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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
el de ésta es un sacerdote; pero las dos se enamoran después de seducidas, surge en ellas la necesidad
de confesar su situación, y a partir de este momento las dos novelas toman rumbo distinto » 197
. The parallel drawn by the distinguished critic may be questionable as far as some details go, but
the analogy is just as to the sentimental make-up of the two characters. Both are orphans, penniless,
subject to another's influence and domination -in short, victims. On one level Tristana may belong to
the « viejo y la niña » tradition of farce and fabliaux, but she has none of the feminine character's
mischief and picaresque traits that are its trademarks and which Cervantes, for example, imbued in
his Leonarda of La cueva de Salamanca or Lorenza of El viejo celoso . (García Lorca, I might add,
did similarly in our century in La zapatera prodigiosa .)
Amparo is meek and frightened but she, too, yearns for a place in the sun and is aware of the injustice
done to women. « ¡Ay! don Agustín », she says to her rich suitor, « dichoso el que es dueño de sí
mismo, como usted. ¡En qué condición tan triste estamos las pobres mujeres que no tenemos padres,
ni medios de ganar la vida, ni familia que nos ampare, ni seguridad de cosa alguna como no sea de
que al fin, al fin, habrá un hoyo para enterrarnos!... Eso del monjío, qué quiere usted que le diga, al
principio no me gustaba; pero va entrando poquito a poco en mi cabeza, y acabaré por decidirme...
» (IV, 1476). Actually she has no more a calling for convent life than Tristana, but for both the world
is a trap and a deception. In at least the first part of their respective novels they are akin to Galdós'
early heroine, Clara of La fontana de oro , another orphan, penniless, cloistered and victimized. To
put it briefly, all three derive, more or less , from the star-crossed heroines of the folletín .
We know that Galdós' early novels have a kinship with the « novelas por entregas » and the
folletín . And we also know that, like Dickens, he continued to be intrigued with the genre even
later in his development as a novelist. Tormento , the work seen by Casalduero as a starting point
for Tristana , is notable in this regard. Its much discussed prologue -the exchange between Felipe
Centeno and Ido del Sagrario- deals with the two poles of fiction: art and artifice. Ido, working for
a hack writer, is engaged in composing a melodramatic concoction which features his neighbors,
the Sánchez Emperador sisters. In his opus the girls are virtuous orphans who are threatened with
dishonor by a scheming Marquis -a situation very different from the version Galdós gives us, Ido
seems to be aware that he is taking liberties with the truth, but he considers this evasion precisely the
moral obligation of his task as writer. « Tú no entiendes de arte », he tells Felipe. « Cosas pasan
estupendas que no pueden asomarse a las ventanas de un libro porque la gente se escandalizaría...
197 Op. cit. , p. 104.
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