Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós: far from the desired feminist manifesto

Tristana: Buñuel’s Film and Galdós' Novel: A Case Study in the Relation Between Literature and Film by Colin Partridge (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995)

I had originally planned to have several posts on the main characters of Tristana and then talk about the opposing viewpoints on the novel but I realized that order only makes sense for someone that has read the book. So I’m revising the schedule and posting on two differing opinions and reactions to the novel, relying heavily on Colin Partridge’s essay. A very general summary of the storyline can be found in the post on Don Lope, Tristana’s guardian.

From Partridge’s essay:

When viewed narrowly as a feminist novel, Tristana disappoints—a response clearly articulated when the book first appeared in 1892. The most celebrated expression of dismay came from the prominent novelist and polemicist Emilia Pardo Bazán. Soon after the first copies appeared she pinpointed accurately, from a feminist viewpoint, the novel’s potential—and failure.

Bazán herself was an active advocate of female freedom. She had written a study La muher Espãñola and was soon to provide a prologue to the first Spanish translation of John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1892). She and Galdós had been lovers in the years preceding his composition of Tristana and some of his insights into his young heroine’s dreams of libertad honrada derive from this important relationship. Although Galdós had always been critical of the limited roles permitted women at all levels of Spanish society, Pardo Bazán exercised her formidable powers of lucid persuasion to help him see their condition more compassionately and more profoundly. She corresponded regularly with him as the writing progressed and probably held high expectations about the novel’s value to the emergent feminist cause. So her disappointment, when she finally read the published work and learned the outcome of Tristana’s struggles, was personal as well as ideological.

In her review of the book she voices her regrets at the opportunities Galdós lost by failing to present what she thought was the central drama raised by Tristana’s life. This was the young woman’s loneliness and isolation as she lived divided between Don Lope’s restrictions and her personal aspirations. Pardo Bazán considered that Tristana’s awakening to a fuller understanding of her own position and a broader awareness of the position of women generally in Spanish society had given Galdós the opportunity to write a novel of personal and symbolic liberation. She saw the fictional Tristana representing many contemporary women in real life whose only choices were to become wives, nuns, actresses or prostitutes. … Instead of allowing Tristana to gain a degree of freedom through her patient, naïve efforts, he shows his heroine losing personal power as her sufferings increase and her young lover’s attentions diminish; in the final scenes Don Lope’s oblique manipulations are renewed and all three characters are finally absorbed within irrevocable patterns of traditional behavior.

Pardo Bazán’s disappointment is what makes the novel appeal so much to me. Galdós didn’t go for the simple solution. Any transformation by other characters to promote Bazán’s message would have been simplistic and superficial. Instead of an easy fix and happy ending, the characters are human. In addition, the novel’s focus isn’t solely on Tristana. Yes, there’s the focus on her exploitation and her limited outlets for ambition, but other characters evolve and develop in addition to her and she reacts accordingly. Partridge also highlights Galdós’ consideration of the novel’s setting:

He could have chosen to develop the fictional Tristana into a figure of success and shown her, like Theodore Dreiser’s near-contemporary Carrie Meeber, gaining celebrity status as an actress. But [1892] Madrid was no Chicago or New York; conservative Catholic Spain was not the protestant, individualistic United States.

Galdós’ literary faithfulness, avoiding an ideological resolution that would have felt false, still provides a powerful novel highlighting the limitations and restrictions imposed on women in Spain at the time. And, without blaming the victim, Tristana has her own shortcomings that hinder her independence. She repeatedly begins studies in areas where she could support herself, realizes she has an aptitude in the area and pursues improvement in it…then tosses it aside for some other subject to pursue. Like many other topics in the novel, Galdós doesn’t clarify this, leaving an ambiguity as to its cause—is this a personal failing or is she shaped by her limited role in society? I find myself closer to agreement with the second viewpoint Partridge presents, that of the critic Clarín (Leopoldo Alas), who

saw Tristata as representing another type of female experience. She is the woman conemned to immaturity by forces larger and more powerful than she could ever hope to confront successfully. Hers becomes a “gray destiny” as she grows to realize the constrictions placed on her by an inadequate education, Don Lope’s domestic arrangements and the absence of opportunities for a woman to make an honest and respectable career. Tristana is:

…“a spirit like many others in our mediocre world which are full of ideals and energy, but lack an ongoing clear purpose.”

In this interpretation Tristana is seen as a psychological contradiction—a static being who, at the same time, bubbles with repressed energies. Her only freedom is to imagine; but her fantasizing perpetuates her immaturity. In Clarín’s reading she embodies not the rebellious young woman who dreams of carrying new values to social reality but the many Spanish women doomed to life-long non-fulfilment beneath structures of man-made social conventions. She is more like Clarín’s own heroine Ana Ozores, in La Regenta (1884-1885), seeking self-knowledge in traditional Catholic Spain than like Nora Helmer seeking self-liberation in Ibsen’s Lutheran Norway.

So, soon after its publication in 1892, Emilia Pardo Bazán and Clarín established opposing viewpoints on Tristana which exist to the present-day.

The comparison to Ana Ozores is appropriate since that is exactly what I thought of while reading the novel. It’s not an exact similarity but there are many features that overlap, whether through looking at constraints limiting women or at the individual’s limitations. And again, there's the ambiguity as to her 'immaturity,' as Clarín puts it.

OK, the next posts will look at the two remaining main characters: Tristana and her lover, Horacio.

Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós: Don Lepe

Happy new year! I’m looking forward to starting 2013 with yet another wonderful novel by Galdós.

Tristana: Buñuel’s Film and Galdós' Novel: A Case Study in the Relation Between Literature and Film by Colin Partridge (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995)
I was able to obtain this book through an interlibrary loan—good copies are hard to find under $150. Colin Partridge provides a translation of the novel along with essays on the novel and Buñel’s movie. The focus of this post will be on one of the main characters of the novel but first a very quick synopsis of the novel. Don Lope, an aging lecher, becomes Tristana’s guardian after the death of her parents. He becomes her lover, awakening a sense of independence and rebelliousness in the girl. She falls in love with a painter, Horacio, who leaves Madrid to follow his sick aunt to the coast for the winter. The relationship continues in letters, and in these letters Tristana’s desire for independence drives her burgeoning intellect and curiosity. Tristana notices a pain in her leg which worsens, awakening Don Lope’s sense of responsibility for his ward. The leg worsens and has to be amputated, leaving Tristana a dependent cripple. Her desire for independence and learning decreases until she discovers an aptitude and interest in music. During her convalescence Horacio marries another woman. Don Lope’s finances worsen as he takes care of Tristana, but his relatives agree to bail him out if he will marry his ward. They marry, move to the suburbs, and experience something looking like happiness together.

The joy of the novel lies in the telling as well as the complexity and ambiguity lying behind the telling. Don Juan López Garrido shares the center of the novel with the titular character. There are several literary references in the name, providing an ambiguous literary mix of amorous reputation, noble spirit, and a common surname. He began calling himself Don Lope, “his own invention, which he used like an expensive cosmetic to enhance his personality.” Later in the novel Tristana and the house servant, Saturna, call him Don Lepe. Even the narrator begins calling by that name. From the notes—“The pun in the name-change infers that Don Lope is now the malicious devil of the Christian belief system.”

Even with Don Lope’s physical decline (he’s 57 when the novel begins), his wiles and experience are overwhelming for a ‘captive’ Tristana supposed to be under his care. His outlook carries more than just a little wistfulness at his faded prowess, though:

Now it must be stated at once, to whet the appetite, that Don Lope Garrido had once been a redoubtable strategist in amorous jousts and he prided himself on having assaulted more towers of virtue and overcome more ramparts of honor than he had hairs on his head. Although tired now and in his declining years, he couldn’t reject his lifelong waywardness whenever he met pretty women (and some who were not so pretty), he adopted a strategic stance and, with no malice whatsoever, directed meaningful looks, which now were more paternal than seductive, as if here saying to them: “You’ve been lucky to escape, my dears! You can thank God you weren’t born twenty years earlier. You must protect yourselves against those who can do today what I did formerly; but, if you really want my opinion, I think there’s no one today who can do what I did then. Nowadays, you won’t find young fellows, either self-proclaimed gallants or mature men who know what to do with a beautiful woman.”

Don Lope’s lechery coexists with an extreme sense of honor. He helps his friends regardless of the cost to himself. Tristana falls under his care after her parents’ deaths because he bailed them out, going deeper into poverty for his chivalric code to help friends. His code only overlaps with his lechery when it comes to friends—their wives are off limits. The code becomes quixotic through the extremes he takes it and the irony in its selective application. Don Lope’s code has no basis in social institutions since he doesn’t believe in the laws of man or God. His expertise regarding duels, as a participant and officiator, emphasizes his strong sense of honor on these points. His physical decline becomes mirrored in a moral decline, where chivalry becomes perverted for sexual ends.

Included in Don Lope’s distaste of social institutions is a lifelong distaste for marriage. His sexual conquests occur outside his home. This changes after taking Tristana in as his ward and seducing her. She is the exception to his rules, erasing the lines between his chivalric code and sexual desire and it shows in the mixed messages he feels and sends to her. Is he a father figure or her lover? In trying to have it both ways, alternating between the roles, the ambiguity of his character is highlighted.

