To send, for that we are

Although the Spain that Miguel Delibes painted in

no longer exists, the novel is still valid for many reasons.

Francoism does not exist, nor does there exist a medievalizing aristocracy, nor radical misery, nor illiteracy, nor rude young gentlemen, who are the sociological foundations of the novel.

However, and this is the current situation of

, a world of hierarchies and privileges continues to exist.

The division between fortunate human beings and impoverished human beings continues, because the privileges are camouflaged, but they prevail.

And it is there where Delibes's fable hits hard and where his powerful actuality resides.

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The kite of Azarias

The story of Azarías, Paco

la Régula, la Niña Chica, is not exhausted in the social and political denunciation, without taking away an iota of importance from that denunciation, since

is the novel that with the sharpest precision of high moral and literary surgery compromised an unappealable condemnation of the Franco regime.

Today, with this book in hand, we can continue to feel tenderness and love towards the exploited, towards the miserable.

Because privileges and castes are still in force, and as long as there are human beings willing to exploit other human beings, this novel by Delibes will continue to have the same force with which it appeared in 1981.

We have to worry about bequeathing to those who come, to young people, our most valuable literary treasures.

For this reason, the theatrical adaptation of this novel is good news, as was the exceptional film version of Mario Camus in the eighties.

There is a hidden treasure in this work by Delibes, which works marvelously well both in theater and in a book, and that treasure is the dialogues of the characters.

The manner of speaking of both the gentlemen and the servants reflects a unique Spanish.

It seems carved in the bowels of the language.

It is full of poetry, but good poetry.

Delibes had an exceptional ear to capture the language of the people.

That “to send, for that we are” in the mouth of the Régula, or the “beautiful milana” as a hermetic psalmody of Azarías and already forgotten words such as perch, zahurdón, torvisca, brooding, mancar, tollo, achares, and many, many more , turn the novel into a sound prodigy.

No one speaks Spanish like that anymore.

Nobody says things like "I'm with the sloth that I say", or "the missing partridge bird, Señorito Iván, the one you came down from the edge of the broom, Facundo has toiled for me".

It was the way of speaking of thousands and thousands of peasants.

Today

It is almost a ghost novel.

They are the unredeemed ghosts of the post-war Spanish peasantry, whom Delibes, with infinite tenderness, immortalized through his humble words.

This work serves so that the suffering of thousands of Spaniards, the suffering of the peasants, is never forgotten.

Let us always remember this phrase: "To send, that's what we are for".

So we continue to obey.

It seems like an endless sentence.

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