Misericordia (Dedalus European Classics) Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Introduction

  From the Author’s Preface to the 1913 edition

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Finale

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) is generally considered to be Spain’s greatest novelist after Cervantes. He was born in Las Palmas (Canary Islands), the youngest son of moderately affluent middle-class parents, and it was his domineering mother who seems to have contributed most to the shaping of Benito’s timid personality. He never married, distrusting an institution which could only encourage infidelity, but conducted numerous love affairs (always discreetly), the financial strain of which would add to the sorrows of his later years.

  When he was 19, Galdós went to Madrid to study law, but by then he had already discovered his true vocation. He abandoned his studies and earned a living as a journalist (helped by the contributions of a sympathetic aunt) while he began to master the craft of writing. After the success of his first book, La fontana de oro (1870), his career was assured. Galdós’ novels can be divided into two great cycles. The largest is the Episodios nacionales, a meticulously researched series which reconstructs Spanish history from Trafalgar to the Bourbon restoration. The first ten novels were written between 1873 and 1875 – an extraordinary rate of production which Galdós was to maintain throughout his life. In the end, the Episodios ran to 46 volumes. Alongside this, Galdós worked on the cycle which remains his greatest achievement; the Novelas españolas contemporáneas, in which he painted a rich and vivid picture of contemporary Spain. Galdós maintained that Balzac and Dickens were the writers who most greatly influenced him (he made the first Spanish translation – from French – of Pickwick Papers), and it was following Balzac’s model that Galdós adopted the method of reintroducing characters in several novels. In this way he came to create an autonomous fictional universe centred on his beloved Madrid, the city of which he is the supreme chronicler. The series of Novelas españolas contemporáneas includes his masterpiece, the four volume Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-7), and it is here too that we find the important late work Misericordia (1897).

  The novel tells the story of sixty year old Benina, faithful servant to the widow Doña Paca. Reckless spending has left the mistress penniless, and Benina is forced to beg secretly in order to support her, claiming that the money she brings back comes from one Don Romualdo, a priest whose biography Benina skilfully invents. Amongst a colourful cohort of fellow beggars is the blind Moor Almudena, who encourages Benina’s belief in the possibility of a supernatural solution to her financial difficulty. Then, to Benina’s amazement, Doña Paca informs her that Don Romualdo himself has visited, and has an important message for them. Could it be that Benina has lied so consistently that she has actually brought Don Romualdo into existence? Or is it rather the case, as Benina herself suggests, that “all our dreams have a basis in fact, and truth lies hidden within falsehood”?

  Galdós himself, let us not forget, was a man who must have been absorbed to a very high degree in the world which he constructed around himself; the fictional world in which the timid man could speak with such authority and confidence, with such subtle irony and indefatigable humour. In an early story, La novela en el tranvía (1871), the narrator is dozing on a tram while snatches of overheard conversation sink into his semi-conscious mind. Details of recent crimes become confused with memories of his own life, and of the sensational novels he has read, so that when he wakes up he jumps out of the tram and pursues an innocent passer-by, who he is convinced has murdered a countess he once read about. In this humorous tale, Galdós reminds us that the distinction between fiction and reality can be a subtle one. We also see an early manifestation of the interest in madness and delusion which recurs throughout his later work.

  In Misericordia the dimension of psychopathology is represented by the neurotic Obdulia, daughter of Doña Paca, and the strange figure of Frasquito Ponte, whose epileptic fit leads to him being brought to recuperate at Doña Paca’s house. Frasquito is a comical dandy, proud of his curly locks” and dainty feet, but he is also a sad figure; a bourgeois fallen on hard times, who still clings longingly to the past – his top hat was fashionable in the 1820s, his hairstyle in the 1850s. He is a remnant of the days before La Gloriosa, the revolution of September 1868 from which the charismatic and ill-fated Juan Prim emerged as Prime Minister. Frasquito’s social descent mirrors the historical events: the revolution robbed him of his civil service post; his pride and unwillingness to “lower” himself only making his slide all the more painful. Prim’s assassination in 1870, Frasquito remembers, coincided with the expiry of his last pair of fine boots.

  Frasquito Ponte is a creature of history – of a past which has little relevance for the materialistic era of the Restoration, the years of political stability and economic growth which had followed the accession of the Bourbon King Alfonso XII in 1875. And it is in the character of the good servant Benina that Galdós embodies the quality which he feels to be most lacking in the Spanish society of his day – compassion; the Misericordia of the title.

  Galdós had an uneasy relationship with the Roman Catholic church. A deeply spiritual man, he was nevertheless vigorously opposed to dogma, and the hypocrisy which he frequently perceived in the clerical hierarchy. In Misericordia his portrayal of a “pure heart” is unconventional, and characteristically subtle. Benina happily stole from her mistress in the days when there was something worth taking. Even when the crisis came, and Benina gave Doña Paca her savings in order to try and rescue her, she still secretly kept some money back for herself. An act of selfishness, or of prudence? Then there are her habitual lies concerning Don Romualdo; well intentioned of course, but is this really the behaviour of a saint? Little wonder that few can recognize Benina’s true goodness – when she gives money to some who are no more unfortunate than herself, she is chased away. She cannot be a true saint, since her social status is no higher than that of those she seeks to help. Only the blind Almudena can see her true worth; he falls in love with her – as does Frasquito Ponte, when a further epileptic fit sends him into a bizarre ecstasy. Galdós’ ideal relationship was the Platonic love of an older woman. Benina tells Almudena to treat her as a mother.

