small white coffins

The small white coffins are a recurring image of bereavement in Daniel Sempere’s account, linking the sight that troubles him while awake to a dream that anticipates the loss of Nuria Monfort. Their return gives private grief a public, almost ceremonial form, as the coffins multiply across the imagined city.

First Appearance: An Image Daniel Cannot Set Aside

After finding Fermin Romero de Torres in his room, Daniel settles in the dining room beneath a blanket, intending to rest in his father’s armchair. The sight of two white coffins remains branded on his mind. He tries to replace it with thoughts of Bea, and the sound he briefly mistakes for the sea turns out to be Fermin’s snoring. The coffins are thus established as an image that persists amid Daniel’s efforts to seek comfort and sleep.

Return in a Dream

Later, exhausted after a sleepless night and caught in the rain, Daniel lies down in his bedroom. In a dream, Death rides over Barcelona carrying hundreds of small white coffins; the procession leaves black flowers whose petals bear Nuria Monfort’s name in blood. The dream transforms the earlier, more limited image into a citywide vision and explicitly connects the coffins with Nuria.

Meaning and Consequence

At dawn, Daniel reads that Nuria’s name appears in the obituary section beneath a printed cross. He cannot bring himself to look at it. The dream’s image therefore precedes the confirmation of her death, making the coffins a figure of grief that has arrived before Daniel can accept the news. The contrast between the dream’s many coffins and the newspaper’s single name also gives his personal loss the scale of a wider procession, while keeping the emotional focus on Nuria’s absence.