Summer

Solstice
By: Nick Joaquin
Main Characters
• Doña Lupe/Lupeng – wife to Don Paeng, and has a
side that is not yet known to him—subversive side.
• Don Paeng – devoted Catholic Christian, husband to
Doña Lupe, a conservative.
• Guido – cousin of Don Paeng who studied in Europe,
adapted western culture and embodies liberation.
 Story
• Moreta Family is spending their St. John’s Day with the children’s
grandfather whose feast it was.
• “Though it was only seven by the clock, the house was already a
furnace, the windows dilating with the harsh light and the air already
burning with the immense, intense fever of noon.” — the weather
season
• Doña Lupe wondered as to why Amada — their cook, is not the one
preparing their breakfast but the kids’ nurse. Hearing some screams,
Doña Lupeng entered the room, the big half-naked woman sprawled
across the bamboo bed stopped screaming. Doña Lupeng was
shocked.
• Entoy — the driver of the Moretas — being aware of his wife’s
circumstance, pretended to be deaf while continuing his duties on the
stables until Doña Lupe asked him about whether or not they have
participated in the Tatarin ritual which now explains the actions of
Story
• Doña Lupe even asked Entoy why he did not resorted to force when
Amada insisted to go to the ritual, but Entoy said he can’t touch her
for it is the day of St. John, he can only do nothing as the spirit of
the Tatarin is already in her. In verbatim, Entoy even said “She is
the Tadtarin. She must do as she pleases. Otherwise, the grain
would not grow, the trees would bear no fruit, the rivers would give
no fish, and the animals would die.”
• Boarded by the open carriage, they witnessed the procession of
San Juan, where people are wetting each other with all sorts of
water sources.
• Christianity – St. John is described as a fine, blonde, heroic figure:
very male, very arrogant: the Lord of Summer indeed; the Lord of
Light and Heat—erect and goldly virile;
• Paganism on the other hand is described as a prone female earth.
 Story
• Climax of the solar year – Summer Solstice – June 21
• St. John Festival – 3rd day of Tatarin
• Doña Lupeng, standing in the stopped carriage…stared down
on the passing male horde with increasing annoyance. Don
Paeng bade her sit down because all eyes were turned on her,
she pretended not to hear; stood up even straighter, as if to
defy those rude creatures flaunting their manhood in the sun.
And she wondered peevishly what the braggarts were being so
cocky about? For this arrogance, this pride, this bluff male
health of theirs was (she told herself) founded on the
impregnable virtue of generations of good women. Women
had built it up: this poise of the male. Ah, and women could
destroy it, too!
 Story
• She recalled, vindictively, this morning’s scene at the stables:
Amada naked and screaming in bed while from the doorway
her lord and master looked on in meek silence. And “And you
should have seen that Entoy,” continued his wife. “You know
how the brute treats her: she cannot say a word but he
thrashes her. But this morning he stood as meek as lamb while
she screamed and screamed. He seemed actually in awe of
her, do you know—actually afraid of her!” And was it not the
mystery of a woman in her flowers that had restored the
tongue of that old Hebrew prophet?
• Guido also happened to be present on that same crowd of
men but unfortunately, Doña Lupeng failed to recognize him
amidst the revelers.
Story
• But when that afternoon, at the grandfather’s, the young Guido
presented himself, properly attired and brushed and scented,
Doña Lupeng was so charming and gracious with him that he
was enchanted and gazed after her all afternoon with enamored
eyes.
• Doña Lupe further exclaimed that she did not expected his
presence to be in such celebration and Guido responded by
saying he adored the practices in the town and even went to
the Tatarin ritual along with the boys he is with, just to witness
the thing. He even recalled seeing Amada who is a beautiful
woman as he described her, not knowing that she is the
Moreta’s cook and a wife to Entoy — the driver.
• Guido even expound that those rituals came from the earliest
dawn of the world. And the dominant figure is not the male but
the female and that St. John has nothing to do with them as
 Story
• Those rituals come to us from the earliest dawn of the world.
And the dominant figure is not the male but the female.
Hence, the reason that no man may join in those rites unless
he first puts on some article of women’s apparel just as how
Guido had to make love to a toothless old hag there just so
she would pull off her stocking for him. And he pulled it on,
over his arm, like a glove. Guido even claimed that maybe, it
is to remind men that once upon a time, woman were
supreme and men were the slaves. That the queen came
before the king, and the priestess before the priest, and the
moon before the sun.
• Doña Lupe then asked Guido if this is the way on how they
talk to decent women in Europe, and Guido responded by
saying they don’t talk to women; they pray to them.
 Story
• My dear boy, you still have your mother’s milk in your mouth. I
only wish you to remember that I am a married woman, Doña
Lupe replied.
• “I remember that you are a woman, yes. A beautiful woman.
And why not? Did you turn into some dreadful monster when
you married? Did you stop being a woman? Did you stop,
being beautiful? Then why should my eyes not tell you what
you are—just because you are married?” Guido responded.
• As she lifted her skirts to walk away and go after the playful
children, the young man, propping up his elbows, dragged
himself forward on the ground and solemnly kissed the tips of
her shoes.
 Story
• On the way home that evening Don Paeng noticed that his
wife was in a mood. Don Paeng asked her if the young Guido is
still annoying her. Doña Lupe affirmed and instead of Don
Paeng acting out of concern and care for his wife, he said that
he felt embarrassed as a man to see him following her about
with those eyes of a whipped dog.
• She glanced at him coldly and asked, “And was that all you
felt, Paeng? Embarrassed—as a man?”
• “He kissed my feet,” she told him disdainfully, her eyes on his
face.
