Valladolid

Valladolid is the destination of Diego and Julia’s reunion in Hafen Slawkenbergius’s embedded narrative: after Fernandez finds Diego and delivers Julia’s letter, the lovers travel together across France and the Pyrenees to reach Spain. Their safe arrival resolves the pursuit and separates their story from the Strasburgers’ fruitless search for Diego.

Place in the Embedded Tale

Valladolid enters the story as the homeward destination of Julia and her brother Fernandez, who had accompanied her from the city across the Pyrenees and through France in search of Diego. Julia’s strength fails at Lyons; sick and unable to go farther, she writes to Diego and asks Fernandez not to see her again until he has found Diego and placed the letter in his hands. That errand brings Fernandez to the inn where Diego is staying.

When the host explains that the stranger’s extraordinary nose has kept him from sleeping in the camp-bed, Fernandez recognizes the man he has sought. Julia’s letter has thus turned a journey of pursuit into the prospect of reunion: Fernandez and Diego set out together toward Lyons, where Julia is waiting.

Arrival and Resolution

After setting out from the inn, Diego and Fernandez pass the Rhine and cross Alsace toward Lyons. The narrative then brings Fernandez, Diego, and Julia together on the route over the Pyrenees, and all three reach Valladolid safely. The city marks the end of the long search and the recovery of the lovers’ shared journey; the account does not describe Valladolid itself, but uses arrival there to establish the outcome of their travels.

Geographic and Narrative Contrast

Valladolid also fixes the geography of the episode’s comic reversal. By the time the Strasburgers and the abbess of Quedlinburg begin their cavalcade, Diego, Fernandez, and Julia have already crossed the mountains and reached Spain. Diego can therefore no longer be encountered on the Frankfort road, where the Strasburgers spend three days and nights tossed about by curiosity before submitting to return home.

The city’s narrative importance lies less in local description than in this separation of routes. The lovers’ successful passage to Spain ends their pursuit, while the Strasburgers’ belated movement sustains the uproar surrounding Diego’s nose and prepares the way for the grievous political event promised in the embedded tale.