  Financial rescue does indeed arrive for Doña Paca, and new-found wealth enables her overbearing daughter-in-law Juliana to take control of the household. There will be no room in it now for Benina, and in a further ironic reference to the title of the book, it is generously suggested that Benina should go to live in the Casa de Misericordia – the poor-house. She leaves calmly, a figu
re who has transcended the pettiness and squalor she has witnessed. She sets up house with Almudena, and when Juliana, tormented by guilt, visits her and asks for forgiveness, Benina’s final enigmatic words of comfort bring the novel to a serene conclusion.

  Misericordia was written in the spring of 1897, when Galdós was at the very summit of his powers. The following year saw Spain at war with the United States, a disaster which resulted in the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and brought about a crisis of national identity. A new wave of Spanish writers – the Generation of ’98 – would draw little from Galdós; already his star was setting. A disastrous lawsuit led to financial crisis – writing now became a matter of eonomic survival, and his work suffered accordingly. Stage plays appeared, as well as further hastily prepared volumes of Episodios nacionales, but his finest works were behind him. The end was a sad decline, accelerated by senility and blindness.

  Plans to nominate Galdós for the Nobel Prize were thwarted by the machinations of opposing factions within Spain itself. It was a bitter blow. He had seen the great novelists of France, Britain and Russia fêted in their native countries, while his own had failed to appreciate his unique contribution. It was to those other nations that he looked in hope of recognition. How ironic then, that while modern critical opinion in Spain has raised his status to the very loftiest heights, Galdós is still relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, a neglected gem of world literature. The appearance of this new translation of one of Galdós’ most important novels is therefore a cause for celebration.

  Andrew Crumey

  From the Author’s Preface to the 1913 edition

  I wrote Misericordia in the spring of 1897. My purpose was to portray the lowest strata of Madrid society, the humblest, the poorest of the poor, the professional beggars, the dissolute vagrants and poverty in general, which is almost always pitiful and, occasionally, rascally or criminal and deserving of punishment.

  For this I had to spend long months directly observing and studying on the spot, visiting the haunts of the poor and the villainous who live in the densely populated quarters south of Madrid. I investigated the dosshouses of Calle de Mediodía Grande and Calle del Bastero accompanied by police; to penetrate the foul lairs where the debased devotees of Bacchus and Venus celebrate their disgusting rites, I had to disguise myself as a doctor of the Public Health Department. Not content with this as a means of observing the most tragic scenes of human degradation, I made friends with certain administrators in the slum tenements called casas de corredor, in which the lowest of the proletariat live crowded together: there I met the honest poor, there I witnessed those heartrending scenes of grief and abnegation which abound in populous capital cities. Years before, I had visited Whitechapel, the Minories and other parts of the East End of London, down by the Thames. I find it hard to choose between the poverty I saw there and in Lower Madrid. Ours is undoubtedly more cheerful, because of the splendid sun which shines over all.

  The Moor Almudena or Mordejai, who plays such large a part in the action of Misericordia, is actually based on a real person. A friend of mine who, like me, often spent time idling through the streets observing people and places, told me that at the Oratorio del Caballero de Gracia there was a ragged blind beggar who in face and language appeared to be of Moorish origin. I went to see him and was amazed by the barbaric simplicity of the poor fellow, who spoke an arabised Spanish peppered with frightful oaths and who promised to tell me his romantic life story in exchange for a modest sum of money. I walked with him through the central streets of Madrid, stopping from time to time in various taverns where I invited him to give succour to his wasted body with libations forbidden by the laws of his race. This way, I was able to portray a most interesting character that readers of Misericordia have found to be very true to life. All the truth is due to the picturesque Mordejai himself, for I took little part in creating him. My desire to study him closely took me to the dusty and desolate Injurias quarter. In the miserable hovels near the gasworks, I found the dwellings of the most pathetic of the poor. From there I discovered Las Cambroneras, a relatively pleasant area by the banks of the River Manzanares, where the gypsy population congregate, where humans and donkeys live together in blithe promiscuity and where there may be some danger for the passerby. My study of Lower Madrid was completed by visits to the Pulgas railway station, the Puente de Segovia and the further bank of the Manzanares as far as the house of Goya, where the famous artist had his studio: the whole area was a rich seam of picturesque scenes and linguistic treasures.

