It must be said that this storyteller is a woman impertinent about almost everything else, as well. I understood her to be formed by the history of her country, a mind-bending mix of life-giving beauty and grisly violence.

She is Spanish, very funny, very beautiful, and lives in Salamanca. She’s enough of a reason for any man to uproot himself and move to Salamanca.

SHE IS IMPERTINENT ABOUT TRAGEDY

The world is evolving toward perfection.

Consider this: as thieves perfect their boldness and treachery, and so improve their art, there will come eventually a thief who will steal thievery from the world.

Even more important: there will come a terrible band of killers who will murder all the other killers; and then, as they do always, turn upon each other.

This is not to say that those who want peace can stand down and do nothing. They must, for instance, make sure that thievery does not reassert itself in our world, because of people who think it’s risky, daring, subversive, and exciting. It should be pointed out that these qualities often distinguish activities that are idiotic.

And as to the killers: once they have eliminated one another, we must make sure that we remember their names in a museum of savagery and abomination. It must be a museum that is finely conceived, clean, efficient, and a credit to our community and our admirable public spirit. The rooms will be kept unreasonably hot, so that everyone will want to use the drinking fountain, and find out what human blood tastes like.