Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha

Galdós has said that the three great evils which afflict Spain to-day are the power of the Church, caciquismo or political bossism, and la frescura nacional or brazen indifference to need of improvement. All three he tried to combat. In spite of the common belief, however, his plays—thesis plays as they nearly all are in one way or another—seldom attack these evils directly. Caciquismo is an issue only in Mariucha and Alma y vida, and in them occupies no more than a niche in the background. Sloth and degeneracy are a more frequent butt, and Voluntad, Mariucha, La de San Quintín, and, in less degree, La loca de la casa, hold up to scorn the indolent members of the bourgeoisie or aristocracy, and spur them into action. From this motive, perhaps, Galdós devoted so much space to domestic finance. The often made comparison with Balzac holds good also in the fluency with which he handled complicated money transactions on paper, and in the business embarrassment which overtook him in real life. He had a lurking affection for a spendthrift: witness Pedro Minio and El tacaño Salomón.

Against the organization of the Catholic Church Galdós harbored intense feeling, yet he never displayed the bitterness which clericals are wont to impute to him. In view of his flaming zeal to remedy the backwardness of Spain, a zeal so great as to force him into politics, which he detested, Galdós' moderation is noteworthy. The dramas in which the clerical question appears are Electra, and Casandra. Doña Perfecta attacks, not the Church, but religious fanaticism, just as La fiera and Sor Simona attack political fanaticism; and the dramatist is so far from showing bias that he allows each side to appear in its own favorable light. Thus, in Casandra, Doña Juana, the bigot, is a more attractive figure personally than the greedy heirs. Doña Perfecta gives the impression of an inevitable tragic conflict between two stages of culture, rather than of a murder instigated by the malice of any one person. One can even detect a growing feeling of kindliness toward the clergy themselves: there was a time when Galdós would not have chosen a priest to be the good angel of his lovers, as he did in Mariucha.

For Galdós was not only by nature impartial, but he was fundamentally religious. It may be necessary to stress this fact, but only for those who are not well acquainted with his work. If the direct testimony of his friend Clarín be needed, it is there (Obras completas, I, 34); but careful attention to his writings could leave no doubt of it. Máximo in Electra repeats, "I trust in God"; Los condenados and Sor Simona are full of Christian spirit, and the last play, Santa Juana de Castilla, is practically a confession of faith.

The problems which concern Galdós the dramatist are, then, not so often the purely local ones of the Peninsula as broader social questions. The political tolerance which it is the aim of La fiera to induce, is not needed by Spain alone, though perhaps there more urgent; the comity of social classes eulogized in La de San Quintín, the courage and energy of Voluntad, the charity of Celia en los infiernos, the thrift of El tacaño Salomón, and the divine love of Sor Simona, would profit any nation. The loftier moral studies which we shall approach in the next section are, of course, still more universal.

One point should be made clear at once, however, and that is that Galdós, with regard to social questions, was neither a radical nor an original thinker. When one considers the sort of ideas which had been bandied about Europe under the impulse of Ibsen, Tolstoy and others,—the Nietzschean doctrine of self-expression at any cost, the right of woman to live her own life regardless of convention, the new theories of governmental organization or lack of organization—one cannot regard Galdós as other than a social conservative, who could be considered a radical nowhere outside of Spain. In how many plays does a conventional marriage furnish the facile cure for all varieties of social affliction (Voluntad, La de San Quintín, La fiera, Mariucha, etc.)! The only socialist whom he brings upon the stage—Víctor of La de San Quintín—has received an expensive education from his father, and, though compelled to do manual labor, it is apparent that he is not concerned with any far-reaching rational reorganization of society, but only with the betterment of his own position. In Celia en los infiernos, a mere broadcasting of coin by the wealthy will relieve all suffering; in El tacaño Salomón, the death of a rich relative lifts the spendthrift out of straits before he has reformed. It is clear that in this order of ideas Galdós is strictly conventional.