Don Lope takes pride in his role of a lover, dismissing the capabilities in the men of Tristana’s generation. Yet his pride awakens an independence and determination in Tristana that effectively drives her into the arms of a lover. The ambiguity between Don Lope’s roles resolves only through Tristana’s illness and the amputation of her leg. His desire for control of her does not lessen, though, and he easily marginalizes the lover. Although it helps that the lover marginalizes himself. After all the twists of fate and changing dynamics, Don Lope and Tristana marry and appear happy. Or at least some version of happy.

In Colin Partridge’s essay on the novel he states “Throughout this grim mannered comedy Don Lope deploys two devices to achieve his strategic objectives: his skill with words and his ease in manipulating social rituals.” I would add a third device to his advantage, or maybe the second one is meant to include it—the vulnerability and lack of independence of women in Spanish society. More on this in the post on Tristana.

Our Friend Manso: the education of Manso

Our Friend Manso
Benito Pérez Galdós
Translation by Robert Russell
Columbia University Press, 1987
ISBN 0-231-0604-7

Previous posts on Our Friend Manso:

I do not exist: on Manso’s special status
The education novel: from a “simple and pleasant story” to instruction
Female characters and the education of women: searching for the golden mean

The same perverse friend who had brought me into the world took me out of it, repeating the same magic words he’d said way back then, and also the diabolical sorcery of the bottle, the drop of ink, and the burnt paper which had preceded my incarnation.

“My dear fellow,” I said to him, “will you please have done with me once and for all and take back this mortal flesh you’ve put me into just for your own amusement? It’s not the least bit amusing to me…!”

As he let me slip from between his fingers, the serenity I felt made me realize that I was no longer a man. (page 258, ellipses in original)

The irony lies in the fact that a) Manso, in self-confession, was never a real man, just a character in a novel, and b) even as a character Manso wasn’t much of a man. Galdós telegraphs the last fact since “manso” means docile or meek, a fitting description for Máximo Manso. Even though he is an excellent narrator, Manso turns out to be a poor author of his fictional life in a tale where there is little separation between art and reality. Even though the novel highlights the idea that fictional characters aren’t in the real world, it also reinforces the belief that the logic and laws that govern fiction do not differ from reality.

Manso is a poor author of his own life inside the novel because he fails to fully participate in it. While everyone respects his professional work, his insistence on avoiding many aspects of life isolates him from much that makes the other characters human. Even though Manso sets things in motion to lead to a happy ending for most of the characters, he has marginalized himself in most every context. Supporting this marginalization lies a demonstration (by the “author,” not Manso) that there is no place for a man of honor and principle in (then) modern-day Spain.

In a novel focusing on education, Manso’s epiphany represents, possibly, the most education a character receives in the novel. During his epiphany, Manso identifies the reason for the problem with his passion for Irene—it was based on ideals, not reality:

What had happened to that repose and marvelous equilibrium of the North European woman I had seen in her? In those fine qualities, as in others, I had got the notion that she was, among all the creatures I had seen on earth, the most perfect. Oh, those perfections were in my books, they were the product of my penchant for thinking and synthesizing, and of my too-frequent dealings with an idea of unity and with the great laws of that deadly gift for perceiving archetypes and not persons.

Without a doubt, it’s a Cervantean resolution in a Cervantean world, where Manso’s idealism gets in the way of reality. In addition to Irene’s beauty, manner, and bearing, her education and (apparent) interest in books and learning attract Manso to her. Once he sets his ideals aside, reality turns out to be much more interesting for him:

My new affliction consisted of having a vision of her bereft of all the perfections in which my ideas had clothed her, and in realizing I found her more interesting and loved her more this new way. In a word, I reached the point of feeling a burning idolization of her. A strange contradiction! When she was perfect, I loved her in a Petrachan way, with cold sentimental feeling that might have inspired me to write sonnets. Now that she was imperfect, I adored her with a new and tumultuous affection, stronger than I and all my philosophizing. (page 227)

At one point in the novel, Manso stands admiring the portraits hanging in Doña Cándida’s living room. Both pictures depict shipwrecks, which highlight the shipwreck of his life and his ideals. Unfortunately for Manso, his realization came too late to assist in his passion for Irene—she was about to be married to his former student, Manuel. Perhaps if he had been more of a real man…OK, a fictional real man…things might have turned out differently between Manso and Irene. But in a wonderful little novel highlighting the distance between the fiction and real life, Galdós emphasizes the real-life logic that novels follow to appear realistic.

Our Friend Manso: female characters and the education of women

All quotes are from the 1987 Columbia University Press edition, translation by Robert Russell.

The author of Our Friend Manso told his character Manso that he wanted to write a novel “dealing with the great subject matter of Education.” There is a lot of education and teaching that goes on in the novel, both formally in a classroom or private room and informally through Manso and the author. Galdós includes some thoughts on women’s education in this mix while providing (once again) some strong female characters.

Manso assumes responsibility for providing books to Irene, an acquaintance’s niece. Later he finds out she has gone to Normal School (the Women's Central Normal School) and earned a teacher’s certificate. (Note in this chapter of Catherine Jagoe’s book Ambiguous Angels: Gender in the Novels of Galdós highlights the important difference between the Women's Central Normal School and the more rigorous School for Governesses during the setting of the novel.) Irene becomes the governess of Manso’s nieces and nephew and she shares with Manso a similar view on women’s education: there should be a certain level to avoid ignorance and superstition but not become “full-fledged professionals, exercising the callings proper only to men.” The secret here, as elsewhere, “is in finding a golden mean.” (pages 64, 65) That fits in nicely with Manso’s other maxims that seek a conservative, middle-of-the-road approach on everything. The widow in Manso’s building, Doña Javiera, prefers the old-fashioned approach: “I don’t like people with book-learning. A woman with a degree—how disgusting! Book-learning is for the men; wits, for the women.” (page 239)

Near the end of the novel Irene confesses that she hates books, teaching, and anything else associated with education. While this is the opposite of everything Manso believes in for himself and men, it’s difficult to tell just how he, the implied author, and Galdós feel education for women. The conclusion at the end of the chapter linked above by Catherine Jagoe summarizes the ambivalence well:

The implied author is deliberately ambivalent on the issue of women's education. The narrative seems to be progressive but undermines the bases of that progressiveness, as if disclaiming the position it seems to take. The self-referential elements of the novel, not integrated into the central body of the narrative but contained instead in a metafictional frame at the beginning and end, nevertheless have the effect of creating a mocking elusiveness, warning us not to extrapolate the author's position on women's education. The narrator tells us that the whole affair is a creation of the author's mind, a "trabajillo de poco aliento" (a trivial bit of work) and not the ultimate masterpiece on education which he had been planning… .Nonetheless, it is an undeniable and telling cultural coincidence that in the very year that Albareda's educational reforms raised in an unprecedented way the issue of women's right to secondary and higher education in her own right and not just as a future mother or wife, Galdós should create a narrative featuring a woman [Irene] given all the educational opportunities of the time, who confesses that her career bores her and turns thankfully back to wifedom, and motherhood.

Another reading of it, although probably a more modern interpretation, is that Irene has the freedom to choose what she wants to do. The novel’s ambiguity is compounded because Manso is mistaken about many things throughout the novel, most importantly his understanding of Irene. His mistakes don’t mean that all his beliefs are undermined but they do cast doubt on their suitability.

Irene is an unreal character for most of the book because Manso doesn’t understand her, describing her in ideal form until his education takes hold (more detail in the planned next post). Other female characters are much fuller developed. Irene’s aunt, Señora de Garcia Grande (Doña Cándida), starts out as a sadly amusing leech, cadging Manso for funds before attaching herself to his brother’s family. After Doña Cándida’s husband dies, the “sort of man who wearies neither posterity nor fame,” the widow continues her spendthrift nature trying to emulate the aristocracy/upper classes without the means. Manso warns his brother’s family on the nature of Doña Cándida:

“Nothing is enough for her: the more she has the more she wants. Her hunger has been satisfied and now she longs for certain comforts she didn’t have before. Give her those comforts and she’ll want luxuries next. Give her luxury, and she’ll be after opulence. She’s insatiable.” (page 109-10)

This common theme in Galdós of the middle-class going broke while striving to emulate the upper classes isn’t limited to Doña Cándida in the novel. Manuel, Manso’s student, has been courting the Pez sisters but he quickly sours on them. He sees their unappeasable appetites for things leading to larger damaging outcomes:

“People talk about young men and how corrupted they are, and how alienated they are from their families; they say that we have antidomestic tendencies because we’ve been students frequented cafés and casinos. But, what about the girls? The maidens of our Latin countries are so frivolous and spoiled and enamored of false refinement that they can hardly be counted on to shape the families of the future. What’s going to come of it? The destruction of the family, a society based on atomistic individualism, a wild pluralism without harmony or unit, the power of the nation in the hands of women…?” (page 88, ellipsis in original)

Manuel’s forecast may seem exaggerated at the moment but later in the novel Doña Cándida all but prostitutes Irene to Manso’s brother in order to secure better living conditions. [Aside: Doña Cándida is a character in The Spendthrifts (La de Bringas) published two years after Our Friend Manso. Another spendthrift, Doña Milagros, the Marquesa de Tellería, has a cameo in this novel but will have a more substantial role in the later novel.]

