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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 at the end of a broomhandle. Juan Bou's tragedy, of course, lies in the permanent and inevitable frustration to which his new-found love is condemned. Given the manifest disparity of their natures, Isidora must remain for him an unattainable ideal, though this, of course, does nothing to diminish her attractiveness in his eyes. It is rather like the old story of the mortal who falls in love with a goddess. Bou emerges from the experience a chastened and more humble man, with an entirely new awareness of the inadequacy and incompleteness of his existence. The crowning irony of his subsequent lottery win only serves to heighten this awareness: Diríase que la Providencia cristiana, no menos caprichosa a veces que la pagana Fortuna, se había propuesto abrumarle de bienes positivos, negándole los que su corazón apetecía, y le colmaba de frutos riquísimos sin dejarle ver y gozar la flor hermosa del amor. (p. 379) 69 Often the impact of this tragic vision is veiled behind Galdós' humour. As Nimetz has pointed out, however, Galdós' humour is often inextricably linked with his tragic vision, the one acting as a kind of insulation against the other 70 . A case in point is Galdós' treatment of Don José Relimpio. Rodgers has said that Galdós seems to want to draw the reader's attention away from Don José's positive qualities, and to arouse mockery at his lack of manliness, in order (a) to avoid developing the «idyllic» potential of his relationship with Isidora, and (b) to satirise Don José's tendency to idealise his own position 71 . There is certainly a good deal of truth in the latter part of the statement. Don José's Tenorio fantasies and his obsession with book-keeping illustrate yet again the gap between illusion and reality which looms so large in La desheredada , for Don José is an aging gallant whose amorous adventures are confined to the realm of the purely platonic and whose financial irresponsibility and utter impracticality make a mockery of his prowess in accountancy. It is less easy to see, however, why Galdós should want to «attack Don José's dignity as a person» and to make his relationship with Isidora appear grotesque in order to avoid developing its idyllic potential, for it is hard to see what idyllic potential there could be in such a relationship anyway. The idyllic and the ludicrous are difficult to reconcile and the imbalance in terms of age and personality between Isidora and Don José place their relationship in the context of the latter rather than the former. If Galdós is trying to avoid 69 Cf. the plight of Moreno Isla in Fortunata y Jacinta. The fact that Bou's wife was also a « sanguijuela » would seem to emphasise his inner craving for something above and beyond his own inadequacy - an element of glamour to embellish an otherwise dull existence. 70 M. Nimetz, Humor in Galdós (New Haven & London, 1968). 71 Art. cit. 46
Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977 anything, therefore, it is surely an overdose of pathos. Moreover, is it entirely true to say that Galdós attacks Don José's dignity as a person? The hostile, dehumanising stance implicit in such a procedure is surely contradicted, to take but one example, by the manifest sympathy and compassion which Galdós shows towards his character at the latter's death. The reality is that Galdós' portrait of Don José is much more finely balanced than this criticism would tend to suggest. Galdós portrays Don José, as he portrays Isidora, in a fundamentally dualistic manner -a dualism neatly expressed in the initial description of Don José, when Galdós tells Era el hombre mejor del mundo. Era un hombre que no servía para nada. (p. 123) Don José's character is made up of two conflicting strands: on the one hand, his uselessness, ridiculousness and inadequacy, and, on the other, certain more positive qualities, among which inoffensiveness and selflessness occupy a prominent position. The same dualism characterises his relationship with Isidora. If his vision of himself as a kind of romantic paladin is incongruous, and therefore ludicrous, the fact remains that Don José acts out his self-imposed role with a selflessness and nobility which makes his dog-like devotion touching in spite of everything. There are two obvious ways in which such a character could develop. By emphasising Don José's inadequacy -in other words by effectively ridiculing or vilifying his character- Galdós could underscore the ludicrousness of his illusions. Alternatively, by stressing the nobility of Don José's conduct, he could play up the pathos inherent in his personal inadequacy. Galdós, however, eschews both of these obvious scenarios and manages instead to strike a balance between them, pointing out the unreality of Don José's illusions without denigrating him as a character and arousing sympathy for his positive qualities without provoking an excess of pathos. Here Galdós' use of humour and irony is at its most effective, the warmth and indulgence of the humour retains our sympathy for the character, while the insulating effect of irony guards against the obvious pitfall of sentimentality, this restraint making possible the controlled pathos of his death scene. Don José's insanity, ostensibly a mixture of senile dementia and alcoholism, is brought on by the burden of his frustrations, disappointments and humiliation. This much clearly recalls many of the victims of psychological frustration in the primera época (e. g. Daniel Morton in Gloria or Martín Muriel in El Audaz ). There is, however, a fundamental difference in the case of Don José. Characters like Morton and Muriel are essentially social casualties whose aspirations or natural psychic drives are thwarted by the prevailing social system or ideology and whose tragic fate, therefore, implicitly stresses the need for a new and more fulfilling social order. The tragedy of Don José, on the other hand, 47
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