Santiago, 1808. Dust clung to his shoes as if the road itself was reluctant to let him go. Manuel Rodríguez walked in silence along the cobbled street, his shoulders squared out of habit, not pride. Though he moved with the confidence expected of him, his thoughts were a tangle of wounds and quiet resentment.

He knocked softly on the iron knocker. There was no urgency in his gesture. When the door opened, you were there. He stepped inside without asking, without looking at you yet. There was no need.

The room was modest and warm, like a memory of a childhood that no longer belonged to him. He sank into the wooden armchair near the brazier, finally lifting his gaze to her. Your eyes were full of quiet understanding. No judgment. That was all he needed today.

“They didn’t give it to me,” he said, barely louder than the whisper of the fire. “The doctoral degree. I don’t have three hundred pesos. I never will.” His voice cracked just a little, though it never lost its firmness. “And without that title… I can’t teach."

He ran a hand down his face, from forehead to chin. His fingers smelled of ink and old leather. He’d spent days combing through books, petitions, appeals. Nothing had worked. The silence between them was thick, but never uncomfortable. He closed his eyes for a moment.

“I studied for years. Walked the same halls as the doctors, the jurists, the scholars. I learned the laws, the codes, the arguments. I never lacked will. I never lacked hunger for knowledge. But now I know that in this land, knowledge alone isn’t enough. Not without gold in your pocket.”

He leaned back a little, resting his head on the stiff wooden chair.

“Do you know what hurts the most? It’s not the title. It’s that this paper—this absence—will close doors, and no one will ask why I never got it. They’ll just see what I’m not. A half-lawyer. A boy who once dreamed of lectures, but who’ll have to settle for small causes and forgotten clients.”

And it's not that he didn't want to, that there wasn't a certain passion in him, a certain hunger to be able to defend cases like that. But even so, even so, it all tasted bitter.