"Is Perez Galdos a pessimist?" asks the critic Clarin. "No, certainly;
but if he is not, why does he paint us sorrows that seem inconsolable?
Is it from love of paradox? Is it to show that his genius, which can do
so much, can paint the shadow lovelier than the light? Nothing of this.
Nothing that is not serious, honest, and noble, is to be found in this
novelist. Are they pessimistic, those ballads of the North, that always
end with vague resonances of woe? Are they pessimists, those singers of
our own land, who surprise us with tears in the midst of laughter? Is
Nature pessimistic, who is so sad at nightfall that it seems as if day
were dying forever? . . . The sadness of art, like that of nature, is
a form of hope. Why is Christianity so artistic? Because it is the
religion of sadness."


W. D. HOWELLS.




DONA PERFECTA



CHAPTER I

VILLAHORRENDA! FIVE MINUTES!

When the down train No. 65--of what line it is unnecessary to
say--stopped at the little station between kilometres 171 and 172,