Part 32

He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began to give him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a score of historical romances, after the model of those of Erckmann-Chatrian, called 'Episodios Nacionales' (National Episodes). They are divided into two series, the first beginning with 'Trafalgar' (1873), the second with 'El Equipaje del Rey Jose' (King Joseph's Baggage: 1875). They deal with the two modern periods comprising the deliverance of the country from the usurpation of the French, and the more obscure struggles against Ferdinand VII., who sought to reduce the country under the same absolutist rule that had prevailed before the ideas of the French Revolution liberalized the whole of Europe. The history in these romances is intermingled with personal interests and adventures, to give it an air of informality; and though each is complete in itself, some knowledge of Spanish history is desirable as an aid to understanding them. They are considerably interlinked among themselves, the same characters appearing more or less in successive volumes. The hero of the first series is one Gabriel, who narrates them all in the first person. He is a poor boy who becomes servant to a family near Cadiz. He accompanies his master on board the huge Santissima Trinidad, the largest ship of her age, and is able to describe in detail the action of Trafalgar, the description being the more interesting for us as coming from the Spanish point of view. In 'La Corte de Carlos IV.' (The Court of Charles IV.: 1873), we find him page to a leading actress, and an eye-witness to the degeneracy of that monarch and his favorite Godoy, which resulted in the seizure of the country by Napoleon for his brother Joseph. In 'La Batalla de los Arapiles' (translated by Rollo Ogden as 'The Battle of Salamanca': 1875), the last of the series, the same Gabriel is a major, and performs an important commission for Wellington. He has risen to this level step by step, and on the way has had as many adventures as one of Dumas's guardsmen, and has carried them off as gallantly. In the second series of 'Episodios,' Salvador Monsalud is the principal character. He is a young fellow who is led by dire want--and also by sharing the liberalized French view of the decadence and worthlessness of the Spanish form of rule--to take service in the body-guard of Joseph Bonaparte. A chapter full of strength and pathos, in 'King Joseph's Baggage,' shows him disowned by his mother and cast off by his village sweetheart on account of such service, both of them frantic with a spirit of independence like that which animated the Maid of Saragossa. A feature of this book that gives it originality is that the action turns not upon the usual principal features of battle, but upon the fate of the rich baggage train of booty with which Joseph Bonaparte had hoped to escape to France after his brief, disastrous reign.

The 'Episodios' have had an extensive influence, and have been imitated, under a like title, in the Spanish Americas. The author's tone toward the past is generally severe and disdainful. "Had Spain, perchance, a 'constitution' when she was the foremost nation in the world?" he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, with sardonic intent. He has been called unappreciative, and his attitude towards Spanish antiquity has been protested against by other leading writers, of more conservative feeling, as unwarranted. These romances contain some passages showing aversion to the barbarities of war, but in general they are less humanitarian than those of Erckmann-Chatrian: they are principally devoted to glorifying Spanish fortitude and courage. These books are a great advance upon the two earlier novels; from the first they showed literary workmanship of a high order: they possess ingenuity of plot, sufficient probability, and graphic power of description, movement, and conversation. In the latter respects, indeed, they surpass some of the author's later works that make more serious pretensions.

The wider and more definitely literary reputation of Perez Galdos rests upon more than a score of other works, in addition to the above. These are distinctly novels, as contrasted with romances; and they treat of contemporary life, in a method that aims to be conscientiously observant and impartial. It is often said, without much reflection, that we see enough of the things close about us, and need our literary recreation in the remote and strange. But it must be recalled that we see those things without the eyes of genius, and he is a true benefactor who poetizes and dignifies life in making evident that all of life is vivid with interest, even that part of it nearest to us, which without such illumination we may have thought devoid of it. The words in which the ostensible narrator of 'Lo Prohibido' (Forbidden Fruit: 1885), explains the purpose of his journal may well enough be taken to exhibit the method of Galdos. It was to set down "my prosaic adventures, events that in no way differ from those that fill and make up the lives of other men. I aspire to no further effects than such as the sincere and unaffected presentation of the truth may produce; and I have no design upon the reader's emotions by means of calculated surprises, frights, or conjurer's tricks, through which things look one way for a time and then turn out in a manner diametrically opposite."

