Juan retains their apartment in Walden 7, but without his wife's financial support he must eke out a living by playing the accordion and busking for money in the streets of La Rambla. While performing on the streets, he is caught up in a confrontation between a pro-Catalan language group and some Francoist thugs. Juan plays "Els Segadors", the national anthem of Catalonia, and the paramilitary extremists throw a Molotov cocktail at him. Disfigured in the explosion and his personality transformed by misfortune, Juan Marés falls deeper into indigence and schizophrenic hallucinations. Obsessed with the happiness he has lost and with the memory of his wife, he encounters Norma while he is performing on the streets, but she fails to recognize him. In disguise, Marés talks to her again during the carnival in Barcelona; only at the end of their talk does he impart a clue to his identity. Another day he telephones her, pretending to need help in the translation of words from Spanish into Catalan.