Between «Costumbrista» Sketch and Short Story: Armando Palacio Valdés's «Aguas fuertes»

Enrique Rubio Cremades¹

In both literature and in painting, the term aguafuerte (etching) refers to an art of reproduction. The text or the image arrives in the hands of the reader or before the eyes of the viewer, just as the artist or writer wanted to express or draw it, without preliminary considerations or sketches; it is the most natural expression of the mind of the artist, in this case of the writer Armando Palacio Valdés. His collection Aguas fuertes is a distinctive and subtle literary work whose narratives physically and visually capture a series of sensations, and the short narratives that make up the volume range from the abstract-descriptive costumbrista sketch to the anecdote that has been fitted with a storyline that lends the piece an animated, lively tone, with characters and movement. Aguas fuertes contains not only writings rooted in the impeccable costumbrista tradition of Mesonero Romanos and Larra, but also a number of short stories that lend the volume its miscellaneous character.

The first edition of Aguas fuertes (1884)² coincides with the publication of other volumes similar in focus and content written by, among others, Father Luis Coloma, Ángela Grassi, and Manuel Ossorio y Bernard³. Earlier in the decade, Spanish publishers had issued several collections that alternated short stories, novellas, and costumbrista sketches in their various forms, such as José Ortega y Munilla's Pruebas de imprenta, cuentos y artículos [Print Drafts, Stories and Articles] (1883) and Pereda's Esbozos y rasguños (1881) [Sketches and Notes], a volume that combines multifaceted contents in a hybrid form halfway between short story and costumbrista sketch, and that is linked together by the characters and a thin narrative thread⁴.

The members of Palacio Valdés's generation often published their cuadros de costumbres and short stories in newspapers and magazines and collected them later in volumes or anthologies⁵. I am convinced that the first anthology or collective volume had its origin in journalism. The nineteenth century witnessed the development of a public sphere in Spain as a result of the proliferation of the periodical press that had started a century earlier. Journals, newspapers, and magazines became the primary medium of public exchange for a growing bourgeoisie. This development saw the emergence of the professional writer, changed the notion of what a text was, and shaped new forms of readerly reception (Iarocci 385-6). Costumbrismo has a distinctive realist dimension, as the fundamentally new form of literary mimesis in the cuadros de costumbres reveals an increasing focus on the representation of contemporary social life. Like the realist novel, these articles became a venue in which the new middle classes contemplated and analysed their social world. They helped to make sense of an increasingly heterogeneous society (Iarocci 388)⁶.

The costumbrista articles in the journals and magazines were only short-lived, but, once they were published in book form, these journalistic texts prevailed and could be read at any moment. This is illustrated by the first edition of Fígaro's articles published by the printer Repullés (1835). With the birth of the modern press -Cartas Españolas, Revista Española, El Artista, Semanario Pintoresco Español- the editors, in connivance with the authors, would reprint articles that had been published scattered in journals and magazines in order to cash in on the author's fame and thus obtain ample benefits. This practice of publishing was common in the nineteenth century and also occurred with pieces written by Palacio Valdés.

The first edition of Aguas fuertes, for instance, contains a total of seventeen miscellaneous texts by Palacio Valdés. El Retiro de Madrid is a long costumbrista sketch that consists of four subdivisions: Mañanas de junio y julio [June and July Mornings], El estanque grande [The Great Pond], La casa de fieras [The Wild Animal House], and El paseo de los coches [Carriage Way]. In the second edition (1907), three new texts have been added; well-written pieces of undeniable literary quality that enrich the collection: El crimen de la calle de la Perseguida [The Crime on Perseguida Street], El potro del señor cura [The Curate's Colt], and Polifemo [Polyphemus]. The reader is not given any explanation about the criteria that guide the inclusion of the additional texts, and in the second and final edition of Aguas fuertes the subtitle novelas y cuadros [novels and scenes] has been omitted. This is also the case in the 1921 and 1947 editions of the Obras completas [Complete Works] by Palacio Valdés.

Specific stories and cuadros de costumbres have been pulled out of the final corpus of Aguas fuertes to be published either in collective volumes, in anthologies of work by the author himself, or in isolated form. El pájaro en la nieve [The Bird in the Snow], for instance, was published in 1918 in Los Contemporáneos [The Contemporaries], and in 1925 this text appeared in a collection of short stories illustrated by the well-known illustrator Enrique Martínez Echevarria, «Echea» The same happened with Los Puritanos [The Puritans], a story that had always been included in Aguas fuertes and that would later be published together with other stories in, for example, W. T. Faulkner's 1904 collection Los puritanos y otros cuentos, and in the 1929 edition Los Puritanos. Although this last volume is named after a single story, Los Puritanos, it also contains stories that figure in Aguas fuertes - El pájaro en la nieve, El drama de las bambalinas [Stage Curtain Drama], Los amores de Clotilde [Clotilde's Romance], and Polifemo [Polyphemus], or in other publications, such as Solo [Alone], Ramonín, Seducción [Seduction], and Vida de canónigo [The Life of a Canon]. What we have described here was common practice during Palacio's time (Lorenzo Álvarez 215-36), and the author was no exception in allowing publications of his cuadros or stories in a variety of venues.