The titles of a number of his principal books, not hitherto given, with dates, are as follows. The dates are those when they were written, and they were generally published shortly after: 'Dona Perfecta,' 1876; 'Gloria,' 1876; 'Torquemada en la Hoguera' (Torquemada at the Stake: 1876); 'Marianela,' 1878; 'La Familia de Leon Roch' (Leon Roch's Family: 1878); 'Los Cien Mil Hijos de San Luis' (The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: 1877) of the Episodios; 'Un Faccioso Mas' (A Rebel the More: 1879) the completion of the Episodios; 'La Desheredada' (The Disowned: 1881); 'El Amigo Manso' (Friend Mildman: 1882); 'El Doctor Centeno,' 1883; 'Tormento,' 1884; 'La de Bringas' (That Mrs. de Bringas: 1884); 'Fortunata y Jacinta,' 1886; 'Miau,' 1888; 'La Incognita' (The Unknown: 1889); 'Realidad' (Reality: 1890); 'Angel Guerra,' 1891; 'Torquemada en la Cruz' (Torquemada on the Cross: 1894); 'Torquemada en el Purgatorio' (Torquemada in Purgatory: 1894); 'Torquemada y San Pedro,' 1895; 'Nazarin,' 1895; 'Halma,' 1896.

Even in his new departure, Galdos did not at once enter upon his final manner. 'Dona Perfecta,' 'The Family of Leon Roch,' and 'Gloria' are quite distinctly didactic, or "novels with a purpose"; while 'Marianela' is somewhat cloyingly sentimental, a prose poem after the manner of Ouida. In spite of all this, however, 'Dona Perfecta' has been pronounced by many his best work. It is the one that has obtained greatest celebrity abroad, and it is the one, all things considered, likely to be the most satisfactory example of his work to the English reader. 'La Desheredada' marks the transition to his final period, and he has put it upon record that with this book the real difficulties of his vocation began. It is a poignantly affecting story of a poor girl who was brought up, by a parent half knave and half insane, to believe that she was not his daughter but that of a noble house. After his death she undertakes in all good faith to prosecute her claim, and is thrown into prison as an impostor. Her heart is broken by the disillusionment; she cannot adjust herself to life again without the sweetness of that beguiling belief, and so, in the end, not having the boldness to die, she throws herself upon the street, a social outcast. Both in the person of Isidora and others, the book is a moving treatise on false education. Other leading figures are her brother, a young "hoodlum" and thief, the burden of whose career she has also to bear upon her slender shoulders, and the pampered son of the poor Sastres, who have denied themselves bread that he might have an education and luxuries. He has a hundred fine schemes for getting a living, but never a one of them includes turning his hand to a stroke of honest labor.

'El Amigo Manso' is an extended piece of character-drawing, self-told, in a gently humorous vein. It gives an account of a college instructor, very benevolent, very methodical and prudent, and a trifle conceited and patronizing, who is in love with a pretty governess. By the time he has settled all his judicious pros and cons, the pretty governess, who really cared nothing about him, is engaged to a suitor of a more dashing sort. The scenes of 'Tormento,' 'La de Bringas,' and 'Miau' are laid chiefly among the class of minor office-holders, with whose manners the author shows an exhaustive familiarity, and each has its peculiar tragic situation in itself. 'Realidad,' written once in the form of a novel, and again as a drama, treats of the subject of a wife's infidelity, as it might pass in real life, instead of in the conventional and hackneyed way. Its title seems to propose to adhere even closer to the exact truth than do the others. There come to mind, in its suppressed passion and its calm, intellectual, and bitter philosophy, suggestions both of Ibsen and Suderman. The banker Orozco, a noble and reserved nature, does not slay his wife, does not banish her from him, nor even make her reproaches. Augusta, on her side, wonders if his mind is not giving way. This bitter commentary on life is as near as her smaller mind can approach to a comprehension of his magnanimous conduct. The same Augusta, earlier, has said in conversation, "Real life is the greatest of all inventors; the only one who is ever ready, fresh, and inexhaustible in resource." In these books, however serious, the purpose does not obtrude to the detriment of art; the reader is left free to draw his own conclusions, as from events in actual life; the author ostensibly is neither for nor against, and yet he leaves us in no doubt as to his decision, always a moral and stimulating one.

