Summary
During one of her tortures, Alba's hand is badly hurt
and has become infected. Since Esteban Garcia does not want Alba
to die, she is sent to the infirmary where a kindly nurse, Rojas,
cares for her. Just as she is recovering from the infection, Transito's
intervention takes affect. Alba is transferred to a women's concentration
camp, where she again finds Ana Diaz. The women at the concentration camp
support each other, and the guards treat them with relative decency.
After only a few days at the concentration camp, the police take
Alba and drop her off in a slum on the outskirts of the city. A poor
family takes her in for the night, and in the morning the family brings
Alba to Esteban Trueba in the big house on the corner. Esteban Trueba
wants to leave the country with Alba, but he is not surprised when
she refuses because he understands and accepts her love for Miguel.
While Alba was missing, Miguel came to Esteban Trueba, and the two
men worked together to find her. It was in fact Miguel's idea that
Esteban Trueba ask Transito Soto for help.
Alba and Esteban Trueba realize that they must go on living. They
fix up the house and decide to write together. With the help of Clara's
notebooks, they start to compose the story of their family. In the
process, both Alba and Esteban are able to let go of their anger and
their desire for revenge. A few weeks later, at the age of ninety, Esteban
Trueba dies. Alba is not, however, the last living member of her
family: she is pregnant. The father of her unborn child may be Miguel,
or it may be one of the men who raped her while she was detained.
Analysis
As is fitting an epilogue, the remaining conflicts are
resolved. Esteban and Alba are reunited. Esteban is the oldest living
member of the family, and Alba is the youngest. In the course of
the epilogue, Esteban dies, and Alba is revealed to be pregnant.
In the death of Esteban, the only character remaining form the very
first chapter, the story comes to an end. Through Alba's unborn
child, the epilogue projects the story into the future, so that
in keeping with the cyclical motif, this ending is really a beginning.
The end of The House of the Spirits is
also its beginning on several levels. The epilogue presents a story
of how the story comes to be written. The end of Esteban's life
and the beginning of Alba's pregnancy are also the beginning of
their co-narration of the events leading up to that moment. On a
formal level also, the end of The House of the Spirits is
also its beginning. The verb in the main clause of the last sentence
is "begins," and it introduces the last words of the novel, which
are also the first: "Barrabas came to us by sea.... "
