So you call this a play,
Gabrielito?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v11 - Fro to Gre
Valera
stands apart in a different way, and would occupy himself by prefer-
ence with the opposite class of society. He is the most learned and
scholarly of the quartette, and his writing is the most carefully pol-
ished in style. He is a scholarly critic and essayist as well as a
novelist. He is a realist like the rest, yet eschews, for instance, the
imitation of dialect: he is not a realist in quite the same energetic
and conscientious way; his atmosphere, while no doubt equally true,
is rather dreamy and poetic. Valdés and Galdós are much more
vividly modern, and they treat many of the same kind of subjects,
the events of real life such as we see it all around us. Of the four,
Valdés has perhaps, in certain passages, the truest tenderness and
most delicate pathos, and the most genuine humor, of that sunny
kind which allows us to laugh without bitterness. He can sometimes
be bitter too, and such a severe social satire as 'Froth' and such
books as The Grandee' and 'The Origin of Thought' leave, like
many of those of Galdós, an impression of gloom; yet even in these
we are charmed on the way by his light touch and easy grace of
treatment. Galdós is he who takes the gravest attitude; many great
problems of life and destiny occupy him seriously; he not only is
very earnest, but seems so, which does not however preclude a
plentiful use of humor, as will be seen in the examples given. Fur-
thermore, he is much the most prolific of the distinguished group,
and to that extent he may be said to have the widest range.
These writers are a highly beneficent influence in Spain at the
present time, spreading over it as they do a multitude of stimulat-
ing pictures and liberalizing ideas, cast into charming literary form.
They cannot fail to have a considerable effect upon conduct. In its
manner, its aversion to obscurity, and fondness for floods of daylight
that almost abolish shadow, this fiction is like the Spanish-Roman school
-
## p. 6156 (#126) ###########################################
6156
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
of art, the painting of Fortuny, the two Madrazos, and others: the two
seem but manifestations of a common impulse. On another side it is
to be recommended to foreigners, as affording a body of information
about Spain such as the mere traveler could never attain, and which
it is useless to look for in fiction depending for its interest upon
clever devices of plot and fantastic adventure. It lets an illumination
into the heart of what has been the most reserved and mysterious
country of Europe. It shows the true Spain, and not merely the
conventional one of strumming guitars and jingling mule bells. With
all its strangeness, we see it full of that genuine human nature that
makes the world akin; and we see, with pleasure and hope, the
breaking up of the forces of medievalism, the working of a mental and
moral turmoil that is preparing the way for a general betterment.
It would not be reasonable to suppose that Spanish literature re-
mained wholly unaffected by the vigorous French movement just
across the border. On the contrary, it clearly shows the trace of the
robust modern style that has prevailed in France from Balzac to Zola.
This trace, however, is in the style and not in the matter.
It may
possibly have aided the plainness of speech in the Spanish work,
which is greater than in English books; and yet this plainness of
speech is probably not greater than all books should be allowed, in
the interest of their own usefulness, and in order not to be narrow
instead of broad pictures of life. The tone towards sexual problems
is never flippant; immorality is never put in an attractive light; there
is hardly anywhere a more severe homily on the text that "the wages
of sin is death" than is found in the wretched career of the trans-
gressors in such books as Galdós's 'Lo Prohibido,' Tormento,' and
'La Desheredada. '
Just as in English books, the young girl, her aspirations and her
innocent love affairs before marriage, figure largely in these novels.
It is not necessary for her to wait until she is married in order
to become a suitable heroine for fiction. Religious revolt or dissent,
again, is one of the features most often used. There is still a very
close union of Church and State in Spain, and life has a very ecclesi-
astical coloring. Nearly every family has ties of relationship or inti-
macy with some ecclesiastical person of either sex. This brings it
about that such figures are as frequent in books as, correspondingly,
in real life. In Valera's 'Pepita Ximenez' we find an earnest young
student, a candidate for the priesthood, son of a noble house, turned
aside from his holy career-through his father's connivance - by the
fascinations of a most charming woman, their neighbor. In Valdés's
'Sister San Sulpicio' it is a young novice, a delightfully gay and
bright creature, whom love and matrimony withdraw from her con-
vent. In the same author's 'Marta y Maria' a fair young girl is seen
## p. 6157 (#127) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDOS
6157
endeavoring to conform in the midst of modern life to the ascetic
ideals of the mediæval saints, even to the point of wearing hair-
cloth and beating her tender shoulders with a scourge. Galdós's 'Doña
Perfecta' and 'The Family of Leon Roch' combat the undue influ-
ence of the confessor, or religious adviser, in the family, and Gloria'
combats the immemorial bitter prejudice against the Jews. As may
be seen, many of these subjects, if approached in a flippant way,
might easily lend themselves to grossness and scandal; but such is
not the Spanish spirit. The tone towards the Church is severely crit-
ical, but not destructive. It is the true secular tone of this century,
which holds that a conventional attention to the things of the next
world is only due when all demands for benevolence towards living
men are satisfied. Howells points out that Galdós attacks only the
same intolerant eccelesiastical spirit that elsewhere would be known by
another name. These critics would "reform the party from within";
and as they handle with so much skill and consideration the sensi-
bilities of their countrymen who still adhere to the fold, their efforts
are the more likely to have a potent effect. It seems a curious an-
omaly that Pereda, the one of them who is the most modern and
stirring in the intellectual way, professes himself the champion of
monarchy in its most absolute form.
The beginnings of the present fiction are somewhat feebly found
in Antonio de Trueba, and Madame Böhl de Faber, who signed herself
"Fernan Caballero, "— one of the first of those who took a man's
name, after the fashion of George Sand. These first wrote of other
things than the romantic knights and castles, Moors and odalisques,
of Scott and Victor Hugo. Fernan Caballero (1797 to 1877), a genial
optimist who wrote idealized descriptions of nature, still has a certain
vogue. Perez Escrich produced a large number of novels of a hu-
manitarian cast; Fernandez y Gonzalez poured them out, of a cheap
order, in a torrent, and became the very type of hasty production.
Pedro de Alarcon figures as a kind of link uniting the earlier period
to the present, and such a book as his 'El Sombrero de Tres Picos'
(The Three-Cornered Hat) is said to be read by some of the present
generation with admiration. But it seems to others a trifle, of no
great merit, marred by an excessive straining after effect; nothing
in it is simply or naturally said. Students of the more realistic side
of the movement should read Madame Pardo Bazan's valuable critical
study, 'La Cuestion Palpitante' (The Vital Question). Various books
by the leading authors named have been well translated into English
by Clara Bell, Mrs. Mary J. Serrano, Mary Springer, Rollo Ogden,
Nathan Haskell Dole, and others.
## p. 6158 (#128) ###########################################
6158
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
II
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS was born May 10th, 1845, in the Canary Islands.
Las Palmas, his birthplace, capital of the Grand Canary, is a well-
built little town of about eighteen thousand people, and the island is
the most fertile of the group. In climate and situation the islands
belong rather to Africa than Europe. The people are considered
descendants of the Gothic inhabitants of Spain, who sought refuge
there from the Saracen invasion. Their existence was all but lost to
sight for some centuries, and they were only brought under European
sway about the time of the discovery of America. These Fortunate
Islands, the somewhat unusual scene where Galdós was born and
passed his youth, would seem to offer a fresh literary field, yet no
word of description or reminiscence concerning them appears in any
of his books. This is perhaps part of the policy of reserve that
induces him to deny, even by implication, any biographical details
concerning himself,- a reserve so marked as to have been generally
noted as an eccentricity. Leopoldo Alas, his biographer, in the 'Cele-
bridades Españolas Contemporanéas,' assures us that it was only with
the greatest difficulty he drew from him the bare admission that he
was born in the Canary Islands. He made his studies there in the
State college, and came to Madrid at the age of eighteen to study
law. He had no great liking for it, and did not follow it further,
unless as it became a step for entrance into political life, for he has
been a deputy in the National Cortes, for Porto Rico. He did not
acquire skill in forensic eloquence; his biographer, above, states that
he cannot put four words together in public, nor in private either.
A reticent man, he is forced to write in order to find expression.
He wrote his first book in 1867 and '68, but it was not published
till 1871. In the mean time the revolution of 1868 took place, which
enlarged the boundaries of freedom in literature as in many other
directions; and Galdós at Barcelona had some small part in it. The
book was 'La Fontana de Oro (The Fount of Gold). It treats
of the aspirations of the "ardent youth" of 1820, who rebelled
against the reactionary policy brought in by Ferdinand VII. after the
expulsion of the French from the country; and in the student hero
Lázaro he perhaps displays his own ideas at the period. Violent
political clubs were formed, on the model of the Jacobin Clubs of
the French Revolution, and it is from the name of a café that was
the meeting-place of the most famous of these clubs that the name
of the story is derived. His next book was 'El Audaz' (The Fear-
less: 1872). The period is the same. The hero is an utterly fearless
young radical, who has been driven to revolt through wrongs done
## p. 6159 (#129) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6159
his family by the Count de Cerezuelo. By a peculiar hazard, though
far below her in social station, he meets the daughter of the count,
a very proud and disdainful beauty. It is her caprice to fall in love
with him, and she remains true to him to the end, when he dies in
a street tumult, having first gone mad with his superheated enthu-
siasm. These early books are conceived upon conventional romantic
lines, and hardly gave promise of their author's future fame. They
contain however passages of strong character-drawing, like that of
the Porreños, three ancient spinster sisters of a fallen patrician
house in 'El Audaz,' which are equal to his later work.
