INTRODUCTION.

ACCORDING to the Spanish critics, the novel has flourished in Spain during only two epochs—the golden age of Cervantes and the period in which we are still living. That unbroken line of romance-writing which has existed for so long a time in France and in England, is not to be looked for in the Peninsula. The novel in Spain is a re-creation of our own days; but it has made, since the middle of the nineteenth century, two or three fresh starts. The first modern Spanish novelists were what are called the walter-scottistas, although they were inspired as much by George Sand as by the author of Waverley. These writers were of a romantic order, and Fernan Caballero, whose earliest novel dates from 1849, was at their head. The Revolution of September, 1868, marked an advance in Spanish fiction, and Valera came forward as the leader of a more national and more healthily vitalised species of imaginative work. The pure and exquisite style of Valera is, doubtless, only to be appreciated by a Castilian. Something of its charm may be divined, however, even in the English

translation of his masterpiece, Pepita Jimenez. The mystical and aristocratic genius of Valera appealed to a small audience; he has confided to the world that when all were praising but few were buying his books.

Far greater fecundity and a more directly successful appeal to the public, were, somewhat later, the characteristics of Perez y Galdos, whose vigorous novels, spoiled a little for a foreign reader by their didactic diffuseness, are well-known in this country. In the hands of Galdos, a further step was taken by Spanish fiction towards the rejection of romantic optimism and the adoption of a modified realism. In Pereda, so the Spanish critics tell us, a still more valiant champion of naturalism was found, whose studies of local manners in the province of Santander recall to mind the paintings of Teniers. About 1875 was the date when the struggle commenced in good earnest between the schools of romanticism and realism. In 1881 Galdos definitely joined the ranks of the realists with his La Desheredada. An eminent Spanish writer, Emilio Pardo Bazan, thus described the position some six years ago: "It is true that the battle is not a noisy one, and excites no great warlike ardour. The question is not taken up amongst us with the same heat as in France, and this from

several causes. In the first place, the idealists with us do not walk in the clouds so much as they do in France, nor do the realists load their palette so heavily. Neither school exaggerates in order to distinguish itself from the other. Perhaps our public is indifferent to literature, especially to printed literature, for what is represented on the stage produces more impression."

This indifference of the Spanish reading public, which has led a living novelist to declare that a person of good position in Madrid would rather spend his money on fireworks or on oranges than on a book, has at length been in a measure dissipated by a writer who is not merely admired and distinguished, but positively popular, and who, without sacrificing style, has conquered the unwilling Spanish public. This is Armando Palacio Valdés, who was born on the 4th of October, 1853, in a hamlet of Asturias, called Entralgo, where his family had at one time a mansion which has now disappeared. The family spent only the summer there; the remainder of the year they passed in Avilés, the maritime town which Valdés describes under the name of Nieva in his novel Marta y Maria. From Asturias he went, when still a youth, up to Madrid to study the law as a profession. But even in the lawyer's office, his dream was to become a man of letters. His ambition took the form of obtaining at some university a chair of political economy, to which science he had, or

fancied himself to have, at that time, a great proclivity.

Before terminating his legal studies, the young man published several articles in the Revista Europea on philosophical and religious questions. These articles attracted the attention of the proprietor of that review, and Valdés presently joined the staff. Next year he became editor. He was at the head of the Revista Europea, at that time the most important periodical in Spain from a scientific point of view, for several years. During that time he published the main part of those articles of literary criticism, particularly on contemporary poets and novelists, which have since been collected in several volumes—Los Oradores del Ateneo ("The Orators of the Athenæum"); Los Novelistas Españoles ("The Spanish Novelists"); Un Nuevo Viaje al Parnaso ("A New Journey to Parnassus"), sketches of the living poets of Spain; and, in particular, a very bright collection of review articles, published in conjunction with Leopoldo Alas, La Literatura en 1881 ("Spanish Literature in 1881"). These gave Valdés a foremost rank among the critics of the day. He wrote no

more criticism, or very little; he determined to place himself amongst those whose creative work demands the careful consideration of the best judges.

