341 And so a new tension developed in Spanish society generated by guilt and later, as socialism and anarchism entered Spain, exacerbated by fear [...] Now it is not our contention that Galdós sat down and with conscious intent began to write about the grave problems threatening Spain. Rather, he wanted to write about Spain, and therefore was driven also to analyze her troubles.526 (Goldman, Galdós 11)
In the view of middle-class professionals and thinkers alike, urban Spain‘s most pressing and threatening troubles, attributed largely to the masa obrera or pueblo, formed the fearsome complex of alcoholism, tuberculosis and syphilis-prostitution (the latter an inseparable association). The clase media’s intellectualization of its fear 527
at this, ―point in history, [after 1848 and 1871] when bourgeois society felt a
structural threat for the first time‖ (Huertas, Madness IV 303) was expressed in the theory of degeneration. This, ―ideological production, a complex process of conceptualizing a felt crisis in history‖ (Pick 54), is aptly summarized as, ―the [intellectual] institutionalization of fear‖ (Chamberlin & Gilman xiv). The latter continue, ―hope was looked after by the idea of progress, and seemed to be the tenor of the times. But fear-fear was contagious. It infected the air, and poisoned the wells.‖
Spain‘s troubles: Barja describes the mood of the Spain of Galdós‘s novels between La desheredada (1881) and Misericordia (1897), ―Son años caracterìsticos. En ellos agonizaba una España vieja, ya desquiciada en la serie de luchas y de crisis por que había venido pasando a través de todo el siglo XIX, y una España más nueva [...] va formándose con dificultades y confusamente. Las novelas de Galdós acusan este estado de transición y de inseguridad.‖ (Barja 349) 527 clase media‘s [...] fear: fear of the intentions of the masa obrera was being expressed as early as the late 1860s. In his article ―Algunas consideraciones generales con motivo del proyecto de la ley sobre vagancia,‖ Juan de Lorenzana wrote, ―Ese cuarto estado [...] aspira al aniquilamiento de la bourgeoisie, como ésta procuró el de la aristocracia después de haber sido reducida a la impotencia por la monarquia absoluta.‖ (Lorenzana 76) 526