Manso’s sister-in-law Lica turns out to be a disaster of a different sort. Brought back from Cuba by Manso’s brother, her household devolves into anarchy as the parents avoid responsibility. Manso recommends Irene as the children’s governess which helps bring some order in the household. After the birth of a child, Lica chooses to bring in a wet nurse instead of breastfeed the baby herself. This choice leads to a similar outcome as the earlier anarchy resulting from abdication of responsibility in disciplining the children—control of the household passes to the wet nurse. It also leads to a depressingly hilarious chapter (Chapter 33) as Manso attempts to find a wet nurse for the family, inspecting the the “mammiferous squadron” being examined for certification at the Provincial Government Building.

From the older generation there is one balanced female: the widow Doña Javiera. Manso’s neighbor, she asks the professor to instruct her son. It’s clear she knows a lot about Manso but he assumes she has no amorous intentions toward him. Like so much else in the novel it’s difficult to if he’s correct in his evaluation. Doña Javiera manages her husband’s butcher shop expertly after his death (of an intestinal blockage at the age of 50…I couldn’t help but think Galdós meant that as a gag). Her devotion to her son isn’t completely selfless—she expects great things for him and that she will benefit as well. Part of the humor at the end comes from the lingering class consciousness (detailed in the previous post) she and Doña Cándida display at the planned marriage between Manuel and Irene. Doña Javiera believes marrying a governess limits what her son will achieve. Doña Cándida reconciles that Manuel comes from a butcher’s family but thinks she is too good for Doña Javiera.

What leads me to believe Manso's error in his evaluation of Doña Javiera’s intentions toward him (besides her changing clothes in front of him) is his ability to sway her to accepting Irene. It wouldn’t be the only time Manso is incorrect. For a novel on education, it turns out the narrator has the most to learn…

Our Friend Manso: the education novel

All quotes are from the 1987 Columbia University Press edition, translation by Robert Russell.

So how does an author approach writing a novel “dealing with the great subject matter of Education”? One of the reasons the author chose Máximo Manso’s “simple and pleasant story” to buy involves Manso’s role as a professor who studies and practices philosophy. Through Manso the author is able to highlight some of his beliefs on how a life should be lived as well as the state of things in Spain. Because of some of Manso’s blind spots, too, the author can also let the reader draw his own conclusions on how valid these beliefs are.

After meeting Doña Javiera in front of their building after a fire alarm goes off, Manso agrees to educate her son Manuel. He takes Manuel, not a very serious student at first, and molds him into a knowledgeable young man with impressive oratory skills. Manso was a bookworm growing up so he continually stresses the importance of learning from books. Manuel even learns to like Don Quixote. Later, to Manso’s chagrin, Manuel becomes a fan of Machiavelli’s work. Given his belief on the state of Spanish politics (below) and Manuel’s promising political future, this must be Manso’s hint that he doesn’t see things changing any time soon.

Some of Manso’s comments on poverty in Spain and the changing landscape of social classes sound like comments Galdós’ characters have sounded in other novels. When looking how poverty shapes people, Manso looks at a particular individual’s positive development and wonders if it helped shape her: “And it makes me wonder: was it bane or blessing for Irene to have been born amid want, to have learned life in that somber school of misfortune which brutalizes some people and strengthens and refines others, according to the character of each one?” (page 31)

Manso (and through him Galdós) looks at the improving social situation, although he believes a true leveling hasn’t been achieved. That’s why his student, Manuel Peña, was often called “the butcher boy” reflecting his parent’s occupation:

It is abundantly obvious that social democracy has put down deep roots in this country, and no one is asked who he is or where he comes from before being admitted anywhere, being lauded and applauded, just so long as he has money or talent. We are all acquainted with a number of persons of the humblest origins who have attained the highest rank, and even married into the historic nobility. Money and wits, or even their stand-ins, speculation and skullduggery, have broken down all the barrier here, bringing about a mixture of all the classes to a much greater degree and with more telling effects than in the “European” countries, where democracy, having no place in daily intercourse, is provided for in the laws. From this perspective, and leaving aside the great political differences, Spain is becoming, strange though it seems, more and more like the United States of America. Like that nation, we are becoming a skeptical and utilitarian country where everything is dominated by the spirit of the melting pot, and of social leveling. History has less and less applicability every day here in Spain; it has passed entirely into the hands of archeologists, collectors, and curious, erudite, dried-up monomaniacs. Improvised fortune and rank are now the general rule; and tradition, perhaps having become hateful because of the forcefulness of its adherents, has lost all prestige. Freedom of thought is flying high and the ruling forces of our era, wealth and talent, are expanding their immense empire.

But the transformation, advanced as it already is, has not yet reached the point of eliminating a certain circumspection, a certain reluctance regarding the admission of low-born persons into the inner circle, so to say, of our society. If one’s low origins are far from view, even though separated from the present moment by only a decade or so, that’s fine, just fine. Our democracy has a short memory, but it’s not blind; thus one’s vulgar origins are still there and easy to see, it’s hard for money alone to conceal them. (page 36)

Though the country is not blind, amazing things can happen in an atmosphere of change. Manso’s brother, José Marie, has returned from Cuba having made his fortune and desires power. After cheerfully spreading his money around town, it looks like he will get his wish, leading to questions about the sanity of it all:

There is no doubt about it: everything seems to call for, or even presage, a change or transformation that will be the greatest in history. Everything points to it: these transitional monarchies, hanging by a legalistic hair; this system of responsibilities and powers, resting on a loose rope held by rhetorical maneurverings; this society which tears the old aristocracy to bits and creates a new one out of men who’ve spent their youth behind a shopcounter; these Latin nations which fill their lungs with the air of equality, carrying that principle not only to their laws but to the formation of the most formidable armies the world has ever seen; these times we see and live in, both as victims of the aftertaste of tyranny and also as the masters of something new, as we become part of a sovereignty which slowly informs our existence. My brother, who had washed dishes and rolled cigarettes and whipped blacks, sold hats and shoes, been sutler to the army and trafficked in manure, was about to enter the select front ranks of national leaders, the image of established political power, and, as it were, the guarantee of its solidity and permanence. We must say, as someone already has, that “either the Universe is becoming unhinged, or the Son of God is perishing.” (page 77)

In such an unstable atmosphere, Manso repeatedly demands a reliance on reason and provides a constant call for moderation and balance as well as shunning as much of the chaotic world as possible:

Folk of this world, I implore you to submit your lives to a regimen of suitable work and satisfying regularity. Find a comfortable cocoon, like the skillful larva. Arrange all your duties, all your pleasures, your times of leisure and of work in a careful balance and measure, only then to have someone from the outside come and upset the whole thing, forcing you into the mainstream, upsetting, chaotic, hurried… (page 41, ellipsis in original)

Manso recognizes that it isn’t possible to stay outside the mainstream, especially as he finds himself sucked into the disorder and confusion of his brother’s family and his own passion. A constant theme running through the novel is that outside forces influence our lives. “It’s a fundamental truth: we are shaped by the world, not vice-versa” (page 71) is just one iteration of this principle. He still believes that reason helps an individual win over everything else. With reason, even when temporarily yielding to unworthy men, a man can focus on “the eternal and the profound.” Manso’s reliance on reason proves to be ironic since his power of logic and philosophy fails to help him as he becomes marginalized in his own story. More on this in the post on Manso’s education, although I’ll provide a quote that occurs during his epiphany that summarizes one weakness behind his approach to life: “Who knows,” I asked myself, “whether a completely cold and careful critique might lead you to affirm that what you thought of as a series of resounding, fine-grained perfections, if they came to life, would be the most imperfect state of affairs in the world?” (page 226, emphasis mine given the irony of Manso’s state)

Manso has some harsh words for Spain’s political class and artistic atmosphere, similar to what I’ve seen in other novels by Galdós. There is a wonderful description of the poet Francisco de Paula de la Costa Y Sáinz del Bardal. Consistent with his pretentious name, he proves to be a blowhard with little talent although he is popular in some circles. Manso accompanies his brother’s children and their governess to the theater, providing plenty of opportunity to comment on the state of the arts in Spain. Two of my favorite asides:

• As an artist, I meditated on what times these are that we live in, when it’s possible to make a musical comedy out of the New Testament. (page 68)
• At that moment the audience was calling for the author, who was not St. Luke. (page 69)

Because his brother joins the political fray, Manso also has plenty of opportunity to comment on the politicians of the day. Joining the salon at his brother’s house is Don Ramón Maria Pez, a ministerial deputy who employs florid but empty language. Federico Cimarra, another politician attending the salon that encapsulates the best and worst of Spanish politics:

He was a majority-party deputy too, one of those who never speak but can do enough dirty work for seventy men, and affecting total independence, are eager for a piece of any shady deal. These men, rather than a class, form a cancerous growth which spreads unseen through the whole body politic, from the tiniest village up to the two houses of Parliament. A man of the most wicked political and family background, but still welcome everywhere and known by all, Cimarra was sought after because he would accommodate anybody and was considered astute. … Madrid is full of people of this kind; they are her flower and her dross, for they both delight us and corrupt us at the same time. Let us take care not to seek out the company of these men except for a brief time of recreation. Let us rather study them from a distance, for these plague-ridden men have notorious powers of contagion, and it’s not hard for an overly attentive spectator to become infected by their gangrenous cynicism when least expected. (page 58)

There are many more commentaries on Madrid and Spain that Manso can’t resist evaluating. Education is the “great subject matter” of the novel and Manso thinks he has plenty to teach and correct. There is much more along these lines, but I want to focus on the education of women in the next post and follow it with the education of Manso.

