Memories of the Palafoxiana Library in Puebla
A retired guide remembers her years at the Palafoxiana in Puebla: the bishop who gave his books away in 1646, the visitor who said nothing for half an hour, and the rainy Tuesday that changed the plan. A2 Spanish.
Recuerdos de la Biblioteca Palafoxiana
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School students interview doña Carmen, who worked as a guide at the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla. She describes her daily routine in the imperfect and then tells two closed episodes in the preterite: a silent visitor from Japan, and a Tuesday when thirty children from a mountain village arrived in the rain. Along the way the text explains that bishop Juan de Palafox donated his personal library in 1646, on the condition that the room be open to anyone who wanted to read or study.
ALUMNA: Doña Carmen, ¿cómo era un día normal en la Palafoxiana?
DOÑA CARMEN: Yo llegaba temprano, antes que los visitantes. Abría la sala, revisaba la humedad y esperaba al primer grupo. Todo olía a papel antiguo y a madera.
ALUMNA: ¿Y qué contaba usted a los turistas?
DOÑA CARMEN: Siempre empezaba por el principio. En 1646, el obispo Juan de Palafox donó su biblioteca personal al Colegio de San Juan, aquí en Puebla. Puso una condición: la sala era para todas las personas que querían leer o estudiar, no solo para los sacerdotes y los estudiantes. Hoy muchos la llaman la primera biblioteca pública de América.
ALUMNA: ¿Cómo reaccionaba la gente?
DOÑA CARMEN: Los turistas entraban en silencio y miraban hacia arriba, porque los estantes de madera ocupan tres niveles. Una tarde entró un señor de Japón, se quedó de pie junto a la puerta y no dijo nada durante media hora. Al final me dio las gracias y salió.
ALUMNA: ¿Recuerda algún día especial?
DOÑA CARMEN: Uno sobre todo. Era martes y llovía muchísimo. Yo ordenaba unas fichas mientras mi compañera Rosa limpiaba el vidrio de una vitrina. De pronto llegaron treinta niños de un pueblo de la sierra. Era su primer viaje a Puebla.
ALUMNA: ¿Qué hicieron ustedes?
DOÑA CARMEN: Rosa y yo cambiamos el plan. Les mostramos los libros más grandes, les contamos la historia del obispo y respondimos todas sus preguntas. Salieron dos horas después.
ALUMNA: ¿Y cómo terminó ese martes?
DOÑA CARMEN: Cerramos tarde. Mientras yo apagaba las luces, Rosa me dijo: «Hoy sí fue una biblioteca pública.» La UNESCO incluyó la Palafoxiana en su registro Memoria del Mundo, pero para mí ese martes de lluvia vale más que cualquier lista.
Los alumnos apagaron la grabadora. Afuera todavía llovía.
¿Y tú? ¿Cómo era tu biblioteca favorita cuando ibas a la escuela primaria? ¿Recuerdas un día en que un plan normal cambió de repente? ¿Qué hiciste esa vez?
About this article
What you'll learn
The contrast between the Spanish preterite and the imperfect in past narration, with mientras, de pronto and the past of hacer.
School students interview doña Carmen, who worked as a guide at the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla. She describes her daily routine in the imperfect and then tells two closed episodes in the preterite: a silent visitor from Japan, and a Tuesday when thirty children from a mountain village arrived in the rain. Along the way the text explains that bishop Juan de Palafox donated his personal library in 1646, on the condition that the room be open to anyone who wanted to read or study.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
De pronto
newsuddenly, all of a sudden
De pronto marks the moment a quiet scene breaks. The verb after it is almost always a completed past action, here llegaron.
A reliable signal that the story is about to switch tense.
sobre todo
newespecially, above all
Sobre todo has nothing to do with being on top of something. It singles one thing out: one day above all the others.
Very frequent in speech, and easy to misread word by word.
me dio las gracias
newhe thanked me
Spanish gives thanks rather than saying them: dar las gracias a alguien. Dio is the past of dar for he, she or usted.
The natural everyday alternative to the verb agradecer.
miraban hacia arriba
newthey were looking upwards
Hacia gives direction, so hacia arriba is upwards. The pair also works as hacia abajo, hacia atrás, hacia la puerta.
One preposition covers every direction you need to describe movement.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Guide
guía
guide
For a person the word keeps the -a ending and the article changes: el guía for a man, la guía for a woman. La guía is also a guidebook.
One of the nouns where the article, not the ending, carries the gender.
The bishop
el obispo
bishop
Obispo is the church rank above a priest. The text also has sacerdotes, the priests themselves.
Standard vocabulary in texts about the Spanish American colonial period.
Shelves
los estantes
shelves
Un estante is a shelf or a set of shelves. A bookcase as a piece of furniture is una estantería.
Basic furniture word with no English clue in it.
Index cards
unas fichas
index cards, record cards
Una ficha is a small card with information on it: a library card, a patient record, a form. It is also a counting token in a board game.
One short word covers records, forms and game pieces.
The mountains
la sierra
the mountain range
La sierra is a range of mountains, and the same word means a saw. The teeth of the tool gave the mountains their name, which is why so many maps say Sierra Madre or Sierra Nevada.
A word you will meet on every map of the Spanish speaking world.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
What she used to do
Yo llegaba temprano
I used to arrive early
Llegaba is the imperfect: something repeated day after day, with no start and no end in view. Llegué would name one single arrival.
Memories of a routine, at work or in childhood, rest on this tense.
One afternoon, once
Una tarde entró un señor de Japón
one afternoon a man from Japan came in
Una tarde places the episode on a single occasion, so all five verbs of this episode take the preterite: entró, se quedó, dijo, dio, salió. Even the half hour of silence counts as one closed block of time, not as a background scene.
Learners often reach for the imperfect whenever an action lasted a while; length is not the test.
Setting the scene
Era martes y llovía muchísimo
it was Tuesday and it was raining hard
The day, the weather and the mood come in the imperfect: era, llovía. They are the backdrop, not the news. The news arrives two lines later with llegaron.
Many Spanish stories open in the imperfect and then switch.
Two things at once
Yo ordenaba unas fichas mientras mi compañera Rosa limpiaba
I was sorting cards while Rosa was cleaning
When mientras joins two actions that run side by side, both verbs take the imperfect: ordenaba and limpiaba. Neither one interrupts the other.
Mientras is the clearest signal Spanish gives you for parallel background.
One action cuts across another
Mientras yo apagaba las luces, Rosa me dijo
while I was turning off the lights, Rosa said to me
Here mientras does the opposite of the previous card: apagaba is the ongoing action and dijo lands inside it. The longer action takes the imperfect, the one that happens at a point takes the preterite.
It is one of the most practised contrasts in Spanish past narration.
The past of hacer
¿Qué hicieron ustedes?
what did you do?
Hacer builds its past on the stem hic-: hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicieron. The z in hizo keeps the sound of the other forms. The last question of the text uses hiciste.
Hacer is the verb you need first when asking anyone about the past.
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