Dona Perfecta

Doña Perfecta is the first social novel by the writer Benito Pérez Galdós. It was published in 1876, among its National Episodes as a way of transcending, at the level of the individual, the events narrated in those episodes. Doña Perfecta is framed in a Spain submerged by political and social instability, and marked by military uprisings, which tried to dismiss the government.
The provincial and caciquista Spain is reflected in the fictional city of Orbajosa, a place retained in the past.
The increasing presence of progress and social changes provoke, in that stronghold of the past called Orbajosa, the confrontation between characters like Pepe Rey, committed to the awakening of a country, and the staunchest reactionaries personified in the figure of Doña Perfecta.
Doña Perfecta is a critique of the hypocrisy of the time, in a community cloistered in religious fanaticism. The final sentence of this novel contains everything:

“This is over. That’s all we can say about people who seem good and aren’t.”

When the mixed descending train, No. 65 (it is not necessary to name the line), stopped at the small station located between kilometers 171 and 172, almost all the second and third class travelers were left sleeping or yawning inside the cars, because the penetrating cold of the early morning did not invite them to walk on the helpless platform. The only first-class traveler on the train hurriedly got off, and addressing the employees, asking them if that was the Villahorrenda stop. (This name, like many others to be seen later, is the property of the author.)
“We are in Villahorrendo,” replied the driver, whose voice was confused with the cackling of the chickens that at that moment were loaded into the van. I had forgotten to call you, Señor de Rey. I think that’s where they wait for you with the chivalry.
“But it’s cold here of three thousand demons! The traveler said, wrapping himself in his blanket. Isn’t there somewhere at the halt to rest and recover before embarking on a horseback trip through this country of ice?

Fragment of the work