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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
his inability to overcome his anger leads to his death 227 . Finally, he never abandons his messianic
pretensions: « Yo no lo veré, quizá. Pero otras generaciones de doministas se encontrarán dueñas
de una inmensa fuerza espiritual, y, sin quererlo, se les formará entre las manos, por pura ley física,
la sociedad nueva » (1514). His vision of this new society, which will even do without a state, is
a religious version of his old anarchistic pretensions and represents the continuation of his idealistic
desire to supersede the bourgeois norm. 228
We can see, then, that in spite of Ángel's conversion, he has really changed very little. Rather, a
combination of psychological and material factors have led him to exchange politics for religion
as the means through which he would seek the fulfillment of personal needs, especially his quest
for independence and affection. This lack of change is also indicated by the fact that the narrator
treats Ángel's religious convictions with the same irony with which he had presented his political
pretensions. For example, as Monroe Hafter has again pointed out, through the juxtaposition of the
two « bálsamos », Ángel's religious and Dulce's alcoholic, «we see the hero's 'balm' also a means
to palliate bereavement, although in addition, a means possibly to hold the woman he loves». 229
On his deathbed Ángel is able finally to realize the error of his religious « exaltación »: « Declaro
alegrarme de que la muerte venga a destruir mi quimera del dominismo, y a convertir en humo mis
ensueños de vida eclesiástica, pues todo ha sido una manera de adaptación o flexibilidad de mi espíritu,
ávido de aproximarse a la persona que lo cautivaba y lo cautiva ahora y siempre » (1531). With
this final conversion, Ángel claims that he has learned that there is « una cosa que vale más que
la vida misma: el amor » (1531). This statement is undoubtedly a sincere expression of Ángel's
charitable sentiments. Nevertheless it is not adequate, and it shows again his blindness with respect
to his situation since it isolates one need (for love and affection) from the other psychological drive
(independence) which has been so important in his life and, as we shall see, from the society which
has provided the context of both his political activism and his religious devotion.
227 Here his reversion to his «old self» is particularly noteworthy since Leré's first commandment
to him was « que no se enfade nunca » (1284).
228 Even Casado understands this constancy in Ángel's character: « Por mucho que se modifique
externamente, entusiasmándose con el simbolismo católico y volviéndose tarumba con la poesía
cristiana, detrás de todos estos fililíes está el temperamento de siempre, el hombre único, siempre
igual a sí mismo » (1515).
229 Hafter, p. 41.
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