[In the following essay, Swanson describes La misteriosa desaparición de la marquesita de Loria as a metaphor that masks its complexity.]

Donoso's seventh novel, La misteriosa desaparición de la marquesita de Loria, is at first sight a surprising departure from the author's profound, intellectual outlook. Humberto Rivas sees it merely as ‘un divertimiento de José Donoso’, a light-hearted sexual fantasy whose tasteful treatment never threatens ‘el tono festivo de toda la narración’.¹ However, as Pérez Blanco has correctly observed, La marquesita de Loria ‘es mucho más que una novela erótica y galante’.² Unfortunately, the latter critic's position is equally limited, for he considers the novel simply to be a reworking of Blest Gana's brand of social realism. Although there is an implicit element of social criticism here, it is little more than a backdrop against which Donoso develops his wider concerns, most notably those concerned with the existential malaise of modern man. The novel can only be properly understood as a metaphor; the superficial exterior hides an inner complexity as great as that of any of Donoso's major works.

This apparent simplicity of content is matched by an equally apparent simplicity of style and form. The linear plot, chronological sequences, and standard third person omniscient narration conspire to give the effect of a traditional novel—with all its implications of comfort and order. The gentle nostalgia, the inoffensive eroticism and the element of intrigue also contribute to the impression of a straightforward ‘good read’. Indeed, despite the occasional piece of comic exaggeration, the style of the novel is overwhelmingly realistic in tone, in that it presents us with an amusing tale which the reader accepts as true—within the fictional context—and which does not at first appear to question his attitudes too scathingly. This sensation of security is strengthened by the presentation of the story of the marquesita de Loria as a kind of case history, with the author clearly borrowing from the conventions of the detective story. This is evident from the precise nature of the title which also evokes the vocabulary of traditional mystery stories: ‘The strange case of …’. The documentary style also adds to this sense of being involved in a relaxing, familiar format. This can be seen in the novel's opening line: ‘La joven marquesa viuda de Loria, nacida Blanca Arias en Managua, Nicaragua, era …’³ The tone is repeated in the account of Paquito's death:

Ese invierno andaba mucha difteria por Madrid: falleció dos días después del miércoles de carnaval, Francisco Javier Anacleto Quiñones, marqués de Loria, antes de cumplir los veintiún años, dejando a toda su parentela desconsolada, muy especialmente a su joven viuda—nacida Blanca Arias, hija del recortado diplomático nicaragüense …

(40-41)

The feeling of the veracity of the documentary style is reinforced also by a number of minor interventions by the imaginary compiler of this chronicle: ‘si queremos ser rigurosos hay que precisar que …’ (13); ‘lo menos que se diga sobre la boda misma, mejor’ (31); ‘sería demasiado tedioso describir las ocasiones en que …’ (35); and, with reference to the phantom dog, ‘todavía corre por Madrid la leyenda … de que …’ (173).

However, many of these interventions seem to have a tongue-in-cheek quality about them: the allusion to the ‘marquesito de Loria, cuyo lamentable fallecimiento …’ (13); to ‘el banquete—si de banquete puede calificarse a tan rústico ágape’ (31); to Almanza's vulgar ‘retazos de fandangos absolutamente irrepetibles’ (155); to the difficulties of today's police-force who ‘con las cosas como ahora están, claro, deben preocuparse de problemas más serios’ (174); and to phrases like ‘Pero no se puede pasar por alto aquella memorable tarde de invierno …’ (35), or ‘Este propósito tuvo el lamentable fin que se conoce’ (51). Furthermore, as in Casa de campo, Donoso often takes stock narrative styles to their extremes, indulging in a kind of deliberate exaggeration. The artificial language describing the ardour of Blanca's romance with Archibaldo Arenas simply highlights the folly of her fleeting faith in love:

Lo besó tan prolongada y dulcemente, allí donde estaban, entregada tan sin urgencia a esa caricia elemental, que era como leer sólo el título de un libro del cual se podía inferir algo de su contenido. Tenían toda la vida, volúmenes enteros, por delante: este beso pulsaba el primer resorte del placer que los haría—como lo aseguraban todos los novelistas—vibrar al unísono.