Various possible attitudes may be adopted by one who sees political and social evils, and desires to abolish them. The natural conservative dreams of a benevolent despotism as the surest path to improvement. This attitude Galdós never held, for he was born an optimist, and believed in the regenerative power of human nature. The natural liberal believes in a reform obtainable through radical propaganda in writing and at the polls. Such a man was the Galdós of the early novels and of some of the dramas,—the Galdós of La de San Quintín, of Voluntad, of Mariucha, full of exhortations to labor and change as the hope of redemption. Then, there is a third attitude, likely to be that of older persons, whom sad experience has led to despair of political action, and to believe that society can be improved only through a conversion of the race to loyalty and brotherly love; in short, through practical application of the Christian virtues. This change in Galdós' point of view was foreshadowed in Alma y vida, where one tyranny (absolutism) is replaced by another (parliamentarism); without soul, "wickedness, corruption, injustice continue to reign among men." In his old age the reformer appeared to renounce his faith in vote or revolution, and to place himself by the side of Tolstoy. The note which rings with increasing clearness is that of charity, of the healing power of love. There is something pathetic in the spectacle of this powerful genius who, as the shadow of death drew near him, became more and more absorbed in spiritual problems, and less in practical ones. Amor y ciencia, Celia en los infiernos, Sor Simona, Santa Juana de Castilla, reiterate that love is the only force which can relieve the suffering and injustice of the world. And, in harmony with the gentle theme of the last plays, their form becomes simple and even naïve, while the characters are enveloped in a vaporous softness which suffuses them with a halo of humane divinity.

3. Galdós' Philosophy.—Before passing to a consideration of Galdós' ideas, we should examine for a moment his manner of conveying them. He was able to express himself in forceful, direct language when he chose, but he came to prefer the indirect suggestion of symbolism.

Symbolism, of course, is nothing but a device by which a person or idea is made to do double duty; it possesses, besides its obvious, external meaning, another meaning parallel to that, but hidden, and which must be supplied by the intelligence of the reader or spectator.

The interpretation of a symbol may be more or less obvious, and the esoteric meaning may be conveyed in a variety of ways. Galdós has expressed his opinion about the legitimate uses of symbolism in his prefaces to Los condenados and Alma y vida, in passages capital for the understanding of his methods. In the earlier work he said, "To my mind, the only symbolism admissible in the drama is that which consists in representing an idea with material forms and acts." This he did himself in the famous kneading scene of La de San Quintín, in the fusion of metal in the third act of Electra, etc. "That the figures of a dramatic work should be personifications of abstract ideas, has never pleased me." Personified abstractions Galdós never did, we believe, employ in his plays, though critics have sometimes credited him with such a use.8 Nevertheless we should remember that precisely this kind of symbolism was very popular in Spain in the seventeenth century, and gave rise to the splendid literary art of the autos sacramentales. Galdós then goes on to refute the allegation of certain critics that he was influenced by Ibsen.

"I admire and enjoy," he says, "those of Ibsen's dramas which are sane and clear, but those generally termed symbolic have been unintelligible to me, and I have never found the pleasure in them which those may who can disentangle their intricate meaning." What a curious statement, in the light of the other preface, written eight years later! "Symbolism," he there wrote, "would not be beautiful if it were clear, with a solution which can be arrived at mechanically, like a charade. Leave it its dream-vagueness, and do not look for a logical explanation, or a moral like that of a child's tale. If the figures and acts were arranged to fit a key, those who observe them would be deprived of the joy of a personal interpretation.... Clearness is not a condition of art." Did Galdós change his mind in the interval between writing these two prefaces? I think not. The change merely illustrates the difference in viewpoint between an author and a reader. For very, very many persons in his audiences have regarded the symbolism of Los condenados (if it be there), of Electra, of Casandra, of Pedro Minio, of Santa Juana de Castilla, and especially of Alma y vida and Bárbara, with the same feeling of hopeless bewilderment which Galdós experienced when he read The Wild Duck, The Master-builder and The Lady from the Sea. To the creator his creation is clear and lovely.

