The House of the Spirits: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

When Blanca gives birth, her daughter, Alba, is born feet first—a sign of good luck. Clara carefully inspects the baby for the star-shaped mark of “true happiness,” which she finds on her back. They make no effort to prepare Alba for life, since her happiness is written in the stars, and Clara writes about the birth in her notebook. She pastes a lock of Alba’s greenish hair in the pages, along with some fingernail clippings. Blanca wants to name the baby Clara, but her mother insists such a name will only create confusion in her notebooks.

When Blanca arrived at the big house on the corner, she was immediately taken to Clara’s room, where Jaime (with Clara and Amanda’s help) delivered Alba and Miguel hid in the closet watching. Afterward, Clara asks Blanca where Alba got her “old man’s eyes,” and Blanca says from her father, Pedro Tercero. Pedro is never spoken of again. They never see Jean de Satigny again, either—not even to obtain a legal divorce from Blanca. Blanca later tells her daughter that her father was a distinguished aristocrat who died of a fever before she was born. 

In the meantime, Amanda and Miguel leave the big house on the corner. Amanda has healed completely from her abortion, and she has grown increasingly aware of Jaime’s feelings for her. She quietly leaves without a word, and Jaime resumes living like a hermit, spending all his time alone in his room. Esteban’s harsh character is softened ever so slightly by the arrival of Alba, whom he adores. For the most part, Esteban’s change in character goes unnoticed—by everyone but Clara. As always, the house is full of politicians and spiritualists, and Clara perfects her ability to levitate around the room while sitting in a chair. 

Alba grows up around the spirits and Clara’s telepathy, and she is educated by Jaime, Nicolás, and the three Mora sisters. Clara is still incompetent when it comes to domestic matters, so the everyday running of the big house on the corner falls to Blanca, who makes crèches in her pottery shop when she isn’t tending to household matters. From a young age, it is Alba’s responsibility to open the drapes and windows and put fresh flowers in the vases every day. Even though Alba is alone most of the time, she isn’t lonely. She spends all her time playing in the basement among the old furniture, pieces of Covadonga, Marcos’s old trunks, and the Barrabás rug.

On Christmas Eve, Clara gives Alba a gift of paints and brushes and tells her she can have one whole wall in her room to paint as she likes. In time, Alba transforms her bedroom wall into a massive fresco, filled with invented animals—just like the ones Blanca bakes in her kiln and that Rosa stitched onto her tablecloth. As Alba grows up in the house on the corner, surrounded by Clara’s eccentricities and Nicolás’s strange hobbies, Esteban worries that she will end up “stark raving mad,” just like the rest of his family.

When Alba is five, Nicolás returns from a trip to India, where he spent a year as a beggar, walking the path across the Himalayas into Katmandu. When he returns, Nicolás doesn’t eat meat, milk, or eggs, and insists that he can walk across a bed of hot coals. His only real interest is the world of spiritualism, and he spends all his time writing a book on the subject that ends up being 1,500 pages long. After much begging, Nicolás finally convinces Esteban to pay to have the book published. With editing, the book shrinks to 600 pages, and it is not the success Nicolás hoped. The remaining books—of which there are many—are packed into boxes and stored in the basement, where Alba uses them to build the walls of her fort. 

Esteban, who has never been good at expressing his emotions, loves Alba with a tenderness that no Trueba has ever seen. He showers her with gifts and chocolates, which Alba hates but eats anyway. Despite his close relationship with his granddaughter, Esteban’s relationships with the rest of his family continue to suffer. The family eats dinner each night on the massive table inherited from the del Valles, but no one speaks. At times, Alba notices her grandfather staring at Clara with love his eyes; other times, Esteban ruins the meal completely, screaming and throwing jugs of water against the wall.

During this time, Blanca is at her most beautiful, and many men vie for her attention. Esteban still hasn’t forgotten his anger over Pedro Tercero, and he won’t let Blanca forget that he allows her to live in the big house on the corner. Esteban can’t understand why so many men want to spend time with Blanca—she has none of the qualities he looks for in a woman—but she goes on plenty of dates. She breaks off each relationship before it gets too serious, but Alba still worries that her mother will get married and leave her.