He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began
to give him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a
score of historical romances, after the model of those of Erckmann-
Chatrian, called 'Episódios Nacionales (National Episodes). They
are divided into two series, the first beginning with Trafalgar›
(1873).
the second with 'El Equipaje del Rey José (King Joseph's
Baggage: 1875). They deal with the two modern periods comprising
the deliverance of the country from the usurpation of the French,
and the more obscure struggles against Ferdinand VII. , who sought
to reduce the country under the same absolutist rule that had pre-
vailed before the ideas of the French Revolution liberalized the whole
of Europe.
The history in these romances is intermingled with
personal interests and adventures, to give it an air of informality:
and though each is complete in itself, some knowledge of Spanish
history is desirable as an aid to understanding them. They are con
siderably interlinked among themselves, the same characters appear-
ing more or less in successive volumes.
is one Gabriel, who narrates them all in the first person. He is a
poor boy who becomes servant to a family near Cadiz. He accom-
panies his master on board the huge Santissima Trinidad, the
largest ship of her age, and is able to describe in detail the action
of Trafalgar, the description being the more interesting for us as
coming from the Spanish point of view.
IV. (The Court of Charles IV. : 1873), we find him page to a leading
actress, and an eye-witness to the degeneracy of that monarch and
favorite Godoy, which resulted in the seizure of the country by
In 'La Batalla de los Arapiles'
The hero of the first series
In 'La Corte de Carlos
Napoleon for his brother Joseph.
(translated by Rollo Ogden as The Battle of Salamanca': 1875), the
of the series, the same Gabriel is a major, and performs an
important commission for Wellington. He has risen to this level step
his
last
Step, and on the way has had as many adventures as one of
Dumas's guardsmen, and has carried them off as gallantly. In the
second series of 'Episódios,' Salvador Monsalud is the principal char-
He is a young fellow who is led by dire want- and also by
acter.
by
## p. 6160 (#130) ###########################################
6160
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
sharing the liberalized French view of the decadence and worth-
lessness of the Spanish form of rule-to take service in the body-
guard of Joseph Bonaparte. A chapter full of strength and pathos,
in King Joseph's Baggage,' shows him disowned by his mother and
cast off by his village sweetheart on account of such service, both of
them frantic with a spirit of independence like that which animated
the Maid of Saragossa. A feature of this book that gives it ori-
ginality is that the action turns not upon the usual principal features
of battle, but upon the fate of the rich baggage train of booty with
which Joseph Bonaparte had hoped to escape to France after his
brief, disastrous reign.
The 'Episódios' have had an extensive influence, and have been
imitated, under a like title, in the Spanish Americas. The author's
tone toward the past is generally severe and disdainful. "Had Spain,
perchance, a 'constitution' when she was the foremost nation in the
world? " he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, with sar-
donic intent. He has been called unappreciative, and his attitude
towards Spanish antiquity has been protested against by other lead-
ing writers, of more conservative feeling, as unwarranted. These
romances contain some passages showing aversion to the barbarities
of war, but in general they are less humanitarian than those of
Erckmann-Chatrian: they are principally devoted to glorifying Span-
ish fortitude and courage. These books are a great advance upon
the two earlier novels; from the first they showed literary workman-
ship of a high order: they possess ingenuity of plot, sufficient proba-
bility, and graphic power of description, movement, and conversation.
In the latter respects, indeed, they surpass some of the author's later
works that make more serious pretensions.
The wider and more definitely literary reputation of Pérez Galdós
rests upon more than a score of other works, in addition to the above.
These are distinctly novels, as contrasted with romances; and they
treat of contemporary life, in a method that aims to be conscien-
tiously observant and impartial. It is often said, without much reflec-
tion, that we see enough of the things close about us, and need
our literary recreation in the remote and strange. But it must be
recalled that we see those things without the eyes of genius, and he
is a true benefactor who poetizes and dignifies life in making evident
that all of life is vivid with interest, even that part of it nearest to
us, which without such illumination we may have thought devoid
of it. The words in which the ostensible narrator of 'Lo Prohibido'
(Forbidden Fruit: 1885), explains the purpose of his journal may well
enough be taken to exhibit the method of Galdós. It was to set
down "my prosaic adventures, events that in no way differ from
those that fill and make up the lives of other men. I aspire to no
## p. 6161 (#131) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6161
further effects than such as the sincere and unaffected presentation
of the truth may produce; and I have no design upon the reader's
emotions by means of calculated surprises, frights, or conjurer's
tricks, through which things look one way for a time and then turn
out in a manner diametrically opposite. "
The titles of a number of his principal books, not hitherto given,
with dates, are as follows. The dates are those when they were
written, and they were generally published shortly after: 'Doña
Perfecta, 1876; Gloria,' 1876; Torquemada en la Hoguera' (Tor-
quemada at the Stake: 1876); Marianela,' 1878; 'La Familia de Leon
Roch' (Leon Roch's Family: 1878); 'Los Cien Mil Hijos de San Luis'
(The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: 1877) of the Episódios;
'Un Faccioso Más' (A Rebel the More: 1879) the completion of the
Episódios; 'La Desheredada' (The Disowned: 1881); 'El Amigo
Manso (Friend Mildman: 1882); El Doctor Centeno,' 1883; Tor-
mento, 1884; 'La de Bringas' (That Mrs. de Bringas: 1884); Fortu-
nata y Jacinta,' 1886; 'Miau,' 1888; 'La Incógnita' (The Unknown:
1889); Realidad' (Reality: 1890); Angel Guerra,' 1891; Torquemada
en la Cruz' (Torquemada on the Cross: 1894); Torquemada en el
Purgatorio (Torquemada in Purgatory: 1894); Torquemada y San
Pedro, 1895; 'Nazarin,' 1895; 'Halma,' 1896.
Even in his new departure, Galdós did not at once enter upon his
final manner. 'Doña Perfecta,' The Family of Leon Roch,' and
'Gloria' are quite distinctly didactic, or "novels with a purpose";
while Marianela' is somewhat cloyingly sentimental, a prose poem
after the manner of Ouida. In spite of all this, however, 'Doña Per-
fecta' has been pronounced by many his best work. It is the one that
has obtained greatest celebrity abroad, and it is the one, all things con-
sidered, likely to be the most satisfactory example of his work to the
English reader. 'La Desheredada' marks the transition to his final
period, and he has put it upon record that with this book the real
difficulties of his vocation began. It is a poignantly affecting story
of a poor girl who was brought up, by a parent half knave and half
insane, to believe that she was not his daughter but that of a noble
house. After his death she undertakes in all good faith to prose-
cute her claim, and is thrown into prison as an impostor. Her heart
is broken by the disillusionment; she cannot adjust herself to life
again without the sweetness of that beguiling belief, and so, in the
end, not having the boldness to die, she throws herself upon the street,
a social outcast. Both in the person of Isidora and others, the
book is a moving treatise on false education. Other leading figures
are her brother, a young "hoodlum" and thief, the burden of whose
career she has also to bear upon her slender shoulders, and the pam-
pered son of the poor Sastres, who have denied themselves bread that
XI-386
## p. 6162 (#132) ###########################################
6162
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
he might have an education and luxuries. He has a hundred fine
schemes for getting a living, but never a one of them includes turn-
ing his hand to a stroke of honest labor.
'El Amigo Manso' is an extended piece of character-drawing, self-
told, in a gently humorous vein. It gives an account of a college
instructor, very benevolent, very methodical and prudent, and a trifle
conceited and patronizing, who is in love with a pretty governess.
By the time he has settled all his judicious pros and cons, the pretty
governess, who really cared nothing about him, is engaged to a suitor
of a more dashing sort. The scenes of Tormento,' 'La de Bringas,'
and 'Miau' are laid chiefly among the class of minor office-holders,
with whose manners the author shows an exhaustive familiarity, and
each has its peculiar tragic situation in itself. 'Realidad,' written
once in the form of a novel, and again as a drama, treats of the
subject of a wife's infidelity, as it might pass in real life, instead of
in the conventional and hackneyed way. Its title seems to propose
to adhere even closer to the exact truth than do the others. There
come to mind, in its suppressed passion and its calm, intellectual,
and bitter philosophy, suggestions both of Ibsen and Suderman.