The publication of Aguas fuertes also coincided with another literary practice typical of the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century: the publication of artículos de costumbres in costumbrista collections. With the disappearance of the masters of costumbrismo -Larra and Mesonero Romanos- the interest in the genre did not diminish but rather revived in the second half of the nineteenth century, as demonstrated by the writings of Valera, Alarcón, Galdós, Pardo Bazán, Pereda, and others. This success of the costumbrista article led to the publication of costumbrista collections, such as Las españolas pintadas por los españoles [Spanish Women, Portrayed by Spanish Men] (1871-2), Las mujeres españolas, portuguesas y americanas [Spanish, Portuguese, and American Women] (1872, 1873, 1876), Los españoles de ogaño [The Spaniards of Today] (1872), Madrid por dentro y por fuera [Madrid Inside and Out] (1873), Los hombres españoles, americanos y lusitanos pintados por sí mismos [Spanish, American, and Lusitanian Men, Portrayed by Themselves] (1882), and Las mujeres españolas, americanas y lusitanas pintadas por sí mismas [Spanish, American, and Lusitanian Women, Portrayed by Themselves] (1882). The crème de la crème of Spanish intellectuals, writers, and journalists collaborated in these collections. Even at the dawn of the twentieth century, these volumes occupied a privileged place, such as El Álbum de Galicia [The Book of Galicia] or those whose titles evoked the very first volume in its genre, Los españoles pintados por sí mismos [The Spanish Portrayed by Themselves]. In this sense, Palacio Valdés's pieces El Paseo de Recoletos and La Castellana, to name only two, appear as classic texts alongside other costumbrista scenes written by Rafael Ramiro y Doreste, Enrique Sepúlveda, Eusebio Blasco, Luis Taboada, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, and many others. To this list of writers we could obviously add the above-mentioned authors of the great realist and naturalist novels.

The publication of Aguas fuertes was well received, as the volume garnered the approval of the caustic, famous, and feared Clarín, who from the pages of El Globo (1 February 1885) began his critical discussion of the work with a series of eloquent literary and pictorial references: «En Aguas fuertes hay miniaturas que, a encontrarlas en un abanico El Primo Pons [Cousin Pons], las hubiera comprado por obra de Watteau a peso de oro» [In Aguas fuertes there are miniatures that, upon finding them painted on a fan, Cousin Pons would have purchased for their weight in gold, thinking them the work of Watteau] (Alas 802). Clarín did not choose this literary comparison frivolously. El Primo Pons is a translation of a novel by Balzac, Le cousin Pons (1847), that together with La prima Bette forms the diptych Los parientes pobres -Les parents pauvres [Poor Relations]- included in Balzac's Comedia humana. What's important for Clarín is Pons's incredible journey. We are dealing with a simple and good-hearted character, who has a great fondness for art and who, with the modest income from his harmony lessons and after cutting down on all his expenses, accumulates a highly select and extremely beautiful collection of paintings and curiosities while remaining unaware of the works' commercial value. To compare Aguas fuertes to the paintings of Jean Antoine Watteau, whose works are on display in Europe's foremost national museums, means to highly value the volume's excellence. To situate Aguas fuertes among the works of the universal masters -Balzac and Watteau- is the highest praise that Clarín could give to Palacio's book. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that he defines the work in laudatory terms:

According to Clarín, Palacio Valdés's volume is perfect. There is not a word too many; everything is delight and joy, and no individual narrative component is preferred or critiqued. The amalgam of cuadros de costumbres, disparate in content and scope, of short stories and novels, forms an exceptional whole. To please the reader accustomed to his sharp criticism, Clarín only points out minor oversights in language that nonetheless do not diminish the quality of Aguas fuertes.

Palacio Valdés begins Aguas fuertes with a costumbrista scene in the style of El Curioso Parlante [The Curious Speaker]. Mesonero Romanos often described Madrid's Retiro Park, both in his Manual de Madrid and in his Nuevo Manual de Madrid. His characters stroll through the Buen Retiro, although not in any specific or concrete way. Later followers of Larra and Mesonero, on the contrary, would describe and analyse the social behaviour of characters very different in appearance and social origin that so frequently visited this urban context. Only a few years before Palacio Valdés published Aguas fuertes, Pedro de Répide commented on the political life in Madrid at that time in his Madrid a vista de pájaro [A Bird's-Eye View of Madrid] (1874) when he described passers-by in Madrid's Retiro discussing the manipulative moves of Rosas Samaniego and the followers of King Alfonso. Another example is found in Las fieras del Retiro [The Beasts of the Retiro], by Vital Aza, who levels a scathing critique of politicians and their venality by comparing them to the caged monkeys in the Buen Retiro (287-300)⁷. Palacio Valdés, however, adopts in his article the detailed costumbrismo style of Adolfo Mentaberry, author of the article Los jardines del Retiro (255-64), published together with the article by Aza in the costumbrista collection Madrid por dentro y por fuera.

Palacio Valdés pays particular attention to an urban landscape populated by characters who make brief appearances and, for whatever reason, run into the author during his daily stroll, including, for example, the seamstresses and other persons whose occupations require them to start early, at daybreak, when Don Armando used to take his walk. In this first cuadro de costumbres, we clearly notice some of the characteristics of the genre, not only in the literary devices used by the author but also in the words with which Palacio Valdés, following the masters of costumbrismo, expresses his intentions: «Antes de ponerme a escribir a cerca de ellas [La casa de fieras del Retiro], quizá debiera examinar algunos documentos referentes a su erección y desenvolvimiento, a fin de que las futuras generaciones, cuando lean el presente estudio, sepan a quien deben las fieras el piadoso hospital que hoy disfrutan» [Before I write about them [the animal cages in the Retiro Park], perhaps I should examine some documents about their construction and history, so that future generations, when they read this study, know to whom the beasts owe the compassionate hospital they now enjoy] (Aguas fuertes 20).

