Pepita Jiménez by Juan Valera

First published:Pepita Ximenez, 1874 (English translation, 1886)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: c. 1870

Locale: Andalusia, Spain

Principal characters

• Luis de Vargas, a student for the priesthood
• Don Pedro de Vargas, his father
• Pepita Jiménez, a young widow
• Antoñona, her housekeeper and duenna
• Count de Genazahar, a designing nobleman

The Story:

On March 22, four days after returning to his home in Andalusia, Luis de Vargas writes the first of his letters to his uncle and favorite professor at the seminary. He reports that his father intends to fatten him up during his vacation, to have him ready to return in the fall to finish his training for the priesthood. He mentions in passing that his father is courting a twenty-year-old, attractive widow, Pepita Jiménez; his father is fifty-five years old. Pepita had been married for only a short time to an eighty-year-old moneylender named Gumersindo. Luis is not eager to see his father marry again, but he promises his uncle not to judge Pepita before he knows her.

Luis’ next letter, dated six days later, reports that he is already tired of the little town and anxious to get back to school. In the meantime, he meets Pepita. Having decided that she pays too much attention to the body and not enough to the spirit, he cannot understand why the local vicar holds so high an opinion of her. He hopes, however, that she will have a good effect on his somewhat unsettled father.

In his next letter, Luis continues to criticize Pepita for her coquetry toward his father. He tries to forgive her vanity about her pretty hands by remarking that Saint Teresa had exhibited the same fault. In closing, he apologizes for not at once fleeing the life that seems to be making a materialist of him, but his father begged him to stay on a while longer.

In a letter dated April 14, Luis expresses concern over Pepita’s diabolic power, shown by the manner in which she charms both his father and the vicar, and makes him write more about her than about others in the town. Meanwhile, his time is so occupied that it is May 4 before he writes again to describe a picnic his father had given for Pepita. Luis had ridden a mule. While the others rode or played games, he stayed behind to chat with the vicar and an old lady, an experience more boring than he had believed possible. When he took a walk and met Pepita alone, he could not understand his strange excitement. She reproved him for being too serious for his age and remarked that only very old people like the vicar traveled by mule. That night, Luis tells his father that he wants to learn to ride a horse.

In later letters Luis describes his embarrassment during evening gatherings at Pepita’s house, where he always feels out of place. Nevertheless, he does enjoy his riding lessons and the thrill of riding past her balcony on the day his father decides he can ride well enough to do so. He later confesses to his uncle that he is disturbed in his feelings over Pepita, and as a result he has stopped going to her house. He thinks that he would be wise to return to the seminary at once.

Luis is still more perplexed when Antoñona, Pepita’s housekeeper, scolds him for making her mistress unhappy. When Luis calls to apologize and explain, the sight of tears in Pepita’s eyes upsets him, and before he knows it he kisses her. Certain that he must leave as soon as possible, he tells his father that he intends to depart on June 25, immediately after the Midsummer Eve celebration. He ends his letter with assurances that his uncle will be seeing him within a week.

Five days after Luis’ last letter, Pepita summons the vicar to her house. She wants to confess that she no longer loves Don Pedro because she has fallen in love with his son. Convinced that Luis loves her also without knowing it, she intends to keep him from carrying out his plans to become a priest. The scandalized vicar orders her to remain engaged to the father and lets Luis go away as he had planned. Pepita promises. No one, however, could force Antoñona to keep such a promise. She determines to take a hand in the situation.

In the Vargas household, meanwhile, Don Pedro worries about his moping son and at last urges the boy’s young cousin, Currito, to engage Luis in some activity. Luis goes with his cousin to the casino, where the Count de Genazahar is among the gamblers. Having borrowed five thousand pesetas from Gumersindo, he had tried, after the old man’s death, to cancel the debt by marrying Pepita. Her curt refusal had made him hate her. At the casino that night, Luis overhears some of his slighting remarks about the young widow.

Antoñona visits Luis again and accuses him of behaving discourteously toward her mistress. Luis protests that he, too, is unhappy but that it is his duty to return to the seminary. Antoñona insists that he must first set things right with Pepita, so he promised to go to her house at ten o’clock that night. The streets would be full of Midsummer Eve revelers, and no one would notice him.

