II. ¡Adiós, Cordera!
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Thirteen realist stories for B2 readers
El Señor y lo demás son cuentos (with ¡Adiós, Cordera!) El Señor y lo demás son cuentos
Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”, 1919
A complete original, not an adaptation: thirteen stories by Leopoldo Alas “Clarín” in the 1919 Colección Universal edition, including ¡Adiós, Cordera!, the tale of two children and their cow. In the catalog it is B2: about 50,300 words and 21 words per sentence on average. The stories run from about 1,600 to 8,400 words, so you can read them one at a time; Cuento futuro and Benedictino have the shortest sentences (15-16 words), Rivales and Un viejo verde the longest (32-35).
- B2
- 50 303 words
- 8-14 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long sentences of Rivales and Un viejo verde (32-35 words) will be slow going, and the 1919 spelling (fué, oirle, aquéllos) and Asturian words like prao need unpacking.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: each story stands alone, so you can start with the 15-16 word sentences of Cuento futuro or Benedictino, or with ¡Adiós, Cordera!, and translate single words as you go.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the stories read freely; only the longest sentences of Rivales and Un viejo verde, and Clarín’s irony, still take work.
Start readingThe average sentence has 21 words, and one word in eleven has 9 letters or more (9.0%). That puts the book in the upper half of the catalog’s B2 texts: La Regenta by the same author averages 19 words per sentence, Pepita Jiménez 22. The rhythm changes from story to story: Cuento futuro averages about 15 words and Benedictino 16, ¡Adiós, Cordera! about 21, while Rivales reaches 35 and Un viejo verde 32. The vocabulary is rich but stays below the catalog’s C1 texts, where one word in ten or more is long. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 50 303
- words
- 21
- words in an average sentence
- 8-14
- hours of reading
- 1919
- Colección Universal
Colección Universal, 1919. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Thirteen stories in the Colección Universal volume. El Señor begins with Juan de Dios, a beautiful, pious boy raised by a widow, who keeps a small altar in his bedroom. ¡Adiós, Cordera! is set in an Asturian meadow beside the railway from Oviedo to Gijón, where the children Rosa and Pinín always go out with their cow, Cordera. Elsewhere Clarín tells of Don Abel and Don Joaquín, whom the town calls Cain and Abel, of the actress Petra Serrano’s company in La ronca, and of a Beethoven concert in Madrid in Un viejo verde. How these stories end, including the fate of Cordera, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El Señor y lo demás son cuentos
XI. Benedictino
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Choose an underlined word.
A cow among the children
The story opens on a list, Rosa, Pinín y la Cordera, and the article la turns the cow into a name, as in Asturian speech. The long second sentence, El prao Somonte era un recorte triangular de terciopelo verde tendido, como una colgadura, cuesta abajo por la loma, rests on its first verb: read era first, then tendido, which describes the cut of green velvet. Prao is the Asturian form of prado.
Old spelling, same Spanish
This 1919 edition keeps the spelling of its time: aquéllos carries an accent that modern Spanish drops, and oirle is today oírle. The nicknames carry the humor: the town calls the two friends Caín y Abel, and Caín, who walks in front, leads Abel along the route he dislikes. When the sentence says según Abel, it gives Abel’s opinion, not the narrator’s.
Chapters
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
In ¡Adiós, Cordera!, “Un palo del telégrafo, plantado allí como pendón de conquista, con sus jícaras blancas y sus alambres paralelos, a derecha e izquierda, representaba para Rosa y Pinín el ancho mundo desconocido” holds its verb back for 21 words: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the pieces fit.
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not an adaptation: thirteen stories by Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”, from El Señor to La rosa de oro, including ¡Adiós, Cordera!. The text follows the 1919 edition of the Colección Universal (Madrid-Barcelona), from Project Gutenberg. The editor’s foreword is left out, so the book opens directly on the first sentence of El Señor.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook of these stories on MovaReader: they are read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for Asturian and period words such as prao, colgadura or jícaras.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with the long sentences, for example “Un palo del telégrafo, plantado allí como pendón de conquista...” in ¡Adiós, Cordera!, or throughout Rivales, which averages 35 words per sentence. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 8-14 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The stories run from about 1,600 to 8,400 words and ¡Adiós, Cordera! has about 3,400, so one story makes a good evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays uneven, so there is no single point where it gets easier. Cuento futuro and Benedictino average 15-16 words per sentence, El Señor and ¡Adiós, Cordera! about 21-22, while Rivales (35) and Un viejo verde (32) are the densest. Each story stands alone, so you can read them in any order.
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 return to the book each evening where you left off. Any of the 13 stories also opens from the contents on this page, for example ¡Adiós, Cordera!, the second.