The September Revolution

By Narcís Oller

"Liberty, fraternity, equality! . . . What noble heart could take fright at the triumph of such Christian principles?" So the narrator of Oller's ironic tale of bitter disillusionment with youthful ideals asks himself only shortly before a mob of unruly revolutionaries comes to burn and pillage his family's house.

"To my way of thinking," writes Catalan diarist Josep Pla, "the finest piece of writing, perhaps the best to emerge from the pen of the novelist Narcís Oller, is called 'The September Revolution.' [...] It is an exemplary, perfect story subject to no momentary influence, highly perceptive, and extremely intelligent."

Genre: short story
Length: 5,800 words
Translated from Catalan by G. López de Górgolas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fario
• Release date: Oct 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301245000

Narcís Oller

Catalan writer and lawyer. Born in Valls in 1846 and died in Barcelona in 1930.

Book preview

The September Revolution

Narcís Oller

Translated by Gregory López de Górgolas

First published as La Revolució de Setembre

English translation copyright 2013 Gregory López de Górgolas and Fario

Published at Smashwords by Fario

Contents

The September Revolution

Translator’s Notes

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The September Revolution

My family’s liberal mentality, the generosity of feeling we all had in our early youth, theories picked up in the classroom, readings that privately nourished me, and the very air we breathed in academies and student centers had made a steadfast democrat of me.

I couldn’t have been even twenty years old, and it had already been at least four since I’d been getting into constant arguments with my uncle, a prototypical progressive,[1] a very well educated man, unusually knowledgeable, and endowed with extraordinary clairvoyance.

I would say that the individual has natural, inalienable rights, rights not subject to legislation. He, that natural rights are limited by those that, for its part, society has, and hence the absurdity of the theory of individualism.

I, that one of the rights the State should never trample on is that of free association. He, that freedom of association would fill Spain with monasteries and workmen’s associations run in bad faith by a handful of pilferers, creating nothing but disturbances and threats to the progress of a poor and backward country like ours.

I, that the middle class (the backbone of the country, as people, in a tone of praise, called it then) would suffice to stand up to monks and workmen and keep them in their place. He, that the middle class, still overly occupied consolidating its foundations and with little experience of the insidious struggles of politics, would lack the cohesiveness, foresight, leaders, and shrewdness to act as a counterweight to the