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Camila Perichole / Micaela Villegas
Uncle Pio is Camila Perichole’s acting coach and assistant, a cunning, intelligent, and highly cultured jack-of-all-trades. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy Spanish nobleman, Uncle Pio spends his childhood on the streets of Madrid, where he does errands and tasks for various people in the city’s seedy underbelly. During this time, he develops a passion for Spanish theater, which he believes represents the world’s highest culture. Eventually, he moves to Lima, where his passion for theater leads him to adopt the young Camila Perichole and train her as an actress. The Perichole shares Uncle Pio’s clever nature, cultural awareness, and ability to navigate the city’s elite despite their lowly origins; however, the master is distinguished from his pupil by his indifference to wealth or social success, whereas the Perichole comes to crave these things. While Uncle Pio often seems like an unscrupulous opportunist, he reveals his integrity by single-handedly caring for the Perichole after she contracts smallpox, loses her social position and beauty, and even tries to push him away. In a gesture of goodwill, Uncle Pio decides to take the Perichole’s eldest son, Jaime, to live with him while his mother recovers. As they cross the bridge from the Perichole’s house into Lima, they are both swept up in the collapse and die.
Uncle Pio Quotes in The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The The Bridge of San Luis Rey quotes below are all either spoken by Uncle Pio or refer to Uncle Pio. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 4: Uncle Pio
Quotes
In the third place he wanted to be near those that loved Spanish literature and its masterpieces, especially in the theater. He had discovered all that treasure for himself, borrowing or stealing from the libraries of his patrons, feeding himself upon it in secrecy […].
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Her whole nature became gentle and mysterious and oddly wise; and it all turned to him. She could find no fault in him and she was sturdily loyal. They loved one another deeply but without passion. He respected the slight nervous shadow that crossed her face when he came too near her. But there arose out of this denial itself the perfume of a tenderness, that ghost of passion which, in the most unexpected relationship, can make even a whole lifetime devoted to irksome duty pass like a gracious dream.
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“How absurd you are,” she said smiling. “You said that as boys say it. You don’t seem to learn as you grow older, Uncle Pio. There is no such thing as that kind of love and that kind of island. It’s in the theater you find such things.”
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Uncle Pio Quotes in The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The The Bridge of San Luis Rey quotes below are all either spoken by Uncle Pio or refer to Uncle Pio. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 4: Uncle Pio
Quotes
In the third place he wanted to be near those that loved Spanish literature and its masterpieces, especially in the theater. He had discovered all that treasure for himself, borrowing or stealing from the libraries of his patrons, feeding himself upon it in secrecy […].
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Her whole nature became gentle and mysterious and oddly wise; and it all turned to him. She could find no fault in him and she was sturdily loyal. They loved one another deeply but without passion. He respected the slight nervous shadow that crossed her face when he came too near her. But there arose out of this denial itself the perfume of a tenderness, that ghost of passion which, in the most unexpected relationship, can make even a whole lifetime devoted to irksome duty pass like a gracious dream.
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Explanation and Analysis:
“How absurd you are,” she said smiling. “You said that as boys say it. You don’t seem to learn as you grow older, Uncle Pio. There is no such thing as that kind of love and that kind of island. It’s in the theater you find such things.”
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