21
Pérez Galdós: Miau, 51. (N. del A.)
22
Ibid., p. 52. (N. del A.)
23
«La figura de Villaamil en Miau», Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos (Ediciones del Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1977), 3-19; and also his «Ricardo Gullón and the Novels of Galdós», AG, 3 (1968), 166-68. (N. del A.)
24
«Galdós and the Anti-bureaucratic Tradition», BHS, 53 (1976), 44. (N. del A.)
25
Pérez Galdós: Miau, 25. (N. del A.)
26
El simbolismo religioso, 119. (N. del A.)
27
Villaamil's empleomanía is very close to manic-depressive psychosis, which is defined as «a type of mental disorder characterized by alternating periods of exaltation (with excessive activity) and depression with inhibition», Dictionary of Psychology, ed. Howard C. Warren (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 158. Manic-depressive psychosis may lead to suicide: see Norman L. Munn, Psychology, 5th ed. (London: Harrap, 1966), 285. «La empleomanía» is the title of a short story by Mesonero Romanos in his Panorama Matritense. (N. del A.)
28
«Villaamil: tragic victim», 17. (N. del A.)
29
«Galdós and the Anti-bureaucratic Tradition», 38. Galdós was probably acknowledging his indebtedness to Mesonero Romanos and other nineteenth-century Spanish costumbristas in the first chapter of Miau, where we read that Luisito thought that «las tres mujeres eran gatos en dos pies y vestidos de gente, como los que hay en la obra Los animales pintados por sí mismos» (319, 987b). Whether such a book existed in Galdós' time or not, the title is a clear allusion to the important collection of costumbrista articles published in 1843 under the title Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (see Lambert's article, p. 39). The fact that practically every character in the novel is compared to an animal adds strongly to this impression. (N. del A.)
30
As Eamonn Rodgers has noted, «that economic considerations are secondary for Don Ramón is borne out when... his wife, having borrowed money from Carolina Pez, presents him with an opulent lunch... it does not occur to him to wonder, much less to ask, about this unusual affluence», Pérez Galdós: Miau, 34. (N. del A.)