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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 a strong-willed, eccentric old woman? As it turns out, Encarnación's prophecy is fulfilled to the letter. And as we will learn from the rest of the novel, she never abandons Biblical and religious references entirely 39 , since they are part of her prophetic character. But the other side of her character, that of a hardworking madrileña of the lower classes, is equally interesting and shows us as much about the author's conception of her function in the novel as the religious references. The influence of English and French novelists (Dickens, Balzac: and Zola) on Galdós is well known. The influence of Zola especially was noted in La desheredada from the time it was published. Clarín, while deploring the fact that Galdós' latest novel (1881) had been received with almost absolute silence 40 , hailed the novel as a triumph for Naturalistic techniques: « Galdós ha estudiado imparcialmente la cuestión [of Naturalism] y ha decidido, para bien de las letras españolas, seguir en gran parte los procedimientos y atender a los propósitos de ese naturalismo tan calumniado... » (Galdós, p. 97). There can be no doubt that Galdós was acquainted with and deeply interested in Zola's works; six Zola novels (the first six novels of the Rougon-Macquart series, all in French and all dated 1878) were found by Berkowitz in his library 41 . The author of La desheredada himself was aware that this novel was in many ways a departure from his previous ones; in his famous letter to Giner de los Ríos he admits that « Efectivamente, yo he querido en esta obra entrar por nuevo camino o inaugurar mi segunda o tercera manera... ». 42 39 Encarnación is the character who transfers the Biblical name that she originally gave to Mariano -Holofernes- to Isidora's son. She also gives him a name by which the narrator will later refer to him -the Antichrist: « Riquín fue atacado de la tos ferina y era preciso llevarle a otra parte. ¡Pobrecito Anticristo! Daba pena verle... » (p. 1121 b ). 40 « ¿Saben ustedes algo de lo que ha dicho la crítica acerca de La desheredada ? ¿Han escrito los periódicos populares, con motivo de este libro, artículos de sensación, de los que tienen un titulejo o rótulo especial para cada párrafo? Nada; el silencio... nadie ha dicho a La desheredada por ahí te pudras. » Leopoldo Alas «Clarín», Galdós (Madrid: Renacimiento, 1912) , p. 105. 41 See H. Chonon Berkowitz, La biblioteca de Benito Pérez Galdós (Las Palmas: El Museo Canario, 1951), p. 184. 42 La lectura , 20 (1920), Part I, p. 254. See also Walter T. Pattison, El naturalismo español (Madrid: Gredos, 1969), pp. 90-91. 32
Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 The immediate reason for the classification of La desheredada as a Naturalistic novel was its subject matter. It is (on the most basic level) the story of a prostitute whose father died insane and who was brought up by an insane uncle (the «Naturalistic» influences of heredity and environment). She in only able to sustain herself spiritually by convincing herself that she is the long-lost daughter of a marchioness. Once that illusion is definitively destroyed she sinks into the lowest depths of Madrid society, never to rise again. But La desheredada is far more than a story about inevitable prostitution brought on by hereditary insanity and a perverse environment 43 . There is no clear-cut determinism in the novel; E. Rodgers, for example, feels that «however strong the various influences to which [Isidora] is subjected, she is ultimately responsible for her own downfall» 44 . If this is true, it would take her out of the realm of pure (that is to say, Zola's theoretical) Naturalism which Galdós was never ready to accept in its entirety, to judge by his novels. He seems to feel that Naturalism is one way of expressing a social and spiritual reality of Spain, but it is not an end in itself. He did, however, intend to make the Sanguijuelera more «Naturalistic» that she appears in the final text (by «Naturalistic» we mean a character more closely resembling the Gervaise of the final chapter of L'Assommoir : miserably poor, drunk and half-deranged). Encarnación is struggling to earn a living in a poor barrio far from the center of Madrid when we first meet her. She is poor now, but was not always so; we discover that Isidora's mother and father between them finished off « diferentes veces las economías y la paciencia de Encarnación, que era trabajadora y tenía sus buenas libretas del Monte de Piedad » (p. 1000 a ). Because of them the old woman lost various shops and a good deal of money. She has obviously come down in the world, though not through vice or hereditary stupidity. It is her generosity and family feeling which have brought her to this pass. The Encarnación of the manuscript is certainly different from the one we encounter in the final version and printed text. She is described thus by the narrator: « No había [sido casada, no había] tenido hijos [y aun gustaba del buen aguardiente, y por nada se habría colgado su vida (según decía) en la fastidiosa percha de un marido] ni había sido casada » (ms. p. 81; OC p. 1000 a ). In the printed text, all references to a liking for strong liquor and a dislike of tiresome husbands are deleted; Encarnación simply had not married and had never had children of her own. The physical descriptions 43 For historical aspects and Isidora as a Spain figure, see Antonio Ruiz Salvador's excellent « La función del trasfondo histórico en La desheredada », AG , I (1966), pp. 53-61. 44 E. J. Rodgers, «Galdós' La desheredada and Naturalism», BHS , XLV (October 1968), p. 295. 33
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