2 ?b90

136
noted that Rialta and Augusta are almost one and the same person, sharing
all their interests, a special regal smile expressing the miraculous,
widowhood and responsibility for Jos6 Cemi's education. They represent
the prevailing female principle and by virtue of their spiritual insight
they have the most powerful influence on Cemi. The Cemi men seem to
me to embody many of the main characteristics of the mythical husband of
the Great Goddess or Earth Mother, as described by Eliade:
this structure made up of the rainy sky, bull and Great
Goddess was one of the elements that united all the proto-historic
religions of Europe, Africa and Asia
...
the greatest stress is laid on those functions of the
sky god in bull form which bear on birth and plant life.
48
Similarly, the greatest significance of the Cemif males is in their contri-
bution to the family tree (fruit of the Earth) which is represented by all
kinds of vegetation at different stages in the novel. That their role
is essential is often stressedý for the matriarchal line is helpless with-
out their power. Jos6 Eugenio, the "sky god"., will express his power as
"simply an unlimited reservoir of seeds. " 49
He is the rain watering the
earth and his seed is Cemi, while the name Eugenio suggests the cultivator
of the seed. At his death there is a flowing-out of creative power:
"como, una campanilla que se dilata hasta el rocio de las hojas nocturnas"
(1,217), at the precise moment that the telephone rings to announce the
death. This little phrase contains the elements of dew, vegetation and
the fertile nightP all directly related to Jos6 Eugenio.
These exalted beings, the embodiment of the life-bringing elements,
pay a high price for the favours of the Great Goddess:
They are no longer the creators who make the cosmos ...
but simply fecundators and procreators at the biological
level. Hierogamy with the goddess becomes their essen-
tial
function
...
but they never play the leading part
in them Efertility cultsD ,
that is always played either
by a Great Mother, or by a "son", the g98 of vegetation
who periodically dies and rises again.