The favorite scenes of Galdos's books are in Madrid and the small suburban resorts round about it, or at the numerous mineral springs which are so important a feature of Spanish summer life. He himself lives at Madrid, but goes for the season to a summer place he owns on the bold cliffs of the Bay of Biscay, at Santander. There, too he is near to Pereda, between whom and himself a remarkable friendship exists. A friendship so strong, warm, and long continued has been recognized as a notable feature in the careers of both. It is the more remarkable because except in literature, which both set above everything else, he is violently opposed to most of the views of Pereda--a conservative of the conservatives, even to the point of preferring the absolutist pretender Don Carlos for king. Even at Madrid and at Santander, however, Galdos's scenery is mere stage setting; he does not describe nature sympathetically nor aim to render local color in an accurate way. As the action must pass somewhere, he gives it just as much of a setting as will suffice, and seems satisfied with that. The impression of his books, on the whole, is a gloomy one. He who sees life clearly must perchance see it darkly, and few see it more clearly than Galdos. Yet his admirers will not have it that he is pessimistic, because Nature herself is not pessimistic. Even the sadness of nightfall ought not to be considered gloomy, they say, with much show of reason, since it is only the preparation for another day.

[Signature: William Henry Bishop]

THE FIRST NIGHT OF A FAMOUS PLAY, IN THE YEAR 1807

From 'The Court of Charles IV.' Copyright 1888, by W.S. Gottsberger. Reprinted by permission of George G. Peck, publisher, New York

[Gabriel, a boy of sixteen, has taken service as page with a very charming actress of the Principe Theatre. Between this theatre and La Cruz exists the same sort of hostility as between the rival theatres at Venice when Goldoni inaugurated his reform. La Cruz represents the new and "natural" spirit in the drama, as against the absurd artificial tradition that had prevailed up to that time. A part of Gabriel's duties is to go and hiss the plays at that theatre. The principal occasion of this kind is when he accompanies a band, led by a rival playwright, to the first performance of 'El Si de las Ninas' (The Maidens' Yes), by the famous Moratin, the leading piece of the new school.]

"What an opening!" he [the rival poet and playwright] exclaimed, as he listened to the first dialogue between Don Diego and Simon. "A pretty way to begin a comedy! The scene a village inn! What can happen of any interest in a village inn? In all my plays, and they are many,--though never a one has been represented,--the action opens in a Corinthian garden, with monumental fountains to the right and left, and a temple of Juno in the background; or in a wide square with three regiments drawn up, and in the background the city of Warsaw, with a bridge, and so forth. And just listen to the twaddle this old man is made to talk! He is about to marry a young girl who has been brought up by the nuns of Guadalajara. Well, is that very remarkable? Is not that a matter of every-day occurrence?"

Pouring out these remarks, that confounded poet did not allow me to hear a word of the piece, and though I answered all his comments with humbly acquiescent monosyllables, I only wished that he would hold his tongue, deuce take him!...

"What a vulgar subject! what low ideas!" he exclaimed, loud enough for every one to hear. "And this is how comedies are written!"...

"But let us listen to it," said I, finding my chief's comments quite intolerable. "We can laugh at Moratin afterwards."