Cuando después de un siglo terminó el dulce beso que parecía haber encendido otra luz en el estudio, Archibaldo y Blanca se enlazaron por la cintura …

(123)

A similar effect is achieved by the last five pages of the novel. They comprise a species of post-script or epilogue, a traditional summing-up of the fates of the other characters. Once again, the language is deliberately self-mocking, as, for example, when Donoso writes: ‘Y para terminar con otra nota alegre …’ (197).

Such interventions seem designed to satirize the very style the novel purports to employ: that of the realistic documentary. The point is impressed upon the reader by the blatant intrusion of the author Donoso when he is recounting the chauffeur's reaction to Blanca's disappearance: ‘… montó en el Isotta-Fraschini para ir a toda velocidad al puesto de policía más cercano, donde contó lo que el autor de esta historia acaba de contar en este capítulo y que está a punto de terminar’ (193-94). This technique—a constant in Casa de campo—is even more shocking here because it appears in such striking isolation. As with Donoso's previous novel, it emphasizes the fact that realism cannot hope to depict reality, for man himself is incapable of comprehending that reality. Thus the novel's simplicity, far from postulating the idea of a structured universe, actually undermines the traditional concept of order by questioning the assumptions on which the novel itself is based.

La marquesita de Loria plainly lacks the ‘colle logique’ which Barthes sees as fundamental to the ‘readerly’ text.⁴ The effect of the title is to set forward an enigma: what is the reason for and the nature of the young marchioness' disappearance? The answer is never given in the text (we can only deduce answers via a symbolic analysis). We are faced with an incomplete hermeneutic code, an open-ended enigma. The detective or mystery story format is also broken down: the pleasure of reading such tales usually relies upon a gradual evolution towards the resolution of the puzzle. However, just as Borges' detective stories confront the protagonist with the futility of detection, so too does Donoso deny the reader the comfort and satisfaction of a logical conclusion to his tale. The technique is to dupe the reader into the false security of the realist novel, only to weaken that sense of security by systematically questioning the presuppositions upon which the text itself appears to be based.

This is reflected in the plot itself, which asks more questions than it answers. A cheery account of youthful sexuality gives way to the opaque symbolism of Luna's eyes and the imperspicuity of Blanca's apparent evanescence. This gradual introduction of an abstruse, uncertain motif and the disturbing distortion of the climax—both within a pseudo-realistic context—is even more discomforting than the hallucinatory complexities of El obsceno pájaro de la noche. In that novel the reader is plunged into a nightmarish world from the start; in La marquesita de Loria the shock is even greater, for the reader is projected from one extreme to the other—he is allowed to experience a sense of order, only to be then confronted by the falsity of that position and faced with the reality of chaos. This tension of opposites is dramatized in the novel's closing pages. The account of the other characters' settled lives may be reassuring, but Donoso stabs at the reader's smugness in the last line: Archibaldo and Charo are always ‘seguidos por Luna, su gran y fiel perro gris’ (198). This raises all sorts of questions, for Luna, after apparently abandoning his master, faded out of the action at the time of Blanca's disappearance. What is he now doing with Archibaldo? The answer is that we simply do not know. Donoso allows his readers to relax, but only to re-introduce the enigma of the dog on the very last line. We are thus made to close our copies of La marquesita de Loria in a mood of confusion and disquiet.

The essential structural principle of the text, then, is to overturn its own internal logic. This results in the creation of an up-down, rising-sinking, ascending-descending pattern. The two poles of this contraposition are, on the one hand, Blanca's symbolic search for fulfilment through materialism and sexuality, and, on the other, her relationship with Luna. The two sides of the antithesis correspond respectively to order and chaos. The fact that the latter movement displaces the former indicates the predominance of chaos.

