Michaelmas Day

Michaelmas Day is a calendrical reference in Doña Clara de Viedma’s account of her age: she says she is not yet sixteen and expects to reach that age on the next Michaelmas Day. The reference establishes her youth but does not specify a year or a more exact date for the events at the inn.

Reference in the narrative

While speaking with Dorothea at the inn, Doña Clara explains that she and the young man she loves are nearly the same age. She says she is not yet sixteen and that, according to her father, she will turn sixteen on the coming Michaelmas Day.

Chronological significance

The feast day serves as a personal age marker rather than a date for the surrounding events. It confirms that Doña Clara is still under sixteen at the time of her conversation, but the text gives no year from which to calculate the calendar date or determine precisely how soon her birthday will occur.

Narrative context

Doña Clara invokes the approaching birthday while describing the disparity between her youth and the intensity of her feelings. Her remark makes her age explicit within the inn’s conversation, while leaving the chronology of the broader episode otherwise undated.