"But I cannot bear such a medley of absurdities," he went on. "We do not come to the theatre to see just what is to be seen any day in the streets, or in every house you go into. If instead of enlarging on her matrimonial experiences, the lady were to come in invoking curses on an enemy because he had killed one-and-twenty of her sons in battle, and left her with only the twenty-second, still an infant at the breast, and if she had to carry that one off to save him from being eaten by the besieged, all dying of famine--then there would be some interest in the plot, and the public would clap their hands till they were sore. Gabriel, my boy, we must protest, protest vehemently. We must thump the floor with our feet and sticks to show that we are bored and out of patience. Yawn; open your mouth till your jaws are dislocated; look about you; let all the neighbors see that we are people of taste, and utterly weary of this tiresome and monstrous piece."

No sooner said than done: we began thumping on the floor, and yawning in chorus, exclaiming, "What a bore!" "What a dreary piece!" "What waste of money!" and other phrases to the same effect; all of which soon bore fruit. The party in the pit imitated our patriotic example with great exactness. A general murmur of dissatisfaction was presently audible from every part of the theatre; for though the author had enemies, he had no lack of friends too, scattered throughout the pit, boxes, and upper tiers, and they were not slow to protest against our demonstration, sometimes by applauding, and then again by roaring at us with threats and oaths, to be silent; till a stentorian voice from the very back of the pit bellowed, "Turn the blackguards out!" raising a noisy storm of applause that reduced us to silence.

Our poetaster was almost jumping out of his skin with indignation, and persisted in making his remarks as the piece went on....

"A pretty plot indeed! It seems hardly credible that a civilized nation should applaud it. I would sentence Moratin to the galleys, and forbid his writing such coarse stuff as long as he lives. So you call this a play, Gabrielito? There is no intrigue, no plot, no surprise, no catastrophe, no illusion, no _quid pro quo_; no attempt at disguising a character to make it seem another--not even the little complication that comes of two men provoking each other as enemies, and then discovering that they are father and son. If Don Diego now, were to catch his nephew and kill him out of hand in the cellar, and prepare a banquet and have a dish of the victim's flesh served up to his bride, well disguised with spice and bay leaves, there would be some spirit in the thing."...

I could not, in fact, conceal my enjoyment of the scene, which seemed to me a masterpiece of nature, grace, and interesting comedy. The poet however called me to order, abusing me for deserting to the hostile camp.

"I beg your pardon," said I. "It was a mistake. And yet--does it not strike you, too, that this scene is not altogether bad?"

"How should you be able to judge?--a mere novice who never wrote a line in your life! Pray what is there in this scene in the least remarkable, or pathetic, or historical?"

"But it is nature itself. I feel that I have seen in the real world just what the author has set on the stage."

"Gaby! simpleton! that is exactly what makes it so bad. Have you not observed that in 'Frederick the Second,' in 'Catharine of Russia,' in 'The Slave of Negroponte,' and other fine works, nothing ever takes place that has the smallest resemblance to real life? Is not everything in those plays strange, startling, exceptional, wonderful, and surprising? That is why they are so good. The poets of to-day do not choose to imitate those of my time, and hence art has fallen to the lowest depths."

"And yet, begging your pardon," I said, "I cannot help thinking--The play is wretched, I quite agree, and when you say so there must be a good reason for it. But the idea here seems to me a good one, since I fancy the author has intended to censure the vicious system of education which young girls get nowadays."...

"And who asks the author to introduce all this philosophy?" said the pedant. "What has the theatre to do with moralizing? In the 'Magician of Astrakhan,' in 'Leon and the Asturias Gave Heraldry to Spain,' and in the 'Triumphs of Don Pelayo'--plays that all the world admires--did you ever find a passage that describes how girls are to be brought up?"

"I have certainly read or heard somewhere that the theatre was to serve the purposes of entertainment and instruction."

"Stuff and nonsense!"

Translation of Clara Bell.

