The corporal symbolism of a building is probably as old as architecture itself. For some excellent studies of the human aspects of tectonics, see C. L. Powell, «The Castle of the Body», Studies in Philology, XVI (1919), 197-205. Also see G. L. Hersey, «Associationism and Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Architecture», Eighteenth-Century Studies, IV (Fall, 1970), 71-89. In this latter study Hersey writes of the human, including sexual, aspects of architecture. Among other writers who comment on the human form of architecture, Adrian Stokes notes that «a good building is the monument to physique». He also observes that the idea of femininity or motherliness is inherent in all buildings. Adrian Stokes, The Image in Form: Selected Writings of Adrian Stokes, ed. Richard Wollheim (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 79.

An example of Galdós' special use of the window as a means of perception can be seen in an earlier novel, La Fontana de Oro. There Elías, before delivering Clara to the Porreño women in desperation, locks the girl up in a small room, after nailing the windows closed. In this manner he expects to protect her against the inevitable knowledge of the outside world that he dislikes intensely. Elías thus attempts to make Clara architecturally blind, and therefore physically blind, to the seductions of the young men whom he suspects of frequenting his house during his absences. The house-window's greatest threat to a husband or father is the possibility that the wife or daughter might flirt through it and thus fall from grace. The proverb «The woman who stands by an open window is like a bunch of grapes on a busy road-side» demonstrates the meaning of the window: it represents intercourse with the world outside.

In a very helpful essay, «The Selective Window», Katharine Kuh writes of the symbolism of the window and its place in art. «A window is to look through, both into and out of», she says. «Though often considered the symbol of an eye, it is not an eye, but a vehicle for light and for that volatile mirage we call atmosphere. A window is selective; it can frame nature in sweeping panoramas or in magnified close-ups. It provides access to inner visions more vivid than real ones». She further notes that «windows imply secret revelations, because they are outlets to both the inside and outside world, but, unlike doors, are rarely tangible passageways...» See her collection of essays on art entitled The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 241.

Ortega sees the frame of a picture in a manner that might be likened to a window-frame -as an intermediate, separating force between two realms of reality:

Para aislar una cosa de otra se necesita una tercera que no sea ni como la una ni como la otra: un objeto neutro. El marco no es ya la pared, trozo meramente útil de mi contorno; pero aún no es la superficie encantada del cuadro. Frontera de ambas regiones, sirve para neutralizar una breve faja de muro y actúa de trampolín que lanza nuestra atención a la dimensión legendaria de la isla estética.

José Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, II, 6.ª edición (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1963), 311.

The red color that Rosalía wears is symbolic of her passions and her hypocrisy, as well as of her feelings of rebellion. Yi-Fu Tuan writes, «Red signifies blood, life, and energy». It is the symbol of «energy and action -action aimed at life though it may result in death. The red flag is the flag of revolutionary fervor». Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), 24-25. Hilaire Hiler, however, emphasizes the femininity of the red hues. «As we proceed towards crimson, cerise, rose, magenta, and the deep pinks, the sexual significance becomes... feminine, more sensuously pleasant.» Hilaire Hiler, «Some Associative Aspects of Color», Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, IV (June, 1946), 213. The shade of red which Rosalla wears is a dark red, almost violet (grosella), which was greatly in vogue during the third quarter of the nineteenth century in Spain. Galdós uses the image of red clothing to signify sexual betrayal in at least one other instance. On the honeymoon trip of Jacinta and Juanito in Fortunata y Jacinta, scarlet petticoats hanging on a bush, seen from a coach window, make Jacinta think immediately of her husband's former mistress: «-Es que hace un rato me dio por pensar en ella. Se me ocurrió de repente. ¿Sabes cómo? Vi unos refajos encarnados puestos a secar en un arbusto. Tú dirás que qué tienen que ver... Es claro, nada; pero vete a saber cómo se enlazan en el pensamiento las ideas.» (Fortunata y Jacinta, 490).

Without belaboring the point, it is worth mentioning that many Galdosian sunsets are sexualized -that is, they are the inevitable background for amorous liaisons in Tristana, La de Bringas, and other novels. In other authors, too, the crepuscular hours represent great sensuality. In Azorín, for instance, we read that «en el ambiente de estas grandes ciudades, a esta hora [hay] una sensación de voluptuosidad y de fatiga, de serenidad y de enervamiento... Toda la civilización moderna se halla a esta hora del crepúsculo vespertino en esta atmósfera que respiramos en la calle populosa y ruidosa de la gran ciudad». Azorín, Obras completas, III (Madrid: Aguilar, S.A., 1947), 1274.

As in perhaps no other time since the pre-Christian era, the past century related the woman-wife-mother to the ideas of light and fire. See Margaret Lane's comments on «the cherished vision» of the woman and hearth in Dickens' novels, to be found in «Dickens on the Hearth», in Dickens 1970: Centenary Essays, ed. Michael Slater (London: Chapman and Hall, in association with The Dickens Fellowship, 1970), 171ff. Also see another discussion of the same theme in Dickens' novels in Philip Collins' A Critical Commentary on Dickens's BLEAK HOUSE (London: MacMillan, 1971), 44.

W. R. Lethaby says, «The hearth was in all antiquity the centre of the house, about which the family assembled, at which food was prepared, and where the guest received the place of honour. Hence it is frequently indicated by poets and philosophers as the... centre of the house. In the oldest time it was not only symbolically, but actually the centre of the house...» W. R. Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (New York: McMillan and Company, 1892), 82-83. Desmonde speaks of «the holy fire, the focal point of the ancient temple and one of the oldest and most important symbols of the perpetuity of the state...» See Desmonde, Magic, Myth and Money, 96. The holiness of the home-fire or hearth is heightened by the belief that the flames represent the souls of departed members of the family. Each newly-born child is brought to the hearth-side to be introduced formally to his ancestors. See Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, II (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966), 233.

For an excellent interpretation of Dickens' use of milieu to reflector counter-act his characters, see Dorothy Van Ghent, «The Dickens World: A View from Todgers's», Sewanee Review, LXVII (1950), 419-438.

In an interesting bit of writing unrelated to Galdós, Azorín compares the Louvre and the Prado, and gives a sexual identity to each. He writes, «si el Louvre es un museo hembra, el Prado es un museo macho». Azorín, Obras completas, VI, 219. Galdós gives us no reason why Rosalía should go to the Prado, since she is not a refined patron of the arts, except to observe the well-to-do men there -as if she, too, senses a certain masculine quality about the museum. The Galdosian scene of Rosalía at the Prado is somewhat reminiscent of Zola's description of Gervaise and her wedding party at the Louvre in L'Assommoir.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971), 34.