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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
reconocidas y acatadas por el grupo, como los dechados de humanidad a que cada individuo pretende
ceñirse. 194
The literary allusions examined by Ayala are to isolated and individual characters. I would like to
suggest, however, that equally important are the allusions made throughout the novel -again with
equal deliberateness- to stock literary situations and formulas. Let us look at some of these.
Don Lope Garrido may have been a swashbuckling figure and a great lover at one time but that is
all in the past. He retains only a haughty hidalguía , an echo of another age. When we meet him he
is fifty-seven, «que no por bien conservados eran menos efectivos», (V, 1541). Soon his efforts to
safeguard his union with Tristana by appearing and acting youthful only serve to achieve the opposite
results. The girl, Galdós tells us, « bruscamente vio en Don Lope al viejo », (V, 1548). Poverty and
old age overtake him; he acquires a persistent cough, rheumatism and chest congestion. « Y para
colmo de desdichas, veíase precisado a dormir con la cabeza envuelta en un feo pañuelo, y su alcoba
apestaba a los mejunjes que usar solía para el reúma o el romadizo », (V, 1552).
Thus we have the disparity of ages in a marriage, a stereotyped situation which appears in so many
literary works dating back to Roman comedy, the farces and fabliaux of the Middle Ages, and, in
Spain, the traditional ballads of « la mal maridada ». Most important, this same situation is recreated
time and again by Cervantes: in his exemplary novel, El celoso extremeño and particularly in his
entremeses, El viejo celoso, La cueva de Salamanca , El juez de los divorcios . Mariana, the young
wife in the last mentioned work, bemoans her married state and pleads for a divorce « porque no
puedo sufrir sus impertinencias, ni estar de continuo atenta a curar todas sus enfermedades, que son
sin número, y no me criaron a mí mis padres para ser hospitalera ni enfermera ».
The basic elements of the formula are all in Tristana , although, as we shall see, many are altered and
even subverted. Chapter VI, for example, sums up the many facets of the conventional circumstance:
the heroine is a prisoner in her own home -« cautiva infeliz » the narrator calls her-.; her guardian,
unsure of himself, is jealous and watches over her with zeal. Tyrant and captive, « el viejo y la niña
», live in. fear of one another. Suspicious, he questions her persistently and threatens her: « Si te
sorprendo en algún mal paso te mato, cree que te mato », (V, 1552). Succeeding stock developments
follow: the young man who will catch the heroine's eye, (he clever and mischievous servant who will
serve as go-between.
194 Ibid. , p. 93.
143