him because he had let him be buried alive. That is what he told her the night he was so nervous. Hugo says nothing. Eloisa apologizes for telling him this. She knows how to keep a secret and will keep this secret always - for love. She says that she doesn't care what he has done. She only cares about her love for him.

Ursula comes in and tells Hugo that Soledad tried to escape through the window and is about to fall. Hugo leaves Eloisa in charge of the chamber. She fiddles with the mechanism of the chamber in the hopes of killing the baby. 'Poor kid,' says Eloisa, 'you are the only thing keeping your parents together but you would be better off out of your misery. Everyone will say that is was for the best.' The baby starts crying and then stops. Eloisa leaves the basement certain that she has done the job.

Hugo saves Soledad and Ursula and Hugo tell her that Aurora is out of danger. Soledad wants to see her baby.

Lucas is with Rebeca. He remembers that when they were newly married, they didn't have any money and Jeremias let them stay with him for a few months. Rebeca asks if there could have been something between Ester and Jeremias. Lucas gets angry and leaves. Paquito comes in. Rebeca tells him that she is just following the trail to the treasure that will be hers. 'You mean ours,' says Paquito.

Arturo has come to fetch Eloisa and is threatening Ester with a sword. Hugo, Soledad and Ursula come downstairs. 'This is no way to enter my house,' says Hugo. Arturo says he is not leaving without Eloisa. At his point, Eloisa runs upstairs and says that the baby has stopped crying and isn't moving. Everyone runs downstairs except Arturo and Eloisa.

Hugo fiddles with the machine. He doesn't understand. She was doing well. He asks Soledad to talk to the baby and after a few minutes, she starts crying again. Everybody is happy.

Guillermo is at Dr. Max's looking for a book on hypnotism. He finds one and tries to learn how to un-hypnotise Elena. He tries to impersonate Dr. Max in appearance and voice but that doesn't work. Finally, he takes Elena to Enrico's place. She calls him Guille but she might be faking it to get away.

Boris and Marina have joined the happy party in the basement. Marina says that when they arrived, they saw Arturo taking Eloisa away and he was very annoyed. Outside the house, Arturo is escorting Eloisa down the steps. He asks her why she came to Hugo's house at this hour. Eloisa concocts a story that she encountered Ursula on the road asking for help. Unfortunately for Eloisa, Hercu-less is there to report that he was following her and she didn't encounter anyone on the road. Eloisa tries to impute bad motives to Hercu-less but Arturo isn't buying. Then Hugo appears. He gets Ursula to confirm Eloisa's story, the coachman does the same. Even Hercu-less can see which way the wind is blowing. He admits that Eloisa was out of his sight for a period of time. Eloisa accuses Arturo of always thinking the worst of her.
Hugo tells Eloisa that the baby is fine. Soledad's voice woke her up. Eloisa hides her disappointment. In her carriage on the way home, Eloisa asks why the cursed baby had to survive. She will find a way to get rid of the baby. Nothing will stand in the way of her plan to make Alcides hers alone.

In her bedroom, Soledad tells Ester about Dr. Max's visit and blackmail attempt. Always ready to give bad advice, Ester tells Soledad that since Dr. Max seems to know about this illness, Soledad should let him treat Aurora at least until someone else is available. Soledad is doubtful. She doesn't like Dr. Max. He makes her afraid. Ester also tells Soledad on no account to tell Alcides that the baby is Hugo's. In spite of all he has done for the baby, they still don't trust her with him.

At this point, Hugo comes in to talk to Soledad. He is so cute making baby talk to Aurora. Soledad asks about the catalepsy. He tells her that Aurora has inherited a disease that runs in his family. It is called catalepsy - state of profound unconsciousness when the body appears to be dead. He has to tell her that there is no cure. The chamber only helps keep the temperature of the person having the attack stable. Soledad is impactada. She can't believe that her child has an incurable illness.

Hugo goes on to tell Soledad about his father and how his mother was driven crazy and could not prevent her father from being buried alive. A new horror for Soledad. She says that it was fortunate that he and Hugo didn't suffer from catalepsy. Alcides/Hugo tells her that Hugo did have catalepsy. 'It's not possible,' says Soledad, 'If Hugo had this terrible illness, why didn't he tell me?' she asks. (She's still not remembering what she learned in the mine.) Alcides/Hugo says that Hugo didn't want people to be afraid of him. In these ignorant times, people who came back to life from the dead, were considered possessed.' (Is this sloppy writing or is Hugo telling her this on purpose? Way back in the beginning of the novela, Hugo said that, nobody, not even his brother knew about his illness because he didn't want their pity (lastima).)

