The September Revolution

"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.