The exact direction this Spanish reply should take, in the person of the Spanish “novelist who is Realist and reflexive,” is toward the rich “territory” of psychological exploration of characters as beings whose body and soul are inextricably linked and mutually influential. Not only does Pardo Bazan thereby counter radical determinism, but she also suggests that the Spanish Realist novel move its center of gravity from its novelization of typical persons, places, times, and conflicts to a noveliza-tion of the inner individual. To understand better what she is proposing and its novelty, it may be useful to review one of the early classics of nineteenth-century Spanish Realism.

The work in question is formed by the ten volumes of the first series of historical novels entitled “Episodios nacionales” (“National Episodes”), published between 1871 and 1875 by the anticlerical, anti-idealist Galdos. Gabriel Araceli is the first-person narrator/protagonist of the series. In the initial novel, Trafalgar, Gabriel stresses his very unpromising, impoverished origins: “Doy principio, pues, a mi historia como Pablos, el buscon de Segovia; afortunadamente... en esto solo nos parezcamos” (“I begin, then, my history in the same way as Pablos, the Segovian swindler; fortunately . . . only in this do we resemble each other.”)9 The Pablos to whom he refers is another classic first-person narrator/protagonist,

8 Pardo Bazan, La cuestion palpitante, p. 645.

9 Benito Perez Galdos, Trafalgar. In Episodios nacionales. Vol. I (Madrid: La Guirnalda,

1882), p. 6.

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428 The Forging of a Nation: The Nineteenth Century

That of Quevedo’s picaresque novel Historia de la vida del busco´ n (“The Swindler,” 1626). Not only is this novel often cited by Galdo´s and historians of the Spanish novel as one of its fundamental texts, but in the last wordsofQuevedo’s novelisfounda philosophico-theological point which defines Spanish culture from at least the Counter Reformation through to and beyond Realism/Naturalism. Pablos, whose legal situation in Spain makes flight from the country advisable, decides for America to see “si mudando mundo y tierra mejorar´ıa mi suerte” (“if changing places and climes I would better my luck”).10 He reports, however, that “fue´me peor. . . [porque] nunca mejora su estado quien muda solamente de lugar, y no de vida y costumbres” (“it went worse. . . [because] he who changes only his residence, not his life and habits, does not better himself”).11 Gabriel, constituted from the first page of Trafalgar as the anti-picaro, takes care that his life of perseverance and diligence is honorable. This explicit pairing of Gabriel and Pablos by Galdo´s draws attention to and confirms free will: two young men from backgrounds configured by Galdo´s to be exact equivalents have different lives because of the respective choices each makes, not because they are determined by anything. Recalling the experimental dimension of the Naturalist novel according to Zola, it seems that Galdo´s in 1871, long before Zola established himself, performs an “experiment” that demonstrates free will. In that narrow sense Can˜ as y barro could be read as a replication, thirty years later, of the original Galdosian “experiment,” and the final word of Spanish Realism/Naturalism on free will and determinism.

The “Episodios” are much more than novels of thesis in which these important philosophical-theological issues are addressed. Reference to the last of the ten volumes of the first series of “Episodios,” La batalla de los Arapiles (“The Battle of Arapiles” [of Salamanca], 1875), reveals that as he ends his narration, Araceli offers himself as role model for those readers who may find themselves “postergados por la fortuna” (“left behind by fortune”).12 This is possible because he is an exemplary witness and participant in many of the principal events of the War of Independence. Moreover, by also having overcome all deterministic forces in his life, he has become the emblematic citizen of Spain when it took control of its affairs. Following the formula for interrelating fictive and historical persons and events developed by Walter Scott (1771–1832) in the “Waverley” novels, Galdo´s makes Gabriel’s personal history homologous with that of the nation. His personal trials, choices, and

10 Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, Historia de la vida del busco´ n. In La novela picaresca

Espan˜ola. Ed. Angel Valbuena y Prat (Madrid: Aguilar, 1943), p. 11 0 1 .

11 Quevedo y Villegas, El busco´ n, p. 11 0 1 .

12 Pe´rez Galdo´ s, La batalla de los Arapiles. In Episodios nacionales (Madrid: La Guirnalda,

1885), vol. V, p. 454.

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The Naturalist novel

• The stories they tell are witnessed events or events with…

La novela. . . para ser lo que la literatura quiere hoy que sea, ha de describir costumbres, ha de desenvolver pasiones, ha de pintar caracteres; si a estas condiciones generales anade la circunstancia de que las costumbres, los caracteres, las pasiones que describa, se enlacen naturalmente con los nombres

• Ed. Jose´ Amor y Va´zquez and A. David…

The decisive factor in Galdo´s’ Realist novels is story telling itself. The notion of “narraciones interiores” (“inside stories”)31 of characters who, in telling, become the makers of their lives, transmutes story telling into the illusion of immediate experience. Family ties, business interests, political affiliations, religious practices, money, fashion, adultery, prostitution

• The novelists of psychological Naturalism – or, 22 Pe´rez Galdo´s, Ensayos, pp. 176–177. 23 Pe´rez Galdo´ s, Ensayos, p. 180. Cambridge…

The history of the nineteenth-century Spanish novel, as it evolves from Realism to Naturalism, is the record of the experiments made by writers to create new forms adequate to material “more human than social.” This new material also conveyed growing post-Restoration pessimism regarding Spain among novelists, a development which the

• Rather than villain, Perfecta is a victim of unseen…

Styled as allegory, Don˜a Perfecta tells the story of made-up words and names, of surfaces and beliefs, of appearances that contradict what is real. The narrator participates in these linguistic shifts. He introduces the novel as artifice. It is manifestly a fiction, a cautionary tale, for the sign “Villahorrenda,” name

• At a time when translations from Catalan to Castilian…

Not surprisingly, given the revolution of 1868, the Third Carlist War (1872–1876), and the Restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy in 1875, a basic Realist focus was the comparison and contrast of life in liberal, cosmopolitan Madrid and the more conservative, traditional provinces. Mindful perhaps of Alarco´n’s Diario and De Madrid