El día del Señor vendrá como un ladrón en la noche

The expression “El día del Señor vendrá como un ladrón en la noche” is the biblical warning that the Lord’s day will arrive unexpectedly. In the novel, an elderly woman cites it to Lorenzo Quart just after taking control of a computer screen, turning a scriptural allusion into the prelude to a personal revelation: “Ahora ya conoce mi secreto.”

Biblical Allusion and Its Dramatic Use

The woman attributes the saying to the First Letter to the Thessalonians, tentatively giving the reference as chapter five, verse two. Its image of a thief arriving unannounced gives her words an immediate connection to surprise and disclosure. Rather than speaking the verse in a formal religious setting, she addresses Quart at a late-night computer, making the biblical language part of an intimate and deliberately staged encounter.

The Moment of Revelation

With unexpected agility, she moves across the keyboard, changes the screen with a password and symbols, and presses Enter. Her satisfaction at completing the task is visible in her expression; she then turns from the computer to Quart and delivers the verse. The sequence makes the quotation a threshold: first the hidden material appears on screen, then the woman invokes the day’s unexpected arrival, and finally she tells the priest that he now knows her secret.

Macarena and the Private Audience

The disclosure takes place before the woman’s daughter, Macarena Bruner, who has brought Quart to her. The elderly woman acknowledges the improvised lateness of the visit, touching her pearl necklace as she remarks that she would have dressed differently had she expected company. Yet because Macarena brought the priest, she accepts the circumstances, takes her daughter’s hand, and concludes that Quart knows her secret. The verse thus belongs not only to a moment of revelation but to a carefully bounded encounter among mother, daughter, and priest.