Summary Proceedings

In jail, a young stonecutter expiates who knows what terrible crime. In prison he becomes seriously ill. He is defeated, exhausted, broken. From the prison he passes to the hospital. And there he dies.

His elderly father cannot endure such a grave loss, and he also sickens. Dying, they carry him to the hospital and there he expires.

Two victims, in just a few days.

The poor, grieving mother surrenders to the terrible suffering. She falls ill in turn. She is at death’s door. She will die. At the hospital? Or in the stream. It is all one and the same.

Let us have no mawkishness. It is in bad taste. No apocalyptic condemnations. They are out of fashion.

Without tears and without wailing, let us say dispassionately that this is a horrible atrocity and that this horrible atrocity sums up the proceedings against the wonderful social organization in which we live.

Two women have risked this sad, terrifying story in El País. The men do not know that voices of indignation, even of reproach have been raised. So low they have fallen.

Let us sing with the Galician poet:

If this is the world that I have made,
Then let the devil take me.