Sunshine and disillusionment continue in this short, humorous chapter of Pedro
Montero's entry into Sulaco. Pedrito, who fancies himself a conquering aristocrat,
is dismayed by the strength of his proletarian allies and the destruction of the
aristocratic club. The flimsiness of his power is expressed by the treatment of
his speech (and Gamacho's which follows): as soon as they begin Conrad shuts off
the sound and gives us visual images only, so that our impression is one of exhausting
effort that produces silence. It is an openly cynical chapter, in which Fuentes
acts behind the scenes to sacrifice his ally Gamacho, and in which the narrator
diverges from Pedrito's biography to make some profoundly bitter comments on human
nature.