León is the first decisive stage in Manuel Arroyo Benítez’s passage out of the hardship of Robles de Laciana: there, academic distinction earns him a path to further study and the support that carries him on to Madrid. The city represents not a simple break with poverty, but an education purchased through effort, dependence on others, and increasing distance from home.

Education and escape

At the Sierra Pambley College in Villablino, Manuel proves an outstanding student. The calling he lacked for the priesthood, the narrative observes, he possessed in abundance for study; once he recognizes education as his only possible way out of Robles, his home, and the trap of his life, he applies himself with particular intensity. When three scholarships become available for secondary study in León, he works relentlessly and earns the highest mark among the candidates.

The scholarship opens a route onward, but it does not erase the poverty he comes from. His mother warns that the household cannot afford new clothes for him: two cows have died that winter, and he will have to make do with what he has. When the college’s patrons visit Villablino, Manuel is called to meet them. His fellow scholarship candidates wear their Sunday clothes; his best shirt is so torn at the collar that he borrows one from Hermene, and his only shoes are old and split at the sides. Though he tries to hide behind the others, the director makes him step forward. The encounter brings him into contact with two men who will become fundamental in his life, and he understands that they are not put off by his appearance.

From León to Madrid

In September 1922, Manuel leaves Robles de Laciana. At first, he writes home twice a month, sending separate copies to his mother and sister María. His siblings reply with family news: María fills a page and a half, leaving room for Leocadia’s kisses and embraces and for Hermenegildo’s brief, affectionate line. Their mother contributes only a message passed along beneath María’s writing. She sends Manuel barely two letters in his first year and none the next; he gradually writes home less often, until he too relies on messages through his siblings.

In 1926, Manuel goes from León to Madrid to study law, without passing through his village. A government scholarship helps him complete the degree quickly, while the Azcárate family—whose connection to the college reaches back to the foundation inspired by Manuel’s uncle Gumersindo—supports him from his first day in the capital. The move carries him from provincial education into a professional future: he works in a law office while taking courses at the Diplomatic School. In retrospect, Robles, the family home, and the parish sacristy seem to him like disconnected pieces of an uncertain past, almost as if he had made them up.

A place left behind, then revisited

León’s importance lies in the passage it enables. The education made possible there helps Manuel leave behind the home where he had lived like an uncomfortable guest, yet that escape also alters his connection to his family: the letters diminish, and he eventually travels to Madrid without returning to the village. The place belongs to a history that his new life makes feel remote, but not permanently closed.

In September 1931, just as Manuel is preparing to leave for Geneva, a telephone call from Don Marcos to the Azcárate household brings him back to Robles for his father’s funeral. The return marks the persistence of the past that his education and departure had seemed to turn into scattered, doubtful memories. León stands between those two movements: the beginning of Manuel’s life beyond home, and the route through which its claims continue to reach him.