Pages 31–32
Two brand new characters walk into a ghost's guest room
Previously, we briefly returned to the present day where our narrator was scooped out of one ghost’s guest room by, presumably, another ghost to go stay in her guest room instead. Honestly, it’s not as bad a call as it sounds like: the first guest room was haunted by the spirit of a man who was hanged in that room and his screams from beyond the grave kept waking up the narrator in the middle of the night.
Wanna know more about the hanged guy? Wanna know just barely more about the hanged guy?
Pages 31–32
We flash back to the past again, to a time when the man who was hanged in that room – Toribio Aldrete – is getting sued. I think. Between me not knowing legal terminology and this being a translated work about another country’s legal system as it was nearly a century ago… this isn’t my most confident summary today. And this one doesn’t even have ghosts in it.
Fulgor Sedano, an administrator “qualitied to initiate and pursue civil disputes”, informs Toribio Aldrete that he is accused of usufruct, which is roughly the point where I realized this week’s summary was going to be rough. Googling wtf usufruct is, we get the legal right accorded to a person or party that confers the temporary right to use and derive income or benefit from someone else's property. So it seems probably that this is some Pedro Páramo nonsense, since all we really know about him is he becomes a nightmare landlord over the course of this novel.
Fulgor Sedano working for (or against? idk?) Pedro Páramo is, perhaps, implied by Toribio Aldrete’s reaction:
–No one’s gonna say you don’t have guts, don Fulgor. You’re tough as nails, and not on account of the authority that props you up, but all on your own. […] You and I are gonna use that paper to wipe ourselves, don Fulgor, since that’s what it’s good for.
Toribio tells Fulgor that he had him worried, but seems to laugh off the accusation of usufruct (probably not for the same reason you and I are laughing at usufruct, which is apparently a real word). Toribio asserts they all know it’s a bullshit allegation, but respects that Fulgor’s gonna do his boss’s bidding. The section ends with the implication that it took Fulgor hours to realize he’d been insulted.
Also for some reason this is happening in doña Eduviges’s guest room. I don’t really understand what her role is in this.
tl;dr wtf happened in Pedro Páramo today
Someone got sued once in doña Eduviges’s guest room. Later, he was hanged there.
tl;dr wtf is usufruct
According to Cornell Law School,
Usufruct is the right to use and benefit from a property, while the ownership of which belongs to another person. The person who enjoys the usufruct is called the usufructuary.
USUFRUCTUARY IS A REAL WORD THAT EXISTS
The usufructuary shall maintain the property as a responsible owner and shall not cause damage to or diminution of the property, except where the property is subject to natural depletion over time. In modern civil law, the usufruct is divided into perfect usufruct and imperfect usufruct or quasi-usufruct, depending on whether the property is subject to depletion.
PERFECT USUFRUCT. QUASI-USUFRUCT. How are these real words. What is the law.
For perfect usufruct, the property is used without changing its nature. In the latter, the property cannot be used without being consumed, such as money, food, etc., and the usufructuary shall deliver to the owner at the end of the usufruct the same value or the same quantity and quality as at the beginning of the usufruct.
Ok but honestly I don’t understand how one can be accused of this because this all sounds like… an arrangement. Like renting an apartment. And you can’t accuse someone of being a renter. Not legally, anyway.
I’m sorry. My job here is to explain Pedro Páramo to you, but now I need to ask a lawyer to explain Pedro Páramo to me.