DOÑA PERFECTA


POR
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS



WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
A. R. MARSH


VOCABULARY BY
STEVEN T. BYINGTON


=The Athenaeum Press=
GINN AND COMPANY--PROPRIETORS--BOSTON--U.S.A.




PREFACE

This edition of one of the best known of modern Spanish novels has been
prepared for the use of college classes in Spanish that have already
mastered the elements of Spanish grammar, but have not yet had much
practice in reading. The editor has found by actual experience that it
is safe to undertake the story in three or four months from the time
when the study of the language is begun, that is, in the second half of
the first year's work in the subject. As the book is not a long one, it
should be possible to read it entire before the close of the year.
Indeed, with an earnest class, even less time than this will be found to
suffice.

The novel is printed exactly (save correction of printer's errors) as it
appears in the eighth Spanish edition (Madrid, 1896). At the same time,
great pains have been taken to make the orthography and accentuation
conform in all respects to the standard of the last edition of the
Spanish Academy's Dictionary. The Notes are considerably fuller than is
customary in college editions of modern works in foreign languages. This
has been made necessary in part by the dreadful insufficiency of the
existing Spanish-English dictionaries, and in part by the editor's
desire to afford the student some aid in dealing with grammatical
peculiarities not fully discussed in the more available text-books. As a
further help to grammatical study, numerous references have been
inserted to Ramsey's _Text-Book of Modern Spanish_ (New York, 1894) and
to Knapp's _Grammar of the Modern Spanish Language_ (Boston, 1891).

A.R.M.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS March, 1897



In the new impression of this book the accentuation has been conformed
to the new (fourteenth) edition of the Academy's Dictionary, a small
number of misprints have been corrected, and a vocabulary has been
added.

As is stated in the above preface, a considerable part of the notes in
the first impression were intended as a partial substitute for a
vocabulary. Obviously, the insertion of the vocabulary made such notes
mainly superfluous; hence in the present edition such notes as seemed to
be mere duplication of the vocabulary are omitted. At the same time it
was inevitable that in the work of compiling the vocabulary some
additional occasions for making notes were found, and new light was
obtained on some places where notes already stood. The result is that
the notes in the present impression, though shorter than before, contain
(apart from vocabulary matter) more information, and it is hoped that
they will at least maintain the reputation which this edition of _Doña
Perfecta_ has gained.

Besides the references to the grammars of Ramsey and Knapp, references
to Coester's _Spanish Grammar_ (Boston, 1912) are now given.






INTRODUCTION


The two literary _genres_ in which Spaniards have most excelled are the
drama and the novel. Indeed, outside of these two forms, it may be said
that no Spaniard has won a literary success of the first order. Thus, in
the past six centuries there have been many Spanish poets of real worth;
and yet in the list of the world's supreme poets no Spanish name
appears. Among the world's great philosophers Spain has no
representative, though she has had thinkers of genuine power. She has
had no moralist, or historian, or political writer, or scientist of the
highest rank. Even religion, which at first sight would seem to be the
predominant interest of Spain, has not there inspired any work of
universal and permanent appeal to the race. The other nations of the
civilized world have at no time derived from Spain a powerful literary
impulse in any of these directions. Palestine and Greece and Rome and
Italy and France and Germany and England have all had something
lastingly valuable to say upon one or more of these matters; but no one
would think of turning to Spanish books for the best that has been
thought and said upon any of them.

