Cafés in Fortunata y Jacinta

NOTES

• Geoffrey Ribbans, J. E. Varey, Dos novelas de Galdós: ‘Doña Perfecta’ y ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’ (Guía de lectura) (Madrid: Castalia, 1988).
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• Geoffrey Ribbans, ‘Contemporary History in the Structure and Characterization of Fortunata y Jacinta,’ Galdós Studies, ed. J. E. Varey (London: Tamesis, 1970), 107–09, is the only critic to have devoted more than passing attention to this topic, but he limits his perceptive comments to Part III, Chapter 1 of the novel. The comments of J. Montesinos, Galdós (Madrid: Castalia, 1969), II, 209, are less focused and extensive.
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• All references to Galdós’ works will be taken from Benito Pérez Galdós, Obras completas, ed. F. C. Sainz de Robles (Madrid: Aguilar, 1961–69), 6 vols., and will be followed by the appropriate volume and page numbers, except in the case of Fortunata y Jacinta (see note 7).
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• See Carroll B. Johnson, ‘The Café in Galdós’ La Fontana de Oro’, BHS, XLII (1965), 112–17.
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• Ribbans, ‘Contemporary History’, 107.
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• See Farris Anderson, Espacio urbano y novela. Madrid en ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’ (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1985); Pedro Ortiz Armengol, Apuntaciones para ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’ (Madrid: Editorial Universidad Complutense, 1987); and Benito Pérez Galdós, Fortunata y Jacinta, ed. Francisco Caudet (Madrid: Cátedra, 1983).
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• All references to, and quotations from, Fortunata y Jacinta are taken from Benito Pérez Galdós, Obras completas, ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles, V (Madrid: Aguilar, 1961), followed by the respective part, chapter, subsection and page numbers.
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• For a very formulaic catalogue of these café sights and sounds, see La España trágica (III, 918), one of Galdós’ last episodios nacionales.
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• Ribbans, ‘Contemporary History’, 107.
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• The title of Part III, Chapter I, ‘Costumbres turcas’, is perhaps an ironic echo of the original meaning of ‘diván’: ‘Supremo consejo que entre los turcos determinaba los negocios de Estado y de justicia’, Diccionario de la Lengua Española, 19a edición (Madrid: RAE, 1970), 488. José Escobar, Los orígenes de la obra de Larra (Madrid: Prensa Española, 1973), 144, points out that in articles on café conversations, both in eighteenth-century England and early in nineteenth-century Spain, there was a preoccupation with ‘el peligro otomano sobre Europa’.
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• Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, ‘Memoria para el arreglo de la policía de los espectáculos y diversiones públicas’, in Obras escogidas, ed. Ángel del Río (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1935), II, 23.
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• Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Estudios sobre educación, in Obras completas (Madrid: La Lectura, 1922), VII, 175, was somewhat equivocal about the civilizing effects of the café. Miguel de Unamuno, in a letter of 28 January 1933 to Gregorio Marañón, the facsimile of which is reproduced in the latter's Obras completas, ed. Alfredo Juderías (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1977), X, 526, was more positive about the café: ‘verdadera Universidad [?] popular española. Cuanto la debemos digan lo que quieran los de la alta (!!) cultura’. (I am very grateful to Professor Victor Ouimette, McGill University, for providing me with a transcription of this letter.) Galdós’ disillusionment with the empty pretentiousness of café politicians was even more cynically expressed in a very early piece of journalism, an article for La Nación on 13 August 1865, reproduced in William H. Shoemaker, Los artículos de Galdós en ‘La Nación’, 1865–1866, 1868 (Madrid: Ínsula, 1972), 118. For a discussion of the café topos in costumbrista literature, see Escobar, 137–41.
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• Izquierdo's recollection of the colourful figure of General Contreras, his commander during the canton of Cartagena in 1873 (‘¡Ay, qué hombre y qué buen avío el suyo! Parecía el gran turco con su gorro colorao’ [I, 9, v; 110]) is perhaps a minor, coincidental anticipation of the title of Part III, Chapter 1.
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• Villalonga's description of Fortunata's sartorial improvements includes a reference to her earrings, conveniently identified as ‘turquesas’ (I, 11, ii; 154). Another minor coincidence of detail is that both Juan Pablo and Fortunata's companion in the Praga were arms dealers for the combatants in the Carlist Civil War: Juan Pablo for the Carlists (II, 1, i; 160) and Fortunata's companion for the central Republican government (I, 11, ii; 153). See Ribbans, ‘Contemporary History’, 100—02, for a more detailed study of this scene.
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