Chapter 4 The Time of the Spirits Summary

Blanca is a precocious and intelligent child. For the first years of her life the family remains in the city while Trueba travels to the country estate. However, in circa 1941, the entire family summers at Tres Mariás. While there, Clara follows in her mother's footsteps by espousing a very liberal ideology and propagandizing the peasants. Trueba is outraged and furiously demands she stop. Blanca meanwhile strikes up a very close friendship with a young boy named Pedro Tercero García, the son of Pedro Segundo García and the grandson of Pedro García. Clara and Blanca love the countryside but Férula detests the peasants and the local culture.

That summer a plague of fire ants scourges the plantation. A firm believer in science, Trueba hires scientists and entomologists to get...