Mancebo's pettiness comes out in the stratagems used to recover money which had been swindled from him (pp. 1388-89). Galdós endows him with a zest for keeping financial records (p. 1492), an affection for «números» that marks his resemblance to D. José Relimpio and other creations; see «Galdós' Presentation of Isidora in 'La desheredada'», MP, LX (1962), 28.

Padre Juan Casado's name suggests he forms a contrast to the «mancebo» who is his colleague, but the two surnames, as a joke, are reversed. The difference between the two men rests on D. Francisco's preoccupation with supporting his family and the affairs of town; D. Juan's great love is the peaceful isolation and independence he finds, surrounded by natural settings, on his lands. Padre Casado is no less clear minded in discharging his profession, but sees himself as an innocent child: «Lo único que digo en descargo mío es que hago todo el bien que puedo, que no debo nada a nadie, que mi vida es sencilla, casi, casi inocente como la de un niño... Por esto verá usted que no me las doy de perfecto, ni siquiera de modelo de curas... ¡Bueno está el tiempo para modelos!» (pp. 1429-30). His approach to religious cormseling, like Mancebo's, is essentially practical, and neither sees his times as suitable for cultivating perfection.

Leré's capacity for great spiritual merit lies at almost an opposite extreme from that of Dulce. Galdós deliberately casts the two in contrasting features; for example, the mistress was flat chested (pp. 1356, 1465), but the nun was full breasted (pp. 1267-68). Leré regards her ample bosom as so much useless, excess flesh (p. 1295); but the novelist, by this token, converts her into a kind of «alma mater». In Ángel's hallucination Leré appears, more compassionate than angry, and offers the flesh of her breast to still his sexual desire for her (p. 1458). The blind woman, Lucia, learns from a vision that Leré has given her breasts to Maria Antonia, Lucia's sister, who lost her own through surgery.

Galdós underscores the genuineness of his hero's idealism by the notation: «Leré, con toda su modestia y compostura grave, no pudo disimular la absoluta concordancia de su pensamiento con el de su espiritual amigo».

Ralph Tymms' book, Doubles in Literary Psychology (Cambridge, 1949), is an excellent, compact treatment which calls attention to the frequency of this device in the nineteenth century. The first chapter of Edwin M. Eigner, Robert Louis Stevenson and the Romantic Tradition (Princeton, 1966) provides additional documentation and guidance for exploring the subject.

See Bernhard Pick, The Apocryphal Acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas (Chicago, 1909), p. 115. The same legend is the source of Henryk Sienkiewiez's famous novel, Quo Vadis (1896), esp. ch. xxvii. Professor A. A. Parker of the editorial staff called my attention to the further possibilities of this theme, and I am most grateful for his suggestion.

«Pero,en fin, demos de barato que me persono allá... un pasito más, y entro en la calle de los Aljibes. Tun, tun... ¿Está don Laureano?... Sí..., pues adentro. Hola, Laureano, buenos días. ¿Qué tal?... No tan bien como tú... Esto que pienso... es la pura realidad. Sucederá exactamente como lo he discurrido...» (p. 1416).

All references are to Benito Pérez Galdós, Obras completas, Vol. IV, Madrid, Aguilar, 1941.

Gustavo Correa, El simbolismo religioso en las novelas de Pérez Galdós, Madrid, 1962, p. 40. Correa does not examine in any detail the part played by images in Doña Perfecta. The main purpose of his chapter devoted to this novel is to discuss what he terms its «doble perspectiva».

The image is even more pertinent when we recall that the -tenebrario- is used at Matins and Lauds daring the last three days of Holy Week, its candles being extinguished one by one in memory of the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion.