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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 comments on the first speech made in the café by the protagonist. Lázaro realizes that he is making a singularly poor impression on the public. Galdós intervenes: Lo singular es que si se hubiera preguntado a cualquiera, particularmente, su opinión sobre el discurso, habría dado, tal vez, una opinión no desfavorable; pero la opinión de un público no es la suma de las opiniones de los individuos que lo forman, no; en la opinión colectiva de aquél hay algo fatal, algo no comprendido en las leyes del sentido humano . 11 There is in the idea that the opinion of a group is not equal to the opinions of the individuals who form that group an approximation to a dictionary definition of gestalt with respect to the above « público ». A « público », any « público » is the possessor of an « opinión » which is not the sum of opinions belonging to the individuals who, comprise it. A « público », then, would seem to be for Galdós a living organism which is capable of thinking, of judging. The gestalt-like composition of the group, as presented by Galdós, clearly indicates the total subservience of the individual to the group-organism; perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to the absorption of the former in the latter. Galdós' words on the subject, published in 1870, are echoed in 1895 by Le Bon: Le fait le plus frappant présenté par une foule psychologique est le suivant: quels que soient les individus qui la composent, quelque semblables ou dissemblables que puissent être leur genre de vie, leurs occupations, leur caractère ou leur intelligence, le seul fait qu'ils sont transformés en foule, les dote d'une sorte d'âme collective. Cette âme les fait sentir, penser et agir d'une façon tout à fait différente de celle dont sentirait, penserait et agirait chacun d'eux isolément. La foule psychologique est un être provisoire, composé d'éléments hétérogènes pour un instant soudés, absolument comme les cellules d'un corps vivant forment par leur réunion un être nouveau manifestant des caractères fort différents de ceux que chacune de ces cellules possède . 12 11 Benito Pérez Galdós , Obras completas, introducción, biografía, bibliografía, notas y censo de personajes galdosianos, por Federico Sainz de Robles (Madrid: Aguilar, 1966), tomo IV, p. 56. All subsequent quotations from this volume will be indicated by the page number in parentheses within the text. 12 Gustave Le Bon , La Psychologie des foules, nouvelle édition présentée par Otto Klineberg (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963) , p. 11. 12
Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 Le Bon's comments on the jury succinctly states the same notion: « Et c'est ainsi qu'on voit des jurys rendré des verdicts que désapprouverait chaque juré individuellement... ». 13 Judging by the above, we note that Galdós recognized a phenomenon the psychological implications of which are utilized today by television producers. Laughter, as well as fear, is highly infectious. As a result, it has been observed that a member of a motion picture audience laughs more readily at humorous events than the solitary television viewer of the identical film. Horror movies are probably more effective with respect to audiences in movie theaters than to the individual home viewer. In order to simulate to some degree the impact of the group upon the individual, producers of many television comedy series employ pre-recorded laughter on the soundtrack of their program. This «canned-laughter», operating in much the same manner as would laughter emanating from a theater audience, provokes the viewer to laugh and produces the illusion of greater comicity than might actually exist. The pre-recorded laughter of the soundtrack indeed causes the viewer to temporarily relinquish his individuality while becoming one cell, so to speak, in an artificial group-organism. The individual's personality is subordinated to that ephemeral organism (an «audience» represented by its voice alone) in much the same manner as suggested by Galdós who states that the « opinión » of « un público » is not equal to the sum of the opinions held by its components. Another facet of the relationship between the individual and the group-organism is revealed in the course of Lázaro's unsuccessful speech at the Fontana de Oro. The omniscient narrator explains: « En todo orador hay dos entidades: el orador, propiamente dicho, y el hombre. Cuando el primero se dirige a la multitud, el segundo queda atrás, dentro, mejor dicho, hablando también » (p. 55). In this dédoublement , the independent personality (« el hombre ») remains in the background or rather within, which is equivalent to its being submerged, and observes its own actions (oratory, in the case at hand) with detachment. Lázaro as « orador, propiamente dicho », functions as one cell of a group- organism while his independent personality (« el hombre ») is temporarily suspended. At this point in Galdós' development of the scene, Lázaro has not yet been definitively absorbed by the group-organism; he is attempting to be absorbed by it. His efforts to sway the audience may be compared vaguely to the manner in which an idea occurs in the human mind. The audience considers Lázaro's words much as a mind weighs ideas. Just as the mind ultimately either accepts and then acts upon an idea or, on the contrary, rejects it after consideration, the gathering at the café, after having 13 Ibid. , p. 15. 13
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Trafalgar , tr.: R. Pohlebkin, Mosc
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