DONA PERFECTA'S DAUGHTER

From 'Dona Perfecta.' Copyright 1895, by Harper & Brothers

[Pepe Rey, a young engineer, arrives at Orbajosa to marry his cousin Rosario, the match having been made up between his father and Dona Perfecta, the girl's mother, who is warmly attached to the father of Pepe, her brother, and furthermore under heavy obligations to him for his excellent management of her large property interests. The landscape is the arid and poverty-stricken country of central Spain, though the town itself--"seated on the slope of a hill from the midst of whose closely clustered houses arose many dark towers, and on the height above it the ruins of a dilapidated castle"--such a town would probably be more appreciated by a traveler from abroad and a lover of the picturesque, than by a Spaniard, too familiar with its type. Orbajosa is a little place, full of narrow prejudices and vanities. Pepe Rey, with his modern ways, soon finds that he is wounding these prejudices at every turn. We look on with pained surprise at the difficulties that grow up around the young man, an excellent and kind-hearted fellow. Lawsuits are multiplied against him; he is turned out of the cathedral by order of the bishop for strolling about during service-time to look at some architectural features; and he is refused the hand of his cousin. Dona Perfecta herself joins in this hostility, which finally develops into a venomous bitterness that menaces his life. Such a feeling was not the outgrowth of mere provincial narrowness: we see in the end that it was the result of the plot of Maria Remedios, a woman of a humble sort, who aspired to secure the heiress Rosario for her own chubby-faced home-bred son. She influenced the village priest, and he influenced Dona Perfecta. Early in the day the young engineer would have abandoned the sinister place but for Rosario, who really loved him. She conveyed to him, on a scrap from the margin of a newspaper, the message:

"They say you are going away. If you do, I shall die."

She is a charming picture of girlhood,--lovely, true-hearted, affectionate, aspiring to be heroic, and yet crippled at last by a filial conscience and the long habit of clinging dependence. She has agreed to flee at night with her lover, and he is already in the garden. Her mother, the stern Dona Perfecta, ranging uneasily through the house, enters her room about the appointed time for the escape.]

"Why don't you sleep?" her mother asked her.

"What time is it?" asked the girl.

"It will soon be midnight."...

Rosario was trembling, and everything about her denoted the keenest anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicatingly, and then turned them on her mother with a look of the utmost terror.

"Why, what is the matter with you?"

"Did you not say it was midnight?"

"Yes."

"Then--but is it already midnight?"...

"Something is the matter with you; you have something on your mind," said her mother, fixing on her daughter her penetrating eyes.

"Yes--I wanted to tell you," stammered the girl, "I wanted to say--Nothing, nothing; I will go to sleep."

"Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like an open book," exclaimed Dona Perfecta with severity. "You are agitated. I have already told you that I am willing to pardon you if you will repent, if you are a good and sensible girl."

"Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying." Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.

"What are these tears about?" said her mother, embracing her. "If they are tears of repentance, blessed be they."

"I don't repent! I can't repent!" cried the girl, in a burst of sublime despair. She lifted her head, and in her face was depicted a sudden inspired strength. Her hair fell in disorder over her shoulders. Never was there seen a more beautiful image of a rebellious angel.

"What is this? Have you lost your senses?" said Dona Perfecta, laying both hands on her daughter's shoulders.

"I am going away! I am going away!" said the girl with the exaltation of delirium. And she sprang out of bed.

"Rosario, Rosario--my daughter! For God's sake, what is this?"

"Ah mamma, senora!" exclaimed the girl, embracing her mother; "bind me fast!"

"In truth, you would deserve it. What madness is this?"

"Bind me fast! I am going away--I am going away with him!"...

"Has he told you to do so? has he counseled you to do that? has he commanded you to do that?" asked the mother, launching these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.

"He has counseled me to do it. We have agreed to be married. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love you--I know that I ought to love you--I shall be forever lost if I do not love you."

"Rosario, Rosario!" cried Dona Perfecta in a terrible voice, "rise!"

There was a short pause.

"This man--has he written to you?"

"Yes."

"Have you seen him again since that night?"

"Yes."

"And you have written to him?"

"I have written to him also. O senora! why do you look at me in that way? You are not my mother."

"Would to God that I were not! Rejoice in the harm you are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my death-blow!" cried Dona Perfecta, with indescribable agitation. "You say that that man--"