The banker Orozco, a noble and reserved nature, does not slay his
wife, does not banish her from him, nor even make her reproaches.
Augusta, on her side, wonders if his mind is not giving way. This
bitter commentary on life is as near as her smaller mind can approach
to a comprehension of his magnanimous conduct. The same Augusta,
earlier, has said in conversation, "Real life is the greatest of all
inventors; the only one who is ever ready, fresh, and inexhaustible
in resource. " In these books, however serious, the purpose does not
obtrude to the detriment of art; the reader is left free to draw his
own conclusions, as from events in actual life; the author ostensibly
is neither for nor against, and yet he leaves us in no doubt as to
his decision, always a moral and stimulating one.
The favorite scenes of Galdós's books are in Madrid and the small
suburban resorts round about it, or at the numerous mineral springs
which are so important a feature of Spanish summer life. He him-
self lives at Madrid, but goes for the season to a summer place he
owns on the bold cliffs of the Bay of Biscay, at Santander. There,
too he is near to Pereda, between whom and himself a remarkable
friendship exists. A friendship so strong, warm, and long continued
has been recognized as a notable feature in the careers of both.
is the more remarkable because except in literature, which both set
above everything else, he is violently opposed to most of the views of
Pereda-a conservative of the conservatives, even to the point of
preferring the absolutist pretender Don Carlos for king. Even at
Madrid and at Santander, however, Galdós's scenery is mere stage
It
## p. 6163 (#133) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6163
setting; he does not describe nature sympathetically nor aim to ren-
der local color in an accurate way.
As the action must pass some-
where, he gives it just as much of a setting as will suffice, and seems
satisfied with that. The impression of his books, on the whole, is a
gloomy one. He who sees life clearly must perchance see it darkly,
and few see it more clearly than Galdós. Yet his admirers will not
have it that he is pessimistic, because Nature herself is not pessi-
mistic. Even the sadness of nightfall ought not to be considered
gloomy, they say, with much show of reason, since it is only the
preparation for another day.
William Henry Bishop
THE FIRST NIGHT OF A FAMOUS PLAY, IN THE YEAR 1807
From The Court of Charles IV. Copyright 1888, by W. S. Gottsberger.
Reprinted by permission of George G. Peck, publisher, New York
[Gabriel, a boy of sixteen, has taken service as page with a very charming
actress of the Principe Theatre. Between this theatre and La Cruz exists
the same sort of hostility as between the rival theatres at Venice when Goldoni
inaugurated his reform. La Cruz represents the new and "natural" spirit in
the drama, as against the absurd artificial tradition that had prevailed up to
that time. A part of Gabriel's duties is to go and hiss the plays at that thea-
The principal occasion of this kind is when he accompanies a band, led
by a rival playwright, to the first performance of 'El Sí de las Niñas (The
Maidens' Yes), by the famous Moratin, the leading piece of the new school. ]
tre.
"WHA
THAT an opening! " he [the rival poet and playwright] ex-
claimed, as he listened to the first dialogue between
Don Diego and Simon. "A pretty way to begin a
comedy! The scene a village inn! What can happen of any
interest in a village inn? In all my plays, and they are many,
- though never a one has been represented,- the action opens in
a Corinthian garden, with monumental fountains to the right and
left, and a temple of Juno in the background; or in a wide square
with three regiments drawn up, and in the background the city
of Warsaw, with a bridge, and so forth. And just listen to the
twaddle this old man is made to talk! He is about to marry a
young girl who has been brought up by the nuns of Guadalajara.
Well, is that very remarkable? Is not that a matter of every-
day occurrence ? »
## p. 6164 (#134) ###########################################
6164
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
Pouring out these remarks, that confounded poet did not allow
me to hear a word of the piece, and though I answered all his
comments with humbly acquiescent monosyllables, I only wished
that he would hold his tongue, deuce take him! .
"What a vulgar subject! what low ideas! " he exclaimed, loud
enough for every one to hear. "And this is how comedies are
written! "
on.
"But let us listen to it," said I, finding my chief's comments
quite intolerable. "We can laugh at Moratin afterwards. "
"But I cannot bear such a medley of absurdities," he went
"We do not come to the theatre to see just what is to be
seen any day in the streets, or in every house you go into. If
instead of enlarging on her matrimonial experiences, the lady
were to come in invoking curses on an enemy because he had
killed one-and-twenty of her sons in battle, and left her with
only the twenty-second, still an infant at the breast, and if she
had to carry that one off to save him from being eaten by the
besieged, all dying of famine - then there would be some inter-
est in the plot, and the public would clap their hands till they
were sore. Gabriel, my boy, we must protest, protest vehe-
mently. We must thump the floor with our feet and sticks to
show that we are bored and out of patience. Yawn; open your
mouth till your jaws are dislocated; look about you; let all the
neighbors see that we are people of taste, and utterly weary of
this tiresome and monstrous piece. "
.
No sooner said than done: we began thumping on the floor,
and yawning in chorus, exclaiming, "What a bore! "
"What a
dreary piece! " "What waste of money! " and other phrases to
the same effect; all of which soon bore fruit. The party in the
pit imitated our patriotic example with great exactness.
A gen-
eral murmur of dissatisfaction was presently audible from every
part of the theatre; for though the author had enemies, he had
no lack of friends too, scattered throughout the pit, boxes, and
upper tiers, and they were not slow to protest against our dem-
onstration, sometimes by applauding, and then again by roaring
at us with threats and oaths, to be silent; till a stentorian voice
from the very back of the pit bellowed, "Turn the blackguards
out! " raising a noisy storm of applause that reduced us to silence.
Our poetaster was almost jumping out of his skin with indig-
nation, and persisted in making his remarks as the piece went
on.
## p. 6165 (#135) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6165
"A pretty plot indeed! It seems hardly credible that a civilized
nation should applaud it. I would sentence Moratin to the gal-
leys, and forbid his writing such coarse stuff as long as he lives.
So you call this a play, Gabrielito? There is no intrigue, no
plot, no surprise, no catastrophe, no illusion, no quid pro quo; no
attempt at disguising a character to make it seem another — not
even the little complication that comes of two men provoking
each other as enemies, and then discovering that they are father
and son.
If Don Diego now, were to catch his nephew and kill
him out of hand in the cellar, and prepare a banquet and have
a dish of the victim's flesh served up to his bride, well disguised
with spice and bay leaves, there would be some spirit in the
thing. "
I could not, in fact, conceal my enjoyment of the scene, which
seemed to me a masterpiece of nature, grace, and interesting
comedy. The poet however called me to order, abusing me for
deserting to the hostile camp.
"I beg your pardon," said I. "It was a mistake. And yet-
does it not strike you, too, that this scene is not altogether bad? "
"How should you be able to judge? a mere novice who never
wrote a line in your life! Pray what is there in this scene in the
least remarkable, or pathetic, or historical ? »
"But it is nature itself. I feel that I have seen in the real
world just what the author has set on the stage. "
"Gaby! simpleton! that is exactly what makes it so bad.
Have you not observed that in Frederick the Second,' in
'Catharine of Russia,' in 'The Slave of Negroponte,' and other
fine works, nothing ever takes place that has the smallest resem-
blance to real life? Is not everything in those plays strange,
startling, exceptional, wonderful, and surprising? That is why
they are so good. The poets of to-day do not choose to imi-
tate those of my time, and hence art has fallen to the lowest
depths. "
――――――――
“And yet, begging your pardon," I said, "I cannot help think-
ing The play is wretched, I quite agree, and when you say so
there must be a good reason for it. But the idea here seems to
me a good one, since I fancy the author has intended to censure
the vicious system of education which young girls get now-
adays. "
"And who asks the author to introduce all this philosophy? "
said the pedant. "What has the theatre to do with moralizing?
## p. 6166 (#136) ###########################################
6166
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
In the Magician of Astrakhan,' in 'Leon and the Asturias Gave
Heraldry to Spain,' and in the Triumphs of Don Pelayo’—
plays that all the world admires - did you ever find a passage
that describes how girls are to be brought up? "
"I have certainly read or heard somewhere that the theatre
was to serve the purposes of entertainment and instruction. "
Stuff and nonsense! "
Translation of Clara Bell.
DOÑA PERFECTA'S DAUGHTER
From 'Doña Perfecta. ' Copyright 1895, by Harper & Brothers
―
[Pepe Rey, a young engineer, arrives at Orbajosa to marry his cousin
Rosario, the match having been made up between his father and Doña Per-
fecta, the girl's mother, who is warmly attached to the father of Pepe, her
brother, and furthermore under heavy obligations to him for his excellent
management of her large property interests. The landscape is the arid and
poverty-stricken country of central Spain, though the town itself— "seated on
the slope of a hill from the midst of whose closely clustered houses arose many
dark towers, and on the height above it the ruins of a dilapidated castle ».
such a town would probably be more appreciated by a traveler from abroad
and a lover of the picturesque, than by a Spaniard, too familiar with its type.