With the drama and the novel, however, the case is very different. Here
Spain has had writers universally placed among the great artists of the
world. Calderón and Lope de Vega, with the crowd of lesser dramatists of
the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century (the
period Spaniards call their _siglo de oro_), produced a body of dramatic
literature, which for extent, variety, poetic force, and original
national feeling and conception can be compared only with the Greek and
the English drama. Of their own motion these poets learned all the
essential secrets of the dramatic art. They acquired the faculty of
telling upon the stage any story they chose in such a way that it should
seem a picture of life itself to their audience; and, at the same time,
they managed to fuse with their tales all their accumulated reflection
upon men and things, all the various play of fancy, all the fine gold of
the imagination, and all the humor, gay or grotesque, which the plain
prose of life itself does not contain. Working freely, unawed by classic
models whose perfection they would attain, they were easy in their
motions, frank of conception, and ready to follow their matter wherever
it might lead them. They had no dread of being dull or unpoetical or
undignified; the best of them were constantly all these. But for this
very reason they were large and free and powerful, scornful of trivial
difficulties and obstacles, and able to attain success where all the
chances were against them. The thought and feeling, the hopes and
aspirations, the delusions and absurdities of Spain in the period of her
greatest power and splendor are all mirrored in their verse. Like the
Elizabethan dramatists, furthermore, they exacted tribute from all other
literatures and spent it as they would. And though their work has seldom
the rare distinction of ultimate perfection of form (indeed, in this
respect falls below the best Elizabethan standard), no one can read it
without perceiving that he is engaged with the rich and vital utterance
of artists who are masters of their craft.

Hardly less remarkable than the Spanish drama is the Spanish novel.
Obviously, much the same qualities are demanded for success in the one
form as in the other; and from the earliest period Spanish story-tellers
have known how to do their work well. There are tales in the
fourteenth-century collection by Don Juan Manuel, known as _El Conde
Lucanor_, that are as skillfully contrived as could possibly be. In
spite of its prolixity, the once famous romance of _Amadis of Gaul_,
which was given its Spanish form in the end of the fifteenth century,
must still be regarded as a highly successful piece of narration. At the
close of the same century, the often indecent, but never dull
'tragi-comedy' of _Celestina_ (a novel in fact, though dramatic in form)
proved its excellence as a piece of literary workmanship by attaining
speedily a European reputation. The sixteenth century saw the evolution
of so-called _novela picaresca_, or rogue novel, one of the most
important and influential of modern literary forms. And, finally, in
1605 Cervantes published the first part of one of the greatest of modern
books, _Don Quixote_,--a novel in which the art of story-telling is
brought to almost unrivaled perfection.

In more recent times, the Spanish novel has, of course, suffered from
the general intellectual decline of Spain as a whole. Its originality
has been impaired by the inevitable and generally baneful influence
exercised by foreign models upon the taste of a people not confident in
its own strength and superiority. The eighteenth century, in particular,
produced little deserving even casual mention. Yet in no period have
evidences of the old power been entirely lacking; and as soon as the
intellectual, no less than political, agitations that attended the
opening of the present century began, these evidences at once became
more numerous and more significant. The task of acquiring modernity has,
to be sure, proved longer and more difficult in Spain than in any other
great European nation, and the earlier literary work of the century has
about it too much of the general spiritual and artistic uncertainty of
such a period of confusion and change to possess enduring excellence.
But the trained observer can detect even in the unequal and hesitating
essays of the first half of our century indications of a renewal of the
old skill and of the gradual evolution of a new type of novel, which,
while modern in its methods and materials, still allies itself with what
is best in the older tradition.

The fruition of this period of growth has been seen since the middle of
the century, and to-day Spanish novelists easily hold their own with the
best of the world. Indeed, in the opinion of many well qualified to
judge, there is in no language at the present time a body of fiction
more original, more various, more genuinely interesting than Spanish
authors have produced. Juan Valera, Pedro Alarcón, José María Pereda,
Armando Palacio Valdés, the Padre Luís Coloma, Doña Emilia Pardo Bazán,
and, last, the author of the present volume, Benito Pérez Galdós, have
succeeded along very different lines, and with striking independence of
manner, in composing a mass of fiction which depicts the real Spain of
to-day perhaps more adequately than the novelists of any other country
have been able to render their native land. The reader of Valera is
filled with perpetual admiration of his fine cosmopolitan scepticism,
combined with rich traditional culture of the true Spanish type,
rendered in a subtle, gay, delightful style that derives from the purest
sources of sixteenth-century Spanish. In Alarcón Spanish irony and
Spanish rhetoric (_l'emphase espagnole_, as the French call it) combine
in rarely personal admixture. Pereda studies the crude and homely life
of the region of Santander with the care for detail of the most
scrupulous realist, but without the hard and brutal curiosity about the
merely external that realism adopted as a literary creed seems to bring
with it. Valdés and Coloma and Señora Bazán, writing from very different
points of view, all reproduce for us with sure touches the sentiments
and ideals, the virtues and vices of Spanish society, high and low,
urban or rural, of to-day. And Pérez Galdós, the most fruitful of them
all, has embraced the entire century in his work, and affords us, on the
whole, the clearest and fullest account of the recent spiritual and
social life of his nation anywhere to be found.

