Years after the collapse, a new stone bridge stands in the same location, but the disaster has become proverbial in Lima. For example, Limeans adopt a saying that invokes the bridge when making plans, meaning that fate may intervene. Though poems commemorate the accident, Brother Juniper’s book is considered the principal “literary monument.”

Brother Juniper’s investigative method grew out of his friendship with a master at the University of San Martin whose wife had abandoned him to follow a soldier to Spain. This embittered man challenged Juniper’s faith with stories of seemingly meaningless suffering, such as a devout queen who died of a tumor despite her subjects’ sincere prayers. These arguments convinced Juniper that faith needed empirical proof.

When illness struck the village of Puerto, Juniper secretly rated 15 victims and 15 survivors on goodness, piety, and usefulness. The data proved difficult to interpret. Most were essential to the community, and one man received negative scores for actively promoting wickedness. However, the calculations suggested that the dead were five times more worth saving than the living, “as though the pestilence had been directed against the really valuable people in the village” (76). Disturbed, Juniper destroyed his charts in the Pacific Ocean, finding solace in its beauty rather than in logic.

Another anecdote from the master likely shaped Juniper’s approach to the bridge investigation. The master once read a cathedral epitaph praising a lady’s perfect virtue and, convinced such goodness was impossible, investigated her life. To his amazement, everyone confirmed her exceptional character, forcing him to conclude that she was a rare exception. This inspired Juniper to exhaustively document the bridge victims’ lives, recording every trivial or contradictory detail in hopes a pattern would emerge. He interviewed people close to the victims—the abbess, Camilla Perichole, and Captain Alvarado—but found that those most intimate with the dead revealed the least. Juniper concluded that the accident simultaneously punished wickedness and rewarded virtue but remained unsatisfied.

Judges condemned the book as heretical, ordering both it and Juniper burned. In his cell, Juniper accepted his fate but yearned for someone to believe that his intentions were faithful. At his execution in the public square, many who loved him attended, including Nina, one of the survivors from his study in Puerto. Calling twice upon Saint Francis, he died content.

A memorial service for the five victims of the bridge collapse was held at Lima Cathedral. Don Andrés attended reluctantly, while Captain Alvarado entered briefly before leaving to mourn Esteban beside the sea. The abbess, seated with her students, reflected that her work’s continuation no longer mattered; the effort itself was sufficient. She accepted that there would be no successor like Pepita to carry on her mission.

Camila, now living on her farm, interpreted the bridge collapse as a divine rebuke—her third warning from heaven following her illness and Jaime’s. When the viceroy ordered her daughters sent to a Spanish convent school, she set out for the memorial service but stopped at a small church, overwhelmed by the thought of public mourning. Struck by anguish over her failure to express love to Uncle Pio and Jaime, she returned home and despaired for a year. When she learned that the abbess had also lost two loved ones in the accident, she observed the older woman from a distance before finally visiting the convent. There, Camila collapsed in grief, and the abbess comforted her in the garden. Camila poured out her lifelong despair, stayed on at the convent, and became one of the abbess’s helpers.

Later, Doña Clara, the Marquesa de Montemayor’s daughter, arrived from Spain. She passionately defended her mother’s character and showed the abbess Doña María’s final letter. Astonished that such profound words could come from Doña María, the Abbess realized that grace appears everywhere. This filled her with renewed purpose, and she gave Doña Clara a tour of her institutions, musing aloud about developing communication methods for people who are deaf and better treatment for people with mental illnesses. She also introduced Doña Clara to Camila, noting that her helper was leaving to begin her own work across the city.

That evening, the abbess spoke to the dying, imagining Esteban and Pepita alone in darkness. She reflected that soon no one would remember the five victims, yet their love would endure. Memory is unnecessary for love, she concluded, because all love returns to its source. She realized that love is the bridge connecting the living and the dead and that it alone endures and has meaning.