Pedro's burn injuries

Pedro's burn injuries are both a medical crisis and a turning point in his relationship with Tita: after an oil lamp catches fire during a gathering at the ranch, she devotes herself to his care, and his recovery deepens the emotional conflict surrounding her engagement to John Brown. The episode joins a sudden, supernatural disturbance to the practical work of nursing, making Pedro's vulnerability the circumstance in which Tita's attention to him becomes unmistakable to others.

The accident and its immediate aftermath

The danger begins when the small light that remains of Mama Elena's image spins out through a window and onto the patio. Pedro, who is drunk, is standing beneath Tita's window with rebels, cheerfully humming a song. Nearby, Gertrudis and Juan are dancing beside an oil lamp. The fast-moving light strikes the lamp closest to Pedro, which breaks; the oil spreads fire onto him. The scene's cause is not an ordinary mishap alone: a supernatural remnant of Mama Elena's image turns a festive gathering into an emergency.

Tita hears the commotion while she is coping with her menstruation and hurries to the window. She sees Pedro running across the patio, and Gertrudis catches up with him, tears fabric from her skirt, wraps it around him, and brings him to the ground. Tita reaches his side in less than twenty seconds. As several men carry Pedro upstairs, she holds his uninjured hand and refuses to leave him. His burns are extensive, and he is in severe pain, but the account focuses on the people responding to the crisis rather than on a graphic description of his injuries.

Rosaura opens her door when the group reaches the stairs. Tita tries to release Pedro's hand so his wife can approach, but Pedro asks Tita not to go, and she takes his hand again. Rosaura and Tita look at each other; Rosaura then returns to her room, locks the door, and does not come out for a week. The injury thus makes a private attachment visible at a moment when Pedro needs care: Rosaura's withdrawal follows the exchange, while Tita remains beside him.

Tita's treatment and the search for a remedy

Tita instructs Chencha to bring beaten egg whites mixed with oil and finely grated raw potatoes, the home treatments she knows for burns. The egg-white mixture is applied gently and replaced when it dries; grated potato is then used as a plaster to reduce inflammation and pain. Tita spends the night administering these remedies. Her response is practical and sustained: she does not leave Pedro's bedside, and her care consists of repeated applications rather than a single intervention.

As she treats him, Tita worries that he might be left with scars. She recalls that Nacha had given her the answer, as Morning Light had before: tepezcohuite bark was the best remedy for preventing them. Tita goes onto the patio late at night, wakes Nicholas, and tells him to obtain the bark from the best healer in the region. She continues until Pedro's pain has eased enough for him to sleep briefly. This treatment joins inherited knowledge to immediate action: what Tita remembers from Nacha and Morning Light becomes a remedy she seeks out and applies for Pedro.

Recovery and renewed tension

By the time Tita brings Pedro breakfast, he is fairly recovered. She has not faltered in applying the tepezcohuite bark, and the account confirms that he is not scarred. John Brown approves the treatment; his grandmother, Morning Light, had begun experiments with the bark, and John had continued them. The remedy therefore connects the household's inherited knowledge with John's own experience, even as Tita is caring for the man whose attachment to her conflicts with her planned marriage to John.

Tita brings Pedro delicious meals every day, and their conversations after eating help him recover. On the morning in question, however, she has little time to stay with him because she wants to prepare the best possible meal for John. Pedro responds with jealousy, urging her to tell John that she will not marry him because she is going to have Pedro's child. Tita says she cannot tell him that. The scene does not establish that she is pregnant; rather, Pedro makes the claim as part of his attempt to keep her from marrying John. His recovery has restored the possibility of conversation, but that intimacy brings the unresolved contest over Tita into the open.

Significance of the injuries

The burns change Pedro's position from the man waiting for Tita to a person dependent on her attention. Tita's speed in reaching him, her refusal to leave, and her sustained treatment give practical form to a bond that the exchange with Rosaura exposes. Gertrudis also contributes to the immediate rescue, while Tita carries the work of care into the night and through Pedro's recovery. These distinct responses make the crisis a shared event with unequal aftermaths: Gertrudis departs, Rosaura withdraws, and Tita remains involved in Pedro's daily life.

The episode also sets care beside rivalry without resolving it. Tita's remedies help Pedro heal, and her meals and conversations accompany that recovery; yet the restored closeness prompts Pedro's jealous appeal concerning John. The accident does not settle whom Tita will marry, and her answer leaves the conflict intact. Instead, Pedro's injuries make the consequences of the relationships tangible: his need draws Tita close, Rosaura's retreat marks the strain between the sisters, and John remains present through both his approval of the treatment and Tita's effort to prepare for him.