English translations of novels by Galdós

Following up on the legal papers that were served me earlier this year by Richard (see the comments in this post), I thought I would provide a separate post for linking to my posts on the novels translated into English by Benito Pérez Galdós. I had no plans to go this far on his works but when you go with the flow as I do, stuff like this happens. I’m in no rush to check things off the list but I do have a few of these lined up to read over the next few months.

Books in English translation by Galdós

Angel Guerra (1890-91)

The Disinherited (1881)

Doña Perfecta (1876)

Fortunata and Jacinta (1886-87)

Gerona (1874)

The Golden Fountain Café (1870)

Miau (1888)

Misericordia (1897)

Nazarín (1895)

Our Friend Manso (1882)

Reality (1889)

The Shadow (1870)

The Spendthrifts (La de Bringas) (1884)

Torment (1884)

Torquemada

• Torquemada at the Stake (1889)
• Torquemada on the Cross (1893)
• Torquemada in Purgatory (1894)
• Torquemada and Saint Peter (1895)

Trafalgar (1873) (English translation available here)

Tristana (1892)

The Unknown (1889)

Short Stories in English translation by Galdós

"The Novel on the Tram"

Plays in English translation by Galdós
Mariucha (1903)

Posted reviews about movies based on Galdós' novels
The Grandfather (El Abuelo): 1988, Spain
Viridiana (based on Halma): 1961, Spain/Mexico
Tristana: 1970, Spain

Our Friend Manso: I do not exist

Our Friend Manso
Benito Pérez Galdós
Translation by Robert Russell
Columbia University Press, 1987
ISBN 0-231-0604-7

I do not exist. And just in case some untrusting, stubborn, ill-meaning person should refuse to believe what I say so plainly, or should demand some sort of sworn testimony before believing it—I swear, I solemnly swear that I do not exist; and I likewise protest against any and all inclinations or attempts to consider me as being endowed with the unequivocal attributes of real existence. I declare that I am not even a portrait of anybody, and I promise that if one of our contemporary deep-thinkers were to start looking for similarities between my fleshless, boneless being and any individual susceptible to an experiment in vivisection, I should rush to the defense of my rights as a myth, demonstrating with witnesses called forth from a place of my own choosing that I neither am, nor have been, nor ever will be, anybody.

I am—putting it obscurely in order for you to understand it better—an artistic, diabolical condensation, a fabrication born of human though (ximia Dei) which, whenever it grasps in its fingers a bit of literary style, uses it to start imitating what God has done with material substance in the physical world; I am one more example of those falsifications of a man which from the dawn of time have been sold on the block by people I call idlers—and by so doing I fail in my filial duties—though an undiscerning and overgenerous public confers on them the title of artist, poet, or something of the sort. I am a chimera, dream of a dream, shadow of a shad, suspicion of a possibility: I enjoy my nonexistence, I watch the senseless passing of infinite time, which is so boring that it holds my attention, and I begin to wonder whether being nobody isn’t the same as being everybody, whether my not possessing any personal attributes isn’t the same as possessing the very attributes of existence itself. This is a matter which I haven’t clarified as yet, and I pray God I never may, lest I be deprived of that illusion of pride which always alleviates the frigid boredom of these realms of pure thought.

Máximo Manso introduces himself this way in the opening chapter of Our Friend Manso. He also informs the reader that “in the home of all that does not exist” there are also social classes, animosities, and other things common to the world of the living. So what brings Manso to us? A friend who “has fallen under an infamous curse: he writes novels” came to Manso, telling him he wanted to write a novel “dealing with the great subject matter of Education.” The author, though, needed certain tools and methods to carry it forward. The author offers to buy Manso’s “simple and pleasant story” in order to complete the novel, willing to provide the character some tools of the trade: literary genres, outmoded ideas, sentimentality, and set phrases. Manso agrees to cooperate and after being plunged into a drop of ink and the page set on fire, the character emerges in human guise. “The pain I felt told me I was a man.”

This is the last we hear of Manso’s special status until the final chapter, the 48 chapters in between carrying out the story meant to educate. In the first and final chapter, though, a real person (the author) and the literary character interact. Galdós, a master of the so-called realist novel goes out of his way to call attention that a novel is, by definition, not the real world but only appear to be so. Galdós’ novel of education begins in the first chapter, highlighting his view on the novel. His autonomous character, fully formed at the age of thirty-five, will behave in a manner and with a logic that is fully his own. Unfortunately, he also has to “live” with those consequences, as we’ll see in further posts.

Fortunata and Jacinta: additional posts

I'm glad to see other bloggers are reading/have read Fortunata and Jacinta and that others have expressed interest in tackling the book. I wanted to include a list of additional posts on the novel tied (however loosely) to the read-along. If I missed a post of yours or you add one later, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or email me. I would love to include it here. OK, on with the posts....

From Scott G. F. Bailey's Six Words for a Hat:

• El marqués de Casa-Muñoz se lo decía a Barbarita: "No hay que involucrar, París es muy malo; pero también es muy bueno."
• Juan springs from his sickbed: Fortunata y Jacinta
• Shots fired, downtown Madrid

From Amateur Reader's Wuthering Expectations:

• Sulfur people, lizard-belly green, and yellow that mixes poetry and consumption - beginning a week of Fortunata and Jacinta
• She lost count of the buttons she’d undone. There were a hundred, maybe a thousand. - realistic Fortunata and Jacinta
• Pipes all over the place! - another dream, more patterns in Fortunata and Jacinta
• His thick lips shone with the goo - non-Victorian Galdós
• They're better raw - the great Fortunata

Fortunata and Jacinta summary

What a long strange year in reading it has been. I hadn’t planned on reading Fortunata and Jacinta again or delving into more Galdós but I’m glad I did. I plan on reading a few more of his books that have been translated into English over the next few months, so you will be hearing more about him on these pages.

I will have a few more posts on this novel but I wanted to post this summary before moving onto other books. I plan at least three additional posts on the novel (which are noted below with the placeholders). I’m happy to see others are reading the novel and there have been some posts so far, and I look forward to reading more of them. I realize it’s a long, complex novel that takes more than a month to do it justice.

I hope the posts below have been helpful for those reading along and my biggest desire is that they (along with others’ posts) will drive some interest in the book and get others to read it. It’s a magnificent novel that deserves a wide audience. Enjoy!

Resources
My outline by subchapter
Links on Spanish history
The Illusion of Life Itself: some quotes and links to the Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture

More links: One
More links: Two
Fact and fiction at the same time: quotes from an article by Harriet Stevens Turner
Quotes from the novel about Torquemada (leading into reviewing Torquemada)
Other quotes I posted in a previous online life
Link to The Neglected Books Pages's review and notes on the novel

Posts
Volume One
Preliminary notes
Dreams that lead to the truth
Smuggling a story

Volume Two
Summary, miscellanea
The question of good works
Strong women; silencing the host

Volume Three
Failure
Practical philosophy

Volume Four
Segismundo Ballester
False progress and false hearts
An unasked question


Other posts
Placeholder: 1980 Spanish TV series
Roundup of other blogs' posts on the novel
Placeholder: Notes on Fortunata and Jacinta and La Regenta

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 4: an unasked question

I found several (what I call) unasked questions in the novel but I believe there was one that Galdós wanted the reader to consider—what is in store for little Juan (Juan Evaristo Segismundo)? The novel ends on a melancholy buoyant note, which is the best Galdós could do given the body count and other damage in Volume Four. The philosophies presented by Ballester and Maxi in the final subchapter show a trend toward reconciliation and acceptance. Little Juan is with Jacinta and the Santa Cruz family. Juan Santa Cruz has been marginalized in his family. Aurora received the equivalent of a Jerry Springer Show-style smack-down. And yet so much of the novel has been based on perception and reality not being in synch and, as I put it in the previous post, a presentation of false progress. So do these events bode well for the newborn?

The immediate consideration lies with the damning precedent of his father who was coddled at a young age and refused to mature. While it’s not always fair to project what happens beyond the end of the book, the reader can be forgiven for believing little Juan will be treated the same as his father. Whether his behavior/outcome is different than that of his father depends on other events, or so Galdós seems to imply, most importantly depending on the direction Spain takes.

The political overtones play a central role in the theme of false progress. All the reforms have done is entrench bribery and favoritism, with Villalonga embodying this perfectly. There is a tie-in between the individual and the nation throughout the novel, whether it’s the births by Isabel Cordero corresponding with historical events or the alternations between republic and monarchy coinciding with the change in reconciled marriages and mistresses. With this intertwining between individuals and the state little Juan seems to embody, at least to some extent, the future of Spain. Galdós takes pains to show the good and bad points of each class, not just the rich and poor but also the burgeoning middle class. Little Juan's parentage, the mixture of the higher class and the pueblo, also reflects a blending that Galdós seems to imply will be good for him, at least as long as the better parts of each class outweigh their respective drawbacks.

It goes without saying that the ending and little Juan’s future are open to interpretation—feel free to add yours in the comments.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 4: false progress and weak hearts

I mentioned some strong women in the novel in an earlier post and I want to ramble about a similar topic here. In Volume Four we meet Aurora, another clever and apparently strong woman character (I mention in this post how Galdós initially introduces her via a portrait in Doña Lupe’s parlor). Aurora pretends to be the friend of Fortunata while stealing Juan from her and planting the story of Jacinta’s unfaithfulness with Moreno-Isla. Maxi tells Fortunata about Juan and Aurora. Maxi, the weakest of weak men in the novel, knows how to injure her deeply and asks Fortunata “What did you want—to wound and not be wounded?” Fortunata believed in Jacinta’s unfaithfulness, using that false story to help justify her affair with Juan. Just as Aurora led Fortunata around the Samaniego household, arms entwined, Aurora’s actions and stories lead Fortunata to desperate actions.

