The Lost Steps

The narrator walks through the city and observes the mechanical pace of modern life. He feels disconnected from the rituals and architecture of the city and recognizes that traditions and symbols have lost their significance. He also ponders the superficial attempts of Western culture to rejuvenate itself by appropriating primitive art, and he feels that true understanding and innovation in art has eluded his generation.

Back in the city, he gains a new perspective on his time in the jungle. He sees it as the place where he learned about the essence of his art and the importance of forging his own path, rejected the fear-driven, styleless world around him and the yearning for authenticity and potential utopias.

Three months after the narrator’s manuscript about his jungle experiences was rejected, he struggles with fear and financial instability. The news of his divorce caused a scandal, forcing him to sell his story cheaply to a minor magazine. Ruth’s pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm: Dressed in black as if mourning the end of her marriage, she drew public sympathy, complicating the divorce and casting the narrator as a villain.

Let go from his former job, the narrator has downgraded his living accommodations. Desperate for income, he accepts low-paying orchestration work, feeling trapped by the city. His life teeters on poverty, and he spends days reading or wandering in Central Park, seeking comfort in memories of Rosario and signs of hope.

Haunted by dreams reminiscent of Piranesi’s Invenzioni di Carcere, the narrator feels imprisoned by his circumstances. Consulting a book on dream interpretation, he finds varied meanings for prison dreams.

Mouche appears in the bookstore and, despite his reluctance, the narrator ends up spending the evening with her. Despite his firm resolve to resist her seduction, he finds himself unable to refuse her, leading to a night of regrettable intimacy that leaves him feeling empty and disdainful.

Distraught, the narrator discovers a religious journal in Mouche’s room, which contains an article about Fray Pedro de Henestrosa, detailing his mission to a dangerous area and his subsequent brutal murder by the Indigenous people there. This deeply affects the narrator, prompting him to leave Mouche’s house for good. He spends the rest of the night and early morning walking aimlessly, reflecting on Fray Pedro’s gruesome death, recognizing in it a form of ultimate defiance and victory over death itself.

The narrator returns to Rosario’s family’s house in Puerto Anunciacion, which has now been transformed into an inn by its new owners, Don Melisio and his wife. He learns that Rosario’s family has moved away, and Don Melisio shares rumors that the Adelantado has founded three more settlements. As the narrator shares brandy with the locals, he confirms Fray Pedro’s death.

Intent on returning to Santa Monica de los Venados, the narrator arranges with a young guide named Simon to travel upstream, planning to continue alone to the village discreetly. His yearning for freedom, the simple joys of nature, and his reunion with Rosario dominate his thoughts as he prepares to reclaim his time and life away from the constraints and fears of the urban world he left behind.

Upon returning to the Greeks’ abandoned mine area, the narrator finds the hut where he and Rosario first had sex, now overrun and destroyed by the jungle. The narrator and Simon search for a sign marking the entrance to a navigable channel, but rising river levels, unusual for the season, have submerged it. Access to the village will be impossible until the waters recede, which won’t be until April or May at the earliest.

The narrator is preoccupied with finding a way to Santa Monica de los Venados, waiting for the guide or the Adelantado to show up in Puerto Anunciacion. To pass the time, he walks to the rapids and observes the howling of the local dogs, speculating on the musical aspects of animal noises.

Yannes, the Greek, unexpectedly reunites with the narrator, surprising him with a rough greeting. They go to the narrator’s lodging, where Yannes is consumed by the discovery of a potential diamond mine, influenced by tales of El Dorado and a recently found 100-carat gem. He plans to file a claim in the capital, fearing someone else might discover his find. The narrator, uninterested in the diamonds, is desperate for Yannes to guide him back to Santa Monica de los Venados. Still, Yannes insists on leaving the next day on the Manati. Yannes accidentally reveals that he visited Santa Monica after their last trip, and he refers to Rosario as Marcos’s wife, shocking the narrator with news of her pregnancy.

Feeling betrayed and lost, the narrator reflects on the futility of his return, realizing he was only a visitor in the eyes of the locals. Yannes offers him a passage on the Manati, forcing the narrator to accept his inevitable return to the modern world.

The book ends with the narrator overhearing that the river’s water level has fallen, exposing the markers and the entrance to Santa Monica de los Venados.