Celia En El Mundo - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Published after Celia novelista (1934), the book picks up the story that was left off in Celia en el colegio (1932).

Celia's uncle, Tío Rodrigo, had arrived at the school where Celia attended class with the nuns and had rudely taken her away, without her parents permission or consent, because he strongly believed that the nuns were a poor influence for Celia, and her mind would only be filled with uncultured foolishness rather than educational nourishment. Celia is taken to her uncle's home in Madrid, to live with Basílides, Rodrigo's servant, and Maimón, a young Moor boy; two characters who could hardly stand each other's presence. Rodrigo wants the nine-year-old girl to "see the world", but not the world as in "earth", the world as in "real life". Living with her uncle, Celia spends many days without the company of boys and girls her own age, but rather that of older people. Her uncle asks her to behave when he takes her out with his friends to restaurants or to the park, but Celia hesitates; the grown-ups she spends time with make such curious, sometimes silly, remarks that Celia feels she must have a say in their conversation. Rodrigo's rule for Celia in order for her to be a well-behaved little lady, is for her to speak only when spoken to and to remain still the rest of the time. At home Celia deals with constant arguments between her uncle and Basílides, as well as the latter's beloved pet owl, and the battling between the servant woman and Maimón. Celia, Rodrigo, Basílides and Maimón, as well as the animals, the owl Casimira and the cat Pirracas, spend their summer in a French villa. Basílides has a hard time adapting to this strange place where no one can understand her Spanish, but Celia manages to make a couple of very good friends. The young girl Paulette becomes Celia's best friend and companion during the summer, visiting each other at their houses or spending time at the beach. The two have another friend, a girl named Claude. Claude is from a poor family and has an older brother named Raymund that cannot join her during her vacation, because their family cannot afford to send them both on holiday to the beach. Celia comes up with a plan to help Claude's brother through numerous schemes to earn money from people, including the selling of Rodrigo's berries and flowers as well as telling the people she meets at the beach about the sad situation of Claude's family, especially her brother's. Celia's aunt and Rodrigo's sister, Julia, arrives just in time to help Celia's cause, but soon the aunt contributes to a lot of bothersome hassle within the French villa. When summer's over, Tío Rodrigo bids farewell to Basílides and Maimón as he sends them back to Madrid, Spain on train. Rather than return home, Celia and her uncle and invited to spend Christmas with Paulette's family in a grand castle, where Celia again stirs up plenty of trouble. When the two girls are severely punished over a series of mischief, Celia tries to escape with Paulette, who's being sent off to a school in Paris, and manages to crash the car she had stowed away into against a tree. Unconscious and believing herself dead, Celia wakes up to the voice of her own father, who's come to return her to Spain, because he wants his daughter to bloom as a Spaniard, and believes the constant changing of culture and language is too much for her young mind.

The book is told in first-person from Celia's perspective, like in all previous books, following a third-person introduction from author Elena Fortún's.