Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is present in the novel chiefly through education and religious authority: its school is part of the setting of Daniel Sempere’s childhood, and its priests supply both instruction and practical help. The institution’s teachings sit alongside characters’ private beliefs, sometimes offering language for consolation, sometimes exposing the distance between doctrine and lived grief.

Education and Childhood

At school, Daniel hears an explanation of his mother’s death from Father Vicente, an experienced Jesuit who is described as able to explain mysteries ranging from the gramophone to a toothache by quoting the Gospel According to Matthew. The same idea had already been presented to Daniel at school, but when his father repeats it, the words sound hollow. The episode distinguishes the authority of religious instruction from the emotional force of a father’s attempt to comfort his grieving child.

The Jesuit school on Calle Caspe also forms part of Daniel and Tomás Aguilar’s shared childhood. They first meet after Daniel makes a thoughtless remark about Tomás’s sister, prompting a schoolyard fight that leaves Daniel with a lost tooth and a new sense of proportion. The priests and Daniel’s father do not learn who gave him the beating: he keeps that account to himself and says only that it was his fault. The school is thus not merely a place of religious teaching; it is the setting for an early friendship shaped by conflict, secrecy, and Daniel’s choice not to explain himself.

Religious Symbols and Private Belief

The novel sets institutional Catholic imagery beside individual attempts to interpret misfortune. In the room associated with Julian Carax, crucifixes hang from the ceiling and cover the walls; crosses are also carved into the furniture, scratched into the tiles, and painted on mirrors. Their abundance is linked to Antoni Fortuny’s response to Sophie Carax’s pregnancy. Unable to accept that the child’s father is a man he does not know, Fortuny decides that the child must be the devil’s, and fills the home with crosses. In this context, the religious object does not function simply as devotional protection: it becomes part of the domestic atmosphere of suspicion and confinement.

Jacinta Coronado’s story offers a different form of religious experience. As a child, she has dreams she believes reveal the past and future, including the recurring figure of Zacarias, an angel dressed in black. Later, grieving over her inability to have children, she prays privately in Toledo Cathedral. There she encounters a figure she recognizes as Zacarias, who tells her that she will have a child and directs her toward Barcelona. The parish deacon listens to her account and interprets its imagery as pointing to Barcelona and the Sagrada Familia. The episode places church authority beside popular prophecy without fully resolving whether Jacinta’s encounter was a dream or an actual visitation.

Institutional Authority in Practice

The Society of Jesus also appears through Father Fernando Ramos, recruited from San Gabriel’s School to officiate at Daniel and Bea Aguilar’s wedding. When the parish priest refuses to conduct the ceremony because Bea is pregnant, Fermín Romero de Torres confronts him and seeks another cleric. Father Ramos has never performed a wedding; his stated specialties are Latin, trigonometry, and gymnastics. Fermín persuades him to take the role by presenting the bridegroom as too fragile to endure another disappointment and appealing to the priest’s religious devotion.

Across these episodes, Jesuit education and clergy are part of the ordinary social fabric: a school teaches and disciplines children, while a priest can be called upon to perform a sacrament when a local parish authority refuses. The wider religious world of the novel, however, is not reducible to institutional doctrine. It includes consoling teachings, private prayer, prophetic visions, and the misuse of sacred symbols. Their contrast reveals how religious authority and imagery can provide meaning, yet also be reshaped by grief, fear, and personal need.