"You will not look at your watch again, that useless object that falsely measures the time agreed to human vanity, those little hands that tediously mark the long hours invented to deceive the true time, the time that runs with insulting, deadly speed, that no watch can measure. One life, one century, fifty years: it will no longer be possible for you to imagine these lying actions, you will no longer be able to take that bodyless powder in your hands."
In Consuelo's dusk, she resents all reference to time. She's desperately trying to regain the youth she enjoyed with her husband, to somehow relive it and fulfill all the fantasies she never had the chance to live. When Felipe walks in wearing a watch, he reminds her that she is old. He is not her general, and she is not his lover.
"You stay there, forgotten about the yellow papers, of your own annotated pages, thinking only about the ungraspable beauty of your Aura -- the more you think about her, the more you will do it, not only because you think about her beauty and desire her, but because now you want it to free it: you will have found a moral reason for your desire; you will feel innocent and satisfied. . ."
Consuelo's entire plan is for Felipe to seduce Aura and sleep with her. Through some intuition she suspects that if he does so, she will be able to embody the girl just as the general embodies him. In this quotation, Consuelo is urging Felipe to search his mind for an excuse to sleep with Aura. He has already all but abandoned his translation project in pursuit of the girl. He just needs a reason to quiet his conscience.
"Will you always love me?"
"Always, Aura, I will love you forever."
"Always? Do you swear?"
"I swear."
"Although old? Even if I lose my beauty? Even if I have white hair?"
"Always, my love, always."
At this point, Aura is mostly possessed by the old woman. She begs Felipe to promise his love for her, even when she ages and is no longer beautiful. This is almost certainly Consuelo talking, as she fears Felipe will leave the instant he finds out the truth. He insists, however, that he will love Aura until her dying day. Perhaps he too is already mostly transformed into the general.
"Aura dressed in green, with that taffeta robe where they appear, as the woman advances towards you, the moon-colored thighs: the woman, you will repeat when you have her close, the woman, not the girl of yesterday: the girl of yesterday -- when you touch his fingers, his waist -- he could not have been more than twenty; the woman of today -- and caress her black hair, loose, her cheek pale -- looks like forty: something has hardened, between yesterday and today, around the green eyes; the redness of the lips has darkened out of its old form, as if it wanted to fix itself in a joyful grimace, in a cloudy smile: as if it alternated, like that silver of the patio, the taste of honey and that of bitterness. You do not have time to think more. . ."
Felipe is infatuated with Aura. Between today and the last, though, he's noticed the change in her but doesn't understand. He's still just as much in love with her, but he can tell that the nuances of her appearance and personality are slightly altered. She is actually now transforming into Consuelo, so she has aged overnight it seems. Though she looks the same, she is now a woman of at least three times her physical age.
