I. El amor asesinado
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43 stories of love and its disguises for C1
Love Stories Cuentos de amor
Emilia Pardo Bazán
Emilia Pardo Bazán’s complete collection of 43 stories, first published in 1898, in the original Spanish, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C1: about 63,400 words and 26 words per sentence on average. A short preface by the author comes first, then 43 stories of about 700 to 2,500 words each, from allegories like “El amor asesinado” to realistic scenes from Marineda, her name for her native La Coruña.
- C1
- 63 368 words
- 11-18 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the 26-word sentences, the long periods and the spelling of 1898 (á for a, fué, sólo) will slow you down, and rare words like tunantuelo or agazapó will need a tap; the shorter, dialogue-led stories such as “Champagne” are the way in.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: the stories are short and self-contained, many run on dialogue, so you can read one at a time, translating single words and, for the 40-word periods of “Más allá” or “El panorama de la Princesa”, whole sentences.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the collection reads freely, with the irony intact; only the longest periods of the preface and of a few stories deserve a second look.
Start readingThe average sentence has 26 words, and one word in ten has 9 letters or more (10.5%). That puts it in the catalog’s C1 range, not B2: Quiroga’s Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte, a B2 collection on a similar theme, averages 14 words per sentence, Pardo Bazán’s own novels Los pazos de Ulloa and Un viaje de novios (both C1) about 20, and Tradiciones peruanas (C1) the same 26 as here. The difficulty is uneven: stories XXIII “Más allá” and XL “El panorama de la Princesa” run at more than 40 words per sentence, while XXXIX “La religión de Gonzalo” and XLII “Temprano y con sol...” stay at 16 or 17. The spelling of 1898 (á, fué, sólo) and the long ironic periods add work. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 63 368
- words
- 26
- words in an average sentence
- 11-18
- hours of reading
Administración. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Forty-three stories about love in all its forms, from the allegory that opens the book, where Eva tries every trick to escape the cheeky little rogue Love who follows her everywhere, to realistic sketches of life in Marineda. In “La novia fiel”, a ten-year engagement in Marineda breaks off to the surprise of the whole town; in “Champagne”, a woman who earns her living by being cheerful grows sad when a bottle is uncorked, because that wine cost her dear on her wedding day. Between them come apologues, ghost and convent stories, and tales of jealousy, remorse and first love, plus a preface in which the author says where some of her plots came from. How each of them ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Cuentos de amor
XXV. La novia fiel
. . . , . .
, . . .
Choose an underlined word.
Read á as a
In this 1898 text the preposition a is written á: á la zaga, á los lugares. Read it as a plain a; the same goes for fué and sólo, which keep accents that modern Spanish drops. Notice also the allegory: Love is a cheeky boy (pícaro rapaz) who hides in the train seats, the hand bag and the pockets, and each of Eva’s new tricks is a new verb of escape.
Idioms that smile
Two idioms carry the irony. Diez años de noviazgo no son grano de anís means that ten years of engagement are no small thing; la pusieron de largo means she was formally introduced to society, the moment a girl first wore long dresses. Notice too how the narrator tells the break first and keeps the reason for later: only the confessor had la clave del enigma, “the key to the riddle”.
Chapters
- ·Prefacio
- IEl amor asesinado
- IIEl viajero
- IIIEl corazón perdido
- IVMi suicidio
- VLa última ilusión de don Juan
- VIDesquite
- VIIEl dominó verde
- VIIILa aventura del ángel
- IXEl fantasma
- XLa perla rosa
- XIUn parecido
- XIIMemento
- XIIILa caja de oro
- XIVLa sirena
- XVAsí y todo...
- XVILa cabellera de Laura
- XVIIDelincuente honrado
- XVIIIPrimer amor
- XIXLa inspiración
- XXChampagne
- XXISor Aparición
- XXII¿Justicia?
- XXIIIMás allá
- XXIVLa culpable
- XXVLa novia fiel
- XXVIAfra
- XXVIICuento soñado
- XXVIIILos buenos tiempos
- XXIXSara y Agar
- XXXMaldición de gitana
- XXXILa bicha
- XXXIISangre del brazo
- XXXIIIConsuelo
- XXXIVLa novela de Raimundo
- XXXVEl encaje roto
- XXXVIMartina
- XXXVIIApólogo
- XXXVIIIA secreto agravio...
- XXXIXLa religión de Gonzalo
- XLEl panorama de la Princesa
- XLIRemordimiento
- XLIITemprano y con sol...
- XLIIISí, señor
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
The first sentence of “El amor asesinado”, “Nunca podrá decirse que la infeliz Eva omitió ningún medio lícito de zafarse de aquel tunantuelo de Amor”, hides its meaning behind a negative future (“it will never be said that”) and the verb zafarse de (“to get rid of”): translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how it fits together.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: Emilia Pardo Bazán’s complete Cuentos de amor, first published in 1898, with her preface and all 43 stories. The reader follows the text of volume 16 of her Obras completas (Administración, Madrid) as digitised by Project Gutenberg; the volume prints no year. The spelling is that of its time, with á, fué and sólo.
Is there an audiobook?
Love Stories has no audiobook on MovaReader: the text is read on screen, and the translation of a word appears when you tap it. You will need it most for rare words such as tunantuelo or agazapó.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in the long periods, for example the first sentence of “El amor asesinado”: “Nunca podrá decirse que la infeliz Eva omitió ningún medio lícito de zafarse de aquel tunantuelo de Amor.” Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 11-18 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. It is easy to read in pieces: the preface has about 1,600 words and the stories run from about 700 to 2,500 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It does not ease steadily, because every story stands alone. Sentences are shortest in “Temprano y con sol...” and “La religión de Gonzalo” (about 16 or 17 words) and in dialogue-led stories such as “Champagne”; they are longest in “Más allá” and “El panorama de la Princesa” (more than 40). The preface averages about 31.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back to the book where you left off. The preface and each of the 43 stories also open from the contents on this page, for example the first story, “El amor asesinado”.