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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
The other perspective sets a value on the subject of fiction. « Yo no existo » is a flagrant declaration
of Máximo's fictionality. The words are immediately corroborated: « Soy una condensación artística .
Quimera soy, sueño de sueño y sombra de sombra, sospecha de una posibilidad » (I, 1-2). But
paradoxically, the cry of « Yo no existo » can be uttered only by a being existentially aware of
himself. « Yo no existo », which says «I am a fiction, a dream», means «I exist». It is as much an
averment of existence -more so perhaps- as Augusto Pérez's climactic « Yo soy yo ». When the
second chapter proclaims, « Yo soy Máximo Manso », that then needs to be read as «I do not exist».
More accurately, the statement says: «I exist because I do not exist». The passage from « Yo no
existo » to « Yo soy Máximo Manso » is the affirmation of non-existence, that is, the apotheosis of
fictionality. Manso's opening protest against any possible investiture « de los inequívocos atributos
de la existencia real » must be taken literally. Later the text is dotted with efforts to project onto the
reader Máximo's intuition of his fictional otherness: « Me veía como figura de pesadilla, o como si yo
fuera otro y con ese otro estuviera soñando en la plácida quietud de mi cama » (XIX, 116). Midway
into the novel, Manuel Peña characterizes Manso to his face with words that most analysts of El
amigo Manso feel constrained to quote: « -Usted no vive en el mundo, maestro Su sombra de usted
se pasea por el salón de Manso; pero usted permanece en la grandiosa Babia del pensamiento, donde
todo es ontológico, donde el hombre es un ser incorpóreo, sin sangre ni nervios, más hijo de la idea que
de la historia y de la Naturaleza; un ser que no tiene edad, ni patria, ni padres, ni novia » (XX, 124).
The meaning of these words in the context of Manolo's thought/action, theories/deeds, ontology/fife
dichotomy is clear. They are, beyond that, the novel's most explicit internal link with its frame. What
Manolo takes to be a character portrayal of his teacher is a description of his fictional essence that
matches his self-appraisal. The play here is complex: Galdós' autonomized creation's autonomized
creation recreates his creator coincidentally with the latter's self-creation. What I am saying -what
Galdós is saying- is that Máximo Manso exists because he is a fiction, just as Unamuno exists not
because he wrote Niebla but because he is a character in Niebla . Máximo as a non-existent entity
acquires an existence that he could not otherwise have. Living in the bourgeois social atmosphere of
Restoration Spain, Máximo as a man, even as a thinking man, is part of it; but as a fictional creature
he transcends it. He exists in space and time in a way that Castelar's mother or Galdós' third brother
-or Galdós himself- do not.
Once his fictive autonomy is certified, Máximo can say: « Es que alguien me evoca, y por no
sé qué sutiles artes me pone como un forro corporal y hace de mi un remedo o máscara de persona
viviente » (1, 2). Máximo's friend who evokes him -suppose, if you wish, that his name is Pérez
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