The House of the Spirits: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

From the time Blanca is an infant, Clara talks to her like an adult, and Blanca is well-spoken even as a toddler. Around this time, Clara and Esteban decide to spend the summer at Tres Marías. Férula thinks this is a terrible idea, but Clara thinks the countryside sounds romantic. They pack their bags, including Blanca’s toys and the birds in cages that Clara refuses to leave behind, and the family heads to the country. When they arrive, Pedro Segundo unloads the carriage. Only Blanca notices Pedro Tercero, Pedro Segundo’s son, standing nearby, naked with a runny nose and swollen belly. Blanca strips naked and runs after Pedro Tercero, and the two children play for hours, until Clara finds them sleeping under the dining room table.

Clara immediately feels as if there is a place for her at Tres Marías, and she writes in her notebook that the hacienda is her “mission in life.” She can sense the peasants’ fear and resentment, and she can also sense Esteban’s violent character and past. Esteban has given up prostitutes, raping, and his violent outbursts, which the peasants attribute to Clara, and Clara has stopped talking to ghosts and moving furniture with her mind. At sundown each day, Férula gathers the peasant women to say the rosary, and when she is done, Clara takes the opportunity to repeat Nívea’s messages of equality. The women smile and listen, but they know that their husbands will beat them if they ever put Clara’s ideas into action.

When Esteban finds out about Clara’s messages of equality and justice, he is infuriated. No wife of his will espouse the same nonsense Nívea preached, and he tells Clara that if she doesn’t stop immediately, he will take down her pants and spank her. The meetings continue anyway, and Férula begins to hate the country. She doesn’t like Blanca playing with Pedro Tercero, but unfortunately there aren’t any children of their own class for Blanca to play with, so she says nothing. While living at Tres Marías, Férula keeps her same immaculate style of dress and hair, and she keeps her keys hanging from a ring at the waist of her perfectly ironed dress. She never sweats or scratches, until the day she finds a mouse inside her corset and has a nervous breakdown.

Even though Férula detests living at Tres Marías, she can’t stand the idea of being separated from Clara. She no longer bathes Clara or sleeps in the same bed with her, but she still dedicates her entire life to Clara. Férula’s years with Clara are the happiest of her life. She tells Clara her deepest secrets and thoughts, and Clara writes in her notebook that Férula loves her far more than she deserves or can ever repay.

During their stay, an infestation of ants threatens to cripple Tre Marías. The ants eat through crops and gardens, find their way into the milk, and eat through the orchards. Esteban buys pesticides, but nothing works, so he is forced to hire a man in town who works with insecticides. The man says his work will take over a month, but Esteban doesn’t think the hacienda can last that long. Old Pedro García, Pedro Segundo’s father, offers to help. He climbs on a horse and rides out of sight, talking to the ants along the way. He returns at nightfall, and the next day the ants are gone. 

Clara soon begins having visions and talking to ghosts again, and she spends hours writing in her notebook. It is clear to everyone that she is pregnant again, and Férula is furious. She takes Clara’s pregnancy as a personal insult and arranges for them all to return to the big house on the corner. Clara again stops speaking, and spends months wandering silently through the house. Around this time, Esteban begins to grow interested in politics, but he stays close to home, believing such “hysterical women” need the stability of a man.

Dr. Cuevas worries that Clara’s labor will again be difficult, but Clara, speaking for the first time in months, assures Esteban and the doctor that everything will be fine. Esteban hopes he gets a son after all this trouble, and Clara says she will have two sons—twins named Jaime and Nicolás. Esteban hates such foreign names and demands one of his sons be named Esteban, but Clara won’t hear of it. Repeated names confuse things in her notebooks, which she says bear “witness to her life.”

That night, Esteban treats himself to the Christopher Columbus, the best brothel in the city. Esteban interrupts his story and explains that he is not really “a man for whores,” but he is annoyed with Clara and must get away. The madame brings him the house’s best prostitute, and Esteban is pleasantly surprised to find Tránsito Soto standing before him. He says that it looks as if she is moving up in the world, and Tránsito nods and offers to repay his 50 pesos. Esteban laughs, and says he would rather she owe him a favor.

Tránsito Soto is the same woman Esteban remembers. She is independent and has never been supported by a man. She works for herself, which isn’t easy at the Christopher Columbus because the madame prefers to deal with pimps. Tránsito has big plans for the brothel and hopes to one day turn it into a “whores’ cooperative” and “tell the madame to go to hell.” Esteban and Tránsito make love and, when they say goodbye, Esteban knows he will see her again.

As Dr. Cuevas makes plans to perform another cesarean section on Clara, Severo and Nívea del Valle are killed in an accident. Esteban tells Férula that he doesn’t want to inform Clara until after she gives birth, but Clara already knows. She dreamt of her parents’ death exactly the way it happened. For many years, Severo owned an old Sunbeam automobile, which was the first modern car in town. He spent years taking it apart and fixing it, and he lovingly referred to the car as Covadonga. One day, while driving the car, the breaks went out, and Severo and Nívea were sent careening into a truck loaded with construction iron. Nívea was decapitated, and despite the work of several bloodhounds, the police were unable to locate her missing head.

When Severo and Nívea’s bodies begin to decompose, they are buried without Nívea’s head. People come from near and far to attend the funeral of the country’s first feminist, but it isn’t long before Clara has a vision as to the location of her mother’s head. Clara and Férula hire a driver, and Clara tells the driver to go straight and do as she says. They drive quite a distance, much farther than the site of the accident, and Férula tells Clara she must be mistaken. Clara, impossibly pregnant, asks the driver to stop and retrieve the severed head just on the other side of the tall bush, and he quickly returns with it. Clara tells him to drive home fast; she is in labor.