Several generations later, Palacio Valdés's perspective provides today's reader with a keen understanding of the lively environment that was Madrid's Retiro, where a variety of social types mingled with tradesmen and artisans. The author takes the reader on a journey through Madrid's urban environment; he presents us with the city's customs, courtship traditions, and forms of entertainment, and shows us a thousand ways to idly pass time, the driving force of the characters' actions, from sunset to sundown. For Palacio Valdés, the «madrileños, mejor que ningún otro pueblo antiguo o moderno, han llevado el refinamiento a este goce exquisito; en las iglesias, en los teatros, en los paseos, en los salones. Se apuran todos los medios de contemplarse con más comodidad» [Madrileños, better than any other ancient or modern people, have brought refinement to this exquisite enjoyment; in the churches, in the theatres, in the boulevards, in the salons. They take advantage of every means to indulge themselves with greater comfort] (Aguas fuertes 33-4). Palacio's intentions are in a way similar to those of Galdós, when the latter writes his costumbrista article Aquel [That One] (266-74), in which the narrator, from the beginning to the end of the text, follows a character during his walk, his journey through the city, his stops and observations, as if he were following a mysterious being. In the end Galdós will reveal the profession of this mysterious individual: he is an idler, an inactive person. Even before Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, the costumbristas used the term flanear, from the French flâner, since they were masters in the art of strolling, wandering and doing nothing. Palacio Valdés puts this galicismo into practice, knowing that his flanear will provide him with sufficient noteworthy material to publish in a newspaper.

El Retiro de Madrid is an exemplary cuadro de costumbres, since the writer accounts for his observations in a way that is fluid and careful, without ignoring the urban context or the people who pass by. It's an animated sketch that describes at the same time as it analyses or satirizes. The observation is detailed, the tone very personal. We clearly sense that Palacio Valdés is present in this piece. We notice his characteristic tics in the way he observes his surroundings, and his tolerance, sense of humour, and temperament keep charming us. During his urban journey he refers to classical antiquity to describe the peacefulness and beauty of the Retiro, its pond, its romantic gardens, its hidden corners, while at the same time denouncing the misconceived modernity of Madrid's city council for its inability to solve specific problems with the Casa de fieras or the so-called Paseo de los coches. In a humorous tone, he approaches the deplorable situation of the Retiro's wild animals, which are hungry and basically abandoned to their fate or to the generosity and thoughtfulness of the onlookers. The origins of the passers-by, army recruits and seamstresses, betray their working-class culture and their natural vivacity, and Palacio Valdés portrays them with subtle charm. He paints a lively and diverse world in which the protagonists spontaneously begin to converse, using a language riddled with vulgarisms, syntactic distortions, borrowings, and idiomatic variations that make the described situations feel real. In this sense, Palacio Valdés is very close to an author such as Mesonero Romanos, or Antonio Flores, costumbrista writers who equipped their characters with all the features of the language that corresponded with their social status, just as Galdós situated his fictional world in specific social contexts of the city of Madrid.

In Aguas fuertes we clearly perceive the costumbrista writer's attitude when it comes to analysing the past in relation to the present. Palacio Valdés shows a certain tolerance, benevolence, and sympathy for the configuration of the Retiro in a time before its alteration, its remodelling. The author contemplates the innovations from a negative perspective. Something similar occurs with his vision or analysis of this same society characterized by cursilería, the notorious «quiero y no puedo» [I want and I can't] that Galdós will describe in his fictional world, equipping it with a life of its own. Noël Valis, in The Culture of Cursilería: Bad Taste, Kitsch and Class in Modern Spain, defines cursilería as a phenomenon inhabiting the conflictive face of modernity in Spain and one that has its roots in a sense of cultural inadequacy felt by Spain's lower middle classes. Palacio Valdés writes on the topic that «hay hombre que se queda calvo, y defrauda al Estado, y arruina a varias familias, solamente para que dos caballos le lleven a todas partes a contemplar a otros hombres que también se han quedado calvos y han defraudado al Estado y a los particulares con el mismo objeto» [There are men who have gone broke, have defrauded the state, ruined various families, only so that two horses might carry them everywhere so that they can contemplate other men who have also gone broke, defrauded the state and other individuals, all with the same goal] (Aguas fuertes 33).

Palacio Valdés also uses fantastic elements in his sketches, such as animals that dialogue with each other and denounce their owners or those who live nearby. These animals are not conceived as subjects of the story or symbols of the virtues or vices of human beings, but rather as beings that are qualified to judge their owners and reproach them their lack of understanding or common sense. These sketches portray a diverse world populated by colts that pass themselves off as legitimate descendants of the most renowned London stables, while in reality they originate in Spanish soil. Middle-class bipeds contemplate without blinking the magnificent entourage of the aristocratic quadrupeds. The result is a courtly life with an intimate connection to the urban world, analysed from different viewpoints, as if Palacio Valdés wanted to offer it to his readers from multiple perspectives, besides his own.

