Thanks to my co-RR, u/fixtheblue for the first half of the novel, now we pick up the pieces of a few broken relationships and follow the trails of some secondary characters. We finish the novel next week and I'm so curious how it will end and how it will lead back to the other two involuntary books we read together by Allende.

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Chapter 7- "The Brothers"

We pick up with Clara and Blanca's return to the city. The house is reopened and refitted and repopulated. Jaime and Nicolas come more into the picture, as one studies to become a doctor and one is filled with fantastic and failing plots. They both share the "Covadonga" car together. Clara is enjoying getting to know her sons. Jaime notices Blanca is pregnant. Nicolas informs Estaban, who corralles Jean de Satigny into marrying his daughter, and the two of them arrive in the city. Estaban tells Blanca that Pedro Tercero is dead and holds a huge wedding. Clara later consoles her by telling Blanca that her lover is alive. Without Blanca at home, Clara becomes depressed.

Nicolas is seeing Amanda {her name means "worthy of love"}, a bohemian and existential new woman. This is the year the two brothers separate for good. While Nicolas starts dancing lessons and the occult, Jaime is working with the poor and studying medicine in a hermit-style life. He brings people home and Clara learns where to send them for help. He is desperately in love with Amanda, the forbidden fruit in his brother's orchard. Amanda has a younger brother, Miguel, who goes with her everywhere, including the Trueba family home.

Estaban, meanwhile, is feeling isolated in his home and alienated from his family. He takes his position in the Conservative Party seriously and has his business deals and Tres Marias to oversee. He and Clara are having a rapprochement. Meanwhile, Pedro Tercero heads to the capital, having overcome the depression of losing Banca and his fingers, to become the songbird of the Socialists. He is besties with Jaime. The two brothers are up to various shocking acts, and finally Nicolas realizes he hasn't seen Amanda in a while.

It turns out she is living in deep poverty with her younger brother and is now pregnant after relations with Nicolas. She wants an abortion and suggests Jaime for the procedure. Nicolas asks him for help and, using the clinic for the poor in the off hours, Jaime prepares to abort his brother's child in the body of his beloved. Amanda and Miguel move into the Trueba house. Estaban is the US trying to diagnose a peculiar disease in which he is shrinking.

Chapter 8- "The Count"

Blanca and Jean's married life is seemingly uncomplicated. Luckily for Blanca, he seems totally uninterested in his martial obligations or her and they are to live side by side, each following their own interests. Jean using Estaban's money to take up photography and social obligations in their obscure desert home. He hires Indian servants and decorates the house and starts a thriving smuggling business in antique artifacts. Blanca feels uncomfortable with her new life and the staff. At first, things are boring, but then she decides to break into his photography studio and discovers the depths of his depravity on film. She flees home with a few baby clothes and prays to arrive before having to give birth.

Chapter 9- "Little Alba"

Blanca and Pedro Tercero's daughter, Alba, is born feet-first in the Trueba house, with Uncle Jaime in attendance. She grows up never using her "father's" name, preferring Trueba as easier to spell. Blanca hardly mentions Jean and he only turns up later, dead. Instead of schooling, her various family members take over Alba's education. Amanda leaves with Miguel and the break between the two brothers is official. Nicolas leaves for India. Estaban, on the other hand, adores Alba and spoils her rotten. On his deathbed, he recalls his time with her at Tres Marias as the happies in his life. She also has Rosa's green hair. Blanca, meanwhile, is being courted by the King of the Pressure Cookers, at least until Pedro Tercerco makes an appearance. Alba sees her mother kiss him on the mouth. Blanca begins to go out on the weekend with a bag and a dream. However, she never finds the will to leave her house and move in with him, despite his entireties. Blanca also lives in poverty, making clay figures again for the haves and the have-nots, including children with Down's syndrome (referred to as "Mongoloids" but that term is archaic and out of use). When Alba is 6, she has a run-in with Estaban Garcia, who travels from Tres Marias to speak to his father/patron. She ends up on his lap and is almost strangled to death and definitely sexually assaulted and traumatized-when her grandfather shows up to put an end to it. Estaban Garcia pleads his help to become a policeman. Estaban Trueba remembers his help with Pedro Tercero and writes a letter of recommendation. On Alba's 7th birthday, Clara dies.

Chapter 10- "The Epoch of Decline"

Estaban cleans his wife and dresses her for the funeral and shrinks some more and ages rapidly. The funeral is a huge goodbye festival and the last time the Trueba house is full. Pedro Segundo comes from Tres Marias to lay flowers down for Clara. Estaban remembers Rosa and is doubly traumatized by the loss of Clara. He comes up with a nifty mausoleum where he can rest with both of them and wears mourning clothes for the rest of his life. Two years later, upon completion, he and Jaime go to graverob Rosa and move her in over the objections of the del Valle family. He remembers Ferula's curse. With Clara gone, the house becomes unruly and begins to decline almost immediately, despite Blanca's efforts. The bad relationships that Estaban has with his children come home to roost without Clara's intervention. Nicolas starts passing his Eastern knowledge from India and starts a cult and protests at the gates of Congress, so enraging his father that he has a heart attack. Nicolas emigrates to the North and becomes a success! Meanwhile, Estaban recovers and sends Alba to the British school, even if it doesn't stick. She ends up sleeping with Blanca because of nightmares and starts writing down her mother's fantastical stories. Her grandfather, on the other hand, has political problems, financial problems and Tres Marias is on the picket lines. His friends take him to the "Christopher Columbus" for some recreation and he is reunited with Transito Soto, who warms him up and allows him to grieve.

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Well, dear Occult followers, eccentrics, and Spiritualists, Halloween is perfect timing for this book! See you next Tuesday, November 7, for the final section of the book.

Schedule

Marginalia

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