No More Learning

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


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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. So, too, the mats or bits
of carpet laid before the doors threw a useful light upon the
character of the lodgings. We came upon vacant apartments
with cobwebs spun across the openings, and the door gratings
thick with dust, and through broken transoms, drew chill drafts
that conveyed the breath of silence and desolation. Even whole
precincts were abandoned, and the vaultings, of unequal height,
returned the sound of our footsteps hollowly to our ears. We
passed up one stairway, then down another, and then, as likely
as not, we would ascend again.
The labyrinthine maze
led us on and ever onward.
"It is useless to come here," at length said Pez, decidedly
losing patience, "without charts and a mariner's compass. I
suppose we are now in the south wing of the palace. The
roofs down there must be those of the Hall of Columns and the
outer stairway, are they not? What a huge mass of a place! "
The roofs of which he spoke were great pyramidal shapes pro-
tected with lead, and they covered in the ceilings on which
Bayeu's frescoed cherubs cut their lively pigeon-wings and pir-
ouettes.
Still going on and on and onward without pause, we found
ourselves shut up in a place without exit, a considerable inclosure
lighted from the top, and we had to turn round and beat a
retreat by the way we had entered. Any one who knows the
palace and its symmetrical grandeur only from without could
never divine all these irregularities that constitute a veritable
small town in its upper regions. In truth, for an entire century
there has been but one continual modifying of the original plan,
a stopping up here and an opening there, a condemning of stair-
cases, a widening of some rooms at the expense of others, a
changing of corridors into living-rooms and of living-rooms into
corridors, and a cutting through of partitions and a shutting up
of windows. You fall in with stairways that begin but never
arrive anywhere, and with balconies that are but the made-over
roof coverings of dwelling-places below. These dove-cotes were
once stately drawing-rooms, and on the other hand, these fine
salons have been made out of the inclosing space of a grand


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6172
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
staircase. Then again winding stairs are frequent; but if you
should take them, Heaven knows what would become of you; and
frequent, too, are glazed doors permanently closed, with naught
behind them but silence, dust, and darkness.
"We are looking for the apartment of Don Francisco Bringas. "
"Bringas? yes, yes," said an old woman; "you're close to it.
All you have got to do is, go down the first circular stairway you
come to, and then make a half-turn. Bringas? yes to be sure;
he's sacristan of the chapel. "
"Sacristan,―he? What is the matter with you? He is head
clerk of the Administrative Department. "
"Oh, then he must be lower down, just off the terrace. I
suppose you know your way to the fountain ? »
>>
"No, not we. "
"You know the stairs called the Cáceres Staircase ? "
"No, not that either. "
"At any rate, you know where the Oratory is? "
"We know nothing about it. "
"But the choir of the Oratory? but the dove-cotes? ».
Sum total, we had not the slightest acquaintance with any of
that congeries of winding turns, sudden tricks, and baffling sur-
prises. The architectural arrangement was a mad caprice, a mock-
ing jest at all plan and symmetry. Nevertheless, despite our
notable lack of experience we stuck to our quest, and even
carried our infatuation so far as to reject the services of a boy
who offered himself as our guide.
―
"We are now in the wing facing on the Plaza de Oriente,"
said Pez; "that is to say, at exactly the opposite extreme from
the wing in which our friend resides. " His geographical notions
were delivered with the gravity and conviction of some character
in Jules Verne. "Hence, the problem now demanding our atten-
tion is by what route to get from here to the western wing. In
the first place, the cupola of the chapel and the grand stairway
roof-covering furnish us with a certain basis; we should take our
bearings from them. I assume that, having once arrived in the
western wing, we shall be numskulls indeed if we do not strike
Bringas's abode. All the same, I for one will never return to
these outlandish regions without a pocket compass, and what is
more, without a good supply of provender too, against such
emergencies as this. "
Before striking out on the new stage of our explorations, as
thus projected, we paused to look down from the window. The


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BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
6173
Plaza de Oriente lay below us in a beautiful panorama, and
beyond it a portion of Madrid crested with at least fifty cupolas,
steeples, and bell towers. The equestrian Philip IV. appeared a
mere toy, and the Royal Theatre a paltry shed.
The
doves had their nests far below where we stood, and we saw
them, by pairs or larger groups, plunge headlong downward into
the dizzy abyss, and then presently come whirling upward again,
with swift and graceful motion, and settle on the carved capitals
and moldings. It is credibly stated that all the political revolu-
tions do not matter a jot to these doves, and there is nothing
either in the ancient pile they inhabit or in the free realms of
air around it, to limit their sway. They remain undisputed mas-
ters of the place.
Away we go once more. Pez begins to put the geographical
notions he has acquired from the books of Jules Verne yet fur-
ther into practice. At every step he stops to say to me, "Now
we are making our way northward. -We shall undoubtedly soon
find a road or trail on our right, leading to the west. - There is
no cause to be alarmed in descending this winding stairway to
the second story. -Good, it is done! Well, bless me! where are
we now? I don't see the main dome any longer, not so much as
a lightning-rod of it. We are in the realms of the feebly flicker-
ing gas once more. Suppose we ascend again by this other
stairway luckily just at hand. What now? Well, here we are
back again in the eastward wing and nothing else, just where we
were before. Are we? no, yes; see, down there in the court the
big dome is still on our right. There's a regular grove of chim-
ney stacks.
You may believe it or not, but this sort of thing
begins to make my head swim; it seems as if the whole place
gave a lurch now and then, like a ship at sea. The fountain
must be over that way, do you see? for the maids are coming
and going from there with their pitchers. -Oh well, I for one
give the whole thing up. We want a guide, and an expert; or
we'll never get out of this. I can't take another step; we've
walked miles and I can't stand on my legs. - Hey, there, halloo!