Orbajosa is a little place, full of narrow prejudices and vanities. Pepe Rey,
with his modern ways, soon finds that he is wounding these prejudices at
every turn. We look on with pained surprise at the difficulties that grow up
around the young man, an excellent and kind-hearted fellow. Lawsuits are
multiplied against him; he is turned out of the cathedral by order of the
bishop for strolling about during service-time to look at some architectural
features; and he is refused the hand of his cousin. Doña Perfecta herself joins
in this hostility, which finally develops into a venomous bitterness that menaces
his life. Such a feeling was not the outgrowth of mere provincial narrow-
ness: we see in the end that it was the result of the plot of Maria Remedios,
a woman of a humble sort, who aspired to secure the heiress Rosario for her
own chubby-faced home-bred son. She influenced the village priest, and he
influenced Doña Perfecta. Early in the day the young engineer would have
abandoned the sinister place but for Rosario, who really loved him. She
conveyed to him, on a scrap from the margin of a newspaper, the message:
"They say you are going away. If you do, I shall die. »
She is a charming picture of girlhood,-lovely, true-hearted, affectionate,
aspiring to be heroic, and yet crippled at last by a filial conscience and the
long habit of clinging dependence. She has agreed to flee at night with her
lover, and he is already in the garden. Her mother, the stern Doña Per-
fecta, ranging uneasily through the house, enters her room about the appointed
time for the escape. ]
## p. 6167 (#137) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6167
>>
HY don't you sleep? her mother asked her.
"What time is it? " asked the girl.
"It will soon be midnight. "
"WHY
Rosario was trembling, and everything about her denoted
the keenest anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicat-
ingly, and then turned them on her mother with a look of the
utmost terror.
«< Why, what is the matter with you? "
"Did you not say it was midnight? »
"Yes. "
"Then - but is it already midnight? "
«< Something is the matter with you; you have something on
your mind," said her mother, fixing on her daughter her pene-
trating eyes.
"Yes I wanted to tell you," stammered the girl, "I wanted
to say Nothing, nothing; I will go to sleep. "
"Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like
an open book," exclaimed Doña Perfecta with severity. "You
are agitated. I have already told you that I am willing to
pardon you if you will repent, if you are a good and sensible
girl. "
«< Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying. "
Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.
"What are these tears about? " said her mother, embracing
"If they are tears of repentance, blessed be they. "
her.
"I don't repent! I can't repent! " cried the girl, in a burst of
sublime despair. She lifted her head, and in her face was de-
picted a sudden inspired strength. Her hair fell in disorder over
her shoulders. Never was there seen a more beautiful image of
a rebellious angel.
"What is this? Have you lost your senses? " said Doña
Perfecta, laying both hands on her daughter's shoulders.
"I am going away! I am going away! " said the girl with the
exaltation of delirium. And she sprang out of bed.
"Rosario, Rosario-my daughter! For God's sake, what is
―――
this? "
“Ah mamma, señora! " exclaimed the girl, embracing her
mother; "bind me fast! "
"In truth, you would deserve it. What madness is this? "
"Bind me fast! I am going away-I am going away with
him! "
## p. 6168 (#138) ###########################################
6168
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
"Has he told you to do so? has he counseled you to do that?
has he commanded you to do that? " asked the mother, launching
these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.
"He has counseled me to do it. We have agreed to be mar-
ried. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love
you I know that I ought to love you-I shall be forever lost if
I do not love you. "
"Rosario, Rosario! " cried Doña Perfecta in a terrible voice,
"rise! "
There was a short pause.
"This man - has he written to you? "
«Yes. "
"Have you seen him again since that night? "
"Yes. "
----
-
"And you have written to him? "
"I have written to him also. O señora! why do you look
at me in that way? You are not my mother. "
Rejoice in the harm you
"Would to God that I were not!
are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my
death-blow! " cried Doña Perfecta, with indescribable agitation.
"You say that that man - "
"Is my husband- I
You are not a woman!
You make me tremble.
will be his wife, protected by the law.
Why do you look at me in that way ?
Mother, mother, do not condemn me! >>
"You have already condemned yourself - that is enough.
Answer me-when did you
Obey me, and I will forgive you.
receive letters from that man? "
"To-day. "
"What treachery! what infamy! " cried her mother, roaring
rather than speaking. "Had you appointed a meeting? »
"Yes. "
"When? "
"To-night. "
"Where? "
"Here, here! I will confess everything, everything! I know
it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you, my mother, will take me
out of this hell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only
one word! »
"That man here in my house! " cried Doña Perfecta, spring-
ing back several paces from her daughter.
Rosario followed her on her knees.
## p. 6169 (#139) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6169
At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes,
three explosions. [Maria Remedios had spied upon Pepe Rey,
the lover; shown Caballuco, a brutal servant and ally, how to fol-
low him stealthily into the garden; and had then come to arouse
the house. ] It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the
door through the knocker. The house trembled with an awful
dread. Mother and daughter stood as motionless as statues.
A servant went down-stairs to open the door, and shortly
afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a
basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Doña Perfecta's room.
Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.
"He is there, he is there," she said, as she entered.
« He
got into the garden through the condemned door. " She paused
for breath at every syllable.
"I know already," returned Doña Perfecta, with a sort of
bellow.
Rosario fell senseless to the floor.
"Let us go down-stairs," said Doña Perfecta, without paying
any attention to her daughter's swoon.
The two women glided down-stairs like two snakes. The
maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what
to do. Doña Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the
garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
"Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there," said the canon's
niece.
"Where? "
"In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall. "
Doña Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes.
Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark that is.
peculiar to the feline race.
"I see a figure there," she said. "It is going towards the
oleanders. "
"It is he," cried Remedios. "But there comes Ramos-
Ramos! " [Cristóbal Ramos, or "Cabulluco. "]
The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.
"Towards the oleanders, Ramos! Towards the oleanders! "
Doña Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice,
vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:-
"Cristobal, Cristobal,-kill him! "
A shot was heard. Then another.
Translation of Mary J. Serrano.
## p. 6170 (#140) ###########################################
6170
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
A FAMILY OF OFFICE-HOLDERS
Don Francisco de Bringas y Caballero had a second-class clerkship in
one of the most ancient of the royal bureaus. He belonged to a family which
had held just such offices for time out of mind. "Government employees were
his parents and his grandparents, and it is believed that his great-grand-
parents, and even the ancestors of these, served in one way and another in
the administration of the two worlds. " His wife Doña Rosalia Pipaon was
equally connected with the official class, and particularly with that which had
to do with the domestic service of the royal abodes. Thus, "on producing
her family tree, this was found to show not so much glorious deeds of war
and statesmanship as those humbler doings belonging to a long and intimate
association with the royal person. Her mother had been lady of the queen's
wardrobe, her uncle a halberdier of the royal guard, her grandfather keeper of
the buttery, other uncles at various removes, equerries, pages, dispatch-bearers,
huntsmen, and managers of the royal farm at Aranjuez, and so forth and so
For this dame there existed two things wholly Divine; namely,
heaven and that almost equally desirable dwelling-place for the elect which
we indicate by the mere laconic word 'the Palace. ' In the Palace were her
family history and her ideal; her aspiration was that Bringas might obtain a
superior post in the royal exchequer, and that then they should go and take
up their abode in one of the apartments of the second story of the great
mansion which were conceded to such tenants. " The above is from Tor-
mento. ' In the next succeeding novel, La de Bringas,' this aspiration is
gratified; the Bringas family are installed in the Palace, in the quarters as-
signed to the employees of the royal household. The efforts of two of their
acquaintances to find them, in the puzzling intricacies of the place, are thus
amusingly described.
on.
