The failed plan to blow up Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas is a botched arson attempt by Don Ibrahim, the Potro del Mantelete, and Niña Puñales, undertaken on instructions from Celestino Peregil. A gasoline-soaked rag and a carelessly discarded cigarette turn their calculated effort to make damage look accidental into a fire in their own room. The church remains untouched; the would-be arsonists are left with burns, smoke damage, and a shared embarrassment. Set against the church’s repeated Masses and the old privilege that makes them a defense against demolition, the episode makes the threatened sanctuary’s conflict both farcical and perilous.

The Church and the Stakes

The scheme is aimed at a church whose survival depends in part on an old ecclesiastical privilege. Archbishop Aquilino Corvo explains that a papally sanctioned grant from 1687 makes Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas’ rights endure as long as Mass is celebrated there each Thursday for the soul of Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija, its benefactor. He says that Príamo Ferro celebrates Mass every day at eight in the morning, and twice on Sundays and feast days. The ancient condition is not merely ceremonial: it obstructs the secularization required before the church can be demolished.

The struggle around the building is also a contest over discipline and authority. Aquilino Corvo says he has requested that Príamo Ferro be suspended from office, but the process is slow, and he cannot simply prevent a parish priest from celebrating Mass. When Macarena Bruner describes the Thursday observance to Lorenzo Quart, she explains that an archbishop’s envoy and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira watch for any irregularity or lapse. If a priest failed to say Mass or omitted the required formula, the church could lose its protection, allowing the Archbishopric of Seville and Banco Cartujano to prevail. She fears that Príamo Ferro may be exposed to pressure, particularly with Óscar Lobato removed from the parish.

Planning the Arson

The three conspirators prepare an incendiary bottle with conspicuous care. Don Ibrahim pours unleaded 98-octane gasoline into a bottle of Anís del Mono, protecting the table with newspaper and wiping fuel from the glass. The Potro has obtained a litre of gasoline in an empty Carbonell olive-oil tin. Don Ibrahim’s device combines a candle, matches, a wind-up alarm clock, two metres of twine, and a falling bottle; he is proud of its rudimentary but effective design.

The plan is to ignite the device while all three are in a bar, in plain sight, so that they have an alibi. The stacked wooden pews and old roof beams are expected to help the fire spread. The aim is not necessarily to destroy the entire building: Peregil’s instructions, as the conspirators understand them, require only enough damage to ruin the church’s condition, though total destruction would suit the scheme even better. Above all, the damage is to appear accidental.

Their motives are not presented as a shared conviction. Niña Puñales initially refuses to participate because the target is consecrated ground. The others persuade her by arguing that the proceeds could pay for Masses elsewhere to atone for the act. She remains unwilling to take part in the actual ignition and confines herself to a supporting role, including preparing food. Don Ibrahim respects her conscience and tries to reason with her rather than command her. The Potro, by contrast, raises no objection and follows the group’s decisions with his usual impassivity.

The Accident and Its Aftermath

The device fails before it can be used against the church. As Don Ibrahim tries to settle Niña Puñales’ objections, he sees the Potro pass the table and instinctively reach with his cigarette to extinguish it in the ashtray, where the gasoline-soaked rag lies. Don Ibrahim calls out, but the Potro has already dropped the cigarette. In trying to stop him, Don Ibrahim knocks over the Anís del Mono bottle. The prospective arsonists’ own preparations thus produce an accidental blaze in their room rather than a staged fire at the church.

The consequences are painful but limited. Don Ibrahim and the Potro suffer superficial burns; the table is scorched and smoke stains the ceiling. The Potro runs around the room with his left arm on fire, while Niña Puñales keeps her presence of mind, dousing the men with a kitchen siphon and throwing a blanket over the table to smother the flames. The gasoline mishap nearly becomes a serious disaster, but no one is reported killed and the church is not damaged.

Afterward, the room fills with smoke and explanations, and neighbours gather at the door. The firefighters arrive only after the fire has already been put out. The three associates tacitly agree never to speak of the episode again; Don Ibrahim treats it as one of life’s painful chapters best forgotten. The failed operation therefore leaves no successful attack on the church, only physical traces in the conspirators’ quarters and a secret bound by their shared shame.

Ritual, Irony, and Narrative Significance

The arson plot is measured against the church’s ordinary religious life. At an eight o’clock Mass, Quart sees Príamo Ferro officiating before modest parishioners in a church under restoration, its pews stacked against the walls and scaffolding covering them. Ferro wears vestments marked by older practice, including the amice and a guitar-shaped chasuble, and uses Latin for portions of the service. The liturgy’s gestures and words give him an authority that Quart, despite his scepticism, finds difficult to dismiss.

For Quart, the Mass matters not only as an issue of doctrine or institutional rule. He recognizes the comfort its ritual offers the congregation: a warm, steadying presence in the face of cold and darkness. That communal effect gives the church a human significance beyond its contested property status. The attempted arson, by contrast, reduces the sacred building to vulnerable timber and a target to be damaged for another party’s purposes. Its comic reversal exposes the gap between the conspirators’ confidence in a technical device and their poor control of the material hazards they have assembled.

The episode’s farce does not make the threat harmless. The fire comes close to injuring the conspirators severely, while the larger plan is directed at a parish already under financial and administrative pressure. Its accidental failure buys no stated legal victory for the church and does not resolve the demolition dispute. Instead, the contrast between the botched attack and the precisely repeated Thursday Mass underscores how precarious the church’s protection is: an old condition must be renewed through a human ritual, while those seeking the building’s destruction can exploit a single failure or accident.