• Don Paeng replied, “Do you see? They have the instincts, the
style of the canalla! To kiss a woman’s feet, to follow her like a
dog, to adore her like a slave—”
 Story
• “Is it so shameful for a man to adore women?” in a tensed
tone.
• “A gentleman loves and respects Woman. The cads and
lunatics—they ‘adore’ the women.” Don Paeng replied.
• Doña Lupe further justified, “But maybe we do not want to be
loved and respected— but to be adored.”
• “Ah, he has converted you then?” Asked Don Paeng.
• “Who knows? She replied.
• Later that evening, she is still not in the mood, even when Don
Paeng is being affectionate with her by kissing her nape down
to her neck. She now wants to see the Tadtarin as well, in
contrast to what she thought was just a mere waste of time. In
fact, she hasn’t even seen the ritual ever since she was a child.
 Story
• It’s already the last night of the ritual. And Instead of Paeng
allowing her wife to go there, he even invalidated her by
saying that only low people go there. Don Paeng seems to be
firm with his decision, but so is Doña Lupe’s will to go. So she
decided and said to Don Paeng, “Very well, if you do not want
to come, do not come—but I am going.” Don Paeng is now
warning her to not provoke him. “I will go with Amada. Entoy
can take us. You cannot forbid me, Paeng. There is nothing
wrong with it. I am not a child,” she added.
• Until Don Paeng finally gave in, “since you are so set on it—
very well, let us go.
• Around the tiny plaza, tourists along with the locals are
surging forth on the streets, while others —dancing from their
balconies.
 Story
• Doña Lupe got lost in the horde of women. Don Paeng watching his
wife on the sidewalk, was outraged. The image seemed to be crying
for help, to be struggling to escape—a St. John indeed in the hands
of the Herodias; a doomed captive these witches were subjecting
first to their derision; a gross and brutal caricature of his sex.
• They pulled off and waved their shawls and whirled and began
dancing again—laughing and dancing with such joyous exciting
abandon that the people in the square and on the sidewalks, and
even those on the balconies, were soon laughing and dancing, too.
Girls broke away from their parents and wives from their husbands
to join in the orgy.
• “Come, let us go now,” said Don Paeng to his wife. She was shaking
with fascination; tears trembled on her lashes; but she nodded
meekly and allowed herself to be led away. But suddenly she pulled
free from his grasp, darted off, and ran into the crowd of dancing
women.
 Story
• Don Paeng tried to reach for Doña Lupe, calling the women
with various names such as harlots which led to the crowd’s
discovery of him. He was beaten to pulp by the women he
despised for their unbiblical practices. He became silent and
never had he accommodated any queries from anyone
including his wife.
• And when they were home and stood facing each other in the
bedroom, she was as still as lighthearted.
• He wanted to whip Doña Lupe because he thinks that she
behaved like a lewd woman. However, Doña Lupe justified
that how she behaved that night, is what she is. If he calls that
lewd, then maybe she has always been lewd and whipping will
not change her, even if she dies on it.
 Story
• Don Paeng even said that he wants this madness on her wife to
die. But Doña Lupe knows that he just want her to pay for his
bruises caused by the women she wished to see in the first place.
• He flushed darkly. “How can you say that, Lupe?”
• “Because it is true. You have been whipped by the women and
now you think to avenge yourself by whipping me.”
• His shoulders sagged and his face dulled. “If you can think that of
me—”
• “You could think me a lewd woman!”
• “Oh, how do I know what to think of you? I was sure I knew you as
I knew myself. But now you are as distant and strange to me as a
female Turk in Africa!”
• “Yet you would dare whip me—”
 Story
• “Because I love you, because I respect you—”
• And because if you ceased to respect me you would cease to
respect yourself?”
• “Ah, I did not say that!”
• “Then why not say it? It is true. And you want to say it, you
want to say it!”
• But he struggled against her power. “Why should I want to?”
He demanded peevishly.
• “Because, either you must say it—or you must whip me,” she
taunted.
• Her eyes were upon him and the shameful fear that had
unmanned him in the dark chapel possessed him again.
 Story
• His legs had turned to water; it was a monstrous agony to remain
standing. But she was waiting for him speak, forcing him to speak.
• “No, I cannot whip you!” he confessed miserably.
• “Then say it! Say it!” she cried, pounding her clenched fists
together. “Why suffer and suffer? And in the end, you would only
submit.”
• But he still struggled stubbornly, “Is it not enough that you have
me helpless? Is it not enough that I feel what you want me to
feel?”
• But she shook her head furiously. “Until you have said it to me,
there can be no peace between us.”
• He was exhausted at last: he sank heavily to his knees, breathing
hard and streaming with sweat, his fine body curiously diminished
now in its ravaged apparel.
 Story
• “I adore you, Lupe,” he said tonelessly.
• She strained forward avidly. “What? What did you say?” she
screamed.
• And he, in his dead voice: “That I adore you. That I adore you.
That I worship you. That the air you breathe and the ground you
tread is holy to me. That I am your dog. Your slave…”
• But it was still not enough. Her fists were still clenched, and she
cried: “Then come, crawl on the floor, and kiss my feet!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he sprawled down flat and,
working his arms and legs, gaspingly clawed his way across the
floor, like a great agonized lizard, the woman steadily backing
away as he approached, her eyes watching him avidly, her
nostrils dilating, till behind her loomed the open window, the
huge glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. She
stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill.
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• He lay exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor. She
raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot.
He lifted his dripping face and touched his bruised lips to her
toes; lifted his hands and grasped the white foot and kissed it
savagely—kissed the step, the sole, the frail ankle—while she
bit her lips and clutched in pain at the windowsill, her body
distended and wracked by horrible shivers, her head flung
back and her loose hair streaming out the window—streaming
fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon
glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into lightning and the
pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon
Story