Benito Pérez Galdós was born at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, May
10, 1845. The details of his early life are entirely unknown except to
himself, his invincible modesty denying them even to personal friends
like the writer of the only biography of him (a meagre one) that has
appeared, Leopoldo Alas. He studied in the local Instituto, and must
have profited by his opportunities, for the literary attainments shown
in his novels can have resulted only from persistent labor from youth
up. In 1863 he went to Madrid to study law in the University, but with
little eagerness for his future profession. He already dreamed of a
literary career, and tried the hand of an apprentice at journalism and
at pieces for the theatre, none of which, happily, as he has since said,
was represented. In 1867, his mind being engaged at once by the
revolutionary agitation of his own time, and by the similar interest of
the still more violent upheaval in Spain in the first years of the
century, he began a kind of historical novel, _La Fontana de Oro_, in
which he undertook to study the inner motives and history of that
period, so all-important for modern Spanish history, and to illustrate
the detestable character of Ferdinand VII as it appeared in one of his
most disgraceful moments. It was four years, however, before the book
was completed and published. During this time Galdós had visited France
and had returned to Madrid by way of Barcelona, where he was when the
Revolution of 1868, which deprived Queen Isabel of her throne, broke
out. This he greeted with delight, believing the realization of his
conservatively radical political views to be at hand; but he speedily
found himself sadly disillusioned. In 1871 his novel appeared, making no
sensation, but attracting the favorable attention of a few competent
judges. The road was at last opened before him, and he pressed steadily
on in it.

His imagination had now become deeply stirred by both the political and
the social aspects of the great period of the awakening of Spain, when,
to begin with, she freed herself by heroic efforts from the Napoleonic
tyranny, and then made her incipient advances towards modernity in the
face of the opposition of the representatives of her traditional
religion and of her outworn social order. In 1872 he had completed a
second novel, _El Audaz_, in which a phase of the struggle earlier than
that studied in _La Fontana de Oro_, was his theme. Then, taking a
suggestion perhaps from the success of the historical novels of
Erckmann-Chatrian, he began a succession of consecutive tales,
_Episodios Nacionales_, as he called them, which, in two series, cover
the whole agitated time from the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 down to the
death of Ferdinand VII in 1833. Each series has its hero, whose fortunes
afford a slender thread binding the tales together, and whose
participation in the successive events or crises of the War of
Independence and of the reign of Ferdinand VII enables the author to
give these events their proper setting in the political and social
movements of the period. Naturally, there is great inequality in the
execution of so long a list of tales (twenty in all), and the reader's
attention at times flags. Yet the care with which Galdós studied his
material, acquainting himself with the minutest details of the history
of the time, and the skill as a narrator that rarely fails him, make the
_Episodios Nacionales_ incomparably the best documents in which to
obtain a true understanding of one of the greatest movements in the life
of a great and interesting nation.

