Pedro Arranges to Claim Susana and Eliminate Bartolomé

Pedro Páramo’s plan to claim Susana San Juan begins with her return and ends with Bartolomé San Juan removed from her life. Pedro has waited decades for Susana, but his renewed hope takes the form not of courtship but of control: he arranges for her father to be sent away to remote mines, then instructs Fulgor Sedano to make sure Bartolomé does not return. The scheme is presented as protection for Susana, even as it deliberately isolates her and clears the way for Pedro to keep her at Media Luna.

Return and Recognition

Fulgor Sedano reports that a man has arrived and gone straight to Pedro’s former house, where he dismounts and unpacks as though the lodging had already been arranged. The confidence of the arrival catches Fulgor’s attention. Pedro asks whether the visitor came alone, then corrects the assumption that the woman with him is his wife: he suspects she is the man’s daughter. The exchange establishes that the return is not an incidental visit. Pedro recognizes the family connection and immediately takes charge of what happens next, telling Fulgor to leave the matter to him.

The return carries a history of waiting. Pedro recalls that he has spent thirty years wanting Susana back and has accumulated everything he could obtain, until desire for her is the one desire left. He had repeatedly invited Bartolomé to return to Media Luna, even offering him work as an estate steward despite having no real need for him. The offer was a means to see Susana again, not a genuine employment proposal. Bartolomé never accepted: the messenger reported that he tore up Pedro’s letters without answering. Pedro eventually learned that Susana had married, become a widow, and resumed living with her father. Her return therefore fulfills Pedro’s long-held hope while exposing how little influence his earlier invitations had over her family.

Bartolomé’s Return and Pedro’s Opportunity

Bartolomé comes back because armed unrest is being reported in the region. He wants to place Susana somewhere populated and safer, and explains this intention in a letter. Pedro receives the news as a sudden opening. His response is described as if heaven had opened; he longs to run to Susana and is moved to tears by the knowledge that she is finally returning. Yet the feeling quickly becomes a plan to prevent her from leaving again.

Bartolomé has been living apart in a cabin among the abandoned mines of La Andrómeda, after Pedro paid Fulgor to search for him across the mountain. When Bartolomé reports on the mines, he describes their prospects and the possibility of working them methodically. Pedro makes clear that the property is not what interests him: he wants Bartolomé’s daughter. He invokes Susana’s childhood closeness with him, including their having bathed together in a river, and presents their shared past as a claim on her. Bartolomé responds that he would have punished her had he known of that intimacy; Susana gives no indication that this history creates an obligation to Pedro.

The Plan to Separate Father and Daughter

Pedro tells Fulgor to send Bartolomé back to the mines and arrange for the older man to disappear in a place where no one goes. He frames the intended killing as a duty to protect Susana and insists that she must be left an orphan. The contradiction is central to the scheme: Pedro’s professed concern for her safety is inseparable from the violence that will deprive her of her remaining family and make her more dependent on him.

The order is designed to conceal its purpose as well as to achieve it. Pedro anticipates Fulgor’s concern that Susana might learn what happened and dismisses the likelihood that anyone will tell her. He directs Fulgor to send Bartolomé to work at La Andrómeda without taking Susana with him. Bartolomé’s work is to be there, while his home remains at Media Luna, where he can visit only occasionally. This arrangement divides father and daughter under the appearance of ordinary estate business. Fulgor accepts the assignment, and his response suggests that he welcomes Pedro’s renewed decisiveness. The plan thus relies on both the estate’s authority over work and the expectation that a remote disappearance can be kept secret.

Death and Significance

The later news confirms that Bartolomé has died: Susana’s caretaker tells her that he died two nights earlier, was already buried, and could not be brought back because the journey was too long. Susana treats the announcement as a farewell from her father, smiling as she says that he has come to say goodbye. The account confirms the result of Pedro’s scheme without describing the circumstances of Bartolomé’s death or explicitly stating who carried it out. It also shows the human cost of the separation: Susana is left alone, while the distance makes even the return of her father’s body impossible.

The episode joins Pedro’s private longing to the methods by which he exercises power. His decades of desire are real, but they do not lead him to respect Susana’s independence; instead, he treats her return as something to secure by removing the person who might protect or accompany her. The language of shelter and protection masks coercion, and the practical details of the plan—remote mines, a work assignment, infrequent visits, and presumed silence—make that coercion systematic. Susana’s father returns to shield her from armed danger, only for Pedro to turn that return into the means of isolating her.