ABOVE-STAIRS IN A ROYAL PALACE
From La de Bringas'
TELL, this is about the way it was. We threw ourselves
W bravely into the interminable corridor, a veritable street,
or alley at least, paved with red tiles, feebly lighted with
gas jets, and full of doublings and twistings. Now and then it
spread out into broad openings like little plazas, inundated with
sunlight which entered through large openings from the main
court-yard. This illumination penetrated lengthwise along the
white walls of the narrow passageways, alleys, or tunnels, or
whatever they may be called, growing ever feebler and more
uncertain as it went, till finally it fainted away entirely at sight
of the fan-shaped yellow gas flames, smoking little circlets upon
their protecting metal disks. There were uncounted paneled
doors with numbers on them, some newly painted and others
## p. 6171 (#141) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6171
moldering and weather-stained, but not one displaying the figure
we were seeking. At this one you would see a rich silken bell
cord, some happy find in the royal upholstery shop, while the next
had nothing more than a poor frayed rope's-end; and these were
an indication of what was likely to be found within, as to order
and neatness or disarray and squalor.
stands apart in a different way, and would occupy himself by prefer-
ence with the opposite class of society. He is the most learned and
scholarly of the quartette, and his writing is the most carefully pol-
ished in style. He is a scholarly critic and essayist as well as a
novelist. He is a realist like the rest, yet eschews, for instance, the
imitation of dialect: he is not a realist in quite the same energetic
and conscientious way; his atmosphere, while no doubt equally true,
is rather dreamy and poetic. Valdés and Galdós are much more
vividly modern, and they treat many of the same kind of subjects,
the events of real life such as we see it all around us. Of the four,
Valdés has perhaps, in certain passages, the truest tenderness and
most delicate pathos, and the most genuine humor, of that sunny
kind which allows us to laugh without bitterness. He can sometimes
be bitter too, and such a severe social satire as 'Froth' and such
books as The Grandee' and 'The Origin of Thought' leave, like
many of those of Galdós, an impression of gloom; yet even in these
we are charmed on the way by his light touch and easy grace of
treatment. Galdós is he who takes the gravest attitude; many great
problems of life and destiny occupy him seriously; he not only is
very earnest, but seems so, which does not however preclude a
plentiful use of humor, as will be seen in the examples given. Fur-
thermore, he is much the most prolific of the distinguished group,
and to that extent he may be said to have the widest range.
These writers are a highly beneficent influence in Spain at the
present time, spreading over it as they do a multitude of stimulat-
ing pictures and liberalizing ideas, cast into charming literary form.
They cannot fail to have a considerable effect upon conduct. In its
manner, its aversion to obscurity, and fondness for floods of daylight
that almost abolish shadow, this fiction is like the Spanish-Roman school
-
## p. 6156 (#126) ###########################################
6156
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
of art, the painting of Fortuny, the two Madrazos, and others: the two
seem but manifestations of a common impulse. On another side it is
to be recommended to foreigners, as affording a body of information
about Spain such as the mere traveler could never attain, and which
it is useless to look for in fiction depending for its interest upon
clever devices of plot and fantastic adventure. It lets an illumination
into the heart of what has been the most reserved and mysterious
country of Europe. It shows the true Spain, and not merely the
conventional one of strumming guitars and jingling mule bells. With
all its strangeness, we see it full of that genuine human nature that
makes the world akin; and we see, with pleasure and hope, the
breaking up of the forces of medievalism, the working of a mental and
moral turmoil that is preparing the way for a general betterment.
It would not be reasonable to suppose that Spanish literature re-
mained wholly unaffected by the vigorous French movement just
across the border. On the contrary, it clearly shows the trace of the
robust modern style that has prevailed in France from Balzac to Zola.
This trace, however, is in the style and not in the matter.
It may
possibly have aided the plainness of speech in the Spanish work,
which is greater than in English books; and yet this plainness of
speech is probably not greater than all books should be allowed, in
the interest of their own usefulness, and in order not to be narrow
instead of broad pictures of life. The tone towards sexual problems
is never flippant; immorality is never put in an attractive light; there
is hardly anywhere a more severe homily on the text that "the wages
of sin is death" than is found in the wretched career of the trans-
gressors in such books as Galdós's 'Lo Prohibido,' Tormento,' and
'La Desheredada. '
Just as in English books, the young girl, her aspirations and her
innocent love affairs before marriage, figure largely in these novels.
It is not necessary for her to wait until she is married in order
to become a suitable heroine for fiction. Religious revolt or dissent,
again, is one of the features most often used. There is still a very
close union of Church and State in Spain, and life has a very ecclesi-
astical coloring. Nearly every family has ties of relationship or inti-
macy with some ecclesiastical person of either sex. This brings it
about that such figures are as frequent in books as, correspondingly,
in real life. In Valera's 'Pepita Ximenez' we find an earnest young
student, a candidate for the priesthood, son of a noble house, turned
aside from his holy career-through his father's connivance - by the
fascinations of a most charming woman, their neighbor. In Valdés's
'Sister San Sulpicio' it is a young novice, a delightfully gay and
bright creature, whom love and matrimony withdraw from her con-
vent. In the same author's 'Marta y Maria' a fair young girl is seen
## p. 6157 (#127) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDOS
6157
endeavoring to conform in the midst of modern life to the ascetic
ideals of the mediæval saints, even to the point of wearing hair-
cloth and beating her tender shoulders with a scourge. Galdós's 'Doña
Perfecta' and 'The Family of Leon Roch' combat the undue influ-
ence of the confessor, or religious adviser, in the family, and Gloria'
combats the immemorial bitter prejudice against the Jews. As may
be seen, many of these subjects, if approached in a flippant way,
might easily lend themselves to grossness and scandal; but such is
not the Spanish spirit. The tone towards the Church is severely crit-
ical, but not destructive. It is the true secular tone of this century,
which holds that a conventional attention to the things of the next
world is only due when all demands for benevolence towards living
men are satisfied. Howells points out that Galdós attacks only the
same intolerant eccelesiastical spirit that elsewhere would be known by
another name. These critics would "reform the party from within";
and as they handle with so much skill and consideration the sensi-
bilities of their countrymen who still adhere to the fold, their efforts
are the more likely to have a potent effect. It seems a curious an-
omaly that Pereda, the one of them who is the most modern and
stirring in the intellectual way, professes himself the champion of
monarchy in its most absolute form.
The beginnings of the present fiction are somewhat feebly found
in Antonio de Trueba, and Madame Böhl de Faber, who signed herself
"Fernan Caballero, "— one of the first of those who took a man's
name, after the fashion of George Sand. These first wrote of other
things than the romantic knights and castles, Moors and odalisques,
of Scott and Victor Hugo. Fernan Caballero (1797 to 1877), a genial
optimist who wrote idealized descriptions of nature, still has a certain
vogue. Perez Escrich produced a large number of novels of a hu-
manitarian cast; Fernandez y Gonzalez poured them out, of a cheap
order, in a torrent, and became the very type of hasty production.
Pedro de Alarcon figures as a kind of link uniting the earlier period
to the present, and such a book as his 'El Sombrero de Tres Picos'
(The Three-Cornered Hat) is said to be read by some of the present
generation with admiration. But it seems to others a trifle, of no
great merit, marred by an excessive straining after effect; nothing
in it is simply or naturally said. Students of the more realistic side
of the movement should read Madame Pardo Bazan's valuable critical
study, 'La Cuestion Palpitante' (The Vital Question). Various books
by the leading authors named have been well translated into English
by Clara Bell, Mrs. Mary J. Serrano, Mary Springer, Rollo Ogden,
Nathan Haskell Dole, and others.
## p. 6158 (#128) ###########################################
6158
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
II
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS was born May 10th, 1845, in the Canary Islands.
Las Palmas, his birthplace, capital of the Grand Canary, is a well-
built little town of about eighteen thousand people, and the island is
the most fertile of the group. In climate and situation the islands
belong rather to Africa than Europe. The people are considered
descendants of the Gothic inhabitants of Spain, who sought refuge
there from the Saracen invasion. Their existence was all but lost to
sight for some centuries, and they were only brought under European
sway about the time of the discovery of America. These Fortunate
Islands, the somewhat unusual scene where Galdós was born and
passed his youth, would seem to offer a fresh literary field, yet no
word of description or reminiscence concerning them appears in any
of his books. This is perhaps part of the policy of reserve that
induces him to deny, even by implication, any biographical details
concerning himself,- a reserve so marked as to have been generally
noted as an eccentricity. Leopoldo Alas, his biographer, in the 'Cele-
bridades Españolas Contemporanéas,' assures us that it was only with
the greatest difficulty he drew from him the bare admission that he
was born in the Canary Islands. He made his studies there in the
State college, and came to Madrid at the age of eighteen to study
law. He had no great liking for it, and did not follow it further,
unless as it became a step for entrance into political life, for he has
been a deputy in the National Cortes, for Porto Rico. He did not
acquire skill in forensic eloquence; his biographer, above, states that
he cannot put four words together in public, nor in private either.
A reticent man, he is forced to write in order to find expression.
He wrote his first book in 1867 and '68, but it was not published
till 1871. In the mean time the revolution of 1868 took place, which
enlarged the boundaries of freedom in literature as in many other
directions; and Galdós at Barcelona had some small part in it. The
book was 'La Fontana de Oro (The Fount of Gold). It treats
of the aspirations of the "ardent youth" of 1820, who rebelled
against the reactionary policy brought in by Ferdinand VII. after the
expulsion of the French from the country; and in the student hero
Lázaro he perhaps displays his own ideas at the period. Violent
political clubs were formed, on the model of the Jacobin Clubs of
the French Revolution, and it is from the name of a café that was
the meeting-place of the most famous of these clubs that the name
of the story is derived. His next book was 'El Audaz' (The Fear-
less: 1872). The period is the same. The hero is an utterly fearless
young radical, who has been driven to revolt through wrongs done
## p. 6159 (#129) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6159
his family by the Count de Cerezuelo. By a peculiar hazard, though
far below her in social station, he meets the daughter of the count,
a very proud and disdainful beauty. It is her caprice to fall in love
with him, and she remains true to him to the end, when he dies in
a street tumult, having first gone mad with his superheated enthu-
siasm. These early books are conceived upon conventional romantic
lines, and hardly gave promise of their author's future fame. They
contain however passages of strong character-drawing, like that of
the Porreños, three ancient spinster sisters of a fallen patrician
house in 'El Audaz,' which are equal to his later work.
