31
Ibid., p. 25. (N. del A.)
32
See T. A. Sackett, «The Meaning of Miau», 26: «[Villaamil] begins to believe that like another Messiah, Christ, he must suffer a passion and martyrdom before his ideas will be accepted». (N. del A.)
33
See Robert J. Weber, The Miau Manuscript of Benito Pérez Galdós, University of California Publications in Modern Philology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 132. (N. del A.)
34
The Society for Psychical Research was founded in London in 1882, six years before the publication of Miau. The members were concerned, not only with the actual investigation of cases of psychical phenomena reported to them, but also with the collection and diffusion of such cases: see H. J. Eysenck, Sense and Nonsense in Psychology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), 110. Galdós' interest in the paranormal may have been aroused, not only by the publications of this society, but also by his friendship with Dr. Tolosa Latour: see M. Gordon, «The Medical Background to La desheredada», and Joseph Schraibman, Dreams in the Novels of Galdós. (N. del A.)
35
See Sackett, «The Meaning of Miau», 32, and Alfredo Rodríguez, Estudios sobre la novela de Galdós (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1978), 62-63. Rodríguez notes some similarities between Víctor and Don Juan. Here we may add that, like the original Don Juan in Tirso's El burlador de Sevilla, Víctor is a burlador who seems more interested in deceiving than in sensual pleasure; also, like Tirso's character, he is essentially theatrical: see Daniel Rogers, Tirso de Molina: El burlador de Sevilla, Critical Guides to Spanish Texts (London: Grant and Cutler and Tamesis Books, 1977), 31-40. Tirso was the first to see Don Juan as the personification of the Devil: Catalinón calls him Lucifer in line 1774, Act II. (N. del A.)
36
In the Alpha version, the good God tells Luisito that the Devil often comes to Congress, thereby further identifying the God that rules over the Administration with him: see Weber, The Miau Manuscript, 151. In Act III, scene IV of Casandra, Ismael states his belief in the two Gods: the first is «un Dios político, gubernamental, militar, judicial, administrativo y un poquito burocrático... El otro Dios, el de los Pobres, es el que recoge a todos los desengañados del Dios de los Ricos, a los que no tienen influencia ni poder alguno en los mangoneos de la política ni de la Iglesia... Su nombre encabeza las cesantías...» Novelas y Miscelánea (Madrid: Aguilar, 1977), 960a. Pipá, the eponymous child observer of Clarín's short story (published two years before Miau in 1886), also expresses his belief in two gods: Obras selectas, second ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1966), 824-26. (N. del A.)
37
For other factors contributing to Villaamil's suicide, see Stephen Miller, «Villaamil's Suicide: Action, Character and Motivation», AG, 14 (1979), 83-96. (N. del A.)
38
«Miau: Prelude to a Reassessment», 59. (N. del A.)
39
«Yet Another Interpretation», 8. (N. del A.)
40
Galdós, novelista moderno, 339. Galdós may have intended Abelarda to see herself as a Mater Dolorosa, just as Villaamil sees himself as a Christ-figure: see p. 577, 1080b. (N. del A.)