Before he had concluded the _Episodios Nacionales_, however, Galdós had
begun to feel the attraction of an even deeper and more significant
movement,--that of the modernization of the Spain of the present day.
Here, to be sure, the situations are less famous and picturesque, the
part of action is diminished, and patriotic emotion is less evoked; but
the struggle to be studied is none the less violent and profound. For
readers of our time this struggle perhaps gains in interest from being
rather inward than outward, and from demanding of him who paints it
rather a study of souls than the delineation of stirring events. In few
countries has the clash between the new and the old been so violent, or
the adjustment to the new produced so many and so startling
incongruities as in Spain. The deadly antagonism of the traditional
religious and social feeling of the race towards the whole modern manner
of thinking, the ruinous effects of a first taste of modern luxury upon
those who come ignorantly and blindly under its spell, the agitations of
minds whose moral continuity has been broken by ill-understood freedom
of speculation, the disasters produced by political or social ambitions
aroused in those grotesquely unfit for their attainment,--in short, the
illusions, the vain hopes, the failures, the despairs, the hates, the
woe which every great movement of the _Zeitgeist_ inevitably causes in
every nation, these are the themes which Galdós has of late found
irresistibly attractive, and to which he has devoted much the richest
and strongest part of his work.

The first novel in which the new interest was predominant was the
present book, _Doña Perfecta_, finished in April, 1876. In it Galdós
brought the new and the old face to face: the new in the form of a
highly trained, clear-thinking, frank-speaking modern man; the old in
the guise of a whole community so remote from the current of things that
its religious intolerance, its social jealousy, its undisturbed
confidence and pride in itself must of necessity declare instant war
upon that which comes from without, unsympathetic and critical. The
inevitable result is ruin for the party whose physical force is less,
the single individual, yet hardly less complete ruin for those whom
intolerance and hate have driven to the annihilation of their adversary.
The sympathies of the author, as his closing sentence shows, are with
the new, but his conscience as artist has none the less compelled him to
give to the old its right of full and fair utterance.

The same ignorant or stubborn religiosity, negative for good, working
evil for all affected by it, has been studied by Galdós in two
subsequent novels, _La Familia de León Roch_ and _Gloria_, which are
generally reputed to be, with _Doña Perfecta_, the greatest of his
works. _Gloria_, in particular, has received great and deserved
laudation, in spite of some looseness and unevenness of the technique
due to the rapidity with which it was written (the first part in hardly
more than a fortnight, the author tells us). The theme is not unlike
that of George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_, one of the protagonists being
an English Jew, with the profoundest attachment to the traditions of his
race, the other a Spanish girl, in whom the faith of her fathers is an
ineradicable instinct. Few finer and more tragic situations have been
imagined by moderns than this. No less tragic, though less poetic, is
the ruin of León Roch, weighed down by the burden of an insanely bigoted
wife.

Other groups of novels deal with the other aspects of the modern society
of Spain of which mention has been made. In one group we have the
disasters caused in lowly homes by the vanity of women who have caught a
glimpse of the pleasures of the rich, and pitilessly demand them. The
poor official, out of a place, in _Miau_, is goaded to suicide by the
exactions of his wife and daughter and sister-in-law. In _La de Bringas_
we have the squalid intrigues of a family on the edge of 'high life' and
striving to get within it. _El Amigo Manso_ loves, and is exploited for
her social advantage by the woman whom he loves. A second group of tales
deals with the hard question how the woman, left to her own resources
and without income, shall find her support. Here belong _Fortunata y
Jacinta, La Desheredada, Tristana_, and _Tormento_. It is the pathos of
this problem, not its unseemly and revolting details, that impresses
Galdós and that he strives to convey. And finally, there should be
mentioned those stories in which Galdós shows us the beauty and
uplifting power of natural sentiment, as _Marianela_; or the positive
and beneficent results that may come from a certain pure and unbigoted,
though somewhat mystical, religious feeling, as _Angel Guerra, Nazarín,_
and _Halma_.

