Keywords: Pepita Jimenez, Juan Valera, Classic Literature
Pepita Jimenez By Juan Valera
"There is hardly any one here who can understand what they call my caprice of entering the priesthood, and these good people tell me, with rustic candor, that I ought to throw aside the clerical garb; that to be a priest is very well for a poor young man; but that I, who am to be a rich man's heir, should marry, and console the old age of my father by giving him half a dozen handsome and robust grandchildren.
In order to flatter my father and myself, both men and women declare that I am a splendid fellow, that I am of an angelic disposition, that I have a very roguish pair of eyes, and other stupid things of a like kind, that annoy, disgust, and humiliate me, although I am not very modest, and am too well acquainted with the meanness and folly of the world to be shocked or frightened at anything."
Juan Valera (1824 - 1905), was a Spanish novelist, critic, and diplomat. After a life of political writing and public service, Valera, at the age of 50, published his first novel, Pepita Jimenez (1874). In spite of being a first novel, Pepita was an international literary success. It is known for its great beauty of language, immediacy of characters, and its powerful, melodramatic story. Pepita Jimenez is included in the Harvard Classics, Vol. XX, part 1. Valera wrote a total of eight novels.
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