The House of the Spirits

by Isabel Allende

He taught them how to search for water. You have to hold a dry stick in your two hands and walk tapping the ground, in silence, thinking only of water and the thirst of the stick, until suddenly, sensing the presence of moisture, the stick began to tremble.

“My son, the Holy Church is on the right, but Jesus Christ was always on the left,” he would say enigmatically between sips of the wine he used at mass, which he served to celebrate Pedro’s visits.

“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change,” Clara had said.

Perhaps she feared the grandiose love that had stood so many tests would not be able to withstand the most dreadful test of all: living together.