It is clear from the above hasty survey of Galdós' work that there runs
through it all a profound moral sentiment, a sense of the tragedy of
modern life, an impatience of the irremediable and hopeless
contradictions in which ignorance and intolerance involve us. At the
same time, it should not be supposed that the general impression
produced by his novels is gloomy and forbidding. On the contrary, few
modern writers show so constantly the play of a free and wholesome
humor, or in more manly fashion take life as it comes, without tears or
whining. He does not strive nor cry; nor does he moralize. He shows us
life as it appears to him in a critical period of his nation's history,
unfolding it before us in its incessant variety, and not debauching us
by lessons of unmanly pessimism any more than by alluring optimism. And
to give to his work its final and irresistible claim upon us, he is the
master of a singularly rich and virile style--a style not modeled upon a
fad, but expressive of the whole nature of the man; capable of
eloquence, of wit and humor, of anger and scorn; now simple and
unadorned, now laden with a burden of reflection and of the great
traditional memories, literary and other, of the race. The Spanish
purists have indeed declared this style to be far from impeccable, and
this is altogether probable. But none the less it has something much
more important than impeccability; it has life and strength, and, when
its master pleases, beauty.






1

DOÑA PERFECTA



I

=Villahorrenda!... cinco minutos!...=

Cuando el tren mixto descendente número 65 (no es
preciso nombrar la línea), se detuvo en la pequeña estación
situada entre los kilómetros 171 y 172, casi todos los viajeros
de segunda y tercera clase se quedaron durmiendo o bostezando
[5]  dentro de los coches, porque el frío penetrante de la
madrugada no convidadas a pasear por el desamparado
andén. El único viajero de primera que en el tren venía
bajó apresuradamente, y dirigiéndose a los empleados, preguntóles
si aquél era el apeadero de Villahorrenda. (Este
[10] nombre, como otros muchos que después se verán, es
propiedad del autor.)

--En Villahorrenda estamos--repuso el conductor, cuya
voz se confundió con el cacarear de las gallinas que en
aquel momento eran subidas al furgón.--Se me había olvidado
[15] llamarle a usted, Sr. de Rey. Creo que ahí le esperan
a usted con las caballerías.

--¡Pero hace aquí un frío de tres mil demonios!--dijo el
viajero envolviéndose en su manta.--¿No hay en el apeadero
algún sitio donde descansar y reponerse antes de
[20] emprender un viaje a caballo por este país de hielo?

No había concluído de hablar, cuando el conductor,
llamado por las apremiantes obligaciones de su oficio,
marchóse, dejando a nuestro desconocido caballero con la        2
palabra en la boca. Vió éste que se acercaba otro empleado
con un farol pendiente de la derecha mano, el cual movíase
al compás de la marcha, proyectando geométricas series de
[5]  ondulaciones luminosas. La luz caía sobre el piso del
andén, formando un _zig zag_ semejante al que describe la
lluvia de una regadera.

--¿Hay fonda o dormitorio en la estación de Villahorrenda?
preguntó el viajero al del farol.

[10] --Aquí no hay nada--respondió éste secamente, corriendo
hacia los que cargaban y echándoles tal rociada de
votos, juramentos, blasfemias y atroces invocaciones, que
hasta las gallinas, escandalizadas de tan grosera brutalidad,
murmuraron dentro de sus cestas.

--Lo mejor será salir de aquí a toda prisa--dijo el
[15] caballero para su capote.--El conductor me anunció que
ahí estaban las caballerías.

Esto pensaba, cuando sintió que una sutil y respetuosa
mano le tiraba suavemente del abrigo. Volvióse y vió una
obscura masa de paño pardo sobre sí misma revuelta y por
[20] cuyo principal pliegue asomaba el avellanado rostro astuto
de un labriego castellano. Fijóse en la desgarbada estatura
que recordaba al chopo entre los vegetales; vió los sagaces
ojos que bajo el ala de ancho sombrero de terciopelo viejo
resplandecían; vió la mano morena y acerada que empuñaba
[25] una vara verde y el ancho pie que, al moverse, hacía sonajear
el hierro de la espuela.

--¿Es usted el Sr. D. José de Rey?--preguntó, echando
mano al sombrero.

--Sí; y usted--repuso el caballero con alegría--será
[30] el criado de doña Perfecta, que viene a buscarme a este
apeadero para conducirme a Orbajosa.

