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Antonio devoted himself to his duties during the day and pursued his studies with eagerness during the night. What he suffered from home-sickness the reader can easily imagine. All through his later works are scattered reminiscences of those unhappy years in Madrid, when his memory fondly turned to the mountains and cherry-groves of his beloved Encartaciones.
Gradually, he awoke from his lethargy and became well in body and mind. As the reader can imagine, the story closes with his marriage to Catalina, who had such a great share in his recovery. He begins with an ironical description of the village of S in the Encartaciones, in which he depicts the simplicity of the inhabitants and their backwardness, in regard to the spirit of the age.
I, poor son of Adam, in whom the curse of the Lord on our first parents has not ceased to be accomplished a single day since the time when, still a child, I left my beloved valley of the Encartaciones, I shall love this life, and shall not believe myself exiled in the world while God, friendship, love and the family exist in it, while the sun shines on me every morning, while the moon lights me every night and the flowers and birds visit me every day."
The scene of all the stories of this collection is in the Encartaciones, and an examination of a few of them will make us acquainted with the usual range of characters and the author's mode of treatment. Here lived Santiago and Catalina, the latter a foundling whom Santiago's parents had found at their door one winter morning.
Christopher, and Casilda, the story of the Moorish king's daughter converted to the Christian religion by a physician from Judea, who proves to be Our Lord. We may say of this collection, as of the last, that, although the stories show much humor and skill, they are not among the author's best. He is most at home in the simple pictures of life in the Encartaciones or in the country near Madrid.
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