31
Madrid, ed. José Pérez Vidal (Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1957), pp. 224-27, 236-37.
32
Valera, «Prólogo» to the 1888 ed. of Pepita Jiménez, reproduced by Manuel Azaña in his Clásicos Castellanos ed. of the novel (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1953), p. 219.
33
Valera's hostility to his philosophical movement apparently was deep-seated, because, according to Robert Lott, he again denigrated Krausismo in April, 1886: «Valera said he re-read the Spanish and ascetical writers of the sixteenth century in order to expose Krausismo as a false mysticism» («Introduction», Pepita Jiménez, ed. Robert Lott [Oxford: Pergamon, 1974] p. 12).
The same year, in chapter one of Fortunata y Jacinta, Galdós (who was much in sympathy with the Krausistas) had his turn, slyly expressing his aggression and mentioning Valera by name. Speaking of immature men (such as his character Juanito Santa Cruz) and the appropriateness of using a diminutive of the given name for such people, Galdós said, «Hasta hace pocos años, el autor cien veces ilustre de Pepita Jiménez, le llamaban sus amigos y los que no lo eran, Juanito Valera» (Madrid: La Guirnalda, 1915), p. 13.
Roxanne B. Marcus believes that in Doña Luz (1879) Valera created characters who contrast with Galdós' Pepe Rey. Although she does not specifically say so, it appears that Valera reacted to Doña Perfecta and it may have influenced his creativity much as Pepita Jiménez had done in the case of Galdós. Be that as it may, Marcus does note that «in Valera's 'Prólogo en inglés para la edición americana', reprinted in Pepita Jiménez (Madrid: Aguilar, 1959), pp. 34-35..., he discussed his response to 'la lucha entre los antiguos y los nuevos ideales' and criticized the approach we find, for example, in Galdós' Doña Perfecta» («Contemporary Life and Manners in the Novels of Juan Valera», Hispania, 58 [1975], 465, nn. 7 and 12).
After speaking of a probable veiled attack on Valera in Galdós' El pórtico de la gloria (1896), Leo J. Hoar, Jr., adds: «Valera on the other hand, never brought himself to review a Galdós work in any genre, a strange omission for one of the major critics of the century. He totally neglected Galdós, even in his study of the modern novel, Apuntes sobre el nuevo arte de escribir novelas (Madrid, 1886) in which he studied Zola and Pardo Bazán and their contributions to naturalism» («Galdós' Counter-attack on his Critics: The 'Lost' Short Story, El pórtico de la gloria», Symposium, 30 [1976], 307, n. 48).
Clearly Valera and Galdós were rival literati, whose interpersonal relationship merits further study.
34
For Pepe as a Krausista figure, see Juan José Gil Cremades, Krausistas y liberales (Madrid: Seminarios y ediciones, 1975), p. 137.
35
Caballuco considers Pepe his rival in regard to Mariquita Troya and Pepe's fiancée Rosario reveals her deep-seated fear of Caballuco's lasciviousness in a dream (Pérez Galdós, Doña Perfecta, ed. Rodolfo Cardona [New York: Anaya-Las Américas, 1974], pp. 173, 250-51). All subsequent references are to this edition and will be noted in the text.
36
«Galdós as Reader», Anales Galdosianos (Anejo: 1978), 23.
37
Rosario has, in a sense, her statue of the Niño Jesús also. It is in the cathedral and she makes the clothing it wears.
38
Of all the major nineteenth-century Spanish novels, only Pepita Jiménez has extensive sections in epistolary form. That Galdós would also employ letters in part of his novel -and within a structure similar to Valera's- again suggests direct influence. Valera's novel begins and ends with letters, with the entire work being divided into three sections: «Cartas de mi sobrino»; Paralipómenos (an extensive non-epistolary, third person, omniscient narration); and a concluding epilogue, «Cartas de mi hermano» In Doña Perfecta Galdós waits until very late (chapter twenty-eight) before introducing the epistolary form, but then follows Valera's pattern of interrupting the letters with a section of third person, omniscient narration before also returning to conclude the novel in epistolary form (with the exception of the two sentences which constitute chapter thirty-three. For the significance of this change, see Lee Fontanella, «Doña Perfecta as Historiographic Lesson», Anales Galdosianos, 11 [1976], 60-62).
39
Alexander H. Krappe, «The Sources of B. Pérez Galdós, Doña Perfecta, Chapter VI, Philological Quarterly, 7 (1928), 303-06.
40
Valera makes the erotic intent of this passage even clearer by having Pepita waiting for Luis behind a «verde celosía» (p. 94).