The Consul awakes from a dream with a "horripilating hangover thunderclapping about his skull" and rushes to the garden where he has hidden a bottle of tequila. While his "familiar" voices alternately encourage and protest, he drinks. The voices cease.

He surveys the garden and observes that it is not as "ruined" as he had thought. He reads a sign in a small public garden adjacent to his property but misinterprets it. He has another drink.

A sudden urge to speak to someone comes to him. This is followed by a strong desire to spend the day drinking in the cantina Farolito in Parián. As he walks about the garden, the Consul almost falls into the barranca that forms one small border of his property.

He approaches his neighbor, Mr. Quincey, who is in his yard watering his own garden. Quincey obviously disapproves of him, but Geoffrey, feeling the effects of the tequila, is in good spirits and they converse. The Consul expresses his admiration for William Blackstone, a Puritan who left the colony to live among the Indians then was never seen again. He plays with Quincey's cat.

Dr. Vigil arrives, apparently for a casual visit with Quincey. He is concerned that Quincey may learn that he had been drinking with the Consul the previous evening. Geoffrey asks what Vigil would prescribe for delirium tremens.

As he attempts to rescue a butterfly from the mouth of Quincey's cat, the Consul sees that Yvonne and Hugh have returned and he greets them.

An hour has passed and the Consul is in his bathroom trying to reconstruct what has occurred in the interval. Gradually, he remembers seeing Hugh and Yvonne swimming in the pool, conversing with Dr. Vigil about the drunkenness of the night before, and the doctor's concern for his health. He also recalls declining an invitation to accompany Vigil on a trip to Guanajuato and his own proposal to see a bullthrowing at Tomalín.

Sitting in the bathroom, the Consul hallucinates. He sees insects crawling everywhere and closing in on him.