Visor de obras.

Walter T. Pattison's some thirty years of study devoted to Gloria have led to considerable results in this book in which ate presented the salvaged and reassembled remains of (1) an 1872 version of the novel, (2) some of the first twenty-one chapters of Part One written before the final plan for the novel took shape in Galdós' mind and (3) material which was rejected in the final composition of Part Two. A search for the Gloria manuscript in Madrid in 1951 (during preparation for the writing of BPG and the Creative Process, Minneapolis, 1954) bore fruit twelve years later when Pattison learned the identity of the owner of the Gloria manuscript in a conversation in the Canary Islands. He and his wife spent the winter of 1964-65 in Madrid diligently working with the manuscript. This find was reported in the Anales Galdosianos (IV, 1969, pp. 51-64). The final version of the manuscript, bound in two volumes with the division of the material corresponding to that of the published version, was on the backs of sheets of paper on which first had been written the surviving portions of the three earlier versions. The material had to be sorted and collated so that the three reconstructions could be accomplished. Fortunately, Galdós had numbered his pages at each writing, so that lacunae can be established and indicated in this edition. The painstaking effort required for this task can be appreciated on looking at the initial pages of the 1872 version as published: page one is missing; page two comes from the back of p. 87 of Volume 2 of the final manuscript and page three comes from the back of page 85 of the same volume. Indications of two sets of numbers (front for the final version and reverse-side numbers for the earlier versions) are given for every page included.

However, the approach to some aspects of the critical apparatus is not always felicitous. Rather than including an explanation of the criteria and symbols used in editing in the general introduction, some of this material is left for the final page of the introduction to the «Primera versión de la Primera parte». Here one finds the following:

On the firstpage of the text itself we encounter further explanatory notes indicating that (1) pages from Volume Two will be indicated with the numeral II and (2) that «XX» indicates a word that was crossed out or is illegible. Also, words «de lectura dudosa» are followed by a question mark in parentheses (Notes 1 and 3, p. 13). This system in general causes no difficulty as the reader encounters excrito (184), escitada (235), extrangero (245), abraze (308 and 335), etc. Sic is regularly employed after other types of errors: «De el (sic) joven» (17), laberientos (22), «en las más (sic) bestial depravación» (42) and vilas (95). This leaves a set of solecisms which the reader must conclude are the work of the typesetter: honrosin a (138, honrosísima?), mudo (176, mundo?) and párraco (31, párroco?). Although the use of XX's to indicate crossing-out is never explained more fully beyond the note indicated, one may assume that the use of many X's means that a larger number of words were blotted out by Galdós. At times Pattison has some success in deciphering the crossed-out words. Nevertheless, in a work such as this one could reasonably hope for a more formal presentation of the editing methods employed. Also, there seems to be no good reason for the failure to supply missed punctuation in brackets or parentheses and for the failure to place stress marks in the text, so that readability would be improved.

The organization and presentation of the 1872 version of Part One is for the most part clear in large measure because Galdós numbered chapters and Pattison fills in lacunae with explanatory notes. In the second version of Part One reading and comparison with the final version becomes somewhat labored after Chapter 9 (the early chapters are numbered in the manuscript). The break between Chapters 9 and 10 is indicated with a note (259); but no note is included to indicate the break between Chapters 10 and 11 (261). Materials corresponding to Chapters 13-17 are missing, but this is noted only in the introduction to the section (204), not where the break occurs in the text (273). The correspondence of manuscript material to Chapter 18, «El cura de Ficóbriga», is not mentioned in the manuscript (273) as reproduced. Finally, there is no indication of correspondence of material beginning on page 277 to Chapter 21 of the final version. However, these are minor irritations when compared with those encountered in reading and trying to make use of the material included in the «Páginas rechazadas de la Segunda Parte». Here indication of the correspondence of material to discrete chapters of the final version appears only after one is sure that one has lost one's way. There comes first an indication that one is beginning a new page in the manuscript; and then some lines later a footnote indicates that a new chapter has begun (or one may have to turn a page before the note is seen and one discovers the cause of one's disorientation!!). If there were no other breaks or discontinuities the confusion resulting from this practice would perhaps be sufficient to alert one to what has happened; but in a text with many lapses one cannot help but feel that Pattison is taunting his readers mercilessly. These problems too seem to arise from a perhaps disproportionate respect for the integrity of the text. Readers -even those who have read Gloria repeatedly- would likely be most grateful for a few more opportunely placed signposts.

