SERVANT GIRL by Estrella Alfon

Estrella Alfon's "Servant Girl" is cut from a different cloth. Rosa is a healthy, down to earth female specimen acutely concsious of her own physical attractions, and sharply aware of the ineterest of the two men who circle her like fighting cocks ruffling their feathers at a hen. One is tempted to describe the story as a female version of Manuel Arguilla's "Midsummer", which has at its heart archetypal Man and Woman. But this is a more complex story.

First, there is the girl's fantasy about the cochero, whom she conceives as different from other men, more gallant, more gentle, and to whom she gives the name "Angel." Besides him, Sancho, her admirer, seems brutish and rude.

And then there is her relationship with her mistress, who is alternately abusive and generous with her. Though she has moments of rebellion against the treatment she receives from her mistress, Rosa basically accepts it as part of the scheme of things, even as she accepts being hit by a man.

Question: is this a surprisingly conservative story (surprising, in view of the fact that the author was known to be highly unconventional, and was once actually put on trial for writing pronography)?

The story raises issues--about class and about gender--which it does not really explore or resolve. It ends on a quiet note, with apparent acceptance of the way things are. And it is, incidentally, one of Alfon's most neatly structured and well-told stories.