Soon after he took the direction of the Revista, Valdés wrote his first novel, El Señorito Octavio, which was not published until 1881. In 1883 he brought out his Marta y Maria, a book which, I know not why, is called "The Marquis of Peñalta" in its English version. This novel enjoyed an extraordinary success, and had more of the graphic and sprightly manner by which Valdés has since been distinguished, than the books which immediately followed it. Spanish critics, indeed, remembering the wonderful freshness of Marta y Maria, still often speak of it as the best of Valdés' stories. In this same year, 1883, he married, on the day when he completed his thirty years, a young lady of sixteen. His marriage was a honeymoon of a year and a half, of which El Idílio de un Enfermo ("The Idyl of an Invalid"), a short novel of 1884, portrays the earlier portion. His wife died early in 1885, leaving him with an infant son to be, as he says, "my illusion and my fascination." His subsequent career has been laborious and systematic. He has published one novel every

year. In 1885 it was José, a shorter tale of sea-faring life on the stormy coast of the author's native province. About the same time appeared a collection of short stories, called Aguas Fuertes ("Strong Waters").

It was not until 1886, however, that Valdés began to rank among the foremost novelists of Europe. In that year he published his great story, Riverita, one of the characters in which, a charming child, became the heroine of his next book, Maximina, 1887. Of this character he writes to me: "My Maximina in these two books is but a pale reflection of that being from whom Providence parted me before she was eighteen years of age. In these novels I have painted a great part of my life." A Sevillian novice, who has helped to care for Maximina in Madrid, reigns supreme in a succeeding novel, La Hermana San Sulpício ("Sister San Sulpicio"), 1889. But between these two last there comes a massive novel, describing the adventures of a journalist who founds a newspaper in the provincial town of Sarrió, by which Santander seems to be intended. This book is called El Cuarto Poder ("The Fourth Power"), and was published in 1888. To these must now be added La Espuma ("Froth"), of which a translation is here given. When these words are published, the original will just have appeared in

Madrid. It is by the kindness of the author, in supplying us with a set of proof-sheets, that I am able to speak of a book which even the critics of Madrid have not yet seen in Spanish.

In La Espuma Valdés has reverted from those country scenes and those streets of provincial cities which he has hitherto loved best to paint, and has given us a sternly satiric picture of the frothy surface of fashionable life in Madrid. From the illusions of the poor, pathetic and often beautiful, he has turned to the ugly cynicism of the wealthy. With his passion for honesty and simplicity, his heart burns within him at the parade and hollowness which he detects in aristocratic and bureaucratic Madrid. One conceives that, like his own Raimundo, he has been invited to enter it, has taken his fill of its pleasures, and has found his mouth filled with ashes. His talent for portraiture was never better employed. If he is occasionally tempted to commit the peculiarly Spanish fault of exaggeration—scarcely a fault there, where the shadows are so black and the colours so flaring—he has resisted it in his more important characters. The brutality of the Duke de Requena, the sagacity and urbanity of Father Ortega, the saintly sweetness

of the Duchess, the naïveté of Raimundo, the sphinx-like charm of Clementina de Osorio, with her mysterious sweetness and duplicity, these are among the salient points of characterisation which stand out in this powerful book. La Espuma is a cry from the desert to those who wear soft raiment in kings' palaces. It is the ruthless tearing aside of the conventions by a Knox or a Savonarola. It is stringent satire, yet tempered with an artist's moderation, with a naturalist's self-suppression.

Those exquisite descriptions of Nature in which Valdés sparingly illuminates the pages of his country-novels, must not be looked for here. There is nothing in La Espuma like the splendid approach to Seville in La Hermana San Sulpício, or the noble picture of the Asturian sea-board, ravaged by the ocean, in José. The desolation of the mining district, at the close of the book, is all that we can compare with these. But one descriptive gift of Valdés, his power of rendering with sustained vivacity a varied social scene, was never better exemplified than by the dinner-party at the Osorios', by Salabert's ball to Royalty, in which Clementina ejects the demi-mondaine, or by the scene in Pepe's dressing-room when the mad Marquis wants to shoot him. The absence of sensational emphasis of every kind is notable. This is the result of severe self-training on the novelist's part. He has confessed himself displeased with the end of his own Riverita as too theatrical, and in the prologue to La Hermana San Sulpício, he wears a white sheet, and holds

a penitential candle for a too stagey episode in El Cuarto Poder. No charge of this kind can be brought against La Espuma. It is closely studied from life, and is careful not to affront the modesty of nature, which loves an occasional tragic catastrophe, but loathes the artifice of a smartly constructed plot.

Of the author of so many interesting books but little has yet been told to the public. In a private letter to myself, the eminent novelist gives a brief sketch of his mode of life, so interesting that I have secured his permission to translate and print it here:—"Since my wife died," Señor Valdés writes, "my life has continued to be tranquil and melancholy, dedicated to work and to my son. During the winters, I live in Asturias, and during the summers, in Madrid. I like the company of men of the world better than that of literary folks, because the former teach me more. I am given up to the study of metaphysics. I have a passion for physical exercises, for gymnastics, for fencing, and I try to live in an evenly-balanced temper, nothing being so repugnant to me as affectation and emphasis. I find a good deal of pleasure in going to bull-fights (although I do not take my son to the Plaza dressed up like a miniature torero, as an American writer declares I do), and I cultivate the theatre, because to see life from the stage point of view helps me in the composition of my stories."

EDMUND GOSSE.

CHAPTER I. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

AT three in the afternoon the sun was pouring its rays on the Calle de Serrano, bathing it in bright orange light which hurt the eyes of those who went down the left-hand side where the houses stood closest. But as the cold was intense the pedestrian was not eager to cross to the other pavement in search of shade, preferring to face the sunbeams which, though blinding, were at any rate warming. At this hour, tripping slowly and daintily along, her muff of handsome otter-skin held up to shade her eyes, an elegantly dressed woman was making her way down the street, leaving behind her a wake of perfume which the shopmen standing at their doors sniffed up with enjoyment, as they gazed in rapture at the being who exhaled such a delightful fragrance.

For the Calle de Serrano, albeit the widest and handsomest in Madrid, has an essentially provincial stamp; little traffic, shops devoid of display, and dedicated for the most part to the sale of the necessaries of life, children playing in front of the houses, door-keepers seated in committee and discussing matters at the top of their voices with the unemployed butchers' boys, fishmongers, and grocers. Hence a well-dressed woman could not pass unremarked, as she might in the more central parts of the town. The glances of the passers-by, as well as of the loungers, rested on her with pleasure; the women commented on the quality of the clothes she wore, and horrible jests were uttered by the dreadful apprentices, provoking their companions to outbursts of brutal glee. One of the most ruffianly and greasy looking threw out as she passed one of those coarse remarks which would bring the colour to the smooth cheek of an English Miss, and make her call the policeman, and almost exact an apology. But our valiant Spanish lady, her soul above

prudery, did not even wince, but went on her triumphant way with the dainty and hesitating step of a woman who rarely sets foot in the dust of the highway.

For that hers was a triumphant progress there could be no doubt; no one could look at her without admiration, not so much of her luxurious attire, as of the severe beauty of her face and the distinction of her figure. She was five-and-thirty at least. There was something extremely original in the type of her features. Her complexion was clear and dark, her eyes, blue, her hair coppery red. Such a strange mingling of different races is rarely seen in a face: if it showed a stronger dash of one than another, it was of the Italian. It was one of those faces which suggest an English lady burnt under a Neapolitan sun. In some of Raphael's pictures we see heads which may give some notion of our fair pedestrian.

Her predominant expression at the present moment was one of proud disdain, to which perhaps the sun contributed by making her knit her smooth and delicate brows. There was not, it must be confessed, any sweetness in this face; its firm and regular lines betrayed a haughty spirit devoid of tenderness; those blue eyes had not the limpid serenity which lends perfect harmony to a certain virginal style of countenance, occasionally seen and admired in Spain, but more frequently in the north of Europe. They were made to express the tumult of vehement and violent passions, among which ardent love might, perhaps, have its turn, but never that humble and silent devotion which would consent to die unspoken.