Leaving aside the question of influence, it cannot be denied that the symbolism of Galdós has much in common with that of Ibsen. Both have the delightful vagueness which permits of diverse interpretations,—in Alma y vida the author was obliged to come to the rescue with his own version; in neither is the identification of person and idea carried so far that the character loses its definite human contour; and both are employed to convey a profound philosophy.

What is Galdós' philosophy? First and foremost, he believed that nothing in life is too insignificant or too wicked to be entirely despised. Sympathy with everything human stands out even above his keen indignation against those who oppress the unfortunate. A search through his works will reveal few figures wholly bad, too wicked to receive some touch of pity. César of La de San Quintín and Monegro of Alma y vida are probably the closest to stage villains, and this precisely because they are a part of the melodramatic elements of those plays, not of the central thought.

A corollary of his universal sympathy is the doctrine, not very profound or novel, that opposite qualities complement one another, and must be joined in order to give life a happy completeness. This thread runs through many plays, sometimes unobtrusively, as in La fiera, Amor y ciencia, La de San Quintín, sometimes erected into the dogma of primary concern, as in Alma y vida (the union of spirit and physical vigor), La loca de la casa (evil and good, selfishness and sacrifice), and Voluntad (practical sense and dreamy imagination).

This is one manifestation of that splendid impartiality, that impassiveness which enabled Galdós to retain his balance and serenity in the trials of a stormy and disastrous era. Another evidence of his desire to present both sides of each question is found in those dramas which appear to contradict one another. Pedro Minio supports literally, in a way to dishearten earnest toilers, the Biblical injunction to take no thought for the morrow, and to give away all that one has; but El tacaño Salomón teaches thrift. Most of Galdós' writing advocates change, advancement, rebellion against old forms; but Bárbara drives home the strange burden that all things must return to their primitive state. I do not add El abuelo, with its anti-determinist lesson, because Galdós never was a determinist; he never believed, as did Zola, that the secrets of heredity can be laid bare by a set of rules worked out by the human mind.

These citations prove, at least, that Galdós was careful not to be caught enslaved by any dogma, and they show, too, that he set no store by the letter of the law, and prized only the spirit. That is the secret of his fondness for the dangerous situation of the beneficent lie, or justifiable false oath, which brought him severe criticism when he first used it in Los condenados (II, 16), and which nevertheless he repeated in an equally conspicuous climax in Sor Simona (II, 10). Galdós defended the lie through which good may come, in the preface to Los condenados, with reasoning like that of a trained casuist; and such a lie appears hypocritical upon the lips of Pantoja (Electra, IV, 8), though it is not so intended. As a dramatic theme the idea is not entirely novel, for Ibsen, in the Wild Duck, had said that happiness may be based upon a lie. As usual, Galdós provided his own antidote, for, with what appeared a strange inconsistency, and was really a desire for balance, the lesson of the very drama, Los condenados, is that "man lives surrounded by lies, and can find salvation only by embracing the truth, and accepting expiation." This idea also can be paralleled in Ibsen and Tolstoy, but it was overbold to exhibit both sides of the shield in the same play.

There still remain the major threads in the broad and varied fabric of Galdós' ideology. Stoicism, that characteristic Spanish attitude of mind, allured him often, and he succeeded in giving dramatic interest to the least emotional of philosophies. In Realidad and Mariucha is found the most explicit setting forth of that theory of life which enables an oppressed spirit to rise above its conditioning circumstances.9 At times Galdós appeared to dally with Buddhism: at least some critics have so explained the reincarnation of doña Juana in Casandra, novela. Another tenet of Buddhism, or, as some would have it, of Krausism, was often in Galdós' thought, and is emphasized particularly in Los condenados and Bárbara. Every sin of man must be at some time expiated; and not alone sins actually committed against the statutes, but sins of thought, sins against ideal justice, which is far more exacting than any human laws.10

