New Tales

The New Tales of Emilia Pardo Bazán first appeared in book form in 1894, although they had been published in newspapers before.
The predominant theme in these stories is love. There are love stories in the stories: “Aggravating”, “The Miraculous Herb”, “Evocation”, “The Black Dove”, “Sedano”, “Mother”, and some others, such as “The Dry Flower” and “The Vow”.
Certain current themes of his time also appear, although timidly and without much depth: Malthusian theories (“Sobremesa”), emigration (“The vote”), the social question (“Four Socialists”).
There are also a few stories that manifest in their subjects or motifs a certain metaliterary dimension. Thus, “The Red Cross”, lucid reflection on the power of the fabulating capacity, on the limits between reality and fiction.
“The butterfly of rhinestones” is an allegory about inspiration and poetic fantasy, its conditions and limits.
“The Skull” is a fantasy about an obsession that has something – or a lot – of literary.
In “The Noise”, whose protagonist is a writer in search of the unattainable atmosphere of tranquility for his creation, this search for a new poetic language that accuses the finisecular literature is reflected in a very accurate way.

The Martyr Girl

It is not one of those creatures whose misfortunes suddenly disturb the press; Of those collected by the police in the streets late at night, dressed in rags, scrawny with hunger, terrified of cold, carded and beaten, or dilaceradas by the hot iron that applied to their lands sañuda stepmother meats.
The martyr of whom I am going to speak to you had the white clothes by dozens of dozens, embroidered, marked with crown and cipher, bordered with authentic Valenciennes foam; from England they sent him in huge boxes, dresses, coats and robes; on his table abounded nutritious dishes, select wines; the cold found it padded with furs and quilts; Daily she washed her body with fine soaps and fragrant waters, a British chambermaid.
In winter he lived in a palace lined with tapestries, strewn with stoves and heat; In summer, a fifth by the sea, with gardens, forests, orchards, alleys of centenary trees and marble goddesses who bend to look at themselves on the surface of the ponds through the veil of nymphea leaves …
If he wanted to go out, he was prepared at all times the landó or the sociable; If he preferred to relax at home, they opened a closet full of strange toys, and came out of it, as they come out of a vivid imagination the stories, wonderful beings, creations of modern magic: the jockey dressed in blue satin and gold button, with his horse that really gallops and jumps ditches; the doll that shakes its head, and opens its eyes, and calls her parents with cuddly childish moan; the other dancing doll who, grasping a ring of flowers, turns, flutters, swings, dances and chimes with her feet and, finally, greets the audience, sending them a flying kiss; the electric buggy, the acrobat, the violinist monkey, the mechanical nightingale, which chirps, shakes its head and bristles its feathers; All the automatons, all the imitations, all the fantoches of life, which at such a high price are bought to entertain the children of wealthy parents.
For nevertheless, I tell you that the girl in my story was a martyr, and that a martyr died, and that after her death, her face, between the folds of the muslin veil, showed more accentuated than ever the melancholy and grave expression, so surprising in a ten-year-old creature, adored and raised among cottons.
Martyr, believe it; as martyred as the abandoned ones who on January nights huddle shivering on the threshold of a door. Life is like that; for everyone they have their shot of wormwood; only that some are served in a chiseled gold cup, and others in the hollow of the hand. Pain is eternally fruitful; Sometimes she gives birth in sheets of Holland, and sometimes on the pebbles of the stream.
Daughter of machucho parents, who counted lost all hope of succession; The only heiress of illustrious name and penguin haciendas, the girl was from her first years victim of her own brilliant destinies. Pending her slightest movements, spying on her breathing, counting the beating of her innocent heart, the two fifties raised her as believed in the greenhouse the rare flower, predestined to succumb to the first close. A doctor, who we can well call a camera, had a special task of carrying out the high and low of the physiological functions of the creature. They pointed to the sucks of milk that passed from the mistress’s breast to the girl’s mouth. A very punctual clock marked by minutes the sleep, the awakening, the hours of eating, the cleaning, the walk. A thermometer graduated the tempering of the water of the ablutions; A thin scale weighed food and clothing, according to the doctor’s detailed prescriptions and orders. When the teething crisis came, and with it the restlessness, the impatience, the house became a trap: no one raised his voice; No one stomped on not startling the girl, not taking away her sleep.

Fragment of the work

Reference edition: Madrid, Editorial Aguilar, 1964.