In the same vein of the sketch El Retiro de Madrid is El Paseo de Recoletos, in those days the promenade of the middle classes. It was a place frequented by the cursi, another exponent of the widespread phenomenon of cursilería (see above). A character from the illustrious nineteenth-century literary tradition, the cursi is generally considered false because of her eagerness to boast about an elegance or refinement that she does not have: «cursilillas de media tostada» [slow-witted snobs] (Aguas fuertes 170), Palacio Valdés called them, recalling famous examples of cuadros de costumbres that describe the adventures and misfortunes of this character⁸. The Paseo de Recoletos, which in the beginning of the nineteenth century was called the Paseo Nuevo de las Delicias de la Princesa, was also known as the Fuente de la Castellana and Paseo de Isabel II. Palacio Valdés describes this promenade as the preferred leisure zone of Madrid's inhabitants, an urban framing that is characteristic and typical of his time. While he walks along Madrid's principal arteries that converge into the Castellana, the author, in typical costumbrista style, digresses from his topic into what can be seen as a tribute to his admired Galdós. The style and literary devices of Palacio's urban trajectory differ in nothing from those of the masters of costumbrismo, and the same is true for the sketches La Academia de Jurisprudencia, La Biblioteca Nacional, and La Abeja (periódico científico y literario).

La Academia de Jurisprudencia is one of several articles that deal with political or scientific debates and that are meant to condemn the elections and the tricks that aspiring lawyers use to obtain a position as full members of the Madrid's Royal Academy of Jurisprudence. In these heated discussions, the enthusiasm for the debate is more important than the truth of the matter that is being discussed. The article brings into question the inscrutable behaviour of the legal authorities, since not even they respect the opinions and reflections that lead to the explanation of certain facts. The text resuming the debate is sufficiently eloquent: «Indescriptible confusión. Dos espectadores apostrofan duramente al orador. Algunos académicos tratan de imponerles silencio. El presidente rompe la campanilla» [Indescribable confusion. Two spectators shout down the speaker. Some academicians try to silence them. The president vigorously rings the bell] (Aguas fuertes 78). In this scathing sketch, Palacio Valdés highlights the ambition of those who desire at all costs to occupy privileged positions in the Academy by revealing the poverty and misery that surround the academic life of its representatives:

The sketch is aggressive, and similar to those of Larra. The teasing, humorous tone, in the vein of Mesonero Romanos, disappears, revealing a caustic Palacio Valdés who is upset and disappointed with those who should, in fact, model exemplary behaviour.

Similar to this article is another titled La Biblioteca Nacional [The National Library] in which Palacio Valdés, rather than offering a detailed description of this building, as was usual in the descriptive articles of Mesonero Romanos (for instance, El Patio de correos, La Casa de Cervantes, El Camposanto, La Filarmonía, and La Casa de baños), instead sticks his nose into the lives of those who work there. He passes judgment on the management of the National Library that does nothing to prevent the employees from being rude in their dealings with the visiting readers and researchers. Indeed, Palacio Valdés spares nobody. The only ones who escape his criticism are the long-suffering and humble researchers who in their distress have no other option than to put up with a pile of obstacles to obtain the desired book that, in most cases, will fail to reach its destination because of the ineffectiveness of the librarians or the Library's absurd hours of operations. Both in La Academia de Jurisprudencia and in the present piece, Palacio Valdés is an eyewitness and observer of what he describes and denounces in his sketches. One can see reflections of Larra's critical perspective in the author's mind when he judges Spain's bureaucracy, the country's official institutions, in short, the state. Everything is chaos: the public servants are poorly educated, the custodians are inept, the organization of the borrowing system is chaotic, and the establishment is filthy. Instead of being a centre of research and culture, the National Library is an inhospitable place, cold and dirty, and closed with unusual frequency. To write and to do research in Spain, as Fígaro would say, is impossible because of the deplorable condition of the National Library, and the incompetence of its employees, from its highest official to its lowest clerk.

Given the history of nineteenth-century costumbrismo, the article entitled La Abeja [The Bee] could be considered an atypical piece. It is true that there are articles that deal with and analyse a certain periodical, but this piece is unusual. La Abeja is the story of a newspaper, from its conception, its first publication and journalistic history to its final issue and disappearance. At certain moments, the piece echoes the introductory phrases in Larra's El Pobrecito Hablador -Dos palabras (17 August 1832)- or Ya soy redactor, published in the Revista Española on 19 March 1833. Prior to this piece by Palacio Valdés, there were other articles published in the second half of the nineteenth century that analysed a media outlet -a newspaper and its editors- such as the sketches included in Los españoles de ogaño and written by José Garay de Sarti, El periodista de oficio [Journalist by Trade] (1: 352-64); Florencio Moreno Rodino, El crítico [The Critic] (2: 183-8); and Andrés Ruigómez e Ibarbia, El periodista peatón [The Pedestrian Journalist] (1872, 2: 377-86). There were also pieces that contained references to the creation of a newspaper, the establishment of its editorial corps, and the distribution of its issues. In the collection Madrid por dentro y por fuera, for instance, Eduardo de Lustonó published La redacción de un periódico demoledor [The Incendiary Newsroom] (1: 89-96), Manuel Matoses's El periódico callejero [The Street Newspaper] (1: 447-56), and Galdós's El artículo de fondo [The Background Article]. It is unusual, however, to see authors limiting themselves to a specific publication, as is the case of Palacio Valdés. In Aguas fuertes there are constant references to the Spanish press, as the author continually mentions publications of unquestionable prestige and quality such as the Ilustración Española y Americana, La Correspondencia de España, El Imparcial, and El Globo, among others.