The sexual quest dominates the novel's development, but its value is consistently neutralized. The first four chapters, after all, are each marked by the shadow of death despite their delineation of Blanca's growing awareness of her physical desire. In the first she is a widow; the second tells of Paquito's death; don Mamerto expires in the third; and his funeral takes place in the fourth. This juxtaposition of death and sexuality invalidates the hope inherent in eroticism. The point is pressed by two important pieces of ironic symbolism. When Paquito and Blanca go to the opera Lohengrin in the opening chapter, a relationship is established between the opera's main characters and those of the novel: Paquito is Lohengrin; Blanca is Elsa; Casilda is Ortruda; and Almanza is Telramondo. The association between opera and fictional reality is visible in the mixing of the two levels, as when Paquito ventures a furtive kiss:

… Paquito no pudo resistir la tentación de arriesgarse a besarle el lóbulo. Ortruda se puso de pie con ademán furioso …

(21)

The interesting aspect of the parallel though is the one not stated by the author. The chapter ends before we reach the opera's finale: the unhappy outcome of Lohengrin is still to come. This foreshadows Paquito's tragic fate, accentuating the hopelessness of the sexual quest. The feeling is reinforced by another symbol—that of Icarus. Paquito is to go to the fancy-dress party dressed as Icarus: but the informed reader knows that Icarus fell to his death when his wings melted—thus the tragedy is hinted at again. Wings are usually symbols of hope (as in ‘Gaspard de la nuit’ where the image of the swallow suggests the possibility of transcendence). Here, however, they represent the opposite: ‘las malhadadas alas sin estrenar colgaban del respaldo de la silla como la esperanza de algo que jamás se llegaría a cumplir’ (49).

The pattern of growing sexual/spiritual desire is further undermined by Donoso's consistent contradiction of our expectations. The first chapter charts the courtship of Blanca and Paquito. Social convention prevents them from attaining total sexual satisfaction, but:

Se consolaban de que las circunstancias no fueran propicias para pasar más allá diciéndose que era todo un estupendo simulacro para que cuando llegara el momento en que el amor total pudiera atravesarlos, tanto amago realzara lo que sin duda sería un asombroso premio.

(16)

However, the conclusion of this proairetic sequence is never reached.⁵ The text suggests that sexual fulfilment will arrive with marriage: but this is not the case. Thus the idea of the deceptive nature of the human construct is embedded in the very structure of the text itself.

The process is continued in the following chapters as the rising-falling / hope-frustration / order-chaos movement is initiated. Chapter 2 starts with the wedding, another stage in the proairetic sequence describing the young couple's relationship. However, there is a twist here: weddings are usually associated with joy, but this chapter begins with the sentence, ‘Lo menos que se diga sobre la boda misma, mejor’ (31), continuing with an account of the frugality of the reception. The next stage in the sequence is marriage: but again the normal pattern is inverted, for ‘el matrimonio, en su sentido más estricto, fue una cruel desilusión para Blanca’ (32). Paquito is unable to achieve orgasm and the reader's expectations, raised in the first chapter, are shattered. His death in the same chapter simply underlines the collapse of the upwards sexuality movement.

But despite the demise of both her husband and then don Mamerto, Blanca presses on with her search for sexual fulfilment. The most significant figure in this respect is Archibaldo Arenas. Her affair with him is the novel's most striking portrayal of the sexuality-frustration duality. The couple do not actually make love until Chapter 6: yet Archibaldo has appeared in Chapters 3, 4 and 5, cutting across her previous affairs. The significance of the delay between the two poles of the proairetic sequence (sexual attraction and sexual intercourse) is that it draws the reader's attention to Archibaldo, suggesting that after all her searching Blanca has eventually found, in this man, her passport to fulfilment. Each of the three chapters previous to their erotic encounter systematically puts off the moment of pleasure. Chapter 3 stresses the attraction she feels towards him, but the scene breaks off, heightening the impact of this new stage of increasing sexuality. On the one hand, by changing the thrust of the narrative at this point Donoso plays on the reader's growing sense of sexual excitement: he is forced to wait for further erotic delights and is thus drawn even more deeply into the story. Equally, the suspension of the action throws Archibaldo into higher relief, tricking the reader into believing he holds the answer to Blanca's needs. The process is continued in the next chapter where we are presented with two more significant links in the proairetic code: the first kiss and the arrangement of a time for the consummation of their mutual desire. But again the action is suspended: it is only two chapters later that the meeting takes place. Our expectations are fuelled once more though in Chapter 5, with an account of Blanca's masturbatory fantasies concerning the painter.