Soledad says that now she understands. Before the wedding, he tried to tell her something that was tormenting him. Hugo/Alcides says that Hugo loved her and wanted to be honest with her (it is tough to indicate clearly when Hugo is pretending to be Alcides but is talking about Hugo). Soledad asks a logical question, 'How do you know all this?' Hugo tells her that Boris told him everything. Boris told him that when a person has a catalepsy attack, they appear to be unconscious but they hear everything that is going on around them. They just can't move. Soledad, crying, says that is terrible. It's like a nightmare. Hugo is watching her carefully. He asks if her tears are for their daughter or for his brother.

Eloisa tells Paquito about Aurora's catalepsy attack. He thinks it is amusing that she is angry that her plan didn't work and the baby didn't die. He knows her, though, and understands that she has told him this for a reason. She wants something from him. What Eloisa wants is for Paquito to put a story in the newspaper about Aurora's attack so that people will be afraid of the baby and look down on her mother. Paquito says that he can't write such an article about the baby; Alcides would kill him. 'Are you so afraid of him?' Eloisa taunts. Paquito responds that they have to be smart. Alcides knows his secret and he is working for him. In fact, he has an article prepared about the rich vein of gold that has been found in the mine. Eloisa suggests that he include the story of the baby in that article and do it in a way that hides his bad intentions. Now it is Paquito who wants something from Eloisa (can you guess what?) in return for helping her. She agrees.

Soledad doesn't answer Hugo's question directly. She says what he has told her is terrible - that her daughter has an incurable disease and that Hugo had it also. He must have suffered so much. Hugo says that his brother was very lonely. He had bad relationships with women because he didn't want to offer them a future together. He was afraid of hurting them. Soledad says that she always heard (from her mother) that Hugo was a womanizer but she didn't realize the truth was that he just didn't want to hurt anyone. He was so generous, so good.
'I don't think so,' says Hugo/Alcides. 'He was stupid. He thought of others before himself. That's probably why he fell in love with you.' Soledad responds angrily that she doesn't want to talk about it anymore but Hugo/Alcides isn't done.
'Hugo loved you too much,' he says, 'The poor sap. He thought that the great love he had for you would be the cure for his disease.
'Why are you telling me, this?' asks Soledad. 'You speak as if you knew Hugo's deepest thoughts and fears but I know that you and your brother were never close. Tell me the truth, Alcides, why do you talk about Hugo this way?'
'Why do you find it so strange?' answers Hugo/Alcides. 'Hugo was my brother and Boris was his great confidant.'
'Are you telling me that Boris told you all this?' asks Soledad.
'Yes,' says Hugo, wiping the tears from his face before he turns to speak to Soledad, 'Boris told me lots of thing about my brother that I didn't know. It made me look at him from a different perspective. I don't hate him anymore. On the contrary, I pity him.'
'Pity?' says Soledad, 'Hugo never inspired pity.'
'Hugo was a poor devil,' says Hugo/Alcides, 'condemned to live with death at his side. He was also naive for falling in love with the wrong woman. That's what we wanted, right?' Soledad avoids answering by saying that she is tired. It is almost dawn. Hugo kisses her on the forehead and leaves. When he is gone, Soledad wonders why Hugo never told her about the catalepsy. She would have helped him with his terrible disease.

At the Obragon house, Lucas wakes up from a nightmare he had while sleeping on a couch in Ester's room. He asks Ester if she remembers when they were newlyweds, had left home and he had started drinking. Jeremias took them in and Lucas could tell that Jeremias liked Ester. Jeremias told him so once when they were drinking. Lucas asks if Jeremias ever 'took advantage' of her? Ester asks why Lucas is bringing up these old memories. 'Just answer,' says Lucas. 'I'm not going to tell you anything,' says Ester, 'You are offending me.' She walks out of the room and curses the mistakes of the past.

