71
Menéndez y Pelayo, Pereda, Pérez Galdós, Discursos leídos ante la Real Academia Española, Madrid, 1897, p. 25.
72
Vida y obra de Galdós, Madrid, 1951, p. 109
73
We are reminded of Jacinta's tenderness for the drowning cats, when later on Juanito remarks of her effort to adopt el Pitusín, «Estás como las gatas paridas, escondiendo las crías hoy aquí, mañana allá» (p. 149 -all quotations are from the Aguilar, Obras completas, Madrid 1950 and from Volume V unless otherwise indicated). In her domesticity and sleekness Jacinta is indeed a cat (lacking, of course, feline wildness and independence) in contrast to Fortunata's resemblance to a bird.
74
Both Amado Alonso («Lo español y lo universal en Galdós», Materia y forma en poesía, Madrid, 1960, p. 193) and Casalducro (pp. 52-55) comment on the allegorical version of this in La Fontana while Hinterhäuser (Die «Episodios nacionales»; Hamburg, 1961) gives further examples including that of doña Isabel. However, as was pointed out in my review of the last (RF, 1963, pp. 434-446), such examples constitute only a simplified allegorical version of an artistic technique and belief which is much more complex, flexible, and pervasive.
75
Galdós underlines the contrast when he associates her births with «fechas célebres del reinado de Isabel II» and her death with that of D. Juan Prim.
76
The emblem is, of course, age-old and, in its simplest form, is contained in the expression «family tree». Developed in innumerable ways by as many poets and novelists, Galdós' sociological version is as original as any. For an example of a very different nature, one might point to Lope's tenderly ironical comparison of human reproduction with the grafting of fruit trees. (La buena guarda, III, lines 136-175).
77
I am particularly interested in these examples insofar as they further illustrate the oral and topical (albeit extremely complex) nature of Galdós' art -as analyzed in «La palabra hablada y Fortunata y Jacinta»; NRFH, 1961, pp. 542-560.
78
Galdós would perhaps agree with Juanito when he characterizes a novel derived from such source as necessarily «cursi». First he accuses his wife of having, in Cervantine language, «calentado la cabeza de Barbarita», and then he goes on to say, «como historia el caso es falso, como novela es cursi» (p. 145). That is to say, Galdós seems here to predict that only the more sublime and vitally rooted incitation of Fortunata can save «la maldita novela del niño encontrado». Jacinta's maternal instincts are too limited, however pathetic.
79
The coincidence of certain of Galdós' dream descriptions with Freud was first noticed by Madariaga in his «semblanza» (reprinted in De Galdós a Lorca, Buenos Aires, 1960) and has since been commented on by Gullón and others. No explanation, however, -aside from the obvious one that Galdós must have been a listener to feminine dreams as he was to feminine conversation- of such a fundamentally mysterious likeness is possible. The words «Zeitgeise» or «genius» are synonyms of «mystery».
80
Instead of satin and infantile demands, Fortunata dreams of «tubos», «llaves de bronce», «grifos», and «los lápices más fuertes del mundo» capable of resisting «tremendos picotazos... sin que se les rompa el punto» (pp. 409-410).