Alba worries that Blanca will fall in love and marry until the day Alba meets Pedro Tercero. Blanca tells Alba that she is taking her to meet someone famous, and they go to the Japanese Gardens, where a man with a long beard wearing overalls and sandals sits feeding the birds. Blanca explains that the man is Pedro Tercero, the singer from the radio. They have a nice visit, and when they go to leave, Pedro kisses Blanca on the mouth. Alba is shocked. Since no one in the big house on the corner is in love, she has never seen an intimate kiss between two people.

Blanca lives a poor life in the big house on the corner; she is careful to never ask Esteban for anything. She makes a miserable salary selling the occasional crèche and teaching pottery classes, most of which she spends on doctors for her imaginary illnesses that have manifested into the real thing. Sometimes, Clara or Jaime give Blanca money, but for the most part, she can’t even afford socks—a stark contrast to the lavishness Esteban showers on Alba. 

As Blanca is busy most days running the big house on the corner, Alba spends her time with Clara. She grows used to her grandmother’s eccentricities, and she thinks nothing of seeing Clara levitate or her jumping three-legged table. Alba sits in on spiritualists meetings and listens to the Poet read his sonnets, not knowing that years later he will be considered the greatest writer of the century.

Clara is still young, but she looks old to Alba on account of her missing teeth, and she is still prone to asthma attacks. When Clara feels short of breath, she rings a little silver bell for Alba to come to her—after all, the best cure for asthma is “the prolonged embrace of a loved one.” During their days together, Clara tells Alba stories and teaches her to take care of the caged birds in the courtyard. Alba knows that Clara is “the soul of the big house on the corner,” but the rest of the family doesn’t appreciate this fact until after Clara is dead.

Alba is six years old the first time she meets Esteban García. She probably saw him before that at Tres Marías—Esteban Trueba takes her there frequently and promises she will inherit the hacienda—but she has very little contact with the peasants, so she doesn’t recognize Esteban García when he knocks on the door of the big house on the corner. The young man says he would like to see Senator Trueba, and he is escorted to Esteban’s library to wait. Alba wanders into the library and introduces herself to Esteban García, and when she is comfortable, she begins to move closer.

Esteban García sits down in a leather chair and pulls Alba into his lap. Without knowing it, his eyes fill with tears, and he feels an intense hate for the little girl. He wants to hurt or kill her, and as he closes his eyes, he thinks about putting his hands around her tiny neck. He imagines strangling her and becomes aroused. Esteban García takes the girl’s hand and places it on the stiffness between his legs.

Esteban García jumps from the chair just as Esteban Trueba enters the room. The Senator remembers Esteban García from the night he took him to Pedro Tercero. Esteban García explains that he wants to become a police officer, and a recommendation from the nation’s Senator will go a long way in getting him into the program. Esteban Trueba agrees—after all, he does owe the young man a reward, and it will be nice to know someone on the inside at the police department. He quickly writes the recommendation, and as he hands it over, he asks the young man why he is called Esteban. “Because of you, sir,” he answers. Esteban Trueba thinks nothing of it; many peasants named their offspring after the patrón.

On Alba’s seventh birthday, Clara dies. Clara is the only one who suspects her upcoming death, and she immediately begins to prepare. She gathers all her notebooks and arranges them according to event, as she never records the date. She writes letters to each of her family members and places them in a box beneath her bed, releases the caged birds, and begins to slowly suffocate. Jaime goes to examine his mother, and while he can find nothing wrong with her, he knows beyond a doubt that she is dying. 

Clara tells her family that dying is just like being born, and she assures them that if she can talk to spirits, she will be able to talk to her family after death. She slips quietly into a deep sleep, and Alba never once leaves her side. Surrounded by Alba, Blanca, Jaime, Nicolás, and Esteban, Clara takes her last breath. Jaime places his stethoscope on her chest to confirm her death and breaks down in tears.