She wore a high red hat, and a short thin veil, also red, reaching only to her lips. The hue of this veil contributed to lend her face that singular tinge which caught the eye of every one who met her. Her wrapper was a handsome fur cloak, over a dress of the same shade as her hat, with an overskirt of lace or grenadine such as was then the fashion.

She held up her muff, as has been said, to shade her eyes, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground as one who does not care to see or heed anything which may come in her way. Consequently, till she came to the Calle de Jorge Juan, she did not detect the presence of a young man, who, keeping pace with her on the opposite side of the way, gazed at her with even more admiration than curiosity. But on reaching the corner, without knowing why, she raised her head, and her eyes met those of her admirer. A very perceptible shade of annoyance clouded her face; she frowned with greater severity, and the haughty expression of her eyes was more marked than before. She walked a little faster, and, on reaching the Calle de Villanueva, she stood still, and looked down the street, hoping, no doubt, to see a tramcar. The youth dared not do the same; he went on his way, not without sending certain eager and significant glances after the graceful figure, to which she vouchsafed no notice. The car at last arrived; the lady stepped in, showing, as she did so, a pretty

foot shod in a kid boot, and took her seat in the farthest corner. Finding herself safe from indiscreet observation, her eyes by degrees grew more serene, and rested with indifference on the few persons who were with her in the vehicle; still the cloud of anxious thought did not altogether disappear from her face, nor the touch of disdain which lent dignity to her beauty.

Her youthful admirer had not resigned himself to losing sight of her. He went on confidently down the Calle de Villanueva; but as the tramcar went by he nimbly caught it up, and got on the step without being observed. And contriving to place himself where the lady could not see him, behind other persons standing on the platform, he was able to gaze at her by stealth, with an enthusiasm which would have made any looker-on smile.

For the difference between their ages was considerable. Our young friend looked about eighteen; his face was as beardless, as fresh and as rosy as a girl's, his hair red, his eyes blue, gentle, and melancholy. Though he wore an overcoat and a felt hat, his appearance was that of a gentleman; he was in the deepest mourning, which contrasted strongly with the fairness of his complexion. Under the magnetic influence of a firm gaze, which we all have experienced, our heroine ere long turned her eyes to the spot whence the young man fired darts of passionate admiration. Her face grew dark again, and her lips twitched with impatience, as though the poor boy's adoration was an aggression. And she began to show signs of feeling ill at ease in the coach, turning her pretty head now this way and now that, with an evident desire to escape. However, she did not alight till they reached the church of San José, where she stopped the car and got out, passing her persecutor with a look of proud disdain, which might have annihilated him.

He must have been a very bold man, or quite devoid of shame, to jump out after her as he did, and follow her along the Calle del Caballero de Gracia, taking the opposite side-walk to be able to stare more at his ease on the face which had so taken possession of him. The lady proceeded at a leisurely pace, and every man who passed her turned to gaze. Her step was that of a goddess who condescends to quit her throne of clouds for an hour, to rejoice and fascinate mortal men, who, as they behold her, are enraptured and stumble in their walk.

"Merciful Virgin, what a woman!" exclaimed a young officer in a loud voice, clinging to his companion as if he were about to faint with surprise.

The fair one could not help smiling very slightly, and the flash of that smile seemed to light up her exceptional loveliness. Presently two gentlemen in an open carriage bowed respectfully to her, and she responded with an almost imperceptible nod. When she reached the corner where the streets part by San Luis she hesitated and paused, looking in every direction, and again catching sight of the red-haired youth, she turned her back on him with marked contempt, and went on at a more rapid pace down the Calle de la Montera, where her appearance caused the same excitement in the passers-by. Three or four times she stopped in front of the shop windows, though evidently she did so less out of curiosity than in consequence of the nervous state into which the youth's unrelenting pursuit had plunged her.