But not everything is as it seems. Aurora: did Galdós mean her character to symbolize the dawn of something? Galdós mentions that she was unable to work for one of the big stores because of the salesmen, “professional loafers,” “usurp from girls their only respectable way of earning a living.”(The comparison of Paris’ shops to Madrid’s stores reminded me of a similar comparison of Paris shops to Warsaw’s stores in Bolesław Prus’ The Doll.) Aurora may represent a new opportunity for women to earn a living but it’s only because she owes the position to her cousin Pepe Samaniego and Don Manuel Moreno-Isla (Aurora’s former lover). Aurora turns out to be just one example of what falsely looks like progress in Spanish society in the novel, a subject worthy of its own post which, alas, won’t happen here.

Moreno-Isla's infatuation with Jacinta is apparent in the “hand chapter” at the opening of “That Idea, That Crafty Idea” in Volume Three (so much goes on in that subchapter...it's worth a re-read or two). The “Insomnia” chapter in Volume Four details his obsession with Jacinta, weaving an inner monologue with what resembles a modernist stream-of-consciousness technique. His heart can’t handle his passion, literally and figuratively. (Another topic worthy of its own post is the parallels between Morena-Isla and Fortunata.)

I’m probably only going to have one more post on the novel itself and address one of its unasked questions.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 4: Ballester

In a novel layered in meaning the character Segismundo Ballester helps tie together many of the themes. As the pharmacist that employs Maxi, he embodies a balance in life lacking in most other characters. His profession represents this mixture as he regularly talks about the blending of medicinal compounds. At the end of the novel (see the final quote of this post) he shows that he can compromise with a critic he used to hate, a trait lacking in most other characters.

The importance of his personality in regards to the novel lies in his acceptance of Fortunata. Other male characters either try to change Fortunata, attempting to polish a diamond in the rough, or idealize her beyond recognition, believing her to be something she couldn’t live up to until her death. Ballester accepts her for what she is, or it may be better said that he loves her because of her attributes, good and bad. He understands the hold Fortunata has over him and he basks in its sublime torture, helped along by her lack of reproof at his clumsy advances. In the carriage ride to the cemetery for Fortunata’s funeral, Ballester unburdens himself to the critic Ponce (ellipsis in original):

”Look, my friend Ponce: I’m inconsolable, yet I can’t fail to recognize—if I express my social egoism—that the death of that woman is better for me—the good and the bad always come in pairs in life—because, believe me, I was all set to commit foolish acts for that sweet girl; I was already committing them, and would have reached God know what point…you can imagine how attractive I found her! I consider myself a reasonable man, and yet I was headed straight for an abyss. That woman held a power over me I couldn’t begin to explain; I took it into my head that she was an angel, yes, an angel in disguise, you might say, all done up in a mask to scare off fools; and not all the wise men in the world could have convinced me to give up that notion. Even now it’s firmly implanted in me. It may be delirious, an aberration, but that notion is fixed in me, and what makes me despair the most is that now, because of death, I can’t prove whether it’s true.”
(from Vol. 4, Ch. 6, 16)

Ballester may be a romantic fool but Galdós paints him as our romantic fool. Or maybe I should say his romantic fool. The first time through Fortunata and Jacinta I thought Feijóo was a stand-in for the author but now, if there is such a thing, I believe it to be Ballester. The examples of compromise, his belief in realism, and the loyalty in friendship he demonstrates show a path on how things could have gone differently for other characters. Not to mention the tantalizing idea of Ballester marrying Fortunata (and Moreno-Isla wedding Jacinta). His open flirtation with Fortunata may be laughable but he is the person she comes to trust beyond any other character. His loyalty to her ends up costing him his position in the pharmacy.

Galdós has many literary tie-ins throughout the novel. Ballester’s first name, Segismundo, evokes the princely character from Calderón's play Life is a Dream and its theme of fate versus free will. Don Quixote appears throughout the novel in numerous ways and Ballester assists on that count. He reprimands Maxi for the books he reads and the crazy notions he will get from his study (4:1:1 and 4:1:3 for examples), much like the intervention of the barber and the priest with the don. Maxi’s obsession with honor and his self-inflicted persecution not only echoes the earlier farce with Sr. Ido but adds a Cervantean irony with the knowing irony Ballester piles on. It also allows him to say how he really feels about Fortunata to his friend (ellipsis in original):

It’s just like the other nonsense—that they’re going to take away your honor; that men get into your house; that’s your honor’s being ambushed from all sides. Aren’t we melodramatic, though! It’s hard to believe that you could think up such absurd things and be married to a woman who’s as chaste and pure as the Virgin Mary; yes, sir, I’ll say it again: as chaste as the Virgin Mary; a woman who’d sooner let herself be carved up than look at another man. And since you know it’s so, why do you make such a fuss? Ah, if I had a woman like that—so beautiful, so virtuous—if I had a virginal creature like that at my side, I’d get down on my knees to worship her; I’d let myself be caned before giving her any reason to be upset. Your honor! You’ve got more honor than…well, I don’t know what to compare it with. Your honor is brighter than the sun. No, not even the sun will do; it’s got spots. It’s cleaner than clean. And you still complain. Listen: I’m going to cure you with this stick. As soon as you mention honor, whack! It’s the only way. You do these things because you’re spoiled. An aunt who looks after you, a pretty wife who spoils you and lives only for you. That’s the truth. Jiminy, if I only had a wife like her…”
(from Vol. 4, Ch. 1, 3)

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 3: failure

The previous post looked at Feijóo’s practical philosophy he tried to impart to Fortunata to survive her “restoration” into the Rubín family. Feijóo’s outlook is one of practicality—setting an ideal goal but planning for contingencies. Feijóo continues in the line of people attempting to reform Fortunata. Where the Rubín family tried to confine Fortunata in a standard household routine, Feijóo attempts to provide some level of independence for her. Ironically that freedom would come through self-control and submission to her role as Maxi’s wife. Several characters recognize Fortunata as a diamond in the rough, but too much polish and she wouldn’t be the same person.

Feijóo’s project ultimately fails. There is another failure of sorts in Volume 3 by Guillermina, one of several strong female characters that rebel against type. Mauricia’s sickness plays an important role for the plot, providing the chance for Fortuanta and Jacinta to meet. Through Guillermina’s weakness (albeit with plenty of pressure from Jacinta), she lies to Fortunata and sets up the confrontation between Juan’s “wives.” While it’s obvious Galdós respected Guillermina and other characters joke about her saintliness, there is something about her that has always struck me as a little off which plays into the question of good works. Her care for the sick and dying show a genuine concern for people.

Even though she is the force behind building the orphanage her interaction with children seems cold and aloof. In the slums she scolds the children she sees, but more importantly she scolds the parents. It’s not that she realizes her limitations and places emphasis on the institutions (orphanage, family, etc.) that can improve life in Madrid, it’s that she does it with a clinical coldness that provides my disquiet about her. I realize her actions are consistent—she shows no additional respect for the rich (or royalty) and guarded sympathy for the poor. She agrees with Maxi’s maxim that much of the behavior of the poor comes from their poverty but also holds them accountable for the behavior that isn’t. Her evisceration of Izquierdo is followed by her lead for a job, for example.

I found the unplanned mediation between Fortunata and Jacinta disquieting, but Guillermina’s actions with the dying Fortunata (in Volume Four) showed her desire to control or broker a situation. I’ll save that for a post covering that section, but I’ll say here that it made me reevaluate her actions in brokering for Pituso’s sale. I’m curious to see other readers’ thoughts on Guillermina…

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 3: practical philosophy

After Juan dumps Fortunata again, she is protected by the retired military man Evaristo Feijóo. He sets her up in her own place and proposes an arrangement for her to be his lover. She accepts but, as his health declines, the dynamic changes mostly to a father-daughter relationship. (This isn’t the only relationship in the novel that has incestuous overtones.) Feijóo’s health declines so quickly that he becomes worried about Fortunata’s future—what will become of her when he can no longer take care of her? The answer from Feijóo is that Fortunata needs to return to Maxi and ask for his forgiveness. In laying out his plan, Feijóo provides what the author terms a practical philosophy. The goal was for Fortunata to love, or at least tolerate, Maxi after her return to him. Realizing this goal may not be possible, Feijóo’s rules were meant to protect her reputation and standing (from Volume 3, Chapter 4, subchapter 6; ellipsis in original):

“The first thing you must always, always bear in mind at every moment and under any circumstances is that you must keep up appearances. Look, chulita, I’m not dying until I’m sure I’ve planted this notion firmly in your head. Learn my words by heart and say them every morning right after the Lord’s prayer.”

Like a language teacher who repeats a declination to his pupils, hammering in the syllables one by one as if here nailing them into their brains, Don Evaristo, right hand raised, as if it were a hammer pounding steadily against a wall, slowly nailed these words into his pupil’s mind:

“Keeping … up … appearances; following … the rules; showing … the respect … we owe each other … and above all … never losing control, you hear? … never losing control” (as the teacher repeated this last rule, his hand was suspended in the air; his eyebrows arched halfway up his forehead; and his eyes which were extremely bright, emphasized the importance he placed on this part of the lesson), “never losing control, you can do whatever you like.”