--El mismo. Cuando usted guste marchar... La jaca
corre como el viento. Me parece que el Sr. D. José ha de ser
buen ginete. Verdad es que a quien de casta le viene...

--¿Por dónde se sale?--dijo el viajero con impaciencia.   3

--Vamos, vámonos de aquí, señor... ¿Cómo se llama
usted?

--Me llamo Pedro Lucas--respondió el del paño pardo,
[5]  repitiendo la intención de quitarse el sombrero; pero me
llaman el tío Licurgo. ¿En dónde está el equipaje del
señorito?

--Allí bajo el reloj lo veo. Son tres bultos. Dos maletas
y un mundo de libros para el Sr. D. Cayetano. Tome
[10] usted el talón.

Un momento después señor y escudero hallábanse a
espaldas de la barraca llamada estación, frente a un caminejo
que partiendo de allí se perdía en las vecinas lomas
desnudas, donde confusamente se distinguía el miserable
[15] caserío de Villahorrenda. Tres caballerías debían transportar
todo, hombres y mundos. Una jaca de no mala
estampa era destinada al caballero. El tío Licurgo oprimiría
los lomos de un cuartago venerable, algo desvencijado,
aunque seguro; y el macho, cuyo freno debía regir
[20] un joven zagal de piernas listas y fogosa sangre, cargaría
el equipaje.

Antes de que la caravana se pusiese en movimiento,
partió el tren, que se iba escurriendo por la vía con la
parsimoniosa cachaza de un tren mixto. Sus pasos, retumbando
[25] cada vez más lejanos, producían ecos profundos bajo
tierra. Al entrar en el túnel del kilómetro 172, lanzó el
vapor por el silbato y un aullido estrepitoso resonó en los
aires. El túnel, echando por su negra boca un hálito
blanquecino, clamoreaba como una trompeta, y al oír su
[30] enorme voz, despertaban aldeas, villas, ciudades, provincias.
Aquí cantaba un gallo, más allá otro. Principiaba
a amanecer.

4


II

=Un viaje por el corazón de España=

Cuando empezada la caminata dejaron a un lado las
casuchas de Villahorrenda, el caballero, que era joven y de
muy buen ver, habló de este modo:

--Dígame usted, Sr. Solón...

[5]  --Licurgo, para servir a usted...

--Eso es, Sr. Licurgo. Bien decía yo que era usted un
sabio legislador de la antigüedad. Perdone usted la equivocación.
Pero vamos al caso. Dígame usted, ¿cómo
está mi señora tía?

[10] --Siempre tan guapa--repuso el labriego, adelantando
algunos pasos su caballería.--Parece que no pasan años
por la señora doña Perfecta. Bien dicen que al bueno
Dios le da larga vida. Así viviera mil años ese ángel del
Señor. Si las bendiciones que le echan en la tierra fueran
[15] plumas, la señora no necesitaría más alas para subir al cielo.

--¿Y mi prima la señorita Rosario?

--¡Bien haya quien a los suyos parece!--dijo el aldeano.

--¿Qué he de decirle de doña Rosarito, sino que es el vivo
retrato de su madre? Buena prenda se lleva usted, caballero
[20] D. José, si es verdad, como dicen, que ha venido para
casarse con ella. Tal para cual, y la niña no tiene tampoco
por qué quejarse. Poco va de Pedro a Pedro.

--¿Y el Sr. D. Cayetano?

--Siempre metidillo en la faena de sus libros. Tiene
[25] una biblioteca más grande que la catedral, y también escarba
la tierra para buscar piedras llenas de unos demonches de
garabatos que dicen escribieron los moros.

--¿En cuánto tiempo llegaremos a Orbajosa?

--A las nueve, si Dios quiere. Poco contenta se va a
[30] poner la señora cuando vea a su sobrino.... Y la señorita        5
Rosarito que estaba ayer disponiendo el cuarto en que usted
ha de vivir.... Como no le han visto nunca, la madre y la
hija están que no viven, pensando en cómo será o cómo no
será este Sr. D. José. Ya llegó el tiempo de que callen
[5]  cartas y hablen barbas. La prima verá al primo y todo
será fiesta y gloria. Amanecerá Dios y medraremos, como
dijo el otro.

