The House of the Spirits: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

“I can’t talk about it,” Esteban narrates, “But I’ll try to write it.” After Clara’s death, Esteban locks himself in Clara’s room with her body and tells her all the things he has wanted to say since she stopped talking to him after he beat Blanca and knocked out Clara’s teeth. He examines her body for any signs of sickness or death but finds nothing. He lies down next to her body, and they are “finally reconciled.” 

Just before daybreak, Esteban fixes Clara’s body so she will be presentable for her family. He dresses her in a white tunic and puts socks on her feet, so she won’t be cold. He brushes her hair and slides his gold ring on her finger to replace the one she threw out so many years before. He leaves the room and informs the servants they may bury her, and he tells them to bury Nívea’s head with her. The funeral is an event, and people come from everywhere to pay their final respects. Even the peasants from Tres Marías show up, and Esteban notices Pedro Segundo in the crowd, weeping.

After Clara’s death, the big house on the corner begins to decline. The flowers wilt in the vases, and Esteban wanders around the house dressed all in black, wearing Clara’s dentures on a chain around his neck. The house slowly decays: the faucets leak, the roof tiles crack, and stains spread across the wall. Only Clara’s room remains unaffected from the general deterioration of the rest of the house.

Jaime and Nicolás remain distant from their father, and Jaime spends most of his free time working as a doctor for the poor. Esteban says Jamie is a “hopeless loser,” whose “utopian values” don’t exist. According to Esteban, “charity, like socialism, is an invention of the weak to exploit the strong and bring them to their knees.” Nicolás begins to teach Spanish dance classes at the house, but his students are mostly young people in search of a philosophy to help them understand life’s meaninglessness. Nicolás soon begins to charge for these sessions, which allows him to rent a house and open his own school, the Institute for Union with Nothingness.

When Esteban finds out that Nicolás is operating an eccentric school, he says nothing, even when the newspapers find out the school is operated by the Senator’s son. However, when Esteban finds Alba with her head shaved bald, repeating the word “Om,” he has a violent outburst like no other. After Nicolás stages a naked protest at the gates of Congress, Esteban puts him on a plane, sends him overseas, and tells him never to come back.

Once Alba’s hair grows back, Esteban sends her to a British boarding school. Blanca doesn’t object, since she knows Alba’s future is already written in the stars. At school, Alba is introduced to tennis and the Bible; however, Alba is used to Clara levitating and playing Chopin without lifting the cover of the piano, so she is incredibly bored. The school’s headmistress calls Blanca and says that Alba is better suited for a school run by Spanish nuns, but Esteban uses his power to ensure his granddaughter stays enrolled at the school. He finds English far superior to Spanish, and he has finally accepted that not all women are “complete idiots,” so he believes that Alba can have a profession like a man.

For Alba, Blanca is the only stable person in her life at the big house on the corner. Esteban still lives there, but his political cronies stop visiting, and he confines himself to his bedroom and library. He doesn’t seem to notice the house falling down around him, and he has no interest in his family. He gives Blanca money to run the house, but it is never enough, and she must always borrow from Jaime. Alba begins to suffer nightmares and starts sleeping in Blanca’s room. Every night, when Blanca gets into bed, she holds Alba’s hand and tells her bizarre stories from Uncle Marcos’s books. When Alba asks her to repeat the stories, Blanca can never remember them, so Alba begins writing them down. 

It takes nearly two years for the construction to be completed on the mausoleum for Clara, and Esteban asks the del Valle family to transfer Rosa’s body to the mausoleum, but they refuse. When Esteban goes to Jaime and tells him they must steal Rosa’s body, Jaime isn’t surprised. “If they won’t give her to us,” Esteban says, “we’ll have to take her by force.” They wait until nightfall and go to the cemetery, where Esteban bribes the nightguard to help them. Once they excavate the coffin, Esteban opens it. Rosa is perfectly preserved, looking much like the day she died, and Esteban leans over and kisses her lips. Suddenly, a breeze blows through, and Rosa, who had been hermetically sealed, turns to dust. He closes the coffin and places her in the mausoleum next to Clara. 

Despite pulling away from his political friends, Esteban is still very much involved in politics, and he fears the Marxist support that is sweeping the country. “The day we can’t get our hands on the ballot boxes before the vote is counted we’re done for,” Esteban says. To Esteban all political parties except the Conservative Party are Marxist, and he calls the left “the enemy of the democracy,” not knowing that same phrase will later become the slogan of the nation’s dictatorship.

Esteban’s wealth begins to dwindle after Clara’s death, and the foreman at Tres Marías urges him to sell. The peasants are disgruntled and issue new demands daily, but Esteban refuses to sell. The following years are rocky, socially and politically, and the struggle is reflected in Pedro Tercero’s songs, which can constantly be heard on the radio. He sings of hens, foxes, and of revolution, and Esteban has no idea that the singer is Jaime’s best friend, or that Blanca frequently takes Alba to see him.

Despite their frequent trips to see Pedro Tercero, Blanca doesn’t tell Alba that he is her father. She doesn’t want to complicate Alba’s life with the truth about her birth, but that doesn’t keep Pedro from begging her to change her mind. Blanca does dream of packing her bags, taking Alba, and running away with Pedro, but she never finds the courage. Alba quickly learns not to mention Pedro’s name at home, and she suspects something awful happened between the singer and Esteban, but she never asks about it.

After Esteban and Jaime successfully move Rosa into Clara’s mausoleum, Esteban begins to feel better. He keeps Clara’s room locked up, however, so he can find her spirit whenever he wants. He has only two friends, and one night to cheer Esteban up, they take him to the upscale brothel: the Christopher Columbus. When they arrive, they are greeted by a man named Mustafá, who provides them with catalogs of the women and young men available for hire, but none of the pictures appeal to Esteban. After his friends are led to their private rooms, Esteban sits, undecided. Mustafá offers Esteban the “best in the house” and leaves the room to fetch her. When Mustafá comes back, he is accompanied by Tránsito Soto.  

Esteban is delighted to see Tránsito, and she leads him to a private room behind a curtain. Tránsito is completely in charge of the Christopher Columbus now, and all the good ideas—like adding homosexuals to the catalogue and changing the décor—have been hers. The brothel is a raging success, and all the workers are partners. No one is exploited, and they all make more than enough money. Esteban and Tránsito have sex and soak in hot bathtub afterward. Esteban closes his eyes, and without realizing it, he begins to cry and call Clara’s name. Tránsito gently washes and dries Esteban, and then helps him into the bed. She gently kisses his forehead and leaves the room. “I wonder who Clara is,” Esteban hears her say as she exits.