Bécquer's Legends: Don Juan, Green Eyes, and The Stranger
Classic Spanish Literary Fragments and Legends
Come Back Tomorrow
A person facing many hurdles abroad decides to leave home. This decision is made without resolving a complex family affair.
Pegleg (The Merchant)
A merchant in London, known for his wooden leg, lost his original limb and had a prosthetic device made. The trader was dismissive of warnings or concerns regarding his condition.
Travelers coming from the North claimed to have seen him pass through the Canadian woods very quickly. More recently, an unarmed skeleton, supported by a wooden leg, was seen roaming the Pyrenees.
Mount of the Souls (Monte de las Ánimas)
This story involves the characters Beatriz and Alonso, set in Soriano.
Green Eyes (Los Ojos Verdes)
During a hunt, a deer was killed. The cavalcade arrived at a spring rumored to be evil. The character Anamora was kissing Fernando when he fell to the bottom of the spring.
The Don Juan
A man with a reputation as a famous seducer finds a single woman on the street and decides to conquer her. He follows her to her home. When she looks out from the balcony, Don Juan is splashed with a liquid and falls. He then heads to the couple's home and is knocked out by swinging books.
A few days later, a woman hands him a note, quoting him for the following night. He goes and follows the woman, only to discover, to his amazement, that she is an old crone. Laughter was heard in the room, and a dense crowd entered—it was the couple and the entire crowd who had beaten him up in the street, leaving him unconscious.
After many similar experiences, he is locked up as insane, though he claims it is because society is too dangerous for him.
The Stranger
The story centers on an abusive Legionnaire nicknamed Laughter, who steals a medallion and kills a Polish prisoner named Iwa. The man telling the story later encounters a group of Legionnaires who know Laughter during a trip to Poland.
They cross paths with Iwa's mother, who recognizes her son's medallion. She becomes furious upon learning of his death.
The Polifermo
A serious man whose imposing presence, enormous white mustache, and fierce look were notable. He owned a dog named Muley.
Muley's Conversation with Chiripa
Chiripa, a poor vagabond, recounts his sad story and the impossibility of entering public places due to his homeless condition. This changes one day when he enters a church and notices that nobody is looking at him with sideways glances or bad gestures. He sees that there were many other people like him there.