Because the manuscript of the first or 1872 version will perhaps be of greatest interest to galdosistas in general, I shall direct my attention there.   —121→   The prototype Gloria was named Rosalía (We do not know what the novel's title would have been) and she had a brother, Mariano. Daniel Morton does not appear; rather the love-conflict arises from Rosalía's falling in love with an English clergyman (sacerdote), named Horacio Reynolds, a man uncertain of his religious vocation. Most of the action in the surviving material develops in Madrid, contemporary Madrid, thus making this early version of Gloria Galdós' earliest attempt to present contemporary urban life in a lengthy work. He had, of course, used Madrid as a setting in historical novels as well as in his short novel La sombra. Although Pattison's commentary in the introduction to this part and his general conclusions attempt to relate (rightly so, given his primary concern with Gloria) the material to specific aspects of the final version, one forms the impression that the material is of greater interest for the student of the works which begin with La familia de León Roch. Don Juan Gibralfaro, Rosalía's father, presented as a rather simplistic (intellectually, morally and ideologically) type, is meant to be a caricaturized Carlist who confronts not one but two kinds of encroachment of contemporary life and manners on his traditional views of the family and society: the rebellion of an apparently submissive daughter who falls in love although her father has elected another man as her husband (The influence of the Moratín-plot or predicament affects Horacio as well as he became a clergyman because of his family's wishes) and the son caught up in the journalistic-political-financial milieu of questionable machinations of young men in the capital (Cf. Melchor Relimpio, La desheredada). Readers learn that Mariano, the heroine's brother (who, by the way, has the same name that Galdós was to use for Isidora's brother) brings about his father's financial ruin; however, because there are pages missing it is not certain that Rosalía has not «sinned». Although Pattison is convinced that she is incapable of total rebellion (8), others will be less sure if they remember that Gloria, with far fewer occasions for sin in her path, brought about Juan de Lantigua's death as a consequence of her one «sin».

While the characters are concerned with sin and morality, the narrator's point of view seems imbued with elements suggestive of a strong interest in the French novel, those of an «idealist» orientation and especially those generally called naturalist. Even before she appears in the action, readers are told that Charito, Mariano's mistress is not like the types of women found in French novels:

Although it is difficult to ascertain the overall intention, biological laws play an important part in explaining conduct. Rosalía's growing conviction that she should resist her father's wish that she marry the indiano Don Cayetano de Guayaquil is commented upon as follows: «Rosalía, de suyo cuitada   —122→   y mansa, sentía la energía incontrastable que es propia de todas las hembras de las especies zoológicas cuando las contrarían en sus afectos» (64). When Horacio and Rosalía fall into each other's arms they seem to be governed by natural forces: «Todo esto que hemos dicho en hipótesis pasó realmente y ninguna de las leyes de la mecánica amorosa faltó en aquel instante» (67). In this passage Galdós seems to be parodying the folletín model, at the same time that he teases his reader in allusions to Rosalía's vaga somnolencia, languidez dulce, blando letargo, caloroso desmayo followed by a lengthy commentary on Horacio's struggle to avoid temptation. This is interrupted by the whistle of a train which sets them on their way to the next bedroom where the scene is repeated. Here the irony is heavy, but it is of a kind that makes one wonder how the same writer could have created such a scene and then proceeded to the less mitigated melodrama of Gloria:

