In this sense, the three women resemble the wax effigies in Mrs. Jarley's exhibition in Dickens which so frighten Little Nell with their «great glassy eyes». See Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 217.

The preoccupation with eyes and being watched is a peculiarly Dickensian trait. Dickens was personally obsessed -as were many of his literary creations- with being stared at or watched. For examples of Dickens' own fear of the eyes of even harmless statuary, wall-fixtures, or possible watchers from beyond hotel-room doors, see Carey, op. cit., 103-104.

This description brings to mind the image of the many skeletons dressed in courtly clothes and encrusted with precious jewelry to be found in cathedrals of Spain and other parts of the European continent. In a chapter entitled «Jewelled Skeletons», in For Want of a Golden City, Sacheverell Sitwell comments on this peculiar art form: «[...] There is a book still to be written about the jewelled cadavers of the saints and martyrs. Of nuns stooping their pale faces to the embroidery of pearls and coral for the robing of the skeleton. Of the half-mummy at the fittings, armed into his long-skirted coat, in Spanish court dress of the seventeenth century, and made to lean upon an elbow as though reading. His skeletal digits in jewelled gloves; a rapier at his side, and shoes with ribbons and red heels». Sacheverell Sitwell, For Want of a Golden City (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 364.

See Donald Attwater, A Dictionary of Saints (London: Burns and Oates, 1950), 274; John Coulson (ed.), The Saints: A Concise Biograpbical Dictionary (London: Burns and Oates, 1958), 447; and The Benedictine Monks of St. Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate (comp.), The Book of Saints: A Dictionary of Servants of God Canonized by the Catholic Church: Extracted from the Roman and Other Martyrologies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1947), 606.

Note that Galdós refers to doña Paulita as Virgo potens, which is al most the same as Santa Librada's other name, Virgo fortis.

Irving Howe points out that this is the classic pattern of the «urban novel»: «Always the same denouement: the Young Man's defeat or disillusion, and his retreat to the countryside where he can bind his wounds, cauterize his pride, struggle for moral renewal». Irving Howe, «The City in Literature», Commentary, LI (May, 1971), 64. Concerning the end of La Fontana de Oro, one should consult Florian Smieja's «An Alternative Ending of 'La Fontana de Oro'», Modern Language Review, LXI (1966), 426-433 and Joaquín Gimeno Casalduero, «Los dos desenlaces de La F. de O.: origen y significado», Anejo, V. XII, A. G., 1978, 55 -69.

«Hogarth's animals tell tales as much as do those of the Victorians», writes Peter Conrad, in an enlightening discussion of animals (particularly dogs) in Victorian art. He notes that Hogarth strategically places dogs «to squabble in a corner in 'A Christening', or makes a limp exhausted dog sympathize with the flushed embarrassment and disarray of the couple in 'after II', or has another dog in 'Marriage a la Mode II' pull a lace cap from the pocket of the philandering Viscount». Conrad continues, «Dogs abound in Victorian painting, offspring of Hogarth's stubborn, defiant, satiric pug -yet their function is not so much satiric, to sniff into or to ape the vices of their masters, as sentimental; they help to suffuse the paintings they appear in with emotion». Conrad, The Victorian Treasure-House (London: William Collins Sons and Company, 1973), 49-51.

Galdós also had the tradition, of course, of Cervantes' famous commenting dogs in Coloquio de los perros.

For an excellent explanation of why dogs are considered a status-symbol of wealth, see Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (New York: The Modern Library, 1961), 105-7.

The scene of Clara's flight into the streets of Madrid with Batilo by her side is strongly reminiscent of Florence Dombey's escape from her father's house into the streets of London with another rather humanized dog bearing a classical name, Diogenes. Galdós' account of Clara and Batilo is longer and more complex than Dickens' account of Florence and Diogenes, but the former may well have been inspired by the latter. See Chapter XLVIII of Dombey and Son, which is entitled «The Flight of Florence». Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 667-678.

Benito Pérez Galdós, Un faccioso más y unos frailes menos, in Obras completas [Episodios nacionales, II] (Madrid: Aguilar, 1971), 686. Further citations from this novel will be included in the text of this paper, with the abbreviation «Faccioso».