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191

Benina later realizes that her imagined priest and the real Don Romualdo are two different people: in the novel's final chapter she tells Juliana: «ya estoy segura, después de mucho cavilar, que [el sacerdote] no es el don Romualdo que yo inventé, sino otro que se parece a él como se parecen dos gotas de agua» (p. 798a).

 

192

Carl D. Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Indo-European Languages (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 1464-65; Grace S. Hopkins, «Indo-European DEIWOS and Related Words», Language Dissertations (Philadelphia: Linguistic Soc. of America, 1932), No. 12 (Dec., 1932).

 

193

King Samdai wears a green costume. In the Hispanic world the color green is frequently symbolic of hope.

 

194

Schyfter, pp. 93 and 95.

 

195

Schyfter, p. 94.

 

196

Schraibman («Las citas bíblicas en Misericordia», p. 494) and Schyfter (p. 94) have already identified this prayer as the Hebrew Shema. For more information concerning the Shema, see the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Macmillan, 1971) XIV, 1370b-74b. At various times in the novel Almudena also recites an abbreviated version of the Shema in Spanish («No haber más que un Dios, uno solo»). This proclamation of the oneness and the universal nature of God serves as an underlying motif in the work and reflects Galdós' ecumenical religious views. Vernon A. Chamberlin notes that in the Arabic dialect of southern Morocco, the area of Almudena's origin, the person «who summons the faithful to prayer from atop the minaret» is called a 'lmudden'» («The Significance of the Name Almudena in Galdós' Misericordia», Hispania, 47 [1964], 492). It is noteworthy, I believe, that Almudena plays a role similar to the «lmudden» because he introduces Benina to the Shema in the novel and, in a sense, he summons her to recite the prayer.

 

197

A real was a small, fractional part of a peseta; in a whole month this allowance would amount to only fifteen pesetas (p. 798a).

 

198

Antonio Regalado García, Benito Pérez Galdós y la novela histórica española (1868-1912) (Madrid: Ínsula, 1966), p. 428.

 

199

Marqués de Lozoya, Historia de España (Barcelona: Salvat, 1967), tomo VI, p. 154.

 

200

Salazar y Mazarredo abrigaba el descabellado plan de comprar Gibraltar con el dinero obtenido por la venta del guano de las Islas Chincha. Está por estudiar esta pintoresca figura cuya conducta, irresponsable e inmoral, contribuyó poderosamente a la «mini-guerra» entre España y el Perú.

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