However, the technique is again to undermine the reader's assumptions. Despite the thrilling spontaneity of their coition, Archibaldo does not afford Blanca the liberation she seeks. Indeed, she feels let down as soon as she arrives at the flat. After his extensive documentation of Blanca's excitement, the author begins the passage on her visit with the words:

Fue tan cordial la bienvenida de Archibaldo que Blanca no dejó de sentir cierta desilusión ante la ausencia de un ataque sexual instantáneo … La sencilla cortesía del pintor fue tal, en cambio, que hasta llevaba cierto dejo de timidez que Blanca no estaba muy segura si le gustaba o no.

(119)

It transpires that the presentation of Archibaldo is totally ironic. He is not a great painter but a humble portrait artist, a favourite who obtains commissions by ingratiating himself with wealthy, middle-aged, female circles. Despite ‘un aparente desorden’, his life is determined by an ‘estructura interna’ (121); he is not a paragon of vitality but an extremely conventional being whose main aspirations in life are marriage and children. By the end of the chapter Blanca already mistrusts Archibaldo; by Chapter 7 she has rejected him completely.

It is her relationship with Archibaldo which forms the axis of the overall rising-falling sexuality/hope pattern. He represents the ultimate hope of the material world: but the novel builds up towards a climax which never materializes. The movement away from order to chaos is then initiated, with Blanca's obsession with Luna becoming the dominant feature of the latter part of the book. Archibaldo is a pivotal figure because he not only signifies the deception of the construct of love—he also provides Luna, the symbolic key to the novel's downward movement.

The arrival of Luna at Blanca's house introduces the thematization of a new hermeneutic code; the enigma is—who sent Luna? Blanca presumes that Archibaldo is responsible. This corresponds to what Barthes would call ‘le leurre’, the snare: Blanca (and perhaps the reader) are tricked by a false assumption. When she arrives at Archibaldo's flat another stage is introduced, ‘la réponse suspendue’: ‘¿O sería vergüenza por haber dejado escapar el perro? Se propuso no preguntarle nada sobre él: que él se lo explicara todo como parte de su gran amor por ella’ (119). However, the final stage of the sequence—‘le dévoilement, le déchiffrement’—does not emerge. When Blanca mentions the word ‘Luna’, Archibaldo does not respond:

Pero Archibaldo no reaccionó como esperaba que lo hiciera, lamentándose que se había escapado, al oír la palabra luna. ¿Por qué lo callaba? ¿Qué secreto le escondía? Ella no se lo iba a preguntar. Si la amaba de verdad, entonces él, sin que ella se lo preguntara, tenía que explicarle la inexplicable … ausencia de Luna.

(132)

The reader shares Blanca's confusion, for the answer to the enigma is suspended indefinitely: there is no conclusion to the hermeneutic sequence. The effect of this is to associate Luna with the mysterious, inexplicable forces of chaos, to delineate his independence of his master, and to suggest that he is the answer to Blanca's pursuit of fulfilment.