He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began
to give him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a
score of historical romances, after the model of those of Erckmann-
Chatrian, called 'Episódios Nacionales (National Episodes). They
are divided into two series, the first beginning with Trafalgar›
(1873).
the second with 'El Equipaje del Rey José (King Joseph's
Baggage: 1875). They deal with the two modern periods comprising
the deliverance of the country from the usurpation of the French,
and the more obscure struggles against Ferdinand VII. , who sought
to reduce the country under the same absolutist rule that had pre-
vailed before the ideas of the French Revolution liberalized the whole
of Europe.
The history in these romances is intermingled with
personal interests and adventures, to give it an air of informality:
and though each is complete in itself, some knowledge of Spanish
history is desirable as an aid to understanding them. They are con
siderably interlinked among themselves, the same characters appear-
ing more or less in successive volumes.
is one Gabriel, who narrates them all in the first person. He is a
poor boy who becomes servant to a family near Cadiz. He accom-
panies his master on board the huge Santissima Trinidad, the
largest ship of her age, and is able to describe in detail the action
of Trafalgar, the description being the more interesting for us as
coming from the Spanish point of view.
IV. (The Court of Charles IV. : 1873), we find him page to a leading
actress, and an eye-witness to the degeneracy of that monarch and
favorite Godoy, which resulted in the seizure of the country by
In 'La Batalla de los Arapiles'
The hero of the first series
In 'La Corte de Carlos
Napoleon for his brother Joseph.
(translated by Rollo Ogden as The Battle of Salamanca': 1875), the
of the series, the same Gabriel is a major, and performs an
important commission for Wellington. He has risen to this level step
his
last
Step, and on the way has had as many adventures as one of
Dumas's guardsmen, and has carried them off as gallantly. In the
second series of 'Episódios,' Salvador Monsalud is the principal char-
He is a young fellow who is led by dire want- and also by
acter.
by
## p. 6160 (#130) ###########################################
6160
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
sharing the liberalized French view of the decadence and worth-
lessness of the Spanish form of rule-to take service in the body-
guard of Joseph Bonaparte. A chapter full of strength and pathos,
in King Joseph's Baggage,' shows him disowned by his mother and
cast off by his village sweetheart on account of such service, both of
them frantic with a spirit of independence like that which animated
the Maid of Saragossa. A feature of this book that gives it ori-
ginality is that the action turns not upon the usual principal features
of battle, but upon the fate of the rich baggage train of booty with
which Joseph Bonaparte had hoped to escape to France after his
brief, disastrous reign.
The 'Episódios' have had an extensive influence, and have been
imitated, under a like title, in the Spanish Americas. The author's
tone toward the past is generally severe and disdainful. "Had Spain,
perchance, a 'constitution' when she was the foremost nation in the
world? " he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, with sar-
donic intent. He has been called unappreciative, and his attitude
towards Spanish antiquity has been protested against by other lead-
ing writers, of more conservative feeling, as unwarranted. These
romances contain some passages showing aversion to the barbarities
of war, but in general they are less humanitarian than those of
Erckmann-Chatrian: they are principally devoted to glorifying Span-
ish fortitude and courage. These books are a great advance upon
the two earlier novels; from the first they showed literary workman-
ship of a high order: they possess ingenuity of plot, sufficient proba-
bility, and graphic power of description, movement, and conversation.
In the latter respects, indeed, they surpass some of the author's later
works that make more serious pretensions.
The wider and more definitely literary reputation of Pérez Galdós
rests upon more than a score of other works, in addition to the above.
These are distinctly novels, as contrasted with romances; and they
treat of contemporary life, in a method that aims to be conscien-
tiously observant and impartial. It is often said, without much reflec-
tion, that we see enough of the things close about us, and need
our literary recreation in the remote and strange. But it must be
recalled that we see those things without the eyes of genius, and he
is a true benefactor who poetizes and dignifies life in making evident
that all of life is vivid with interest, even that part of it nearest to
us, which without such illumination we may have thought devoid
of it. The words in which the ostensible narrator of 'Lo Prohibido'
(Forbidden Fruit: 1885), explains the purpose of his journal may well
enough be taken to exhibit the method of Galdós. It was to set
down "my prosaic adventures, events that in no way differ from
those that fill and make up the lives of other men. I aspire to no
## p. 6161 (#131) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6161
further effects than such as the sincere and unaffected presentation
of the truth may produce; and I have no design upon the reader's
emotions by means of calculated surprises, frights, or conjurer's
tricks, through which things look one way for a time and then turn
out in a manner diametrically opposite. "
The titles of a number of his principal books, not hitherto given,
with dates, are as follows. The dates are those when they were
written, and they were generally published shortly after: 'Doña
Perfecta, 1876; Gloria,' 1876; Torquemada en la Hoguera' (Tor-
quemada at the Stake: 1876); Marianela,' 1878; 'La Familia de Leon
Roch' (Leon Roch's Family: 1878); 'Los Cien Mil Hijos de San Luis'
(The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: 1877) of the Episódios;
'Un Faccioso Más' (A Rebel the More: 1879) the completion of the
Episódios; 'La Desheredada' (The Disowned: 1881); 'El Amigo
Manso (Friend Mildman: 1882); El Doctor Centeno,' 1883; Tor-
mento, 1884; 'La de Bringas' (That Mrs. de Bringas: 1884); Fortu-
nata y Jacinta,' 1886; 'Miau,' 1888; 'La Incógnita' (The Unknown:
1889); Realidad' (Reality: 1890); Angel Guerra,' 1891; Torquemada
en la Cruz' (Torquemada on the Cross: 1894); Torquemada en el
Purgatorio (Torquemada in Purgatory: 1894); Torquemada y San
Pedro, 1895; 'Nazarin,' 1895; 'Halma,' 1896.
Even in his new departure, Galdós did not at once enter upon his
final manner. 'Doña Perfecta,' The Family of Leon Roch,' and
'Gloria' are quite distinctly didactic, or "novels with a purpose";
while Marianela' is somewhat cloyingly sentimental, a prose poem
after the manner of Ouida. In spite of all this, however, 'Doña Per-
fecta' has been pronounced by many his best work. It is the one that
has obtained greatest celebrity abroad, and it is the one, all things con-
sidered, likely to be the most satisfactory example of his work to the
English reader. 'La Desheredada' marks the transition to his final
period, and he has put it upon record that with this book the real
difficulties of his vocation began. It is a poignantly affecting story
of a poor girl who was brought up, by a parent half knave and half
insane, to believe that she was not his daughter but that of a noble
house. After his death she undertakes in all good faith to prose-
cute her claim, and is thrown into prison as an impostor. Her heart
is broken by the disillusionment; she cannot adjust herself to life
again without the sweetness of that beguiling belief, and so, in the
end, not having the boldness to die, she throws herself upon the street,
a social outcast. Both in the person of Isidora and others, the
book is a moving treatise on false education. Other leading figures
are her brother, a young "hoodlum" and thief, the burden of whose
career she has also to bear upon her slender shoulders, and the pam-
pered son of the poor Sastres, who have denied themselves bread that
XI-386
## p. 6162 (#132) ###########################################
6162
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
he might have an education and luxuries. He has a hundred fine
schemes for getting a living, but never a one of them includes turn-
ing his hand to a stroke of honest labor.
'El Amigo Manso' is an extended piece of character-drawing, self-
told, in a gently humorous vein. It gives an account of a college
instructor, very benevolent, very methodical and prudent, and a trifle
conceited and patronizing, who is in love with a pretty governess.
By the time he has settled all his judicious pros and cons, the pretty
governess, who really cared nothing about him, is engaged to a suitor
of a more dashing sort. The scenes of Tormento,' 'La de Bringas,'
and 'Miau' are laid chiefly among the class of minor office-holders,
with whose manners the author shows an exhaustive familiarity, and
each has its peculiar tragic situation in itself. 'Realidad,' written
once in the form of a novel, and again as a drama, treats of the
subject of a wife's infidelity, as it might pass in real life, instead of
in the conventional and hackneyed way. Its title seems to propose
to adhere even closer to the exact truth than do the others. There
come to mind, in its suppressed passion and its calm, intellectual,
and bitter philosophy, suggestions both of Ibsen and Suderman.
