Portrait of Emilia Pardo Bazán. By Joaquín Sorolla.
Emilia Pardo Bazán died on a day like today 100 years ago. His figure is one of the greatest exponents, not only literary, but also cultural in general between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. Perhaps his greatest recognition and fame come from his work The pazos de Ulloa, but it touched all the suits, from naturalism to realism, passing through the short novel, short story, newspaper articles and short stories. It is from some of these that I make a snippet selection as a reading to remember.
Love stories
The lost heart
Going one afternoon for a walk through the streets of the city, I saw a red object on the ground; I got off: it was a bloody and alive heart that I carefully collected. "Some woman must have been lost," I thought, observing the whiteness and delicacy of the tender viscera, which, at the touch of my fingers, throbbed as if it were inside its owner's chest. I wrapped it carefully in a white cloth, sheltered it, hid it under my clothes, and set about finding out who the woman who had lost her heart on the street was. To investigate better, I acquired some wonderful glasses that allowed me to see, through the bodice, underwear, meat and ribs - as through those reliquaries that are the bust of a saint and have a small glass window in their chest -, the place of the heart.
The mermaid
It is not possible to paint the care and vigilance with which the mother mouse cared for her litter of mice. Fat and pike he raised them, and cheerful and vivacious, and with an ashen fur so shiny that it gave joy; And not wanting to leave the divine for the human, he lavished on his offspring moral, wise and upright warnings, and put them on guard against the snares and dangers of the rogue world. "They will be mice of brains and good judgment," the mouse said to herself, seeing how attentively they listened to her and how they pleasantly wrinkled their snouts in a sign of happy approval.
But I will tell you here, very secretly, that the mice were so formal because they had not yet poked their heads out of the hole where their mother entertained them. The burrow made in the trunk of a tree, sheltered them wonderfully, and was warm in winter and cool in summer, always soft, and so hidden that the school children did not even suspect that there was a mouse family living there.
Interior tales
Of a nest
Having to go to Madrid to manage an important matter, one of those in which considerable interests are incurred and that force to spend months cleaning the dust off the benches of the anterooms with the seat of the pants, I inquired about a cheap boarding house, and in it I settled in a "decent" room, overlooking the street of Preciados.
The round table companions tried to establish between us that familiarity in bad taste, that shooting of jokes and disputes that usually degenerates into real importunity or outright rudeness. I got into the shell. The only guest who showed reserve was a boy of about twenty-four, very taciturn, named Demetrio Lasús. He always arrived late to the table, retired early, ate little, through; He drank water, responded politely, but was never gossiping, never inquisitive or intrusive, and these qualities made me sympathetic.
Sacroprofan tales
The currency of the world
Once upon a time there was an emperor (we don't always have to say a king) and he had only one son, good as good bread, candid as a maiden (of those who are naive) and with a soul full of flattering hopes and very tender and sweet beliefs. Not the shadow of a doubt, nor the slightest hint of skepticism tarnished the youthful and pure spirit of the prince, who with open arms to Humanity, a smile on his lips and faith in his heart, was treading a path of flowers.
However, His Imperial Majesty, who was, of course, older than His Highness, and had, as they say, a more twisted fang, was annoyed that his only son believed so fist in kindness, loyalty. and adherence of all the people I found out there. In order to warn him against the dangers of such blind trust, he consulted the two or three most renowned wise men of his empire, who scrambled books, raised figures, drew horoscopes, and wove predictions; Having done this, he called the prince, and warned him, in a prudent and very concerted speech, to moderate that propensity to judge well of all, and to understand that the world is nothing but a vast battlefield where interests fight against interests and passions. against passions, and that, according to the opinion of very famous ancient philosophers, man is a wolf to man.
Source: Albalearning