La Abeja. Periódico científico y literario [The Bee. A Scientific and Literary Journal] is a document that contains newsworthy material of indisputable value for those who want to learn about this newspaper, which aimed to become the official publication of Madrid's Ateneo, along the same lines as other journals that included cultural activities and historical and literary publications. The sketch is a faithful representation of the author's years as a student at the Universidad de Madrid. At twenty-one he had finished his university career and a year earlier he had become a member of Madrid's Ateneo. According to Ángel Cruz Rueda, during the first months of his stay in Madrid, Clarín, Tuero, and Palacio Valdés himself

In the history of Spanish journalism, the title La Abeja has always referred to a literary publication, even if the journal did not usually belong to cultural communities related to Liceos or Ateneos. The word abeja denoted not only a literary but also a satirical bend. This is the case with La Abeja Española (1812) and La Abeja Madrileña (1814), whose editor-in-chief was Bartolomé José Gallardo; La Abeja (1834-6), led by Joaquín Francisco Pacheco, La Abeja Literaria (1845-6), La Abeja Literaria, Científica e Industrial (1864-5), and La Abeja (1864-5), among other publications of the same name that had similar intentions to the one mentioned in Palacio Valdés's article. These journals had two things in common: first was their lack of financial resources, a circumstance that prevented them from surviving for very long, and second was the fact that the editors were usually a group of friends united by their love of literature. Accordingly, Palacio Valdés's documentation of La Abeja is a detailed account of the creation and disappearance of a newspaper.

The collection Aguas fuertes also contains a series of cuadros de costumbres that mainly focus on the death penalty, the description of a public execution and its circumstances. From different perspectives, Palacio Valdés provides a detailed description of a public execution, a spectacle that Madrid's population witnessed with particular enthusiasm. In El hombre de los patíbulos [The Man of the Gallows], a diverse crowd gathers at dawn in the centre of Madrid. At seven in the morning a stream of people fill the Puerta del Sol and the Calle de la Montera. Above the noisy multitude we hear the shouts of the criers as they announce the Salve Regina that the prisoners will sing in the chapel for those who will be put to death. Palacio Valdés provides other details that turn this often-censored Madrid custom into a Dantesque spectacle. From the very beginning of the article, the author perfectly captures the incessant stream of people:

Earlier works by Larra and Alarcón expressed similar feelings opposed to the death penalty¹⁰. Yet, unlike these great writers, Palacio Valdés enlivens his piece with the appearance and disappearance of characters, and with dialogues that give us the impression of a lively scene, with an anecdotal structure. In this way, the narrator and the new characters that appear in the sketch, such as a passionate spectator who has witnessed all the executions that have been carried out since his childhood, provide a series of considerations for the reader who peers into the action of the sketch as if he were another spectator of this macabre scene.

Palacio Valdés addresses the topic of public executions in other narratives in Aguas fuertes as well. In the sketch El sueño de un reo de muerte [The Dream of a Condemned Man], for instance, the author presents the same emotions and convictions opposed to capital punishment found in El hombre de los patíbulos, but the literary devices he employs are now completely different. Although his intention has not changed -to denounce the sad sight of these public executions that are made into a spectacle in which the person who is put to death is the tragedy's main character- in this latter article, the protagonist-narrator falls asleep and dreams that he has received the death sentence. All his suffering boils down to being made into the principal character of the show; far more than the garotte, he fears being observed by a crowd that is eager to see the accused in a bloody and humiliating situation. Contrary to what happens in El hombre de los patíbulos, in this sketch Madrid's inhabitants do not attend the execution. The streets are deserted and the prisoner will be transferred without spectators. The only witnesses of the execution are the representatives of the law and the executioner. The silent streets contrast with the brutality and contempt that the crowd shows for the condemned in the previously mentioned article. We could say that the silence that surrounds the execution is the true protagonist. This silence and the total absence of witnesses make the accused happy, since he is not afraid of the execution but of the horrible spectacle and the idea that he will be observed by a multitude of voyeurs. Just before the condemned receives punishment, he wakes up. It all has been a bad dream¹¹.

The newsworthy material that Palacio Valdés offers both in El sueño de un reo de muerte and in El hombre de los patíbulos is impressive. Instead of presenting a detailed examination of what he has observed, Palacio provides his material with a little storyline so that at certain moments the sketch resembles a short story. The perspective of the costumbrista writer, the accumulation of all kinds of details, objects, and characters that surround the description, form one side of the coin. In El hombre de los patíbulos, Palacio Valdés describes the crowd gathered in the streets of Madrid, the balconies and shopping stalls, the shouts of the street vendors. The description of the prisoner's itinerary, from El Saladero (the city jail) to the Campo de Guardias where he will be executed, is lively, dynamic, and colourful. Conversely -on the other side of the coin- we have the dialogue between the narrator and a character whose past is heartbreaking because his father was put to death when he was still a child. Since that moment in his childhood, this character has never missed an execution, and he will tell his interlocutor several stories about persons who have been put to death, all equally scabrous. Palacio Valdés inserts in this tenuous frame a series of short narratives that resemble those sometimes embedded in novels. We learn about the history of a woman who is put to death or of people who more or less courageously face their upcoming execution. The life of the protagonist himself, a specialist in executions, is the kernel of a short story.

