CELESTINA: A STORY OF REVENGE
I am going to tell you a story about what happened to me, Celestina, 60 years ago.
I lived in a little town called High Wycombe, near London. In that place people were very individualist, they were interested in their own life, had big secrets, besides their thoughts and feelings were not shared with anyone.
At the very beginning my life was hard. I was born in 1929 in an extremely poor family in which my father had to work long hours in order to maintain us; my mother, who was an immigrant, did not speak any English. As she could not find a good job to help her husband, she devoted herself to look after her six children.
Since I was the eldest and my father was obliged to go to the war in 1941, I started to work in a farm for a prestigious and rich man of London, Mr. Broom. The little money I earned was sent to my mother every month because I knew that they needed it more than I.
I worked there for a year in unhealthy and deplorable conditions until Christopher, Mr. Broom´s son, fell in love with me and asked me to marry him. In that moment I felt that it was the train that passed through once in life time, so it was the only alternative I had to escape from that misery.
At the beginning I was not interested in the marriage and I tried to avoid his company every time I could. As the years passed by, I felt a real connection with him and I even loved him, nevertheless it was too late because he was not keen on me anymore. Although I was pregnant, he rejected me all the time, and as a result of my suffering I had a natural abortion.
Since then, I remained ill and with some “mental decease” – according to what Christopher said to everyone. So my sister, Caroline, was the one who took care of me during this bad moment I was going through.
When I was twenty I started to suspect that my husband had a lover, because it seemed to me as if he had always something to hide, he arrived late frequently, and had mysterious meetings at nights.
I remember a conversation we had in our bedroom:
Celestina: - We must talk!
Christopher: - No, no, no. Don´t bother, I have to meet a businessman right now.
Celestina: - You are always busy, I feel as if I don´t belong to your life. Please! Talk to me! Explain me what´s going on!
Christopher: - Shut up! You, insane woman.
Celestina: - Stop mortifying me. I know you are hiding something. Tell me what it is. Is it a lover? (Shaking him from his shoulders)
I recognize that in that moment I was out of myself so he pushed me against the wall in a violent way and yelled.
Christopher: - You are imagining things! Your eyes are betraying you. I don´t want to take part in your ridiculous story.
Having said this, he left quickly and closed the door with a bang.
As soon as he left, I was getting mad and that extreme sadness made me take the most atrocious decision which I never thought I would do. I remembered the last words my husband said to me; so if my eyes were betraying me, I will have to do something in order not to have those visions any more. Immediately, I turned around and saw a pair of nail scissors, without thinking it twice I dashed and took them. My eyes were full of tears and my hands were trembling. At that moment I approached the big oval mirror and taking a deep breath I did it…
Suddenly, I fainted. When I woke up, an hour later, I was laying on the floor, the only thing I could notice was blood everywhere and an intense pain in my left eye. Desperately, I stood up and look myself in the mirror.
A shout escaped from my mouth.
Celestina: - I can’t believe I did it! I can’t see, I can’t see! Please, I need help immediately.
While I was saying this, I covered my eye with my hand trying to stop the bleeding.
Christopher arrived quickly and was shocked by the scene.
Christopher: - What happened? What did you do? – He asked very worried.
I uncovered my eye and cried:
- It’s your fault! Look what you have made me do. I’m blind! Is this what you wanted? I won’t see ghosts anymore. Now help me!
Christopher: - You are completely crazy! Well, don’t move, I will look for the doctor.
Some minutes later he arrived alone.
Celestina: - Where is the doctor?
Christopher: - He couldn’t come but he prescribed you this medicine and a patch.
Carefully, he started cleaning my face and healing the wounds, and then he attached the patch.
During a month I was confined but still had the feeling that Christopher had a lover and that she was my sister. Since then I started planning a revenge.
One day I cited both to my bedroom in order to share a cup of tea. I was going to meet my husband at four and my sister at five. As we had arranged, my husband was the first to arrive and I had a special surprise for him. I prepared a nice table covered with a white tablecloth and an apple pie, which was his favorite dessert. I served mint tea and I pretended being kind and friendly, that was my strategy in order him not to suspect from me. Intentionally, I forgot the sugar in the kitchen so I asked him to look for it. When he went I poisoned his tea with a few drops of cyanide. Not until he drank it, he fell out on the table and died some minutes later.
In that moment, I murmured to him:
Celestina: - You deserve it! You obliged me to do it!
Then I took his dead body and dragged it to the closet.
The next guest came, it was her turn.
Caroline: - Oh, thank you so much for your invitation.
Celestina: - I just want to demonstrate that I really appreciated you took care of me.
Caroline: - Oh! You needn’t have to.
Celestina smiled and said: - I forgot to bring the delicious brownies I cooked for you. I will go for them.
I went downstairs and took the sharpest knife I owned. Without realizing what I was going to do, I entered to the bedroom. Silently, I approached and stood up behind her. Then I took her head and committed the crime. I beheaded my husband’s lover and carried her with Christopher.
They stayed in the closet for a couple of days until my neighbor felt a disgusting smell and called the police. They came to my house and found me swinging in a chair as an insane. They inspected the entire house in order to find what was wrong and finally they could discover the corps hidden in the closet of my bedroom.
