I. Capítulo 1
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A novel of a trip and a bad match for C1
A Wedding Trip Un viaje de novios
Emilia Pardo Bazán, 1919
Emilia Pardo Bazán’s 1881 novel from the 1919 Madrid edition by Pueyo, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C1: about 68,400 words and 20 words per sentence on average. 14 chapters about young Lucía’s honeymoon journey from León to France; long descriptions alternate with lively conversations.
- C1
- 68 402 words
- 11-19 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the long descriptions with rare words like cerquillo or incontrastable and the preface, with 36-word sentences, will slow you down.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: the descriptions in chapters I-III and IX-XIII need attention, and the talks between Lucía and Artegui move in shorter sentences.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the novel reads freely; only old forms like diera for daría slow you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 20 words, longer than in any Spanish B2 book in the catalog (13 to 18), and one word in ten has 9 letters or more, as in The Lady of the Camellias. The difficulty comes in waves: chapters I-III and IX-XIII average about 22 words per sentence, IV-VIII about 17, and the last chapter, XIV, about 16. The author’s preface is denser still, at 36 words per sentence. The descriptions are rich in rare words like cerquillo, and Lucía’s speech is full of broken phrases. Hence C1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 68 402
- words
- 20
- words in an average sentence
- 11-19
- hours of reading
- 1919
- Pueyo
Pueyo, 1919. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Young Lucía from León marries Aurelio Miranda, a man much older than she is, and sets off with him on a honeymoon to France, then a new fashion. At night at a station the couple are separated: Lucía wakes up on the train without her husband, next to a silent stranger, the Basque Ignacio Artegui, gloomy and tired of life. Later, in Bayonne, Lucía meets Pilar, a girl with anemia who is also bound for the spa at Vichy. How the journey ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Un viaje de novios
VI. Capítulo 6
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Choose an underlined word.
A send-off with irony
Pardo Bazán describes the couple’s send-off on the platform with a light irony: the bride’s relatives are grupos de hormigas negras (“groups of black ants”), and the force of facts pushes them back into real life. A vueltas de algún suspiro means “amid a sigh or two”. Cerquillo is the ring of hair around a priest’s tonsure; here the Jesuit stretches up to reach the father’s shoulder.
Lucía speaks in fragments
Lucía’s speech is colloquial: broken phrases with ellipses and dashes, the exclamation ¡a que...! (“I bet...”) and vamos (“well, I mean”). Diera... lo que no sé is an old subjunctive standing for daría: “I’d give who knows what”. Don Ignacio is how Lucía addresses Artegui by his first name.
Where the text gets harder
I-IIIlong sentences
IV-VIIIshorter sentences
IX-XIIIlong sentences again
XIVshorter sentences
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 chapters IX and XIII sentences average about 26 words, and in the preface 36: translating the whole sentence in Reader helps you keep hold of the description.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books B2 Earlier The House of Ulloa Los pazos de Ulloa Another book by the same author C1 The Lady of the Camellias La dama de las camelias Another 19th-century love story at C1, but translated from French: shorter sentences, 17 words against 20, with a long word likewise one in ten C1
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Emilia Pardo Bazán’s complete 1881 novel with the preface in which she explains that the book grew out of her own trip to the spa at Vichy in 1880. The reader follows the 1919 Madrid edition by Pueyo.
Is there an audiobook?
This novel has no audiobook on MovaReader: here it is read. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for rare words such as cerquillo or incontrastable.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in chapters IX and XIII, where sentences average about 26 words, and in the preface, where they reach 36. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 11-19 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters are long, from 2,700 to 7,700 words, so a big one is worth two evenings.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter IV, but not for long. Chapters I-III average about 22 words per sentence, IV-VIII about 17, then IX-XIII about 22 again, and the last chapter about 16.
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 novel every evening where you left off. Any of the 14 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter IV, where the text eases for a while.