LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA QUEMADA
NOT knowing what they are talking about, Señor, many people will tell you that the Street of the Burned Woman got its name because—in the times when the Holy Office was helping the goodness of good people by making things very bad for the bad ones—a woman heretic most properly and satisfactorily was burned there. Such is not in the least the case. The Quemadero of the Inquisition—where such sinners were burned, that their sins might be burned out of them—was nowhere near the Calle de la Quemada: being at the western end of what now is the Alameda, in quite a different part of the town. Therefore it is a mistake to mix these matters: and the real truth is that this beautiful young lady did herself destroy her own beauty by setting fire to it; and she did it because she wanted to do it—that in that way she might settle some doubts which were in her heart.
[52]
