The passage describes the scene from the wedding of Paco el del Molino and his wife Águeda which took place 7 years before Paco’s requiem mass. Mosén Millán, the priest who performed the wedding ceremony and is about to perform the requiem mass, is recalling the wedding while sitting in his sacristy armchair. This is a key scene in Ramón J. Sender’s Réquiem por un campesino español, one of his most famous works. It is based on the life and death of a Spanish peasant in the lead up to and during the Spanish civil war.

In the very first line describing the wedding scene we are told of how great an occasion it was, “La boda fue como todos esperaban”. It conveys the anticipation leading up to the day for all involved particularly with the use of the verb ‘esperar’. It is an exciting day for the whole town culminating in Paco and Águeda’s ceremony and the celebrations that followed. The narrator talks about the great food, music and dancing and shirts stained with wine before the ceremony even begins. Through the narrator Sender describes the party atmosphere and wild celebrations in the town that spanned the entire day. We also learn early in the scene that Millan performed Paco’s baptism, confirmation and communion. This serves to demonstrate the close connection between the two even more so. It shows the two have known one another for all of Paco’s life and that mosen Millan has been a key figure in Paco’s life. Mosen Millan was with Paco as a baby, in his childhood and now