Given its title, La confesión de un crimen [A Criminal Confession] resembles the previously mentioned pieces. By situating the action of the piece in the Prado, Palacio Valdés uses a literary device that was typical of costumbristas such as Larra or Mesoneros; he listens to a series of conversations by anonymous characters who reveal their personal issues without realizing that they are being overheard. Just as Larra did in El café [The Café] or Mesonero Romanos in Las sillas del Prado [The Chairs in the Prado], Palacio Valdés uses this technique to inform his readers about a sad event: the death of the fiancé of one of the female characters. By subtly expressing the amorous feelings of a group of girls who get together in the Prado to tell each other about their respective heartbreaks, Palacio Valdés enters this adolescent world with a very precise perception of the human mind. The death of the young man will not divide but unite those who have loved him most.

Aguas fuertes offers the reader a rich variety of scenes that reveal the behaviours and what Raymond Williams would call structures of feeling of Spanish society in Palacio Valdés's time, from things utterly insignificant to the new forms of expression and social satire. The article Lloviendo [Raining], for instance, describes people walking through Madrid's streets on a rainy day. While the protagonist of the sketch seeks shelter in an entryway to protect himself from the rain, he describes a social mosaic whose protagonists are the passers-by. The most successful moment of the sketch is when the rain appears to have stopped. As the character prepares to move on, a mysterious hand that checks if the rain has stopped unexpectedly touches him. It is a beautiful hand that announces the presence of an equally beautiful woman, and the narrator, instead of avoiding it, kisses the hand delicately. There is a subtle, almost imperceptible eroticism in the descriptions of the women that appear before the scrutinizing gaze of Palacio Valdés.

In many pieces in Aguas fuertes we note the presence of the masters of costumbrismo, and also the writers of the generation that preceded Palacio, such as Alarcón. The sketch El profesor León [Professor León], for instance, recalls Alarcón's Un maestro de antaño [A Teacher of Yesteryear], Something similar occurs with the articles in which Palacio Valdés denounces certain behaviours and social attitudes that are deeply rooted in the literary world. In Los mosquitos literarios [The Literary Flies], the author dissects his material in the same vein as Larra in Los calaveras [The Skulls] or Alarcón in La fea [The Ugly One], even if the content of these articles is highly different, since what Palacio Valdés is really interested in is the dissection of the diverse world of poets that abound in the society of his time, from the mosquitos sentimentales [sentimental flies] or filósofos trascendentes [transcendent philosophers] to the mosquitos legendarios [legendary flies] or mosquitos clásicos [classic flies].

To conclude, Aguas fuertes is an excellent work of literature, presenting a textual social mosaic that has been inspired by a new vision, but with respect for the literary tradition of the previous costumbrista writers. The literary pieces in Aguas fuertes skilfully reveal the customs, social habits, and behaviours of a society that experienced substantial changes. Produced in the later part of the nineteenth century, these short sketches demonstrate how costumbrismo gradually lost its romantic fixation on the universal or essential qualities of «lo español» [Spanishness] and evolved into a series of more realist portraits of daily life. It is precisely this representational quality of costumbrismo that will become a useful narrative model for realist writers in their efforts to reflect the effects of modernity on Spanish society.