This final point is reinforced by the general symbolism surrounding Luna; it shows him to be the only valid alternative to Archibaldo and to the sexual/spiritual quest as a whole. Such is the implication of the textual juxtapositions of Chapter 5. Blanca's memories of the previous night's session of sexuality with the Count are constantly interrupted by the barking of a dog, later revealed to be Luna. She turns her thoughts to Archibaldo, masturbating with satisfaction as she contemplates the future with him. However, the lengthy, luxurious crescendo of the prose, paralleling the growth of her sexual desire, is brought to an abrupt halt:

… Archibaldo la esperaba, amante, bello, divertido. Iba a llevarla más allá del simple placer con el fin de que éste fuera completo. Evocando la figura del pintor junto al agua gris-limón del crepúsculo reflejada en sus ojos, Blanca, casi sin moverse, sin tocarse, llegó como nunca antes justo al borde y estaba a punto de zambullirse en el agua de esos ojos cuando los insoportables ladridos se alzaron como una llamarada justo al pie de su ventana, insistentes, dementes, exigentes. Rabiosa, Blanca saltó de su cama y abrió la ventana. Abajo, en la calle oscura, reconoció por entre las rejas una forma animal más oscura que la noche, que caracoleaba y gemía. Dos ojos color gris-limón brillaban mirándola por entre los barrotes.

—Luna …—exclamó muy bajo y se escondió tras el postigo.

(102)

The juxtaposition and the climactic build-up suggest that it is not Archibaldo but his dog who will provide fulfilment. This is also the effect of the contrasts within the novel's pattern of eye imagery. As Blanca observes Luna's eyes her urge to masturbate returns:

… ella y Archibaldo eran como dos lunas que eran dos ojos, pero una sola luna, una sola mirada, un solo placer. Quiso incorporar la fantasía de Archibaldo a su juego solitario pero justo en el momento de proponérselo las dos lunas se extinguieron porque el perro las cubrió con sus párpados y ella se quedó dormida hasta la mañana siguiente.

(106)

The play on the contrast in eye imagery is also developed in relation to colour. Early on in the novel, Blanca ‘vio que los ojos del pintor no eran en absoluto negros como había creído, sino transparentes, grises o color limón …, exactamente del mismo color de los ojos del perro’ (77). But when she visits Archibaldo, ‘los ojos de ella, tan cerca de los suyos, vieron que los ojos del pintor no eran gris-limón porque se los había enviado de regalo a ella con su perro. Vio, en cambio, sonriéndole, los ojos negros del primer día’ (120). Yet the painter does not admit to having sent the dog. Luna thus emerges, not as ‘una extensión del espíritu de (Archibaldo)’—as Rivas would have it—, but as a separate entity to his master, the reverse of what his owner represents. The suggestion is again that the goal of Blanca's quest is not the artist but his canine companion. Hence the Marchioness asks of Archibaldo: ‘¿Quería arrebatarle la fiebre de los pálidos ojos inalterables, con los que fascinaba y luego traicionaba al presentar unos simples, aunque bellos y vivaces ojos negros? … ¿Qué podía comprender él de ese perro terrible y maravilloso en cuyas pupilas ella podía hundirse como no podía hundirse en las pupilas negras del pintor ni en ningunas otras?’ (166). Archibaldo's eyes soon come to have no meaning for her: ‘sintió tal aburrimiento al ver sus negros ojos implorantes a los que faltaba lo esencial’ (168).

The text clearly sets forward, via a number of techniques, the idea that Luna offers an alternative to the sexuality of Archibaldo and others. The significance of this alternative is made evident through a series of symbolic interrelationships. The symbol of the dog relates back to that of the yellow bitch in El obsceno pájaro de la noche. The opening paragraph of Chapter 8 is an account of the legend of a dog who interrupts the sexual activities of young lovers stationed in their cars in the Retiro—a situation which echoes the yellow bitch motif. In El obsceno pájaro, the bitch (through its association with Peta Ponce) represented the intervention of death an chaos in a world of apparent order (sexuality corresponding to the search for meaning and harmony). It is natural to assume therefore that in this novel Luna is also to be associated with the forces of chaos. Blanca's attraction to the dog is symbolic of her growing acceptance of the absurdity of life—a more honest and consequently more satisfying outlook.⁶