After Antoñona’s departure, he regrets his promise, but he goes anyway. His talk with Pepita is long and difficult. Each make self-accusations. At last, sobbing, Pepita runs to her bedroom. Luis follows her. When he comes out, he is convinced that he is not among the men of whom priests are made. On his way home, seeing the Count de Genazahar in the casino, he stops. Declaring that he no longer wears his religious robe, he announces that he has beaten the count at cards.

During a long run of luck, he had won all the count’s money. When the Count de Genazahar had wished to continue, Luis insultingly answered his promise to pay later by reminding him that he had failed to pay his debt to Gumersindo’s widow. The count had challenged him to a duel and called for sabers. The fight was brief and bloody, and both men were wounded. Currito and a friend had taken Luis home to his worried father.

Alone with Don Pedro, Luis tries to confess that he is now his father’s rival for Pepita’s affections. Don Pedro merely laughs, and from his pocket he takes two letters. One from his brother in the seminary says that he feels Luis has no calling for the priesthood and would do better to remain at home. The other is Don Pedro’s answer. Having realized that Pepita’s affection had shifted to Luis, he would be happy in watching their happiness. He invites his brother to marry the young lovers.

The dean refuses the invitation, but a month later, after Luis’ wounds have healed, the village vicar marries them. Don Pedro gives a splendid reception. Although it is local custom to serenade with cowbells anyone marrying a second time, the town thinks so highly of Luis and his bride that they are allowed to steal away without the embarrassing celebration.

Recovering after five months in bed, the count pays part of his debt and arranges to pay the remainder. After the birth of their son, Luis and Pepita take a trip abroad. For many years they and their farms prosper, and all goes well with them.

Bibliography

Bianchini, Andreina. “Pepita Jiménez: Ideology and Realism.” Hispanofila 33, no. 2 (January, 1990): 33-51. An examination of the novel’s ideology and its place in the realm of realist literature. Also discusses the three-part structure of the novel.

DeCoster, Cyrus C. Juan Valera. New York: Twayne, 1974. A good beginning resource for the study of Valera’s works. Contains an overview of his life and literary career and analyzes his literary characters and themes. One chapter is devoted to Pepita Jiménez.

Franz, Thomas R. Valera in Dialogue = In Dialogue with Valera: A Novelist’s Work in Conversation with That of His Contemporaries and Successors. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Chronicles the debate between Valera and his contemporaries and chief rivals, Benito Pérez Galdós and Leopoldo Alas, over the aesthetics of Spanish realist fiction. Describes how this debate influenced the later writing of Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo and Ramón María del Valle-Inclán.

Lott, Robert. Language and Psychology in “Pepita Jiménez.” Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1970. A well-regarded study of the language and psychology in Pepita Jiménez. The first part of the book offers an analysis of language, style, and rhetorical devices, while the second section is a psychological examination of the characters.

MacCurdy, G. Grant. “Mysticism, Love, and Illumination in Pepita Jiménez.” Revista de Estudios Hispanicos 17, no. 3 (October, 1983): 323-334. An original approach to studying Valera’s treatment of the themes of mysticism, love and romance, and spiritual illumination.

Taylor, Teresia Langford. The Representation of Women in the Novels of Juan Valera: A Feminist Critique. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Interprets Valera’s novels from a feminist perspective, focusing on his representation of women and the novel’s underlying patriarchal ideology. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Trimble, Robert. Chaos Burning on My Brow: Don Juan Valera in His Novels. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1995. A critical study of Valera’s novels. Includes an index and a bibliography.

Turner, Harriet, and Adelaida López de Martínez, eds. The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: From 1600 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. There are numerous references to Valera in this historical survey of the Spanish novel, but the most extensive consideration of his work is found in two chapters: “The Regional Novel: Evolution and Consolation” by Alison Sinclair and “The Realist Novel” by Harriet Turner.

Valle, José del. “Historical Linguistics and Cultural History: The Polemic Between Rufino José Cuervo and Juan Valera.” In The Battle over Spanish Between 1800 and 2000: Language Ideologies and Hispanic Intellectuals, edited by Valle and Luis Gabriel-Stheeman. New York: Routledge, 2002. Recounts the debate between Valera and Cuervo, a nineteenth century Colombian writer and linguist, over issues pertaining to the Spanish language. Their debates helped shape national identity and Hispanic culture.