• La Abeja. Madrid: Imprenta de T. Jordán, 1834-6. Print.
• La Abeja Española. Madrid: Imprenta de Quiroga, 1812. Print.
• La Abeja Literaria. Revista de los folletines, novelas, cuentos, anécdotas, viajes, causas célebres, modas, poesías, etc. Madrid: Imprenta de Mellado, 1845-6. Print.
• La Abeja Literaria, Científica e Industrial. Madrid: Imprenta del Colegio de Sordo-mudos y Ciegos, 1864-5. Print.
• La Abeja Madrileña. Madrid: Imprenta de Villalpando y en la Viuda de Vallín, 1814. Print.
• La Abeja. Revista política, literaria, de ciencias, artes, comercio, agricultura y teatros, historia crítica de las Cortes. Madrid: Imprenta de Sordo-Mudos, 1864-5. Print.
• Álbum de Galicia. Tipos, costumbres y leyendas, con un prólogo de Antonio Cirvigo y Vorca. Lugo: Tipografía de El Norte de Galicia, 1916. Print.
• Alas, Leopoldo. «Aguas fuertes por Armando Palacio Valdés». In Leopoldo Alas, Clarín, Obras Completas. Edición de Laureano Bonet con la colaboración de Juan Estruch y Francisco Navarro, vol. 4, Crítica (Primera Parte). Oviedo: Ediciones Nobel, 2003. Print.
• Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de. Cosas que fueron. Madrid: Pérez Dubrull, 1871. Print.
• Alborg, Juan Luis. Historia de la literatura española. Realismo y Naturalismo. La novela. Parte primera. Vol. 5.1. Madrid: Gredos, 1996. Print.
• Ayala, María de los Ángeles. Las colecciones costumbristas (1870-1885). Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 1993. Print.
• Ayala, María de los Ángeles. «El costumbrismo como fundamento de la escritura galdosiana: del tipo al personaje Torquemada». In Actas del X Congreso Internacional Galdosiano (2013). Las Palmas: Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 2015. 119-27. Print.
• Ayala, María de los Ángeles. «El discurso costumbrista en los Episodios nacionales galdosianos». In Estéticas y estilos en la literatura española del siglo XIX, ed. Marisa Sotelo et al. Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2014, 13-22. Print.
• Ayala, María de los Ángeles, ed. Madrid por dentro y por fuera. Guía de forasteros incautos. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008. Print.
• Aza, Vital. Las fieras del Retiro (1873). Madrid por dentro y por fuera. Guía de forasteros incautos. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008. 1: 287-300. Print.
• Baquero Goyanes, Mariano. «La novela española en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX». In Historia General de las Literaturas Hispánicas, vol. 5. Barcelona: Vergara, 1968. 53-143. Print.
• Blanco García, Francisco. La Literatura Española en el siglo XIX. Madrid: Sáenz de Jubera, Hermanos, Editores, 1891. Print.
• Bustillo, Eduardo. El Libro azul. Novelitas y bocetos de costumbres. Madrid: Ilustración Española y Americana, 1879. Print.
• Castro, Federico. Flores de invierno, cuentos, leyendas y costumbres populares. Madrid, 1882. Print.
• Castro y Serrano, José de. Cuadros contemporáneos. Madrid: Fortanet, 1871. Print.
• Cejador y Frauca, Julio. Historia de la lengua y la literatura. Madrid: Revista de Archivos, 1917. Print.
• Coloma, Luis. Lecturas recreativas. Bilbao: Corazón de Jesús, 1884-7. Print.
• Correa Calderón, Evaristo. Costumbristas españoles. Estudio preliminar y selección de textos. Madrid: Aguilar, 1951. Print.
• Cruz Rueda, Ángel. Armando Palacio Valdés. Su vida y su obra. Madrid: Talleres Gráficos «Montaña», 1949. Print.
• Escobar, José. «Costumbrismo y novela: el costumbrismo como materia novelable en el siglo XVIII». Ínsula 546 (1992): 17-19. Print.
• Las Españolas pintadas por los españoles. Colección de estudios acerca de los aspectos, estados, costumbres y cualidades generales de nuestras contemporáneas. Ideada y dirigida por Roberto Robert. Madrid: Imprenta a cargo de J. E. Morete, 1871-2. Print.
• Españoles de ogaño, colección de tipos de costumbres dibujados a pluma por los señores... 2 vols. Madrid: Librería de Victoriano Suárez, 1872. Print.
• Los Españoles pintados por sí mismos. 2 vols. Madrid: Boix, 1843-4. Print.
• Esteban, Casta. Mi primer ensayo. Colección de cuentos... por... viuda de Bécquer, Madrid, 1884. Print.
• Fontanella, Lee. La imprenta y las letras en la España romántica. Bern: Peter Lang Publishers, 1982. Print.
• Grassi, Ángela. Palmas y laureles. Prologue by Carlos Frontaura. Barcelona, 1884. Print.
• Herrero, Javier. «El Naranjo Romántico: Esencia del Costumbrismo». Hispanic Review 46.3 (1978): 343-54. Print. doi.10.2307/472418.
• Hombres españoles, americanos y lusitanos pintados por sí mismos. Colección de tipos y cuadros de costumbres peculiares de España, Portugal y América, escritos por los más reputados literatos de estos países, bajo la dirección de Nicolás Díaz de Benjumea y don Luis Ricardo Fors, ilustrada con multitud de magníficas láminas debidas al lápiz del reputado dibujante don Eusebio Planas. Barcelona, [1882], Print.
• Iarocci, Michael. «Romantic Prose, Journalism, and Costumbrismo» In The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T. Gies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004: 381-91. Print.
• Larra, Mariano José de. Fígaro. Colección de artículos dramáticos, literarios, políticos y de costumbres publicados en los años 1832, 1833 y 1834 en el «Pobrecito Hablador», la «Revista Española» y el «Observador» por ... Madrid: Imprenta de Repullés, 1835. Print.
• Le Gentil, George. Les revues littéraires de l'Espagne pendant la première moitié du XIX siècle. Paris: Hachette, 1909. Print.