The banker Orozco, a noble and reserved nature, does not slay his
wife, does not banish her from him, nor even make her reproaches.
Augusta, on her side, wonders if his mind is not giving way. This
bitter commentary on life is as near as her smaller mind can approach
to a comprehension of his magnanimous conduct. The same Augusta,
earlier, has said in conversation, "Real life is the greatest of all
inventors; the only one who is ever ready, fresh, and inexhaustible
in resource. " In these books, however serious, the purpose does not
obtrude to the detriment of art; the reader is left free to draw his
own conclusions, as from events in actual life; the author ostensibly
is neither for nor against, and yet he leaves us in no doubt as to
his decision, always a moral and stimulating one.
The favorite scenes of Galdós's books are in Madrid and the small
suburban resorts round about it, or at the numerous mineral springs
which are so important a feature of Spanish summer life. He him-
self lives at Madrid, but goes for the season to a summer place he
owns on the bold cliffs of the Bay of Biscay, at Santander. There,
too he is near to Pereda, between whom and himself a remarkable
friendship exists. A friendship so strong, warm, and long continued
has been recognized as a notable feature in the careers of both.
is the more remarkable because except in literature, which both set
above everything else, he is violently opposed to most of the views of
Pereda-a conservative of the conservatives, even to the point of
preferring the absolutist pretender Don Carlos for king. Even at
Madrid and at Santander, however, Galdós's scenery is mere stage
It
## p. 6163 (#133) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6163
setting; he does not describe nature sympathetically nor aim to ren-
der local color in an accurate way.
As the action must pass some-
where, he gives it just as much of a setting as will suffice, and seems
satisfied with that. The impression of his books, on the whole, is a
gloomy one. He who sees life clearly must perchance see it darkly,
and few see it more clearly than Galdós. Yet his admirers will not
have it that he is pessimistic, because Nature herself is not pessi-
mistic. Even the sadness of nightfall ought not to be considered
gloomy, they say, with much show of reason, since it is only the
preparation for another day.
William Henry Bishop
THE FIRST NIGHT OF A FAMOUS PLAY, IN THE YEAR 1807
From The Court of Charles IV. Copyright 1888, by W. S. Gottsberger.
Reprinted by permission of George G. Peck, publisher, New York
[Gabriel, a boy of sixteen, has taken service as page with a very charming
actress of the Principe Theatre. Between this theatre and La Cruz exists
the same sort of hostility as between the rival theatres at Venice when Goldoni
inaugurated his reform. La Cruz represents the new and "natural" spirit in
the drama, as against the absurd artificial tradition that had prevailed up to
that time. A part of Gabriel's duties is to go and hiss the plays at that thea-
The principal occasion of this kind is when he accompanies a band, led
by a rival playwright, to the first performance of 'El Sí de las Niñas (The
Maidens' Yes), by the famous Moratin, the leading piece of the new school. ]
tre.
"WHA
THAT an opening! " he [the rival poet and playwright] ex-
claimed, as he listened to the first dialogue between
Don Diego and Simon. "A pretty way to begin a
comedy! The scene a village inn! What can happen of any
interest in a village inn? In all my plays, and they are many,
- though never a one has been represented,- the action opens in
a Corinthian garden, with monumental fountains to the right and
left, and a temple of Juno in the background; or in a wide square
with three regiments drawn up, and in the background the city
of Warsaw, with a bridge, and so forth. And just listen to the
twaddle this old man is made to talk! He is about to marry a
young girl who has been brought up by the nuns of Guadalajara.
Well, is that very remarkable? Is not that a matter of every-
day occurrence ? »
## p. 6164 (#134) ###########################################
6164
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
Pouring out these remarks, that confounded poet did not allow
me to hear a word of the piece, and though I answered all his
comments with humbly acquiescent monosyllables, I only wished
that he would hold his tongue, deuce take him! .
"What a vulgar subject! what low ideas! " he exclaimed, loud
enough for every one to hear. "And this is how comedies are
written! "
on.
"But let us listen to it," said I, finding my chief's comments
quite intolerable. "We can laugh at Moratin afterwards. "
"But I cannot bear such a medley of absurdities," he went
"We do not come to the theatre to see just what is to be
seen any day in the streets, or in every house you go into. If
instead of enlarging on her matrimonial experiences, the lady
were to come in invoking curses on an enemy because he had
killed one-and-twenty of her sons in battle, and left her with
only the twenty-second, still an infant at the breast, and if she
had to carry that one off to save him from being eaten by the
besieged, all dying of famine - then there would be some inter-
est in the plot, and the public would clap their hands till they
were sore. Gabriel, my boy, we must protest, protest vehe-
mently. We must thump the floor with our feet and sticks to
show that we are bored and out of patience. Yawn; open your
mouth till your jaws are dislocated; look about you; let all the
neighbors see that we are people of taste, and utterly weary of
this tiresome and monstrous piece. "
.
No sooner said than done: we began thumping on the floor,
and yawning in chorus, exclaiming, "What a bore! "
"What a
dreary piece! " "What waste of money! " and other phrases to
the same effect; all of which soon bore fruit. The party in the
pit imitated our patriotic example with great exactness.
A gen-
eral murmur of dissatisfaction was presently audible from every
part of the theatre; for though the author had enemies, he had
no lack of friends too, scattered throughout the pit, boxes, and
upper tiers, and they were not slow to protest against our dem-
onstration, sometimes by applauding, and then again by roaring
at us with threats and oaths, to be silent; till a stentorian voice
from the very back of the pit bellowed, "Turn the blackguards
out! " raising a noisy storm of applause that reduced us to silence.
Our poetaster was almost jumping out of his skin with indig-
nation, and persisted in making his remarks as the piece went
on.
## p. 6165 (#135) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6165
"A pretty plot indeed! It seems hardly credible that a civilized
nation should applaud it. I would sentence Moratin to the gal-
leys, and forbid his writing such coarse stuff as long as he lives.
So you call this a play, Gabrielito? There is no intrigue, no
plot, no surprise, no catastrophe, no illusion, no quid pro quo; no
attempt at disguising a character to make it seem another — not
even the little complication that comes of two men provoking
each other as enemies, and then discovering that they are father
and son.
If Don Diego now, were to catch his nephew and kill
him out of hand in the cellar, and prepare a banquet and have
a dish of the victim's flesh served up to his bride, well disguised
with spice and bay leaves, there would be some spirit in the
thing. "
I could not, in fact, conceal my enjoyment of the scene, which
seemed to me a masterpiece of nature, grace, and interesting
comedy. The poet however called me to order, abusing me for
deserting to the hostile camp.
"I beg your pardon," said I. "It was a mistake. And yet-
does it not strike you, too, that this scene is not altogether bad? "
"How should you be able to judge? a mere novice who never
wrote a line in your life! Pray what is there in this scene in the
least remarkable, or pathetic, or historical ? »
"But it is nature itself. I feel that I have seen in the real
world just what the author has set on the stage. "
"Gaby! simpleton! that is exactly what makes it so bad.
Have you not observed that in Frederick the Second,' in
'Catharine of Russia,' in 'The Slave of Negroponte,' and other
fine works, nothing ever takes place that has the smallest resem-
blance to real life? Is not everything in those plays strange,
startling, exceptional, wonderful, and surprising? That is why
they are so good. The poets of to-day do not choose to imi-
tate those of my time, and hence art has fallen to the lowest
depths. "
――――――――
“And yet, begging your pardon," I said, "I cannot help think-
ing The play is wretched, I quite agree, and when you say so
there must be a good reason for it. But the idea here seems to
me a good one, since I fancy the author has intended to censure
the vicious system of education which young girls get now-
adays. "
"And who asks the author to introduce all this philosophy? "
said the pedant. "What has the theatre to do with moralizing?
## p. 6166 (#136) ###########################################
6166
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
In the Magician of Astrakhan,' in 'Leon and the Asturias Gave
Heraldry to Spain,' and in the Triumphs of Don Pelayo’—
plays that all the world admires - did you ever find a passage
that describes how girls are to be brought up? "
"I have certainly read or heard somewhere that the theatre
was to serve the purposes of entertainment and instruction. "
Stuff and nonsense! "
Translation of Clara Bell.
DOÑA PERFECTA'S DAUGHTER
From 'Doña Perfecta. ' Copyright 1895, by Harper & Brothers
―
[Pepe Rey, a young engineer, arrives at Orbajosa to marry his cousin
Rosario, the match having been made up between his father and Doña Per-
fecta, the girl's mother, who is warmly attached to the father of Pepe, her
brother, and furthermore under heavy obligations to him for his excellent
management of her large property interests. The landscape is the arid and
poverty-stricken country of central Spain, though the town itself— "seated on
the slope of a hill from the midst of whose closely clustered houses arose many
dark towers, and on the height above it the ruins of a dilapidated castle ».
such a town would probably be more appreciated by a traveler from abroad
and a lover of the picturesque, than by a Spaniard, too familiar with its type.