As I was out of myself, they could not imprison me, so I was confined here, where I’m writing this story, at a mental hospital. I recovered my health but I have to pretend I’m still crazy in order not to be imprisoned.
THE END
I lived in a little town called High Wycombe, near London. In that place people were very individualist, they were interested in their own life, had big secrets, besides their thoughts and feelings were not shared with anyone.
At the very beginning my life was hard. I was born in 1929 in an extremely poor family in which my father had to work long hours in order to maintain us; my mother, who was an immigrant, did not speak any English. As she could not find a good job to help her husband, she devoted herself to look after her six children.
Since I was the eldest and my father was obliged to go to the war in 1941, I started to work in a farm for a prestigious and rich man of London, Mr. Broom. The little money I earned was sent to my mother every month because I knew that they needed it more than I.
I worked there for a year in unhealthy and deplorable conditions until Christopher, Mr. Broom´s son, fell in love with me and asked me to marry him. In that moment I felt that it was the train that passed through once in life time, so it was the only alternative I had to escape from that misery.
At the beginning I was not interested in the marriage and I tried to avoid his company every time I could. As the years passed by, I felt a real connection with him and I even loved him, nevertheless it was too late because he was not keen on me anymore. Although I was pregnant, he rejected me all the time, and as a result of my suffering I had a natural abortion.
Since then, I remained ill and with some “mental decease” – according to what Christopher said to everyone. So my sister, Caroline, was the one who took care of me during this bad moment I was going through.
When I was twenty I started to suspect that my husband had a lover, because it seemed to me as if he had always something to hide, he arrived late frequently, and had mysterious meetings at nights.
I remember a conversation we had in our bedroom:
Celestina: - We must talk!
Christopher: - No, no, no. Don´t bother, I have to meet a businessman right now.
Celestina: - You are always busy, I feel as if I don´t belong to your life. Please! Talk to me! Explain me what´s going on!
Christopher: - Shut up! You, insane woman.
Celestina: - Stop mortifying me. I know you are hiding something. Tell me what it is. Is it a lover? (Shaking him from his shoulders)
I recognize that in that moment I was out of myself so he pushed me against the wall in a violent way and yelled.
Christopher: - You are imagining things! Your eyes are betraying you. I don´t want to take part in your ridiculous story.
Having said this, he left quickly and closed the door with a bang.
As soon as he left, I was getting mad and that extreme sadness made me take the most atrocious decision which I never thought I would do. I remembered the last words my husband said to me; so if my eyes were betraying me, I will have to do something in order not to have those visions any more. Immediately, I turned around and saw a pair of nail scissors, without thinking it twice I dashed and took them. My eyes were full of tears and my hands were trembling. At that moment I approached the big oval mirror and taking a deep breath I did it…
Suddenly, I fainted. When I woke up, an hour later, I was laying on the floor, the only thing I could notice was blood everywhere and an intense pain in my left eye. Desperately, I stood up and look myself in the mirror.
A shout escaped from my mouth.
Celestina: - I can’t believe I did it! I can’t see, I can’t see! Please, I need help immediately.
While I was saying this, I covered my eye with my hand trying to stop the bleeding.
Christopher arrived quickly and was shocked by the scene.
Christopher: - What happened? What did you do? – He asked very worried.
I uncovered my eye and cried:
- It’s your fault! Look what you have made me do. I’m blind! Is this what you wanted? I won’t see ghosts anymore. Now help me!
Christopher: - You are completely crazy! Well, don’t move, I will look for the doctor.
Some minutes later he arrived alone.
Celestina: - Where is the doctor?
Christopher: - He couldn’t come but he prescribed you this medicine and a patch.
Carefully, he started cleaning my face and healing the wounds, and then he attached the patch.
During a month I was confined but still had the feeling that Christopher had a lover and that she was my sister. Since then I started planning a revenge.
One day I cited both to my bedroom in order to share a cup of tea. I was going to meet my husband at four and my sister at five. As we had arranged, my husband was the first to arrive and I had a special surprise for him. I prepared a nice table covered with a white tablecloth and an apple pie, which was his favorite dessert. I served mint tea and I pretended being kind and friendly, that was my strategy in order him not to suspect from me. Intentionally, I forgot the sugar in the kitchen so I asked him to look for it. When he went I poisoned his tea with a few drops of cyanide. Not until he drank it, he fell out on the table and died some minutes later.
In that moment, I murmured to him:
Celestina: - You deserve it! You obliged me to do it!
Then I took his dead body and dragged it to the closet.
The next guest came, it was her turn.
Caroline: - Oh, thank you so much for your invitation.
Celestina: - I just want to demonstrate that I really appreciated you took care of me.
Caroline: - Oh! You needn’t have to.
Celestina smiled and said: - I forgot to bring the delicious brownies I cooked for you. I will go for them.
I went downstairs and took the sharpest knife I owned. Without realizing what I was going to do, I entered to the bedroom. Silently, I approached and stood up behind her. Then I took her head and committed the crime. I beheaded my husband’s lover and carried her with Christopher.