Fortunata’s stay at the convent was to give her the appearances of respectability, putting a coat of whitewash on her past. She immediately falls into Juan’s arms, who presented a shortened version of Feijóo’s philosophy back in Volume Two: “You can do what you like as long as you’re discreet.” Juan has already learned Feijóo’s rules and perfected them. Being the “Dauphin,” though, helps him in his extramarital escapades. Fortunata’s past and reputation count against her, especially after the whitewashing fails.

Update: the last paragraph was left off the original posting: Mauricia also understood the philosophy to some extent and had tried to coach Fortunata while they were still in the convent, although she failed to include many points that made Feijóo's philosophy complete:

“Once you’re a nice little married lady you can do as you please—and keep the fringe benefits that go with ‘properness.’ A single woman’s a slave; she can’t even go where she wants. The ones that get themselves an excuse for a husband have carte blanche for everything.”

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 2: strong women; silencing the Host

I mentioned in the previous post that I planned to look at some of the principal female characters introduced in Volume Two. Volume One had several strong female characters, notably Guillermina Pacheco and Isabel Cordero, and Volume Two adds to this roster.

Doña Lupe succeeds in the business world as a student of the usurer Torquemada. While she relies on him for help in some areas of her little empire, she skillfully handles other areas on her own. Doña Lupe’s treatment of Papitos (and apparently other maids before her) demonstrates how she likes to mold people to follow her bidding, something she’s unable to do with the two oldest nephews. Some of Doña Lupe’s success comes from her lack of feminine traits or possessions—a widow with no children and only one breast stands outside many of the roles or attributes expected at the time. Her lack of fear at confrontations and her direct language reminded me of Guillermina’s crusading for her causes.

Introduced in the Micaelas’ chapters, Mauricia is portrayed as a masculine female character, said to resemble Napoleon. Mauricia takes on the world unapologetically on her own terms. Her drunken vision near the end of Chapter 6 provides another unsettling vision in the novel. Her challenge to the social and religious orders, including the thinly veiled sexual nature of her assault on the chapel, carries over to her death-bed rants. Galdós provides several secondary characters like Mauricia who play pivotal roles in the plot. Mauricia’s illness and death brings together Fortunata and Jacinta as well as Doña Lupe and Guillermina. Also important is the influence she exerts on Fortunata. Her philosophy celebrating basic passions also includes many points from Feijóo’s “practical philosophy,” although described in coarser terms (more on this in Volume Three).

I want to return to Mauricia’s vision/dream in the chapel since it is so bizarre and works on many different levels. At times it echoes the overall novel’s plot. At other points the triumph of her will and her sexuality shine forth. Her challenge to authority takes on some troubling symbolism when she eats/silences the Host. The lesson from the narrator at the end will be revisited several times in the novel. From Volume 2, Chapter 6, subchapter 9 (ellipsis in original):

In a profoundly lethargic state, Mauricia did what she had not been able to do awake: she continued the action interrupted by the locked door. Nothing actually happened, but the action was firmly rooted in Mauricia’s will. The shrew entered the chapel, not bumping into anything because the lamp on the altar gave off enough light to show her the way. Unwaveringly she headed for the main altar, saying along the way: “I’m not going to hurt you, my little God; I’m just going to take you to your Mamma, who’s out there crying for you and waiting for me to get you out of here… What is it? Don’t you want to go to your Mamma? She’s waiting for you, and she’s so pretty, and looks so nice, all dressed up in that cloak full of little stars, with her feet up there on the moon. Just wait—you’ll see what a nice job I’ll do of getting you out of here. ‘Cause I love you so, I really do. You know me, don’t you? I’m Mauricia la Dura; I’m your friend.”

Even though she was walking very fast, it was taking her a long time to get to the altar because the chapel, which was so small, had become very big. There was at least half a league from the door to the altar. And the more she walked, the further it was. Finally she reached it, climbed up the two, three, four stairs, and felt so odd there, seeing the table covered with delicate, snowy-white linen, and seeing it at such close range that for some time it kept her from taking the last step. When she put her hand on the Holy Communion table, she was overtaken by a fit of convulsive laughter. “Who would’ve said it? Oh my God, oh God; that I… hee, hee, hee!” She removed the crucifix from in front of the ciborium door, then stretched out her arm; but since it didn’t reach far enough, she stretched it more and more until it hurt her from straining so much. At last, thank God, she was able to open the door touched only by the priest’s anointed hands. Lifting the curtain, she fumbled for a moment in that holy, worshipped, mysterious hollow… But there was nothing there! She felt this way, then that way, and found nothing. Then she remembered that that wasn’t where the monstrance was. It was kept higher up. She climbed onto the altar, put her feet on the Communion table, looked this way, then that way… Ah! Finally her fingers touched the metallic base of the monstrance. Oh, but it was cold! So cold it burned. Contact with the metal sent an icy chill down her spine. She hesitated. Should she take it or not? Oh, yes; a hundred time yes; even if she died she had to do this. With exquisite care, but very decisively, she clutched the monstrance and descended a staircase that hadn’t been there before. Pride and happiness filled the daring woman’s soul as she saw the tangible representation of God in her own hands. Oh, how the gold rays on the glass pane shone! And what mysterious, placid majesty there was in the pure host’s being safely behind the glass—white, divine, and somehow seeming like a person, yet it was really only fine bread!

With incredible arrogance Mauricia descended, entirely unaware of any weight. She lifted the monstrance as a priest does, for the faithful to adore it. “See how I’ve dared,” she thought. “Didn’t you say it couldn’t be done? Well, it could and it was!” She continued on her way out of the chapel. The most pure host was faceless, yet it looked out as if it had eyes. And the sacrilegious woman, approaching the place under the chair, began to be afraid of that look. “No; I’m not letting you go. You’re not going back there. Home to Mamma, all right? Baby’s not crying ‘cause he wants hi mother, is he, now?” Saying this, she dared to take the holy form to her bosom as if it were a baby. And then she noticed that the holy form not only had profound eyes as luminous as the sky, but also a voice, a voice that echoed pitifully in her ears. The material quality of the monstrance had completely vanished; all that remained were the essentials: the representation, the pure symbol; and these are what Mauricia pressed furiously to her breast. “Girl,” the voice said, “don’t take me. Put me back where I was. Don’t do anything crazy. If you let me go, I’ll forgive your sins, which you have so many of that they can’t be counted; but if you persist in trying to take me away from here, you’ll be condemned. Let me go and don’t worry—I won’t say a word to Don León or the nuns. They won’t scold you. Mauricia, what are you doing, woman? Are you eating me?”

And that was all. What raving madness! No matter how absurd something is, there’s always room for it in the bottomless pit of the human mind.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 2: the question of good works, how beneficial and at what cost?

The model for Guillermina Pacheco is the historical persona of Doña Ernestina Manuel de Villena (1830-86). Galdós himself praised the charity work and character of Ernestina shortly after her death. He considered her a true saint of the modern world. Fervently Catholic and tenacious of spirit, she built an asylum for orphans in Madrid brick by brick, using up her inheritance and energetically soliciting donations from everyone else. It took her twenty years. She was also committed to other charity projects, including a soup kitchen, workshops and schooling for the asylum orphans, and home relief. An aristocrat by birth, Ernestina was representative of “a new, active type of Christian charity.” …

It is important to place Ernestina—and hence Guillermina Pacheco and Galdós’s novel by extension—within the larger context of the Catholic Revival in relation to the development of philanthropy in Spain and to the larger, more visible role women played in both the revival and philanthropy. Ernestina’s personality fascinated her contemporaries. Her motives for dedicating herself to the poor were the subject of endless speculation. With her memorable reincarnation in Fortunata y Jacinta, one might be tempted to see her as an isolated figure of Catholic benevolence and religiosity in late nineteenth-century Spain. Consider, however, that Ernestina’s youth and early adulthood coincided with a midcentury revival of piety and evangelism and her mature years with yet another wave of devotionalism, centering above all upon the mystery of the Eucharist as well as the Sacred Heart, Mary, and the Holy Family, during the Restoration period.

- Valis, Noel (2010). Sacred Realism: Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative. Yale University Press, pages 129 – 132.

I plan to have a separate post on the principal female characters of Volume Two, but I wanted to go into those details about Guillermina since there is an underlying question of charity that runs through many of the Galdós novels I’ve read and have lined up to read. The question usually revolves around the benefits realized, if any, of charity and who the charity benefits. Guillermina proves to be the one character that solely acts out of sympathy for the poor. Jacinta often shows compassion, most of the time for truly selfless reasons, but her motives during the Pitusian novel in Volume One are more than a little suspect. While there are several variations about “the vastness of the kingdom of poverty,” Maxi’s comment that “Half the dishonor you see in life isn’t anything but poverty” (II, 2, 8) seems to capture a major tenet of Galdós’ outlook. The bigger question, left unanswered, is how to deal with the poverty.

Torquemada at the Stake humorously explores charity on a cost/benefit relationship for someone trying to “bribe” religion in order to realize selfish wishes. In Volume Three, Doña Lupe calculates that acting charitably in front of Guillermina will provide opportunities for her to mingle with the wealthy and aristocratic society in Madrid, a legitimizing step for her in the tenuous middle-class position she finds herself in with her new riches.