--Como mi tía y mi prima no me conocen todavía--dijo
sonriendo el caballero,--no es prudente hacer proyectos.

[10] --Verdad es; por eso se dijo que uno piensa el bayo y
otro el que lo ensilla--repuso el labriego.--Pero la cara
no engaña... ¡qué alhaja se lleva usted! ¡Y qué buen
mozo ella!

El caballero no oyó las últimas palabras del tío Licurgo,
[15] porque iba distraído y algo meditabundo. Llegaban a un
recodo del camino, cuando el labriego, torciendo la dirección
a las caballerías, dijo:

--Ahora tenemos que echar por esta vereda. El puente
está roto y no se puede vadear el río sino por el cerrillo de
[20] los Lirios.

--¿El cerrillo de los Lirios?--dijo el caballero, saliendo
de su meditación.--¡Cómo abundan los nombres poéticos
en estos sitios tan feos! Desde que viajo por estas tierras,
me sorprende la horrible ironía de los nombres. Tal sitio
[25] que se distingue por su yermo aspecto y la desolada tristeza
del negro paisaje, se llama _Valleameno_. Tal villorrio de
adobes que miserablemente se extiende sobre un llano árido
y que de diversos modos pregona su pobreza, tiene la insolencia
de nombrarse _Villarica_; y hay un barranco pedregoso
[30] y polvoriento, donde ni los cardos encuentran jugo, y
que sin embargo se llama _Valdeflores_. ¿Eso que tenemos
delante es el _Cerrillo de los Lirios_? ¿Pero dónde están esos
lirios, hombre de Dios? Yo no veo más que piedras y
yerba descolorida. Llamen a eso el _Cerrillo de la Desolación_
y hablarán a derechas. Exceptuando _Villahorrenda_, que          6
parece ha recibido al mismo tiempo el nombre y la hechura,
todo aquí es ironía. Palabras hermosas, realidad prosaica
y miserable. Los ciegos serían felices en este país, que
[5]  para la lengua es paraíso y para los ojos infierno.

El Sr. Licurgo o no entendió las palabras del caballero
Rey o no hizo caso de ellas. Cuando vadearon el río, que
turbio y revuelto corría con impaciente precipitación, como
si huyera de sus propias orillas, el labriego extendió el brazo
[10] hacia unas tierras que a la siniestra mano en grande y desnuda
extensión se veían, y dijo:

--Estos son los _Alamillos de Bustamente_.

--¡Mis tierras!--exclamó con júbilo el caballero, tendiendo
la vista por los tristes campos que alumbraban las
[15] primeras luces de la mañana.--Es la primera vez que veo
el patrimonio que heredé de mi madre. La pobre hacía
tales ponderaciones de este país y me contaba tantas maravillas
de él, que yo, siendo niño, creía que estar aquí era
estar en la gloria. Frutas, flores, caza mayor y menor,
[20] montes, lagos, ríos, poéticos arroyos, oteros pastoriles, todo
lo había en los _Alamillos de Bustamente_, en esta tierra bendita,
la mejor y más hermosa de todas las tierras....
¡Qué demonio! La gente de este país vive con la imaginación.
Si en mi niñez, y cuando vivía con las ideas y con
[25] el entusiasmo de mi buena madre, me hubieran traído aquí,
también me habrían parecido encantadores estos desnudos
cerros, estos llanos polvorientos o encharcados, estas vetustas
casas de labor, estas norias desvencijadas, cuyos cangilones
lagrimean lo bastante para regar media docena de
[30] coles, esta desolación miserable y perezosa que estoy mirando.

--Es la mejor tierra del país--dijo el señor Licurgo--y
para el garbanzo es de lo que no hay.

--Pues lo celebro, porque desde que las heredé no me
han producido un cuarto estas célebres tierras.