They stayed in the closet for a couple of days until my neighbor felt a disgusting smell and called the police. They came to my house and found me swinging in a chair as an insane. They inspected the entire house in order to find what was wrong and finally they could discover the corps hidden in the closet of my bedroom.
As I was out of myself, they could not imprison me, so I was confined here, where I’m writing this story, at a mental hospital. I recovered my health but I have to pretend I’m still crazy in order not to be imprisoned.
THE END
This story was based on a painting by Pablo Picasso. Would you like to know about his life and work?
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. He is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), his portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.Picasso demonstrated uncanny artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence; during the first decade of the twentieth century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortunes throughout his life, making him the best-known figure in twentieth century art.
Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad, a series of names honouring various saints and relatives. Added to these were Ruiz and Picasso, for his father and mother, respectively. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López. Picasso’s family was middle-class; his father was also a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game.
Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his first words were “piz, piz”, a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for ‘pencil’. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting.
The family moved to A Coruña in 1891 where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son’s technique, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting.
Picasso’s father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.
After studying art in Madrid, Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900, then the art capital of Europe. Since then he started a successful career as a professional painter.
He had four children
Paulo (4 February 1921 – 5 June 1975) (Born Paul Joseph Picasso) — with Olga Khokhlova
Maya (5 September 1935 – ) (Born Maria de la Concepcion Picasso) — with Marie-Thérèse Walter
Claude (15 May 1947 –) (Born Claude Pierre Pablo Picasso) — with Françoise Gilot
Paloma (19 April 1949 – ) (Born Anne Paloma Picasso) — with Françoise Gilot
Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words were “Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink any more.”
Loly and "Light" didn't really work much at role playing their story because they made some dolls do it!!! Very creative!! Enjoy the photos.
I chose the María Luz and Lorena’s story “Celestina, a Story of Revenge” and I retold it from a different character’s point of view. I hope you enjoy it!
ResponderEliminarAnother story of revenge
I wake up very early this morning. I can hear the servant of the house rushing from one place to the other, probably preparing the breakfast or dusting the furniture. The nurse, who comes every morning to help me get out of bed, is going upstairs. A few seconds later, she enters my room. “Good morning, Mr. Broom,” she says kindly. “How do you feel today? Is your back ache better?” I keep my eyes glued to the roof and smile. I have been waiting anxiously for this day for eight years. There was no pain that can persuade me to give up. She crosses the room at a brisk pace and opens the French window while I am still lying on the bed pretending not to see her.
When the nurse finally leaves, I stand up and walk to the dresser. I look my reflection in the mirror. The young and proud face has been replaced by a wrinkled old one as the years passed. Then, I look at the picture on the dresser. It is a photograph of my only son, Christopher. It was taken in his last birthday’s party. He has a smile on his face but his eyes express loneliness and despair. The vivid memories of those times make my blood boil. When I think of Celestina, the woman who ruined his life, I feel furious. However, I have always considered that I should have done something for him and I can not help feeling guilty about what happened.
Celestina was a sweet and very poor girl twenty years ago, so, I employed her to work in the farm. I gave her a roof over her head, food and clothes. At the beginning, she was very satisfied and she was very hard worker. She also started to have a friendly relationship with my son. Even though she got more benefits than the rest of the employees because my son could not deny her anything, she began to be ambitious and complained about everything. Unfortunately, I did not realise Christopher’s feelings until it was too late. He has fallen in love with her and he was determined to make her happy. Therefore, he married her and moved out next to my house.
Their marriage lasted for a decade, but Christopher lost his willpower to make their relationship work out by the second year. He started to work harder, so as to keep away from her. She began to get jealous of him and suspected that her own sister was his lover. As a result, that horrible woman murdered both of them in cold blood. After that, she was confined for three years in the psychiatric hospital because of her apparent madness, which I have always considered to be an excuse to avoid imprisonment.
By the time she returned home, I had been pretending to be blind for more than a year and started to watch her from my bedroom’s window. As she thought that I was just a harmless old man, she showed herself as she really was. In that way, I discovered that she had lied to everybody.
I know that my son must be revenged now. I make the bell sound and wait for the nurse to come. “Is there anything you need?” she asks a few minutes later when she enters the room. “Yes, dear… I need my pills. But I don’t have any more left. May you go to the chemist and buy them?” I ask. “Yes, of course I’ll do it, and then I will prepare a cup of hot chocolate” she tells me and goes out to the room. A few minutes later, I leave my bedroom, go quietly downstairs, take the arsenic among the gardening tools and go to Celestina’s house. I know I will never regret my decision because I am seeking for revenge for the murder of my son, and then I will return to my comfortable bedroom to drink a delicious mug of hot chocolate.
Hi Fabiola!! What a great ending! Very catching! So the old man managed to take revenge. Do you think it will give him peace of mind?
ResponderEliminarDid you like working with paintings and roleplaying your story? Would you include art in your teaching practice?
Read your writing again and see if you can find grammar mistakes you can correct.
Good job! I liked your choice of retelling the story from another character's point of view.
Grade: 4 (four)