Blanca's situation is dramatized by the system of order-versus-chaos symbolism connected with Luna. The dog is repeatedly paired with the recurring motif of the blacks, indians and half-castes of the Caribbean. These women (who read tarot cards and cling to strange superstitions) are typically Donosian characters: outcasts, old women, servants and witches—the very embodiment of chaos. When the dog refuses to leave Blanca alone after an early meeting with Archibaldo, the following exchange takes place:

—¿Qué te pasa, Luna, corazón?

—Quiere irse contigo.

—¡Pobre … !

—¿Por qué lo compadeces?

—Los que se encariñan conmigo, sufren.

Paquito. Don Mamerto. Pero riendo, el pintor la desafió:

—No éste.

—Podría ser la excepción.

—Podría …

—En todo caso, si no sufre uno, sufre el otro.

Eran cosas que le habían dicho las negras …

(81)

This passage is of great pivotal importance. By linking the dog and the negresses it suggests that Luna too is an image of chaos. It also implies that in this relationship it will not be Blanca who is the dominant figure but her partner, Luna: chaos will triumph. Yet the bond between the dog and the legends of the Caribbean indicates the preferability of this option. Blanca thinks back to her childhood: ‘la carne demasiado hermosa, como la suya, era cuestión de la hechicería, susurraban las oscuras viejas de su infancia en la noche cuando ella era una niña que no podía dormir porque no salía la luna’ (85). This ties Blanca to the forces of witchcraft and chaos, intimating that she will suffer a dark, mysterious destiny; equally the double-entendre of the suggestion that ‘la luna’ brings her calm, infers that the dog Luna will lead her to an inner peace through her acceptance of chaos. Contemplating Luna's eyes after returning to the wreck of her room, she thinks:

… las mestizas de su niñez en las noches de miedo le señalaban las dos lunas idénticas en el horizonte para calmarla. ¿Pero por qué había producido esta hecatombe doméstica, Luna, su Luna, su perro querido a quien, ahora se daba cuenta, había echado de menos durante todo el día, sobre todo a sus ojos suspendidos en el horizonte mismo de su imaginación.

(141-42)

Clearly, she feels drawn towards the salvation these eyes represent. The fact that they are her only hope is made apparent by her earlier thoughts on ‘esas dos lunas castas y gemelas que la observaban—una luna muy baja, allá en el cielo junto al horizonte; otra luna reflejada en el caluroso mar del nocturno caribeño, dos lunas que eran una sola—como estos dos ojos que conformaban una sola mirada mirándola sin comprender pero yendo más allá de toda comprensión’ (106). The moon and its reflection in the sea appear as two moons but are really one. Similarly, Luna's eyes form a single entity. Unlike the false unity of her relationship with Archibaldo, they offer Blanca a kind of wholeness, totality or fulfilment: the idea that man can only attain completion if he accepts the terrifying reality of a senseless life in an anarchic universe.