  Señá Benina, the philanthropic servant, whose character has an almost Gospel-like purity, was borne of the painstaking documentation that I put together to make up the four volumes of Fortunata y Jacinta. From the same source come Doña Paca and her daughter – typical of the ruined bourgeoisie – as is Frasquito Ponte, the hard-up dandy. Some characters in the book originate in earlier volumes, El amigo Manso, Miau and the Torquemada books; similarly some characters from Misericordia appear in novels I have written since. This is the system I have always adopted, to create a complex, heterogeneous and extremely varied world, providing a broadly-based picture of society at a particular moment of history.

  1

  Just as some people have two faces, so too does the parish of San Sebastián. Or to be more precise, the church has, although its two faces are interesting rather than pretty. One face looks straight down Calle de Cañizares towards the poorer quarters and the other towards the houses of the commercial grandees of Plaza del Angel. You will have noted a cheery ugliness in both faces, which is pure Madrid, a place where architecture and morality meet in marvellous union. On the south side, there is a rather vulgar doorway crowned by a baroque statue of the martyred saint, depicted in a contorted pose that seems more balletic than religious. On the north side is the tower, bare and unadorned, poor and commonplace, which you could easily imagine standing, arms akimbo, giving the Plaza del Angel a piece of its mind. On either side of these faces or fa~cades there are clearings or courtyards enclosed by rusty railings, areas adorned with large pots containing attractive shrubs and, to delight the eye, a small flowerstall. Nowhere better than here can you experience the charm, the geniality, the ángel as they call it in Andalusia, that is given off, like a faint fragrance by ordinary objects, or rather by some of the infinite number of ordinary objects that inhabit this world. Ugly and pedestrian as a cheap religious print or one of those ballad broadsheets sold by the blind, the overall impression made by this two-faced building with its jovial tower, its small cupola over the Novena chapel, its uneven roofs, its sheer walls thinly daubed in ochre, its flowering courtyards, its rusty ironwork along the street and on the tall belfry, is charming, piquant and, yes, attractive. This small corner of Madrid is one we should preserve with affection, like collectors of antiques, for architectural caricature is also an art. We should value San Sebastián for its very absurdity and crudity, as an heirloom from the past, and we should prize it as if it were an interesting grotesque.

  Although, by rights, the main entrance to the church should be via the south door, on weekday mornings and afternoons it is little frequented by the faithful. Almost all the well-to-do enter by the north door, which seems more private, more familiar. Nor is there any need to draw up statistics on how many parishioners use one or the other, for we have an infallible indicator: the poor. There is a far larger and more intimidating band of destitutes at the north door than at the south, lying in wait for alms like customs men levying tolls at a frontier between two worlds, the human and the divine, collecting taxes from uneasy souls in search of purification.

  Those who guard the north door occupy fixed positions in the courtyard and at the two entrances leading into it from Calle de las Huertas and from Calle de San Sebastián. These positions have been so carefully chosen that the only way worshippers could possibly hope to avoid them would be by entering through the roof. In bitter winter weather, the rain or the cold may prevent these b
rave soldiers of poverty from standing out in the open (although a few enjoy miraculous constitutions that allow them to withstand any weather, however inclement), and they retreat in an orderly way to the tunnel-like passageway that gives access to the church, reforming into two ranks, one on either side. This strategy gives them such effective control over the terrain that not a single worshipper escapes them: getting through the tunnel unscathed is as difficult and heroic an undertaking as surviving the pass of Thermopylae. The double rank of warriors numbers at least eighteen and is composed of audacious old men, indomitable old women and the blind of both sexes who will not take no for an answer, usually backed up by a few irresistibly aggressive children (we use these terms, of course, purely in the context of the art of begging for alms). They are there from dawn until lunchtime (for even this army must march upon its stomach), returning with renewed energies for the afternoon campaign. At nightfall, if there is no novena with sermon, holy rosary with meditation and address or nocturnal adoration, the army withdraws, each combatant returning with slow step to his or her particular olive tree. Later, we shall follow with interest the return of one of them to the corner where he ekes out his existence. Meanwhile, let us observe him in his struggle for bare survival on this fearful battlefield, where there are no pools of blood or spoils of war, only fleas and other such ferocious vermin.

  One windy, glacial morning in March, when words froze in the mouth and faces were whipped by a dust so cold it felt like particles of powdered snow, the army had retreated to the shelter of the passageway, leaving at the wrought-iron gate that leads into Calle de San Sebastián only an ancient blind man called Pulido, whose body seemed to have been cast in bronze and to have alcohol or mercury for blood, so well did he resist extremes of temperature, remaining strong and healthy, with a complexion that could put to shame the flowers on the nearby stall. The florist had in fact withdrawn to the depths of her hut along with her plant pots and bunches of everlasting flowers and was busy making wreaths for dead children. In the courtyard – which, according to an old inscription on a tile set in the wall above the door, had once been the Cemetery of San Sebastián – there was nobody else to be seen apart from an occasional lady scurrying across on her way to or from the church, covering her mouth with the same hand that held her prayer-book, or else some priest on his way to the sacristy. With his cloak caught up by the wind, he looked like a black bird ruffling its feathers and stretching its wings. He had to clutch his hat at the same time, because you could see that it too wanted to be a bird and to fly away over the tower.