Penelope Aldaya

Penelope Aldaya is the girl whose first brief appearance at The White Friar becomes a defining image in Julian Carax’s memory. Later, a photograph and a letter addressed to him give that image a history: Penelope loved Julian, but their separation was sustained by the misunderstandings around his departure and by the restrictions imposed on her life at the Aldaya estate.

First Appearance at The White Friar

When Julian visits The White Friar with Jorge Aldaya, he sees Penelope on the staircase. She is about twelve or thirteen, wearing a blue satin dress, and accompanied by a woman who appears to be her governess. Penelope pauses at the top of the stairs, meets Julian’s eyes, and offers him a brief smile before the woman leads her away down a corridor. Jorge identifies her as his sister and says Julian will meet her later, but Julian’s attention has already fixed on her.

The encounter is charged by recognition that precedes explanation. Julian realizes that he has repeatedly dreamed of a girl on that staircase, wearing the same blue dress and making the same movement with her eyes. The dream gives the meeting the shape of a return, although he has not yet known who the girl is. After he follows Jorge outside, Julian turns back and sees Penelope at a second-floor window; he cannot make out her clearly, but is certain she is smiling and has recognized him too. The staircase, the passing glance, and the distant window establish an image of intimacy separated by the house itself.

A Photograph Connects Her to the House

Years later, a photograph found among Julian’s notebooks confirms the connection between Penelope and the estate. She poses in a luxurious garden, with The White Friar visible beyond the treetops. The scene links the girl in the photograph to the house Julian had sketched repeatedly as an adolescent: the drawings and the photograph converge on the same place, turning a recurring architectural image into evidence of Penelope’s presence in Julian’s past.

The photograph bears the inscription “Penelope, who loves you”. Its wording makes the image more than a record of a young girl in a garden: it expresses a love directed toward an absent person. The photograph’s discovery, followed by the letter, gradually reconstructs a relationship that Julian could not understand when he left Barcelona.

The Letter and the Misunderstanding

The letter addressed to Julian carries a postmark dated 18 October 1919 and gives Penelope’s address as Avenida del Tibidabo, 32, Barcelona. In it, she writes that she learned through Jorge that Julian had left Barcelona to pursue his dreams. She had feared that those ambitions would take him away from her, and wishes she could have seen him once more to explain what she could not put into a letter. She understands that he may see her absence as a failure of courage and believes he will not write or send his address because he wants to become another person.

Penelope’s account reveals a separation shaped by false information. She says she repeatedly tried to reach Julian through Miquel, but Miquel told her Julian wanted nothing more to do with her. She wonders what Julian was told about her and why he believed it. Rather than treating his silence as proof that their attachment meant nothing, she writes that she has loved him since their first meeting and continues to love him, even while accepting that he may have forgotten her.

Confinement and the Possibility of Return

Penelope writes secretly because she is no longer allowed to leave the house or even look out of a window. Jorge has threatened to kill Julian if he sees him again, and Penelope believes the family will not forgive her. She entrusts the letter to someone she trusts, withholding that person’s name to avoid compromising them. Its delivery is uncertain; she does not know whether her words will reach Julian, but asks him to return if he chooses and says he will find a way to reach her.

The letter therefore offers a possible path back while recording the barriers that make reunion dangerous and uncertain. Penelope imagines Julian on the train, convinced she has betrayed him, and recognizes that he is fleeing both the people around him and himself. At the same time, she withholds information, saying there are things they never knew and that it is better he should never know them. Her closing wish is that Julian be happy and achieve what he hopes for, even if he forgets her. The contrast between that generous wish and the conditions of her confinement gives the letter its particular force: Penelope can communicate her love, but cannot freely leave, speak, or control what Julian believes about her.