All these phases of thought spring from one mother-idea, the perfectioning of the human soul. For Galdós, in spite of the unfortunate times in which his life fell, in spite of the clearness with which he observed the character of those times, was an unconquerable optimist. He believed that Spain could be remade, or he would not have worked to that end. He believed that humanity is capable of better impulses than it ordinarily exhibits, and his life was devoted to calling forth generous and charitable sentiments in men. Whether through stoicism, which is the beautifying of the individual soul, or through divine and all-embracing love, which is the primal social virtue, Galdós worked in a spirit of the purest self-sacrifice for the betterment of his nation and of humanity. He had grasped a truth which Goethe knew, but which Ibsen and his followers overlooked—that the price of advance, either in the individual or in society, is self-control.

VI. The Position of Galdós as a Dramatist.—The enemies of Pérez Galdós have often declared that he had no dramatic gifts, and should never have gone outside his sphere as a novelist. Other distinguished writers, among them Benavente, consider him one of the greatest dramatists of modern times. The truth lies close to the second estimate, surely. Galdós will always be thought of first as a novelist, since as a novelist he labored during his most fertile years, and the novel best suited his luxuriant genius. But he possessed a very definite theatrical sense, and it would be possible to show, if space permitted, how it enabled him to achieve success in the writing of difficult situations, and how he never avoided the difficult. Had Galdós entered the dramatic field earlier in life, he might have been a more skilled technician, but as it is, El abuelo and Bárbara are there to prove him a creative dramatist of the first order.

From what has been said in the preceding sections, it will be evident that Pérez Galdós does not fit exactly into any single one of the convenient classifications which dramatic criticism has formulated. His genius was too exuberant, too varied. Of the three stages which mark the progress of the modern drama, romanticism, naturalism, and symbolism, the second, in its strict dogmatic form, affected Galdós not at all. Realism, in the good old sense of the Spanish costumbristas, furnishes a background for his plays, but only a background. A picture of Spanish society does emerge from the dramas, indeed. It is a society in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty, in which the old titled families are generally degenerate and slothful, and the middle classes display admirable spiritual qualities, but are too often unthrifty and inefficient. Of the laboring classes, Galdós has little to say. Bitter religious and political intolerance creates an atmosphere of hatred which a few exceptional characters strive to dissipate. Galdós, however, was seldom willing to face these conditions frankly and tell us what he saw and what must result from such conditions. In the later period of his life, to which the plays belong, the sincere study of reality was swept away by a combination of romanticism and symbolism which lifted the author into the realm of pure speculation, giving his work a universal philosophic value as it lost in the representation of life. From the spectacle of his unfortunate land he fled willingly to the contemplation of general truth. El abuelo, because it unites a faithful picture of local society and well-observed figures with a sublime thought, is beyond doubt Galdós' greatest drama.

Menéndez y Pelayo pointed out that Galdós lacks the lyric flame which touches with poignant emotion the common things of life. He did not entirely escape the rhetoric of his race. And he was curiously little interested in the passions of sex—too little to be altogether human, perhaps. But his work appears extraordinarily vast and many-sided when one compares it with that of his French contemporaries of the naturalistic drama, who observed little except sex. He was not an exquisite artist; he was, judged by the standards of the day, naïve, unsophisticated, old-fashioned. But he was a creative giant, a lofty soul throbbing with sympathy for humanity, and with yearning for the infinite.

Galdós wrote but five tragedies: Realidad, Los condenados, Doña Perfecta, Alma y vida, Santa Juana de Castilla. Of them, Doña Perfecta creates the deepest, most realistic tragic emotion, the tragic emotion of a thwarted prime of life; and after it, Santa Juana de Castilla, the tragedy of lonely old age. El abuelo and Bárbara, also, in some way intimate the mysterious and crushing power of natural conditions,—the conception which is at the heart of modern tragedy. Galdós attained that serene vision of the inevitableness of sorrow too seldom to be ranked with the foremost of genuine realists. Instead, he reaches a very eminent position as an imaginative philosopher.