The most interesting, however, of the ideas expressed on the psychology of love is found in the speech in which Horacio analyses his own attempts to repress natural impulses. Having become a priest because of his family's wishes, he is inwardly divided: «Y para que veas si estas cosas influyen en la vida la carrera eclesiástica, que me ha sido impuesta como una esclavitud, ha modificado aparentemente mi carácter, creando en mí (sic) un segundo carácter ficticio, por el cual me conocen en el mundo» (174). His view is that emotions (afectos) cannot be repressed for a long time without there being serious consequences: «El alma que no ha tenido ocasión de gastar en el mundo la porción sobrante de sus afectos, puede vivir en calma por algún tiempo, pero algún día se encontrará en una horrorosa plétora, que no podrá contener» (174-75). His imagination works ceaselessly despite the discipline imposed first by study and then by his profession. Art, especially poetry, occupies his mind to so great a degree that he abandons his decision to not write at all and attempts to write religious verse. However, even here he fails: «Yo intentaba asombrar al mundo con mis cantos religiosos, y de mi imaginación no brotaban sino cantos de amor... Lo que no he conseguido es sujetar la imaginación...» (175-176). Horacio Reyno1ds, in spite of his articulateness and apparent lucidity and too his being an Anglican priest who can marry stands as an early expression of Galdós interest in the relationship between sexual repression and mental illness or aberration (Cf. Tormento, Fortunata y Jacinta, El amigo manso). Of perhaps greater interest is the pre-Freudian analysis of the relationship between repression, sublimation and creativity, an area explored by Valera in Pepita Jiménez and by Leopoldo Alas in La Regenta.

Through a series of footnotes Pattison indicates comparisons to be made between characterizations and attitudes developed in this manuscript and those to be found in later Galdosian works, such as Tormento, Ángel Guerra,   —123→   Cádiz, El amigo manso, and Torquemada en la hoguera. One might suggest the possibility that Charito is a prototype of Isidora (La desheredada) in her origins, her entry into a less than virtuous existence and her literary preferences. Also, there is a passage which suggests perhaps the intention of using Christ-imagery in dealing with Don Juan Gibralfaro, who is clearly the principal male character in the material Pattison has transmitted to us: «Por arte mágica supieron las señas de la habitación en que vivía aquel Mesías prometido, que saldaría todas las cuentas. Hosanna» (131). Though this may appear a weak attempt at humor, it must be remembered that Don Juan's later religious conversation is not treated with reverence either. And even with many parts of the novel missing it is clear that he is the victim who is beginning to pay with his substance and life for the weakness and sins of his children. In this instance Galdós tried an approach contrary to that developed later with Pepe Rey (Doña Perfecta) and with Daniel Morton, in the final version of Gloria, in which the enlightened city man is destroyed (sacrificed) by the uncomprehending in a provincial world to which he is a new comer. Perhaps it is significant that when Galdós finally did situate his novelistic actions in Madrid, he abandoned the tragic-symbolic-melodramatic approach to be found in Gloria and Doña Perfecta in favor of a more «comic» orientation (La desheredada, El amigo manso, La de Bringas). The first version of Gloria with its heavyhanded satirical approach to almost every characterization other than those of the star-crossed lovers perhaps most appropriately belongs in the line of development of Galdós as a writer that manifests itself for the first time in print in León Roch, that is, a work in which the comic and satirical potential is lost through an attempt to blend it with the ideological conflict presented in melodramatic form. Once the spectacle of Madrid and its people became more important to Galdós as an artist than his role as creator of heavily symbolic characters, the problems evident in this first version of Gloria could be resolved. Within this context, the manuscript uncovered by Pattison seems of capital importance.