The presentation of the quest for order (via sexuality) and its counteraction by chaos (in the form of Luna) is given an extra dimension by the introduction of a general pattern of binary order-versus-chaos symbolism. A series of oppositions are set up between Europe (order) and Latin America (chaos), the most interesting coming at the end of the novel when Blanca abandons the material world to join Luna: despite being in the Retiro, she feels as if she is back ‘en la noche vegetada y salvaje como la del trópico’ (191). Linking up with this opposition are a number of other binary motifs: rich-versus-poor, masters-versus-servants, adults-versus-children, instinct-versus-convention. This interpenetrating pattern of binary symbolism is an evocative portrayal of the path Blanca takes to freedom, for it simultaneously brings out her desire for order and her progression towards chaos. The duality of the hope-hopelessness movement is summed up in the power-weakness binarism, present here as in Donoso's previous work. The equation between sexuality and strength is made evident in her first two erotic encounters: both Paquito, and don Mamerto in particular, die following their relationships with her. Despite the apparent virility of Almanza and Archibaldo, both men are soon shown to be fawning weakly after her favours (as indeed are Tere and Casilda). However, with Luna the positions change. Blanca feels that ‘las heridas y rasguños causados por sus patas y sus dientes le dolían mucho ahora, como si su carne lozana, que en otro tiempo tuvo pretensiones asesinas, comenzara a descomponerse y a morir’ (176). Her sexuality has no power over him: hence her reference to ‘ese cuerpo al que no podía satisfacer con su sexo capaz de saciar, hasta de matar, a cualquiera’ (143). Her attempt to train him is a complete failure, for she is now submissive to him. The dog pins her to the floor but does not rape her: ‘los que son verdaderamente dueños de una situación no tienen para qué ser crueles ni despóticos: bastaba tener esos ojos pálidos, quietos’ (143). Donoso does not, as Rivas suggests, simply avoid a scene of bestiality so as not to break up the story's jocular tone: this is a climactic illustration of the fact that the key to understanding lies not with sexuality (the hope of spiritual fulfilment) but with Luna (the acknowledgement of the absurdity of life).

The movement towards this final recognition is paralleled by an account of the destruction Luna effects in Blanca's room. This begins in Chapter 5 when the dog urinates and defecates over her splendid furnishings. This is the start of the materialization of Blanca's growing inner sense of chaos. The idea that this chaos offers a form of fulfilment is brought out by a clever double contrast in the next chapter. Blanca returns in a state of confusion after her visit to Archibaldo. Her bewilderment is expressed over several pages, but is set against the peace offered by Luna. Then there is another switch in the tone of the prose, which now goes on to highlight the havoc Luna has wrought in the room:

Y cerró la puerta en las narices de su doncella.

Las dos lunas la miraban desde la oscuridad, desde su nido de raso al pie de la cama. Eran dos nítidas redomas gris-oro, gris-crepúsculo, a esa hora que, en el Retiro, no se sabe si las personas son árboles secos, o figuraciones de la fantasía. Tenían algo de sacramentales esas dos redondelas fijas que le devolvieron la serenidad que hacía media hora creía haber perdido para siempre. Hubiera querido permanecer por el resto de sus días en esa oscuridad, observada por esas dos lunas distintas que constituían una sola mirada. Pero para poder avanzar debía encender.

Cuando lo hizo lanzó un grito. Todo estaba destrozado, la ropa de la cama hecha jirones, las butacas destripadas, las mesas con espejos y cristales derrumbadas, su bata de brocato hecha tirillas, sus chinelas mordisqueadas, chupadas, desfiguradas, era una inmundicia, un mundo cochambroso que nada tenía que ver con ella …

(140)

The effect of this double juxtaposition is to suggest, on the one hand, that there is an alternative to Archibaldo; and, on the other hand, that that alternative involves an admission of chaos. Meanwhile, the movement towards chaos is accelerated in the next two chapters. The seventh starts with a description of the devastation caused to Blanca's room and to her person. She is now openly referring to ‘ese caos’ (148), and sees Luna as an ‘habitante de la destrucción y el caos y lo desconocido’ (164).

As the downward spiral continues Blanca withdraws even further. In Chapter 7 she rejects the possible excitement of an erotic adventure with Almanza and Tere Castillo, and is equally unmoved by their comments on Archibaldo. The accent on her boredom is carried on until she decides to leave, at which point there is another pivotal contrast within the prose:

… Cerró la puerta de calle compadeciéndoles, pero, sobre todo, mortalmente aburrida.

Al abrir, en cambio, la puerta de su dormitorio oscuro sintió que su corazón daba tal brinco de sobresalto en su pecho que casi le cortó la respiración: allá estaban los dos ojos como dos lunas nadando en ese infinito espacio oscuro y caliente y aromado.