As I discussed in the previous post, there is a legitimacy of a different type going on with Fortunata’s stay at the Micaelas. In this case it is a whitewashing of her past, allowing her to be presentable in society (at least at Maxi’s level). Unfortunately she and Mauricia turn out to be less than notable alumni of the convent, or at least notable in a positive manner. In both cases passion, not poverty, turns out to be the issue in their subsequent dishonor. The Micaelas’ purpose was to tame (or sublimate) these passions. Evidently it worked for some of the women (hence the convent’s reputation and the attempt at transformation) but not for Fortuanta or Mauricia.

The related topic of why people perform charity surfaces often and the benefit usually accrues more to those giving. People give to Guillermina to stop her harassment as well as publicly show their good works. Charity turns out to be one of the lesser reasons for Fortunata’s visit to the Micaelas—the Rubín family assumes their reputation relies on her successful stay since Maxi is determined to marry her. There will be many more examples of charity in the novel in Parts Three and Four and I find it interesting to analyze the motivation of the giver and who really benefits from the gift. Galdós doesn't provide easy answers for the complicated problems he raises…scratch that, he usually doesn't provide any answers, but the trends we'll see in the second half of the novel provide hints in the direction he believes Spanish society should head.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 2: summary and miscellanea

Volume 2 focuses on Fortunata’s story. First, though, we meet the Rubín family, headed by Doña Lupe, a widow who has been tutored in financial dealings by Sr. Torquemada. Her nephews are Juan Pablo, Nicolás, and Maximiliano, nicknamed Maxi, a sickly pharmacy student. Maxi meets Fortunata (after her affair with Juan) and is smitten. Fortunata has no interest in the would-be lover, although the dream of respectability proffered by marriage captivates her. Maxi, displaying willpower previously unknown to him, convinces Doña Lupe he intends to marry Fortunata. The family strikes a compromise, sending Fortunata to a convent (the Micaelas) for social redemption, or at least the appearance of respectability. In the Micaelas, Fortunata meets an acquaintance, Mauricia, who informs Fortunata of the trap Juan has set for after her marriage—he has rented the apartment next to Maxi’s room. After her release from the convent and marriage to Maxi, Fortunata falls into Juan’s trap. Maxi finds out about the affair and despairs. Juan grows tired of Fortunata and dumps her. Having shamed the Rubín family with her affair, Fortunata leaves their house.

I mentioned in a previous post that Galdós' humor extends to the chapter titles. Volume One has a chapter titled “The Honeymoon,” covering the trip taken by Juan and Jacinta after their wedding. Volume Two has a chapter titled “The Wedding and the Honeymoon,” covering the wedding of Maxi and Fortunata. There is no honeymoon, though. Maxi is taken ill with a migraine during the wedding feast. As Fortunata puts it, within hours of the wedding she was committing adultery with Juan. But here’s the catch—Fortunata views Juan as her real husband since she had a child with him, so in a perverse sense she does have a honeymoon.

At the start of the year I had a post that included an excerpt describing Doña Lupe. Here’s one of many descriptions of Maxi and his pharmacy classmates that succinctly summarizes their characters:

The boys in botany class amused themselves by giving each other nicknames based on Linnaeus’ nomenclature. One named Anacleto—who considered himself very elegant and genlemany—was dubbed Anacletus obsequiosissimus; they called Encinas, who was very short, Quercus gigantean. Olmedo was very slovenly, so Ulmus sylvestris fit him perfectly. Narciso Puerto was ugly, dirty, and smelly, so they called him Pseudo-Narcissus odoripherus. Another boy who was very poor and had a little job on the side received the name Christophrorus oficinalis. And finally Maximiliano Rubín, who was terribly homely, clumsy, and dull-witted, was called Rubinius vulgaris throughout his career as a student. (Vol. 2, Ch. 1, 2)

Maxi’s idolization of Fortunata echoes other venerations so far in the novel. Estupiñá worships Barbarita Santa Cruz and is always at her disposal. Fortunata adores Juan despite everything he has done to her. But Maxi’s reverence has quite different implications—he intends to marry a fallen woman. The intended “purification” Fortunata goes through in the Micaelas will make her a respectable woman in conjunction with marriage. Even though her past may be noted, the acceptance she receives after her stay in the convent seems exceptional in European nineteenth-century novels. The convent exists to school young girls as well as reform fallen women, although the two groups are kept separate. Even with that separation, the combination seems symbolic since there is a great mingling of classes and social statuses in Fortunata and Jacinta. Some of this anticipates the more explicit treatment of this topic by Galdós in later novels (see Dr. Davies’ quote in the above-referenced Torquemada post).

More stray thoughts:

• Galdós opens The Spendthrifts (La de Bringas) with a chapter on a painting that provides some underlying themes and symbolism. I found it funny (and maybe coincidental) that the reader’s introduction to Aurora, a character who plays an important role in the final volume, comes as Maxi stares at a portrait of her and her sister. (See the opening paragraphs of Chatper III: A Portrait of Doña Lupe.) 


• Galdós always provides much to compare and contrast, but Volume 2 seems very heavy on such evaluations. Maxi feels ripped open by love, causing him to smash open his piggy bank. Torquemada teaches Doña Lupe how to treat borrowers, which coincidentally happens to be how she treats her nephews, especially Maxi. Maxi’s wish to redeem Fortunata has the precedent of Doña Lupe taking Papitos in as a maid in order to “straighten her out” and “make a woman of her” (and Nicolás’ attempt to reweave Fortunata’s “torn moral fabric”). And so on… 


• Galdós’ humor includes direct comments on his characters. The end of this Volume closes with Nicolás berating Fortunata for her adultery, commanding her to leave the house and noting they will need to burn holy incense to purify it. The narrator’s earlier descriptions of Nicolás’ slovenly manners and poor hygiene are alluded to in the closing passage as well as an apology:

  Nicolás repeated the figure of speech he found so satisfying: “Burn incense, burn incense.” And as far as lavender was concerned, it wouldn’t have done him any harm, physically. No offense meant.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 1: smuggling a story

Recognizing my outline only makes sense to someone reading the novel (and maybe not even to them), a short recap of Volume 1…

Galdós provides the genealogy of the Santa Cruz and Arnáiz families and focuses on the adolescence and young adulthood of Juan Santa Cruz. Juan’s mother, aware that he is hanging with a suspect crowd, arranges his marriage to his first cousin, Jacinta Arnáiz. While on the honeymoon Jacinta badgers Juan about his affair with Fortunata and finds out about the resulting pregnancy. After a few years together and no children, Jacinta attempts to adopt a boy that she believes to be the offspring of Juan and Fortunata. The plan falls through when Juan informs her that his son died. At the end of the section Juan hears of Fortunata’s return to Madrid in the following manner.

Galdós plays with multilayered storytelling in Chapter XI, or to be more accurate he has one of his characters do so. Even the title of the chapter, “The End, Which Turns Out to Be the Beginning,” provides a sly nod to what he’s doing in the chapter. (At times, the chapter titles provides jokes all their own, the best of which I’ll highlight in Volume 2.) Jacinto María Villalonga, a corrupt politician and good friend of Juan Santa Cruz, arrives on Three Kings’ Day, January 6, 1874 to tell the Santa Cruz family about the coup that Manuel Pavía led in overturning the government of Emilio Castelar (see the end of this history for more details). The family has been wishing Villalonga would visit and tell them his eyewitness news of the proceedings, but when he arrives he has additional news to tell Juan (ellipsis in all excerpts are in the original):

      “Boy, you don’t know…the news I’m bringing you! If you only knew who I’ve seen! Can your wife hear us?”
      “Nah, don’t worry about it,” replied Juan, putting the studs in his shirt front. “Make yourself clear, fast.”
      “Well, I’ve seen the person you’d least expect…Here.”
      “Who?”
      “Fortunata. But you have no idea how she’s changed. What a transformation! She’s so attractive, so elegant. My jaw almost dropped when I saw her.”
     Jacinta’s steps could be heard. When she appeared, raising the curtain, Villalonga took a brusque turn in his speech: “No, no; you don’t understand; the session started in the afternoon and there was a recess at eight o’clock. During the recess they tried to reach an agreement.”

The dueling histories, as I called them in my outline, continue in this style of a theatrical performance. Jacinta suspects there is more going on in her absence. She finds excuses to be in the room, causing Villalonga to resume his story of the coup. Just like Estupiñá enjoys smuggling goods past tariff collectors, so Villalonga relishes bringing the “secret” story to Juan. When it appears Jacinta is out of earshot, Villalonga turns back to his story that prompts a parallel coup within Juan. Villalonga relishes describing Fortunata:

“She’s enough to drive you mad. You remember that incomparable body, that statuesque bust—the type that come from the pueblo and die in obscurity unless civilization searches for them and ‘presents’ them. How many times did we say it: ‘If that bosom only knew how to exploit itself…!” Well, it wasn’t just words, it’s been perfectly exploited already. Do you remember what you used to say? ‘The pueblo is a quarry with great ideas and great beauties. And then the working hand comes with intelligence and art to cut out a block…’ Well, there it is, finely carved. What graceful lines!”

Juan experiences a “spiritual sickness,” caused by his fruitless search for Fortunata after this news, which raises fresh suspicions within Jacinta. As the narrator points out, though, Juan hid these things “very deep inside him, in caves deeper than those at the bottom of the sea, and Jacinta’s plumb would never reach them, not even with all the lead in the world.” In order to maintain his affection for his wife, Juan imagines Jacinta with the physical attributes of Fortunata. The spiritual sickness physically manifests itself as Juan contracts pneumonia after combing the city in the cold weather looking for Fortunata. More on her in Volume 2…

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 1: dreams that lead to the truth

I’m going to start my series of excerpts with one of the weirdest moments in the novel but also one of the most revealing. Funny how the two sometime go together. But first some background.

