Benito Pérez Galdós, La incógnita, in Obras completas, II (Madrid: Aguilar, 1970-71), 1127. All references from Galdós' novels are to this edition. Citations from Tormento will be given in the text with the page number only. (N. del A.)

Galdós is a consummate artist of space. For further information concerning this aspect of his work (of which clothing is but an extension), see Lou Charnon Deutsch, «Inhabited Space in Galdós' Tormento», Anales Galdosianos, 10 (1974), 35-43, and my article, «Secret Space in Pérez Galdós' La de Bringas», Hispanic Review, 50 (1982), 391-400. Also useful in this regard is David Cluf's «The Structure and Meaning of Galdós' Tormento», Reflexión 2, 3-4 (1974-75), particularly pp. 163-64. (N. del A.)

The social power of clothing is expressed in various of Galdós' novels. In Miau, for example, Doña Pura tells her husband: «El traje es casi casi la persona, y si no te presentas como Dios manda, te mirarán con desprecio, y eres hombre perdido». Villaamil concurs: «Ni se le ocultaba lo bien fundado de aquellas razones, y el valor social y político de las prendas de vestir; y harto sabía que los pretendientes bien trajeados llevan ya ganada la mitad de la partida» (Miau, p. 1202). (N. del A.)

Rosalía and Refugio are the only two women in Tormento who wear corsets -or at least the only two whom the narrator mentions. Both are women with voluptuous figures. Galdós emphasizes Refugio's vanity, telling the reader that her «tocador ocupaba lugar preferente en la sala...» (p. 37), and the narrator -almost a voyeur on this occasion- says of Refugio in the process of dressing: «lo más llamativo en esta joven era su seno harto abultado, sin guardar proporciones con su talle y estatura. La ligereza de su traje en aquella ocasión acusaba otras desproporciones de imponente interés para la escultura, semejantes a las que dieron nombre a la Venus Calípije» (p. 37). In comparison with Refugio and Rosalía, Amparo does not need a corset to perfect her beauty. It should be noted that the corset has always represented antinatural, artificial aspects of society. Hogarth, for example, in his Taste of High Life, satirizes the constricting shapes of society by juxtaposing «beautiful girls being pared and corseted to conform to the fashion, with an example of topiary gardening nearby». See Ronald Paulson, «Hogarth and the English Garden: Visual and Verbal Structures», in Encounters: Essays on Literature and the Visual Arts, ed. John Dixon Hunt (London: Studio Vista, 1971), p. 90. (N. del A.)

Rosalía's frequent references to «remaking her skirt», presumably to make it more conspicuous or stylish, reminds one of J. C. Flügel's comments regarding the importance of the skirt as a social symbol in the nineteenth century. He claims that with such accoutrements as the bustle, crinoline underskirts, etc., a woman was able to assert herself in society through her size and the literal amount of space that she occupied, if in no other way. See The Psychology of Clothes (London: Hogarth Press, 1930), p. 47. (N. del A.)

The fact that a good part of Rosalía's wardrobe comes from the Queen is obviously important to Bringas' wife. Not only does the gift of clothing suggest the Queen's generosity toward her (and therefore their intimacy), but it also indicates that the wearing of the Queen's clothing makes Rosalía more important. William H. Desmonde has noted that «in many regions, an occult connection is believed to exist between a person... and his clothing» (Magic, Myth, and Money: The Origins of Money in Religious Ritual [Glencoe: The Free Press, 1962], p. 81). Angus Fletcher writes similarly of the «tendency for the ornamental image of clothing external to the body to merge with the body itself», so that an almost mystical relationship exists between an article of clothing and the person who wears it» (Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1964], p. 114). (N. del A.)

The surtout, cloak, overcoat, or levitón is a frequent symbol of bureaucracy or politics in Galdós' novels. Note, for example, his ironic comments on fashion and politics in the description of don Basilio Andrés de la Caña in Fortunata y Jacinta. Early in his career, Galdós used the image of the coat to define a political period: «estos tiempos en que rige la calamitosa dictadura del frac». See Leo J. Hoar, Jr., Benito Pérez Galdós y la «Revista del Movimiento Intelectual de Europa», Madrid, 1864-1867 (Madrid: Ínsula, 1968), p. 146. In La Nación Galdós pokes fun at the «ley más irritante» of the modern period: having to enchalecarse and enlevitarse. See William H. Shoemaker, Los artículos de Galdós en «La Nación», 1865-1866, 1868 (Madrid: Ínsula, 1972), p. 413. (N. del A.)

When Amparo first visits Polo after receiving the urgent note from him, Galdós' narrator describes him thus: «Su cara era cual mascarilla fundida en verdoso bronce, y lo blanco de sus ojos amarilleaba el envejecido marfil» (p. 48). Polo himself admits that «el gran error de mi vida... es haberme metido donde no me llamaban y haber engañado a la Sociedad y a Dios, poniéndome una máscara para hacer el bu a la gente» (p. 55). (N. del A.)

Mirrors are of course important in Tormento, since costumes and disguises are so significant. Perhaps the most interesting mirror in the novel is the symbolic and personalized mirror in Amparo's apartment: «un espejo con el azogue viciado y señales variolosas en toda su superficie» (p. 37). When she looks into her mirror, Amparo sees a flawed representation of herself -the image of how society would see her in her sinful state. (N. del A.)

Balzac often uses the necktie as a manner of characterization. See Helen T. Garrett, Clothes and Character: The Function of Dress in Balzac (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Publications, 1941), and Gilbert Malcolm Fess, The Correspondence of Physical and Material Factors with Character in Balzac (idem., 1924). Balzac also wrote that «la cravate, c'est l'homme; c'est par elle que l'homme se révèle et se manifeste» («Physiologie de la toilette», (Euvres diverses, II [Paris: Club de l'Honnête Homme, 1956], 48). (N. del A.)