• Lomba y Pedraja, José R. Costumbristas españoles del siglo XIX. Oviedo: Publicaciones Universidad de Oviedo, 1932. Print.
• Lorenzo Álvarez, Elena de. «La primera narrativa corta de Palacio Valdés». In Palacio Valdés. Un clásico olvidado (1853-2003), ed. Lorenzo Álvarez and Arturo Ruiz de la Peña. Laviana: Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de Laviana, 2005. 215-36. Print.
• Lustonó, Eduardo de. La capa del estudiante. Cuentos y artículos de costumbres. Madrid, 1880. Print.
• Madrid por dentro y por fuera. Madrid: A. de San Martín y Agustín Jubera, 1873. Print.
• Matheu, José María. La casa y la calle. Crónica contemporánea. Madrid: Tello, 1884. Print.
• Mentaberry, Adolfo. Los jardines del Retiro (1873). Madrid por dentro y por fuera. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008.1: 225-64. Print.
• Montesinos, José F. Costumbrismo y novela. Ensayo del redescubrimiento de la realidad española. Madrid: Castalia, 1960. Print.
• Montgomery, Clifford M. Early costumbrista writers in Spain, 1750-1830. Philadelphia, 1931. Print.
• Mujeres españolas, americanas y lusitanas pintadas por sí mismas. Barcelona, 1882. Print.
• Mujeres españolas, portuguesas y americanas. 3 vols. Madrid, Havana, and Buenos Aires: Imprenta y Librería de D. Miguel Guijarro, editor. 1872, 1873, 1876. Print.
• Navarro y Rodrigo, Carlos. Cuadros al fresco, cuentos de todos los colores. Madrid: J. A. García, 1880. Print.
• Ortega y Frías, Ramón. La gente cursi. Novela de costumbres ridículas. Madrid: Imprenta Galería Literaria, 1872. Print.
• Ortega y Munilla, José. Pruebas de imprenta, cuentos y artículos. Madrid: «La Guirnalda», 1883. Print.
• Ortega y Munilla, José. El Salterio. Cuentos y apuntes. Seville, 1881. Print.
• Ossorio y Bernard, Manuel. Cuentos novelescos. Manila, 1884. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. Aguas fuertes. Madrid: Ricardo Fe, 1884. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. Aguas fuertes. 2nd ed. Madrid: Librería general de Victoriano Suárez, 1907. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. Alone and Other Stories. Trans. Robert M. Fedorchek. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1993. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. El pájaro en la nieve. Madrid: Imprenta Blas, 1918. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. El pájaro en la nieve. Madrid: Imprenta de los Hijos de Santiago Rodríguez, 1925. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. Los Puritanos. Novela. Madrid: Compañía Ibero-Americana de Publicaciones (S. A.), 1929. Print.
• Palacio Valdés, Armando. Los puritanos y otros cuentos. Ed., intro., and explanatory notes in English by W. T. Faulkner. New York, 1904. Print.
• Palomo, Pilar. «Galdós y Mesonero Romanos (una vez más: costumbrismo y novela)». In Galdós. Centenario de «Fortunata y Jacinta» (1887-1987). Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1989. 217-238. Print.
• Penas, Ermitas. «Costumbrismo y novela: en torno a Fortunata y Jacinta». In El costumbrismo, nuevas luces, ed. Dolores Thion Soriano-Mollá. Pau: Presses de l'Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, 2013. 411-23. Print.
• Peño Carrero, Julián. Cuadros y cuentos de aldea, originales de... Madrid: M. M. de los Ríos, 1877. Print.
• Pereda, José María de. Esbozos y rasguños. Madrid: Tello, 1881. Print.
• Pérez Galdós, Benito. Los apostólicos. Obras Completas. Madrid. Aguilar, 1970. Print.
• Pérez Galdós, Benito. Aquel (1872). Españoles de ogaño, colección de tipos de costumbres dibujados a pluma por los señores... 2 vols. Madrid: Librería de Victoriano Suárez, 1872. 2: 266-74. Print.
• Prugent, Enrique. «La cursi». In Los españoles de ogaño. Colección de tipos dibujados a pluma por los señores... Vol. 1. Madrid: Librería de Victoriano Suárez, 1972. 256-8. Print.
• Répide, Pedro de. Madrid a vista de pájaro el año 1873. Curiosísima lámina que se publica con la explicación de todos los parajes y monumentos numerados en ella. Madrid: Imprenta Latina, 1874. Print.
• Rodríguez Chaves, Ángel. Páginas en prosa. Prologue by R. Blanco Asenjo. Madrid: Imprenta de Campuzano hermanos, 1882. Print.
• Rubio Cremades, Enrique. «Costumbrismo. Definición. Cronología y su relación con la novela». Siglo diecinueve 1 (1995): 7-25. Print.
• Rubio Cremades, Enrique. «El costumbrismo como documentación novelesca en Fortunata y Jacinta». In Galdós en el centenario de «Fortunata y Jacinta». Madrid: Prensa Universitaria, 1989. 103-10. Print.
• Rubio Cremades, Enrique. «Costumbrismo y novela». Anales de Literatura Española 2 (1983): 457-72. Print, https://doi.org/10.14198/aleua.1983.2.21.
• Salvany, Juan Tomás. De tarde en tarde. Cuentos y novelas. Madrid, 1891.
• Sebold, Russell P. «Comedia clásica y novela moderna en las Escenas Matritenses de Mesonero Romanos». Bulletin Hispanique 83. 3-4 (1981): 331-7. Print, https://doi.org/10.3406/hispa.1981.4448.
• Sotelo Vázquez, Marisa. «El costumbrismo en La Estafeta romántica de Pérez Galdós». In El costumbrismo, nuevas luces, ed. Dolores Thion Soriano-Mollá. Pau: Presses de l'Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, 2013. 391-409. Print.
• Tarr. F. Courtney. Romanticism in Spain and Spanish Romanticism: A Critical Survey. Liverpool: Institute of Hispanic Studies, 1939. Print.
• Valis, Noël. The Culture of Cursilería: Bad Taste, Kitsch and Class in Modern Spain. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2002. Print.
• Williams, Raymond. «Structures of Feeling». In Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977. 128-35. Print.