(162-63)

The suppression of the numerous possible proairetisms between the two stages of the sequence (leaving/arriving) lends greater immediacy and power to the juxtaposition. She has clearly left one side of life behind in favour of another. She becomes more and more disillusioned, retiring from existence further still as she hacks at her once pretty hair and dresses her scarred, bruised body with the simplest and drabbest of garments. The last line of the chapter makes plain her position:

—¡Qué pitorreo!—se dijo al abrir la puerta de su dormitorio que fue tan hermoso en un tiempo y que ahora era esa fétida ruina que la satisfacía.

(170)

This closing line of Chapter 7 reflects the entire structural system of the novel. It contrasts the beauty and elegance of Blanca's life as depicted in the first part of the novel with the accelerating pattern of chaos in the second, emphasizing that this second movement contains her only chance of satisfaction. The quest for fulfilment through wealth and sexuality was based on the principle of hope. The displacement of this movement by an evolution towards union with primeval chaos suggests the idea of an inverted quest: the paradox that chaos brings fulfilment. This is confirmed by yet another contrast in the prose, this time in the final chapter. Casilda offers Blanca both riches and eros:

Blanca cerró sus muslos porque nada de todo esto le importaba absolutamente nada. Quería ir a ver a Luna.

(184)

Blanca has now completely rejected the artificial structures men impose upon life: she therefore follows Luna into ‘la oscuridad total’ (189) and disappears forever. The climactic moment of chaos and destruction has arrived; the descending phase of the dualistic pattern has been completed.

The order-chaos (sexuality-Luna) structure of the text, backed up by an interrelating system of corresponding binary symbolism, situates La marquesita de Loria firmly within the tradition of Donoso's writing as a whole. Its concentration on eroticism does not make it a surprising departure from his usual vein, as initial reactions to the novel suggested. It lacks the implied optimism of ‘Gaspard de la nuit’ and Casa de campo (despite the epilogue's grudging acknowledgement of the partial value of the human construct); in many ways it marks a return to the spirit of Donoso's earlier work. But the main difference is in the way the subject matter is treated. The humour, eroticism, directness of style and linear structure hide the basic sense of existential Angst which underlies the novel on a symbolic plane. The anguish is brought out by the author's deliberate overturning of the literary conventions within which he appears to be writing, his main weapons being the neutralization of the story's natural progression towards sexual fulfilment, and the repeated indefinite suspension of the final sequences of the hermeneutic codes. Thus Donoso continues the process of evolution in his writing initiated after El obsceno pájaro de la noche. The main achievement of La marquesita de Loria is that it goes beyond the conventions of the ‘nouveau roman’. The author is no longer attacking the realist tradition by means of an alternative narrative structure: the post-boom Donoso is subverting realism from within.

Notes

1. Humberto Rivas, ‘Un divertimiento de José Donoso. Una marquesita no encontrada’, La Semana de Bellas Artes, CLII (29 October 1980), 9.

2. L. Pérez Blanco, ‘Acercamiento a una novela de denuncia social. La misteriosa desaparición dè la marquesita de Loria’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, (Alabama), XVI, 3 (1982), 399.

3. José Donoso, La misteriosa desaparición de la marquesita de Loria (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1980), 11. All subsequent references will be to this edition and will be included in the main body of the text.

4. Roland Barthes, S/Z (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970), 162.

5. The term ‘proairetic’ is simply used for a series of actions which together form a sequence (e.g. meeting-courtship-marriage-consummation etc.). ‘Proairetic’ sequences differ from ‘hermeneutic’ ones in that the latter code refers to the ways in which an enigma is introduced, held in suspense and finally disclosed. The technique of this novel is to break down each type of sequence or to withhold its final link.

6. For a more detailed explanation of the yellow bitch/Peta Ponce motif and of the comments to follow on binary order-versus-chaos symbolism in Donoso's work, see my ‘Binary Elements in El obsceno pájaro de la noche’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (Alabama), XIX (1985), 101-16.