Galdós loves to set up comparisons. Juan Santa Cruz was a spoiled only child that never wanted for anything. As the mercurial lad grew up (but never matured), his parents abetted his proclivities and smoothed over his indiscretions. Others often view him as a “divine creature.” The parents had waited impatiently for a decade after marriage before Juan was conceived. Jacinta, though, was one of seven daughters in the Arnáiz family, the mother emaciated and misshapen from her almost constant pregnancies. The father lamented the cost of clothing them while the mother paraded them for marriage as items for sale or, as Galdós describes the brood, “the sample case.” The parents realize they can’t be choosy in the daughters’ marriages, so when Juan’s mother proposes the idea that Juan marry his cousin Jacinta (more on this relationship and its implications much later) the news “hit the Arnáiz family like a bomb,” as if they had won the lottery.

The comparison between the generations provides a starker contrast. Juan’s parents have been hard working while he’s been coddled. That he wants to do nothing isn’t solely his fault—his father goes out of his way to provide a life for him that he didn’t have until he was much older. Some of the symbolism highlighting the differences is starker, though. The parents share a box at the theater while Juan and Jacinta occupy separate boxes. And, more tellingly, the older couple share the same sturdy bed while the younger couple sleep in separate beds.

Jacinta knows that Juan has other women on the side at times but chooses to ignore his activity. When pushed, Juan deftly avoids the questions while dressing the truth up “in a frock coat” to make it more presentable. Her childlessness weighs on her, absorbing her so fully that she ignores the good things she had. Jacinta tries to make up for this by taking care of her nieces and nephews but finds an unbridgeable gap—they aren’t hers (insert ironic foreshadowing melody here). The need for children goes deeper than simply having a child to love…Jacinta craves affection. Her marriage incompletely provides what she wants.

Hopefully this helps set the stage for the following scene. Jacinta didn’t want to go to the opera this evening but she was cajoled into attending. She falls asleep during the performance and her repressed sexuality surfaces in a bizarre dream (ellipsis in original):

Lulled by this music, the lady fell into a deep sleep and had one of those intense and brief dreams in which the brain recreates reality in high relief, showing an admirable histrionic sense. The impression left by these lethargies is usually much stronger than that produced by many external phenomena. Jacinta found herself in a place that was and was not her house… Everything was lined in the white flowered satin that she and Barbarita had seen the day before at Sobrino’s shop. She was sitting on a puffy cushion and a beautiful little boy was climbing up over her knees, first touching her face, then putting his hand on her breast. “Stop it, stop it! It’s a dirty thing, it’s bad. You don’t want to touch that!” But the little boy wouldn’t stop. He was wearing a shirt of fine Dutch linen, and his delicate flesh slid over the silk of his mamá’s bathrobe. It was the powder-blue bathrobe she had given to her sister Canelaria weeks ago… “No, no; don’t do that! It’s dirty…” But he went right on insisting, stubborn and adorable. He wanted to unbutton her bathrobe and put his hand inside. Then he pushed his head against her breast. Seeing that this didn’t get him anywhere, he became serious, so extraordinarily serious that he seemed like a grown man. He looked at her with huge intense eyes, moist now, expressing with them and his mouth all the sorrow of which humanity is capable. Adam wouldn’t have looked otherwise on the good he was losing when he was banished from Paradise. Jacinta wanted to laugh but she couldn’t because the little boy pierced her soul with his burning gaze. A long time passed in this way, the child-man looking at his mother, and slowly melting her firmness with the power of his eyes. Jacinta felt something tearing inside her. Not knowing what she was doing, she unbuttoned one button, then another. But the boy’s face didn’t lose its seriousness. The mother was alarmed and…then the third button…still nothing; the child’s face and expression remained stern, with a beautiful gravity that was becoming terrible. The fourth button, the fifth, all the buttons slid through their buttonholes making the material strain. She lost count of the buttons she’d undone. There were a hundred, maybe a thousand. But not even with that many… His face began to seem distrustful, immobile. Finally, Jacinta put her hand into her robe, took out the breast the boy wanted, and looked at it, feeling sure that he wouldn’t be mad anymore when he saw such a pretty, full bosom. But no. Then she took the boy by his head and drew him up to her, putting her breast into his mouth… But his mouth was insensitive and his lips didn’t move. His whole face looked like a statue’s. The touch Jacinta felt on this very delicate area of her skin was the horrifying friction of chalk, friction from a rough, dusty surface. This contact made her shudder and left her dumbfounded for awhile; then she opened her eyes and realized that her sisters were there; she saw the large, heavy, painted curtains flanking the stage, the crowded side sections of the upper gallery. It took her awhile to register where she was and what nonsense she had been dreaming, and she put her hand on her breast with a modest and fearful gesture. She heard the orchestra, which was still imitating mosquitoes, and upon looking at her husband’s box she saw Frederico Ruiz, the great music lover, his head thrown back, his mouth half open, listening and savoring every bit of the delicious music from the muted violins. It seemed as if the clearest and sweetest and finest stream imaginable was being poured into his mouth. The man was in ecstasy. The lady saw other rabid music lovers in the boxes; but the fourth act was already over and Juan hadn’t appeared.
(Vol. I, Ch. VIII, 2)

What she wouldn’t find out until much later in the novel is that Juan, the man-child that is sometimes intimate with her and sometimes pursuing other women, was attending to the death and funeral of the son he had with Fortunata.

I’m eager to hear what those reading Fortunata and Jacinta (or have already read it) thought of this strange passage.

Fortunata and Jacinta Volume 1: preliminary notes

Finally, I have a moment to write some notes on Volume 1 of Fortunata and Jacinta. Before delving into excerpts from the novel, I wanted to make some general comments that may (or may not) be helpful in reading the book. These comments aren’t meant to be comprehensive (trust me, they are very impromptu) but hopefully they provide an idea of the sophistication involved.

The overall structure of the novel comes from the title itself, focusing on the lives of the two women. Each of the four volumes introduces (or focuses on the life of) a male character that are central to that part. Layer an array of continually shifting triangles on top of this 2x4 framework and you get an idea of how complicated the novel can be at times. This combination of constancy in structure with variability in particulars mirrors the action in the story.

Many symbols and motifs help unite the shifting triangles. The bird-egg motif is perhaps the most noted one, simply because it is so pervasive. The Trujillo family tree provides not just the symbol of the intertwining branches of the descendants but also the theme of yoking together the Santa Cruz and Arnáiz families:

A scrutiny of their family trees would quickly disclose that the very same sap, the Trujillo sap, ran through various branches of the Arnáiz and Santa Cruz families. “We’re all alike,” [Tubs] Arnáiz once said in one of his more festive, expansive moods, which brought out his democratic sincerity. “We’re both bonafide Trujillos—you on your mother’s side and me on my grandmother’s. We’re descendants of Matías Trujillo, who owned the packsaddle shop on Toledo Street back in the days of the cloak and dagger revolution. I’m not making it up, I have the documents at home. That’s why I told our relative Ramón Trujillo yesterday—who, as you probably know, has been made a count—I told him to use a yoke and a headstall for a coat of arms and write underneath it, ’I belonged to babieca, El Cid’s great horse.’”
(Vol. I, Ch. II, 1)

While there are many more symbols and motifs, one that struck me early on in the novel was the commercial nature of the story. The narrator goes into detail on many characters business background as well as the shifting business atmosphere in Madrid, all of which lays the groundwork for the recognition that everything is for sale. While many of the actions in the novel focus on monetary price, the cost/benefit analyses carry over to everyday actions depicted (just as in real life), such as which level to enter the Cava building in order to minimize the number of steps to climb.

Telling the story is Galdós as narrator and character. He relates his meeting or involvement with several of the characters, much as he did in The Spendthrifts (La de Bringas). Omniscient at times, feigning ignorance at others (although never very convincingly), the narrator smoothly drives the story forward and provides exactly what is needed to understand each character. Galdós, the narrator as character, disappears for long stretches of time only to occasionally remind the reader of his existence. Leopoldo Alas (the critic Clarín) noted in an essay about the author that “Galdós is best at writing when he’s not even aware of what he is doing and when the reader is no longer conscious of a presence mediating between the author’s ideas and his own.” There are some self-referential mentions of the story as novel, one I’d like to quote here since the debate it contains captures Galdós’ approach of blending facts with fiction so well. One character discusses what he knew of Fortunata’s life to a critic:

The response from the famous judge of literary works was that it had the makings of a play or a novel, although in his opinion the artistic texture wouldn’t be especially attractive unless it were warped in places so that the vulgarity of life might be converted into esthetic material. He didn’t tolerate “raw life” in art; it had to be scrubbed, seasoned with aromatic spices, and then thoroughly cooked. Segismundo did not share his opinion and they discussed the matter, each party advancing its select reasons, but each sticking to its own convictions, so that in the end they agreed that well-ripened raw fruit was very good, but so were compotes, if the cook knew what he was doing.
(Vol. IV, Ch. VI, 16)

I’m going to skip the tie-ins to Spanish history since I’ve mentioned the subject already (see this post) and the narrator specifically highlights the connection at times. I also won’t go into the foreshadowing occurring in this volume other than to say there is a lot. There is a lot more I’d like to note on Volume 1, which I'll hopefully cover in a few "excerpt posts" later this week.