Orbajosa is a little place, full of narrow prejudices and vanities. Pepe Rey,
with his modern ways, soon finds that he is wounding these prejudices at
every turn. We look on with pained surprise at the difficulties that grow up
around the young man, an excellent and kind-hearted fellow. Lawsuits are
multiplied against him; he is turned out of the cathedral by order of the
bishop for strolling about during service-time to look at some architectural
features; and he is refused the hand of his cousin. Doña Perfecta herself joins
in this hostility, which finally develops into a venomous bitterness that menaces
his life. Such a feeling was not the outgrowth of mere provincial narrow-
ness: we see in the end that it was the result of the plot of Maria Remedios,
a woman of a humble sort, who aspired to secure the heiress Rosario for her
own chubby-faced home-bred son. She influenced the village priest, and he
influenced Doña Perfecta. Early in the day the young engineer would have
abandoned the sinister place but for Rosario, who really loved him. She
conveyed to him, on a scrap from the margin of a newspaper, the message:
"They say you are going away. If you do, I shall die. »
She is a charming picture of girlhood,-lovely, true-hearted, affectionate,
aspiring to be heroic, and yet crippled at last by a filial conscience and the
long habit of clinging dependence. She has agreed to flee at night with her
lover, and he is already in the garden. Her mother, the stern Doña Per-
fecta, ranging uneasily through the house, enters her room about the appointed
time for the escape. ]
## p. 6167 (#137) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6167
>>
HY don't you sleep? her mother asked her.
"What time is it? " asked the girl.
"It will soon be midnight. "
"WHY
Rosario was trembling, and everything about her denoted
the keenest anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicat-
ingly, and then turned them on her mother with a look of the
utmost terror.
«< Why, what is the matter with you? "
"Did you not say it was midnight? »
"Yes. "
"Then - but is it already midnight? "
«< Something is the matter with you; you have something on
your mind," said her mother, fixing on her daughter her pene-
trating eyes.
"Yes I wanted to tell you," stammered the girl, "I wanted
to say Nothing, nothing; I will go to sleep. "
"Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like
an open book," exclaimed Doña Perfecta with severity. "You
are agitated. I have already told you that I am willing to
pardon you if you will repent, if you are a good and sensible
girl. "
«< Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying. "
Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.
"What are these tears about? " said her mother, embracing
"If they are tears of repentance, blessed be they. "
her.
"I don't repent! I can't repent! " cried the girl, in a burst of
sublime despair. She lifted her head, and in her face was de-
picted a sudden inspired strength. Her hair fell in disorder over
her shoulders. Never was there seen a more beautiful image of
a rebellious angel.
"What is this? Have you lost your senses? " said Doña
Perfecta, laying both hands on her daughter's shoulders.
"I am going away! I am going away! " said the girl with the
exaltation of delirium. And she sprang out of bed.
"Rosario, Rosario-my daughter! For God's sake, what is
―――
this? "
“Ah mamma, señora! " exclaimed the girl, embracing her
mother; "bind me fast! "
"In truth, you would deserve it. What madness is this? "
"Bind me fast! I am going away-I am going away with
him! "
## p. 6168 (#138) ###########################################
6168
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
"Has he told you to do so? has he counseled you to do that?
has he commanded you to do that? " asked the mother, launching
these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.
"He has counseled me to do it. We have agreed to be mar-
ried. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love
you I know that I ought to love you-I shall be forever lost if
I do not love you. "
"Rosario, Rosario! " cried Doña Perfecta in a terrible voice,
"rise! "
There was a short pause.
"This man - has he written to you? "
«Yes. "
"Have you seen him again since that night? "
"Yes. "
----
-
"And you have written to him? "
"I have written to him also. O señora! why do you look
at me in that way? You are not my mother. "
Rejoice in the harm you
"Would to God that I were not!
are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my
death-blow! " cried Doña Perfecta, with indescribable agitation.
"You say that that man - "
"Is my husband- I
You are not a woman!
You make me tremble.
will be his wife, protected by the law.
Why do you look at me in that way ?
Mother, mother, do not condemn me! >>
"You have already condemned yourself - that is enough.
Answer me-when did you
Obey me, and I will forgive you.
receive letters from that man? "
"To-day. "
"What treachery! what infamy! " cried her mother, roaring
rather than speaking. "Had you appointed a meeting? »
"Yes. "
"When? "
"To-night. "
"Where? "
"Here, here! I will confess everything, everything! I know
it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you, my mother, will take me
out of this hell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only
one word! »
"That man here in my house! " cried Doña Perfecta, spring-
ing back several paces from her daughter.
Rosario followed her on her knees.
## p. 6169 (#139) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6169
At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes,
three explosions. [Maria Remedios had spied upon Pepe Rey,
the lover; shown Caballuco, a brutal servant and ally, how to fol-
low him stealthily into the garden; and had then come to arouse
the house. ] It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the
door through the knocker. The house trembled with an awful
dread. Mother and daughter stood as motionless as statues.
A servant went down-stairs to open the door, and shortly
afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a
basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Doña Perfecta's room.
Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.
"He is there, he is there," she said, as she entered.
« He
got into the garden through the condemned door. " She paused
for breath at every syllable.
"I know already," returned Doña Perfecta, with a sort of
bellow.
Rosario fell senseless to the floor.
"Let us go down-stairs," said Doña Perfecta, without paying
any attention to her daughter's swoon.
The two women glided down-stairs like two snakes. The
maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what
to do. Doña Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the
garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
"Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there," said the canon's
niece.
"Where? "
"In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall. "
Doña Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes.
Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark that is.
peculiar to the feline race.
"I see a figure there," she said. "It is going towards the
oleanders. "
"It is he," cried Remedios. "But there comes Ramos-
Ramos! " [Cristóbal Ramos, or "Cabulluco. "]
The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.
"Towards the oleanders, Ramos! Towards the oleanders! "
Doña Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice,
vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:-
"Cristobal, Cristobal,-kill him! "
A shot was heard. Then another.
Translation of Mary J. Serrano.
## p. 6170 (#140) ###########################################
6170
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
A FAMILY OF OFFICE-HOLDERS
Don Francisco de Bringas y Caballero had a second-class clerkship in
one of the most ancient of the royal bureaus. He belonged to a family which
had held just such offices for time out of mind. "Government employees were
his parents and his grandparents, and it is believed that his great-grand-
parents, and even the ancestors of these, served in one way and another in
the administration of the two worlds. " His wife Doña Rosalia Pipaon was
equally connected with the official class, and particularly with that which had
to do with the domestic service of the royal abodes. Thus, "on producing
her family tree, this was found to show not so much glorious deeds of war
and statesmanship as those humbler doings belonging to a long and intimate
association with the royal person. Her mother had been lady of the queen's
wardrobe, her uncle a halberdier of the royal guard, her grandfather keeper of
the buttery, other uncles at various removes, equerries, pages, dispatch-bearers,
huntsmen, and managers of the royal farm at Aranjuez, and so forth and so
For this dame there existed two things wholly Divine; namely,
heaven and that almost equally desirable dwelling-place for the elect which
we indicate by the mere laconic word 'the Palace. ' In the Palace were her
family history and her ideal; her aspiration was that Bringas might obtain a
superior post in the royal exchequer, and that then they should go and take
up their abode in one of the apartments of the second story of the great
mansion which were conceded to such tenants. " The above is from Tor-
mento. ' In the next succeeding novel, La de Bringas,' this aspiration is
gratified; the Bringas family are installed in the Palace, in the quarters as-
signed to the employees of the royal household. The efforts of two of their
acquaintances to find them, in the puzzling intricacies of the place, are thus
amusingly described.
on.
ABOVE-STAIRS IN A ROYAL PALACE
From La de Bringas'
TELL, this is about the way it was. We threw ourselves
W bravely into the interminable corridor, a veritable street,
or alley at least, paved with red tiles, feebly lighted with
gas jets, and full of doublings and twistings. Now and then it
spread out into broad openings like little plazas, inundated with
sunlight which entered through large openings from the main
court-yard. This illumination penetrated lengthwise along the
white walls of the narrow passageways, alleys, or tunnels, or
whatever they may be called, growing ever feebler and more
uncertain as it went, till finally it fainted away entirely at sight
of the fan-shaped yellow gas flames, smoking little circlets upon
their protecting metal disks. There were uncounted paneled
doors with numbers on them, some newly painted and others
## p. 6171 (#141) ###########################################
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6171
moldering and weather-stained, but not one displaying the figure
we were seeking. At this one you would see a rich silken bell
cord, some happy find in the royal upholstery shop, while the next
had nothing more than a poor frayed rope's-end; and these were
an indication of what was likely to be found within, as to order
and neatness or disarray and squalor.
