Rosaura A Las Diez

Eufrasia’s testimony mirrors Mrs. Milagros’s in several key ways, although it is far more succinct and contains essential information of which Mrs. Milagros was unaware. One of the central similarities between the two is the high-handed, self-superior way in which both characters view others. As the inspector narrates:

Miss Eufrasia feels compelled to make it manifestly clear that her personal opinions of Camilo Canegato, the deceased Rosa, Mrs. Milagros, her three daughters, Mr. David Réguel, Mr. J. Coretti, Mr. Gavifia—humanity in general—are frankly unfavorable, if not positively condemnatory (175).

Judgment is thus the launching point of her testimony; she makes her moral disdain for others explicit from the start, whereas Mrs. Milagros attempts to disguise her judgments as kindness. Also similar to Mrs. Milagros is her zeal for the case. She feigns innocence when describing her own eavesdropping habits—“Miss Eufrasia suddenly felt very weary as she lay down on her bed, which stands next to the wall separating her room from that of Rosa” (178)—but the subtleties in her narration show the eagerness with which she collects information about Rosa and Camilo.

These parallels are separated by Eufrasia’s self-awareness and observant nature; while she might have similar social impulses to Mrs. Milagros, Eufrasia can discern information with more clarity than her landlady. For example, Eufrasia speaks about Elsa in ableist terms that mirror Mrs. Milagros’s way of speaking about her—“She comes and goes through the house like a blob, like a robot, like a big animal guided only by the instinct or habit of flicking a feather duster over the furniture and serving the meals” (176)—but remains observant of Elsa nonetheless. Although Eufrasia judges others like Mrs. Milagros does, she does not presuppose motives in the way that Mrs. Milagros does, keeping herself protected from The Faulty Nature of Presuppositions. In this sense, Eufrasia is a manifestation of Mrs. Milagros’s idealized self. She is an older woman who treats others according to a strict moral code and has access to essential information about everyone who lives at La Madrileña, information that enables the police to solve the case.

Denevi’s decision to mirror Mrs. Milagros and Eufrasia with one another is meant to highlight just how unreliable Mrs. Milagros’s testimony is, encouraging readers to retroactively scrutinize the material that they previously read. As the penultimate part of Rosaura, Eufrasia’s testimony is the final opportunity readers have to reassess their theories about the murder before the truth is finally revealed in Part 5. This sense of structural anticipation is heightened by the final moments of Part 4, in which the inspector narrates, “Miss Eufrasia, who has not read Matthew but who has read Hugo Wast, says, raising her finger like a prophetess, ‘The rock cast aside by the architects may well prove to be the keystone of the building’” (182). In this quote, labeling Eufrasia as a “prophetess” lends her observations even more credibility, and the invocation of the Book of Matthew brings them into a realm spiritual truth (within the predominantly Christian cultural context of Argentina). Denevi thus crafts this penultimate moment such that readers know that they are on the verge of discovering the answers to the book’s central mysteries: who Rosa was, how she died, and who killed her. In a book filled with philosophical themes and passages, suspenseful structural touchpoints such as this one help keep Rosaura within the genres of psychological thriller and mystery.

Eufrasia’s testimony thus serves a dual purpose. First, it continues the themes explored in previous chapters by responding to and developing the mannerisms of Mrs. Milagros. Secondly, it recenters the book’s grounding within the world of mystery novels and accelerates the narrative toward its solution. In Part 5, readers are meant to sense the novel beginning to resolve itself, both thematically and narratively.