In light of the above considerations it is somewhat difficult to be sure that Pattison's view of the first version is entirely fair to Galdós. The first version seems more a frustrated novel, one from which Galdós salvaged elements that he came to recognize did not belong together. His Don Juan Gibralfaro is too much a comic type because of his miserliness, yet he seems almost a Christ-figure when Mariano's creditors seek him out. However, after his religious conversion and the onset of physical weakness, he would seem about to revert to miserliness, taking the words of the priest who has heard his confession as justification (202). This characterization by itself could justify Pattison's claim that «la primera versión es literalmente inferior especialmente en cuanto a su estructura...» (8). However, it is difficult to be sure that Galdós abandoned this version «sencillamente porque sabía que la historia del conflicto religioso que quería narrar se le había esquivado» (9). No reason or evidence is adduced to support this view that the artistic or ideological intentions informing the first plan were identical to those which led to Gloria, The fact that some 170 pages (in printed form) were written (some are lost) before the project was abandoned (Or were other pages lost?) suggests the contrary: Galdós could not have written so much before he   —124→   realized that hehad lost track of his religious theme... unless he wrote while unconscious! In the early 1870's Galdós' efforts were moving in various directions, the revision of his approach to the historical novel and eventually the creation of his best ideological-symbolic novels. If the first version of Gloria did not work out as an experiment in the direction of that ideological novel, it was far from a failure in that its pages became a rich cajón de sastre from which to draw over the years; a runthrough of characterizations and a view of a city which could be worked successfully into works of different artistic orientation.

Pattison's interest in the creative process has not waned since 1954 when he sought to explain that the story about Galdós' sudden hitting upon a plan for Gloria one day in December 1876 was a reference to the «moment of crystallization when a whole series of stored up impressions fell into a pattern» (BPG and the Creative Process, p. 19). Carmen Bravo Villasante's publication of «Veintiocho cartas de Galdós a Pereda» (Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 250, 1970) provided Galdós' own words concerning a lengthy period of gestation leading up to the writing of Gloria (Cited by Pattison, p. 10). Now Pattison's book makes clear to what degree this earlier activity had consisted of something more than readings and the personal and intellectual concerns of the moment. Galdós' original «explanation» takes on a more specific meaning, that is, it seems an allusion to the moment in which past failures and present concerns crystallized into the plan which would lead to the version which readers have known for more than one hundred years. That plan in Pattison's view emerged when Galdós reached the end of the quite incomplete second version, one which, nevertheless, bears a close ressemblance in many ways to the final version: «Ese momento era para él el verdadero comienzo de Gloria. Sin mencionar el largo período de gestación, pudo declarar que la novela era 'obra de un entusiasmo de quince días'» (26).

Pattison's interest in the sources of Gloria led him to Octave Feuillet's Histoire de Sybille and Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (See: BPG and the Creative Process). Since Galdós edition of the Sybille was that of 1874 and the elements of characterization and plot which apparently derive from that work do not show up in the 1872 version, it seems clear that the second manuscript version of Part One represents the first attempt to use the materials. In Pattison's view there is also new evidence to be derived from this version concerning Galdós' having modeled his Silvestre Romero in imitation of Scott's Prior Aymer. Furthermore, a line removed from this version seems to him significant in arguing in favor of Ivanhoe as a source: «Ese (Scott) es un protestante que tiene más sentido que muchos católicos (376).

Finally, the subject of Galdós' production in relationship to ideological concerns is touched upon briefly in the conclusions, that is, the skill in handling and making into novelistic material the matter of intolerance. Pattison believes that a «suavización de la intolerancia y el ennoblecimiento de los caracteres neocatólicos se hizo conscientemente y a propósito» (377). Anthony N. Zahareas, in his study of ideology in Doña Perfecta (Anales Galdosianos, XI, 1976, 29-58) points out the balanced view achieved in the presentation of opposing ideological views. A more comprehensive view of this question   —125→   may be achieved in the case of Gloria by making use of these three manuscripts published by Pattison.

The first version of Gloria (1872) will prove the most useful and interesting to galdosistas in general. For the student of Gloria in particular and of the evolution of Galdós' ideas in the first two thirds of the 1870's the book as a whole should provide varied insights into the questions of the creative process, the evolution of approaches to the ideological novel, the changing of esthetic criteria, etc. In spite of the weakness in the presentation of his materials noted above, this book is an important achievement in Pattison's long effort dedicated to Galdosian studies and, particularly, to Gloria.

Boston University