Note should be taken of Camille Flammarion's belief that poetic truth is the forerunner of scientific truth, in La pluralidad de los mundos habitados, trans. D.A.M.D.R. (Madrid: Gaspar y Roig, 1873), pp. 147-89 and p. 224. Maxi was very interested in this book. (N. del A.)

See Stephen Gilman's observations on Maxi as a rationalist, in Galdós and the Art of the European Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 344. (N. del A.)

This inability to «calculate» is related to training in reasoning and, therefore, to education and makes the novel in this respect a reprise of La desheredada (see my «The Genesis of La desheredada: Beethoven, the Picaresque and Plato», Anales Galdosianos, 14 [1979], 27-50, especially pp. 41-46). (N. del A.)

The fact that no parallel is drawn between religious and erotic experience within an orthodox context and that religion and training by the religious find expression in mechanical and rote practices suggests that sublimation is not to be accomplished under the Micaelas' guidance. The irruption of false mysticism in such an atmosphere implies a spiritual vacuum. Estupiñá's mechanical recitation of prayers while sharing marketing information adds another perspective on the compartmentalized mind-set that keeps religion «going», while other thoughts occupy the worshipper. (N. del A.)

Milagros Tellería's role as priestess in Rosalía Bringas' «second religion» is an earlier example of this pairing of women, so that the initiate appears with another who is already farther along the road to perdition. These traditional associations of women in the Eve-role, now grouped in a separate «religion», an «underground religion», provide Galdós with the means to create a society of like-minded individuals. (N. del A.)

See José F. Montesinos, Galdós, II (Madrid: Castalia, 1964), 238, for observations on the question of Juanito as Fortunata's god. (N. del A.)

See Arthur Schopenhauer, «The Metaphysics of the Love of the Sexes», in Irwin Erdman, ed., The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (New York: The Modern Library, 1956), pp. 337-76. (N. del A.)

Guillermina's role here is similar to that of a picaro's master, the spokesperson for the society that requires the picaro's alienation so that he may appear to conform to the master's world. Galdós adds a new dimension to a traditional situation by making Guillermina play her role while aware of her own fall from perfection. Usually only the picaro is aware of the weakness of the master. Furthermore, references below confirm that Galdós had the picaresque in mind in elaborating this scene. Ricardo Gullón, Técnicas de Galdós (Madrid: Taurus, 1970), pp. 208-09, discusses loss of decorum in Fortunata's final fall. In my view, almost every character ceases to maintain decorum at the very time when his illusions or hope of being are at stake. (N. del A.)

See Ribbans, p. 101, for useful observations in terms of the «spiritual aspiration» uniting Guillermina and Fortunata. (N. del A.)

It is possible to concur with Geoffrey Ribbans' (p. 110) positive view of her death, provided one focuses the question from within Fortunata's understanding and aspirations. It seems to me that the narrator, by including Guillermina's judgment that Fortunata had not given up her «idea maligna», seeks to sustain the ambiguity concerning Fortunata's «goodness» to the end. Although the characters' thoughts and actions may be viewed from within their consciences, others in the world in which the action develops most likely could not accept such a view of «salvation» or «redemption» any more than they would accept the heterodoxy shared by the characters and not exactly condemned by the narrator. (N. del A.)