Hugo tells Boris that now Soledad knows that Aurora has catalepsy. 'It must have been very hard on her,' says Boris. 'She was destroyed,' responds Hugo. Boris asks if Hugo told her about the possibility of a cure. Hugo says that he didn't tell her. He didn't want to get her hopes up. We still haven't found von Chirac's son. Boris says that he is sure that they will find the son.
Hugo says that it broke his heart to see Soledad suffering that way for Aurora.
'When I saw the defenseless little baby,' he says, 'I felt like the world was coming to an end for me, too.' Boris says that Hugo is suffering too. The baby is so tiny and she carries his blood.
'Yes,' says Hugo, 'my blood.' Hugo tells Boris to get some rest. (This is the second time in a row they've been up all night with crises. Soledad was poisoned the night before.) When he is gone, Hugo speaks to the portrait of his father, 'This disease has been such a curse on our family, such a curse. I will save my niece from this scourge, no matter what it takes.'

Soledad tells Ursula that she should have seen the way Alcides looked when he told her about Hugo's suffering. It was the most terrifying thing you could imagine. Ursula says that now she understands Soledad's concern to know what Hugo wanted to confess to her. (Ahora entiendo su preocupación por saber lo que Hugo tenia que confesarle. My recollection is that Hugo tried to tell Soledad about his illness once, after their night of passion in the cabaña. She said she didn't want to hear about any bad things and that was it. Right before the wedding, when Boris asked Hugo if he had told Soledad about the catalepsy, Hugo said he didn't need to tell her, he hadn't had any symptoms and he decided he was cured. So when was Soledad so concerned about what Hugo wanted to tell her?) Soledad has a different memory. She has a flashback to finding Hugo, apparently dead, on their wedding day. 'What if Hugo wasn't dead when they buried him?' Ursula asks what she means. 'What if Hugo had an attack of catalepsy and wasn't dead when I found him? They could have buried him alive!'

The next morning Arturo shares the article in the paper about Aurora with Gladis and Eloisa. The article says that all the gold in the newly discovered mine won't help Alcides cure his daughter because she has an incurable disease known as catalepsy. Gladis doesn't know what that is so Arturo continues to read the article, which describes the symptoms of catalepsy. The article also mentions that the baby inherited the disease from the Medina family and that Hugo's father had it and was buried alive. Gladis says that is terrible and must be why Anabel (This is the first time we've found out the name of Hugo's mother, I guess it was on her grave but I never could read it.) de Medina went crazy. Eloisa manages some false sympathy for the baby. Arturo goes on reading the article, which says that people are saying that the baby's illness is punishment on Soledad for marrying Alcides two days after her fiancé Hugo was buried. Eloisa says that is cruel. Gladis says that it is true. Everyone knows that Soledad betrayed her fiancé's memory by marrying Alcides so soon after Hugo died and that it was a marriage of convenience.

Hugo comes to see the baby in the morning. Soledad says Aurora is fine as if nothing had happened. 'That's how catalepsy is,' says Hugo. Soledad wants to tell Hugo/Alcides something. She says that after thinking about their conversation the previous night, Hugo's death seems very mysterious. She wants Hugo/Alcides to authorize an exhumation of Hugo's body. Hugo is impactado. Hugo/Alicides says that it is out of the question. He will never permit his brother's tomb to be opened. 'Don't you see,' says Soledad, 'Hugo could have been buried alive.'
'I don't think so,' responds Hugo. 'Dr. Max said that he had a heart attack.'
'Dr. Max could have been wrong,' she says, 'please let me do this.'
'Why do you want to dig up my brother's grave?' asks Hugo, 'You didn't care about him, did you?' Soledad begs him to let her do it just to put her doubts to rest.
'If the doctor was wrong,' says Hugo, 'If it happened, it isn't necessary to relive such pain. It's better to leave things as they are. I think that it is curiosity that is behind this request.' He leaves.

Boris asks Hugo why he won't let Soledad dig up his grave. She would find Miguel's body (or bones) face down (We recall that Hugo had Los Burque turn Miquel's corpse over in one of the many times that grave was dug up) and would know that Hugo was buried alive. It would be the perfect revenge. But Hugo thinks that it would be too cruel. Boris says that Soledad never loved Hugo. Hugo has a flashback to when his mother had his father's tomb opened up. He says that she went crazy when she found out his father had been buried alive (maybe she got more crazy but supposedly she was crazy before Armando was buried so that no one believed her when she told them he wasn't dead.)

Soledad is in the market with Ursula and Aurora. Some women who have read the newspaper article accuse her of bringing misfortune on the community and they start throwing vegetables at her. Hugo sees this from his carriage. The credits roll.

Tomorrow: Soledad digs up Hugo's coffin.

Labels: la traicion