Once Clara and Férula return to the big house on the corner, Férula calmly delivers Clara’s two healthy baby boys before Dr. Cuevas or the midwife arrive. Esteban puts Nívea’s head in a hatbox, which is sure to be a problem. A proper burial of the head will lead to questions about how Clara was able to find it; fearing a scandal, Esteban stores the head in the basement next to Marcos’s trunks and the Barrabás rug. Nana moves in to help Férula with Nicolás and Jaime, but the only thing the two women can agree on is their faith; otherwise, Férula and Nana hate each other. 

One Friday, the three Mora sisters arrive at the big house on the corner. The women are strangers, but they are drawn to Clara and the house, and together the women begin a spiritual friendship that will last into “the Hereafter.” The Mora sisters are students of spiritualism and the supernatural, and they have a photograph of a ghost, which Clara sees as proof of spirits in the physical form. Esteban agrees to the Mora sisters’ presence in the house, provided they are discreet and don’t go into his study or use the children for psychic experiments.

Férula doesn’t like the Mora sisters, either, and she fights incessantly with Nana; however, both Férula and Nana agree not to fight in front of Clara. Férula comes up with new ways to come between Clara and Esteban, and Clara grows more and more distant from her husband. Esteban’s love for Clara, however, becomes more obsessive. The children grow, too, and Clara tells Blanca stories just as Nívea did before her, and Jaime and Nicolás become young men and go off to school. Esteban returns to his former bad character and starts raping peasant women in the woods, and he is convinced that Férula is to blame for Clara’s indifference toward him. 

One night, after a small earthquake, Férula, who has always been afraid of earthquakes, climbs into bed with Clara for comfort. Esteban finds the two sleeping women and loses his temper. He calls Férula “everything from a dyke to a whore” and throws her out of the house. As Férula leaves, she curses Esteban, so his body and soul will “shrivel up” and he’ll “die like a dog.” Clara is miserable without Férula. She consults her three-legged table, her tarot cards, and her spirit guide for Férula’s new address, but nothing comes through. According to the Mora sisters, Clara can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found.

Despite the economic crisis that strikes the nation, Esteban continues to prosper. Plagues and sickness begin to spread, and Esteban suggests they all go to Tres Marías, but Clara refuses and insists on staying to serve the sick and the poor. Férula’s absence is deeply felt in the big house on the corner, especially by Nana, since Clara still doesn’t tend to any domestic matters. Clara begins to walk in her sleep, and her notebooks, which bear “witness to life,” become sloppy and nonsensical.

One day, “a group of Gurdjieff students, Rosicrucians, spiritualists, and sleepless bohemians” arrive at the big house on the corner, and the eclectic group moves in, just as the Mora sister did. Esteban doesn’t approve, but he has learned not to interfere with his Clara’s spiritualism. However, Esteban is determined to keep Nicolás and Jaime sheltered from such nonsense, so he sends them to an English boarding school. The Victorian school is known to cane students for the slightest offense, which Jaime quickly learns because of his insults of the Royal family and his interest in reading Marx. Nicolás shares his mother’s love of the spirit world, but since such an obsession isn’t considered a crime at the school, he escapes the canings. 

Esteban doesn’t care about Blanca’s education, so she spends all her time with Clara. Esteban believes that “magic, like cooking and religion,” is a “particularly feminine affair.” Clara takes Blanca everywhere, including down to the tenements to serve the poor. As Clara hands out food and clothing, she explains to Blanca that such charity is for her own conscience. The poor don’t need charity, Clara says, but justice. Esteban, however, considers justice a laughing matter. The poor don’t deserve the same life and opportunities as the rich and the intelligent, Esteban maintains. He says that Clara and Blanca can feed and clothe the poor if they want to, but he won’t allow them to bring “Bolshevik ideas” into his home, like that no-good Pedro Tercero García on Tres Marías.

Pedro Tercero indeed speaks of justice on Tres Marías, and he is the only one brave enough to stand up to Esteban. Pedro Tercero befriends communists and meets with union leaders, and he spends much time with Father Jose Dulce María, a priest with revolutionary ideas. When Esteban catches Pedro Tercero handing out subversive pamphlets to the peasants, Esteban beats him with a snakeskin whip and threatens to lock him up if he continues to spread such ideas. Pedro Tercero, however, is undeterred.

Pedro Tercero loves only his father, Pedro Segundo, and Blanca. He has loved Blanca ever since they were children and fell asleep naked under the table. Blanca loves him, too, and even though Nana hates when she spends time with him, Clara insists that Nana leave them alone. Blanca and Pedro Tercero spend hours reading Marcos’s old books and travel journals, and they listen to Pedro Tercero’s grandfather, old Pedro García’s, stories. Old Pedro teaches Blanca and Pedro Tercero to search for water using an old stick, and he teaches them all about the natural remedies and medicines of the land. Old Pedro García is a respected healer, and even the local doctors call on his skills occasionally.

Sadly, when old Pedro’s daughter, Pancha, falls ill, there is nothing he can do to help. Pancha dies and is buried at the foot of the volcano because she was, in a way, the patrón’s wife, even if only for a little while. Pancha leaves behind Esteban’s son and grandson, Esteban García, who both carry Esteban’s name but not his surname. Old Pedro tells Blanca and Pedro Tercero a story about hens who join forces and confront a fox, but Blanca laughs, finding it ridiculous. Hens are stupid and foxes are smart and strong, Blanca says, noticing that Pedro Tercero doesn’t laugh with her.