Leandra Elopes and Is Abandoned by Vicente

Leandra’s elopement with Vicente de la Roca ends not in the promised marriage but in abandonment: he takes the wealth she brings from home and leaves her in a mountain cave. As Eugenio tells it, her flight grows out of the contrast between Vicente’s carefully displayed soldierly glamour and the modest, protected life she leaves behind. Her return does not close the affair. It sets off a public search, exposes the deception, and reshapes the lives and judgments of the people around her.

Background and the Soldier’s Arrival

Vicente returns to his village after military service in Italy and elsewhere. He had been taken from the village as a boy of about twelve by a captain passing through; twelve years later, he appears in a soldier’s uniform and presents himself as a man of wide experience. The details of his appearance matter to Eugenio’s account: Vicente owns three suits in different colours, with matching stockings and garters, and combines them so artfully that villagers might think he has more than ten. His clothes are gaudy and flimsy, decorated with glass trinkets and fine steel chains. The spectacle suggests abundance and distinction, while Eugenio’s emphasis on the garments’ limited substance undercuts that impression.

Vicente also makes a performance of his supposed deeds. Beneath the great poplar in the village plaza, he holds listeners with stories of countries visited and battles fought, claiming victories on a scale that his hearers cannot verify. He points to marks that he says are gunshot wounds, though Eugenio says they cannot be made out. He treats social equals with conspicuous familiarity and asserts that his military deeds give him standing equal to a king’s. His guitar playing and long ballads add to the display. The soldier’s public persona is assembled from costume, stories, music, and self-praise; Leandra first encounters him through that performance.

Leandra’s Choice and the Flight

Leandra watches Vicente from a window of her house overlooking the plaza. His finery catches her attention, and his ballads and accounts of his exploits reach her there. Eugenio says she falls in love with him before Vicente has even considered courting her. Their understanding follows, and she leaves her father’s home with the soldier before her many suitors suspect what she intends. Her father is wealthy, and Leandra has been closely involved in the household: she has overseen its accounts and agricultural affairs, including the oil mills, winepresses, flocks, herds, and beehives. Her departure is therefore both an emotional rupture and a break from a home in which she occupied a trusted, responsible place.

The village reacts with astonishment. Eugenio says he is aghast, Anselmo is thunderstruck, Leandra’s father grieves, her relations are indignant, and the authorities are stirred into action. Officers of the Holy Brotherhood join the search. They comb the roads, woods, and surrounding areas; after three days, they find Leandra in a mountain cave, stripped to her shift and deprived of the money and precious jewels she had taken from home. The discovery turns the elopement into a clear case of betrayal: what had looked to the village like a bold escape with a soldier ends with Leandra isolated and robbed.

The Promise, the Deception, and the Return

Questioned after her recovery, Leandra says that Vicente deceived her with a promise of marriage. He had told her that he would take her to Naples, which he represented as the richest and most delightful city in the world. She says she believed him, took her father’s money and valuables, and handed them over to Vicente on the night she left. Instead of carrying out the promised plan, he took her to a rugged mountain, shut her in a cave, and went away with what she had given him.

Eugenio reports one qualification to the village’s interpretation of the affair: Leandra insists that Vicente did not violate her sexual honor. The claim surprises those around her, and Eugenio says it is difficult for them to believe, but her earnest insistence consoles her father. In a society where a woman’s honor could shape her family’s reputation and prospects, this distinction changes how the loss is understood: Vicente has taken her possessions and broken his promise, yet, according to Leandra, has not caused the particular dishonor her father fears most. The account gives her statement a consequential place without turning it into independent confirmation beyond her testimony.

On the same day Leandra reappears, her father takes her away and confines her in a convent in a nearby town, hoping that time will lessen the disgrace attached to her conduct. Her youth serves as an excuse for some observers, while others attribute her decision to impulsiveness despite her intelligence. Those judgments belong to the community’s response, not to a neutral verdict established by the events. Leandra’s own account explains her choice through attraction to Vicente’s performance and belief in his promise; the village’s explanations reveal how readily a woman’s decision is recast as a judgment on her character.

Aftermath and the Story’s Meaning

Leandra’s removal from view does not end her influence on the village. Eugenio and Anselmo, both among her suitors, leave their home and live in the valley as keepers of flocks—Anselmo with sheep and Eugenio with goats. They sing her praises, reproach her, or lament alone. Other disappointed lovers follow them into the mountains, where their pastoral life makes the landscape seem like Arcadia. The place fills with shepherds, and Leandra’s name is heard throughout it.

Their responses divide between condemnation and devotion. Some call her fickle or immodest; others excuse or praise her, while men who scarcely knew her also lament their supposed jealousy and rejection. Eugenio observes the contradiction that they all abuse her and all adore her. The aftermath thus magnifies the original deception: Vicente’s brief success becomes a durable communal obsession, and Leandra—first treated as an individual with a household and a choice—becomes the disputed subject of other people’s songs, sorrows, and moral judgments. The episode’s pastoral setting does not resolve the loss; it gives the suitors a stage on which to repeat it.