El sabio legislador espartano se rascó la oreja y dió un         7
suspiro.

--Pero me han dicho--continuó el caballero--que algunos
propietarios colindantes han metido su arado en estos
[5]  grandes estados míos, y poco a poco me los van cercenando.
Aquí no hay mojones, ni linderos, ni verdadera propiedad,
Sr. Licurgo.

El labriego, después de una pausa, durante la cual parecía
ocupar su sutil espíritu en profundas disquisiciones, se expresó
[10] de este modo:

--El tío Pasolargo, a quien llamamos el _Filósofo_ por su
mucha trastienda, metió el arado en los _Alamillos_ por encima
de la ermita, y roe que roe, se ha zampado seis fanegadas.

--¡Qué incomparable escuela!--exclamó riendo el caballero.
[15] --Apostaré que no ha sido ese el único... filósofo.

--Bien dijo el otro, que quien las sabe las tañe, y si al
palomar no le falta cebo no le faltarán palomas.... Pero
usted, Sr. D. José, puede decir aquello de que el ojo del
amo engorda la vaca, y ahora que está aquí ver de recobrar
[20] su finca.

--Quizás no sea tan fácil, Sr. Licurgo--repuso el caballero,
a punto que entraban por una senda a cuyos lados se
veían hermosos trigos que con su lozanía y temprana madurez
recreaban la vista.--Este campo parece mejor cultivado.
[25] Veo que no todo es tristeza y miseria en los _Alamillos_.

El labriego puso cara de lástima, y afectando cierto desdén
hacia los campos elogiados por el viajero, dijo en tono
humildísimo:

--Señor, esto es mío.

[30] --Perdone usted--replicó vivamente el caballero--ya
quería yo meter mi hoz en los estados de usted. Por lo
visto, la filosofía aquí es contagiosa.

Bajaron inmediatamente a una cañada, que era lecho de
pobre y estancado arroyo, y pasado éste, entraron en un
campo lleno de piedras, sin la más ligera muestra de vegetación.
8
--Esta tierra es muy mala--dijo el caballero, volviendo
el rostro para mirar a su guía y compañero que se había
[5]  quedado un poco atrás.--Difícilmente podrá usted sacar
partido de ella, porque todo es fango y arena.

Licurgo, lleno de mansedumbre, contestó:

--Esto... es de usted.

--Veo que aquí todo lo malo es mío--afirmó el caballero,
[10] riendo jovialmente.

Cuando esto hablaban, tomaron de nuevo el camino real.
Ya la luz del día, entrando en alegre irrupción por todas
las ventanas y claraboyas del hispano horizonte, inundó de
esplendorosa claridad los campos.  El inmenso cielo sin
[15] nubes parecía agrandarse más y alejarse de la tierra para
verla y en su contemplación recrearse desde más alto. La
desolada tierra sin árboles, pajiza a trechos, a trechos de
color gredoso, dividida toda en triángulos y cuadriláteros
amarillos o negruzcos, pardos o ligeramente verdegueados,
[20] semejaba en cierto modo a la capa del harapiento que se pone
al sol. Sobre aquella capa miserable el cristianismo y el
islamismo habían trabado épicas batallas. Gloriosos campos,
sí, pero los combates de antaño les habían dejado horribles.

--Me parece que hoy picará el sol, Sr. Licurgo--dijo el
[25] caballero, desembarazándose un poco del abrigo en que se
envolvía.--¡Qué triste camino! No se ve ni un solo árbol
en todo lo que alcanza la vista. Aquí todo es al revés. La
ironía no cesa. ¿Por qué, si no hay aquí álamos grandes
ni chicos, se ha de llamar esto los _Alamillos_?

[30] El tío Licurgo no contestó a la pregunta, porque con toda
su alma atendía a ciertos lejanos ruidos que de improviso se
oyeron, y con ademán intranquilo detuvo su cabalgadura,
mientras exploraba el camino y los cerros lejanos con sombría
mirada.