Meanwhile, you will not be bored. However one regards Gamboa's social and political attitudes, one cannot doubt his skill as a storyteller. The Spanish-language original is a spectacular achievement that can be only partly re-created in English. Santa contains a notable range of styles, from quite formal to quite colloquial. Formal descriptive set pieces like the courthouse scene deploy elaborate syntax and bombastic diction in sentences half a page long. On the other hand, Gamboa's dialogue is quite colloquial, capturing people talking in a variety of accents. So when the bullfighters or the madam of the brothel open their mouths, they sound Spanish, not Mexican. Alas, such distinctions disappear in translation. In the absence of dialect, I have transferred the natural, colloquial quality of the dialogue to a contemporary U.S. idiom. Likewise, I have tried to reproduce the elaborate syntax and bombastic diction of the tour-de-force descriptions only within the limits of what works naturally. As editor, I have reduced repetition and privileged reader comprehension above all else. As translator, I have worked to maintain the polish, poise, and vividness of Gamboa's prose.

One of the delights of Santa, should you give in to the guilty pleasure it affords, is its sentimentalism. It may seem odd, and it is quite out of keeping, really, with the naturalist aesthetic, but sentimentality is powerfully present. The scenes of Santa's girlhood in Chimalistac are particularly lyrical and sun drenched. In contrast to the rest of this rather dark novel, these childhood scenes read like sentimental local color meant to idealize small-town life, a chapter of costumbrismo amid the naturalismo. I confess to liking that chapter best. And then, of course, there are the wrenching final scenes during which, as I dutifully strived to reproduce Gamboa's tear-jerking intentions in English, I found myself having to wipe my eyes in order to see my text. Readers impervious to sentimentalism may prefer to concentrate on how a high-class brothel, a low-class dive, or a modern hospital or police station operated in 1900 Mexico City; or they may even turn, and pardonably so, to Gamboa's leering descriptions of our protagonist's firm brown flesh and the rippling muscles of the bullfighter who really loved her.

Santa, indeed, has something for everyone.

JOHN CHARLES CHASTEEN

Santa

Part One

One

“This is it,” said the coach driver, suddenly stopping the horses, who shook their heads in protest at his roughness. The passenger stuck her head out the door of the coach, looking to the left and right, and hesitantly, not recognizing the place, she asked in surprise:

“Here? Where is it?”

The driver, contemplating her with a wicked expression from his high perch, pointed with his whip:

“There, straight ahead. That closed door.”

The woman climbed out of the coach and reached back to extract a small bundle, her luggage. Then she stuck her hand in the pocket of her petticoat and handed a peso to the driver.

“This should cover it, sir.”

Very slowly and without taking his eyes off her, the driver stood, pulled several coins out of his pants pocket, put them on the roof of the vehicle, counted them, and finally returned the peso.