Kierkegaard and the Elaboration of Unamuno's Niebla

Author(s): Ruth House Webber

Source: Hispanic Review , Apr., 1964, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1964), pp. 118-134
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/472191

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 KIERKEGAARD AND THE ELABORATION
OF UNAMUNO'S NIEBLA

THERE has been a great deal written about the influence of

Kierkegaard upon the formation of Unamuno's thought, though
the subject has not yet, perhaps, been studied exhaustively. In-
evitably a variety of opinions has been expressed as to how extensive
and how significant this influence was.'
We learn from Unamuno himself in a letter addressed to Clarin,
dated April 3, 1900, that he had learned to read Danish and was
about to plunge into the reading of Kierkegaard, whom he had come
to know through Brandes, Ibsen's critic.2 There seems to be no
doubt that he did so with great profit and fruition, as acknowledged
in his essay Ibsen y Kierkegaard of the year 1907.3 Not only in
his essays of this period is the effect of his being steeped in Kierke-
gaard manifest, but also, according to Stnchez Barbudo,4 in the
Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, who feels that the theme of the book
may have been suggested by the "knight of faith" of Kierkegaard's
Fear and Trembling.5
I Among recent studies one may cite Mesnard and Ricard, "Aspects nouveaux
d'Unamuno," La Vie Intellectuelle (February, 1946), 112-138, as supporting the
importance of Kierkegaard in the development of Unamuno's thought. Francois
Meyer, "Kierkegaard et Unamuno," Revue de Litt6rature Comparee, XXIX (1955),
478-492, and Oscar Fasel, "Observations on Unamuno and Kierkegaard,"
Hispania, XXXVIII (1955), 443-450, tend to depreciate its importance. San-
chez Barbudo, in his several studies on Unamuno, holds to a middle ground,
pointing out that "es indudable que en 61 habia mucho de kierkegaardiano antes
de leer a Kierkegaard." ("Sobre la concepci6n de Paz en la guerra," Insula, no.
46 [1949], and virtually the same thing in Estudios sobre Unamuno [Madrid,
1959], p. 67.) Juliin Marias, Obras completas, V (Madrid, 1960), 13-201, who
might seem to be the most qualified to resolve the question, has not entered
extensively into the matter of influences.
2 Menendez y Pelayo, Unamuno, Palacio Vald6s, Epistolario a Clarin (Madrid,
1941), p. 82.
3 Unamuno, Obras completas, III (Madrid, 1950), 857.
4 Snchez Barbudo, "La formaci6n del pensamiento de Unamuno. Una
experiencia decisiva: la crisis de 1897," HR, XVIII (1950), 233, and "El misterio
de la personalidad en Unamuno," Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (July-
September, 1950), p. 207, note 7, and Estudios sobre Unamuno y Machado, p. 65.
6 S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, translated with Introduction and Notes
by Walter Lowrie (Princeton, 1941), pp. 52 ff.
118

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 119

Undeniably it is in Del sentimiento trdgico de la vida with

frequent references to Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific
script that the Danish theologian's influence is most patent. I
again S4nchez Barbudo who has been the only one of Unam
critics to point out that the influence was not only in the ideol
sphere, but that Kierkegaard's model may well have suggested
Unamuno the plan of his work.6
It is the possibility of the influence of Kierkegaard's Eithe
upon the plan of Unamuno's Niebla and many of the ideas prese
therein that will be the concern of the following pages.
This type of literary influence has not been previously discu
to my knowledge, since the relation of these two men has been
the concern of philosophers and theologians than of literary cr
Furthermore, there has been a tendency to disregard Eithe
because of the following statement made by Unamuno in
preface to San Manuel Bueno, mdrtir y tres historias mds in
"Precisamente ahora, cuando estoy componiendo este pr6log
acabado de leer la obra: 0 lo uno o to otro (Enten-Eller) de
favorito Soeren Kierkegaard, obra cuya lectura dej6 interrump
hace unos afios-antes de mi destierro" (pp. 28-29). Only Sin
Barbudo has refused to accept this literally, observing that he
have been referring to a rereading of it, for the work is ment
in his essay Ibsen y Kierkegaard of 1907.7 An even more plaus
explanation would be that when Unamuno was devouring the w
of Kierkegaard in the early nineteen hundreds, he read with
thusiasm the first part of Either/Or and then was quickly di
chanted by the prolix and repetitious second part, causing him
put it down at that time and not to take it up again and finis
until years later. This, I feel sure, would not be an un
experience among the readers of Kierkegaard. An additional p
of evidence in this connection is that not only did Unamuno
in his library, now in the possession of the University of Salam
the complete works of Kierkegaard in Danish, but he also h
Italian translation of the Diary of the Seducer,s the principal

6 Sanchez Barbudo, "Los iltimos afios de Unamuno. San Manuel Buen

Vicario Saboyano de Rousseau," HR, XIX (1951), 315, and Estudios, p. 1
7 Sanchez Barbudo, HR, XIX, 314, and Estudios, p. 188.
8 S. Kierkegaard, Il diario del seduttore, traduzione di Luigi Redaelli (T
1910).

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120 Ruth House Webber HI, xxxII (1964)

in the first part of Either/Or and the one which is the most pertine
to our present inquiry.
Upon undertaking an examination of the first volume of
Either/Or and Niebla for evidence of possible effect of the form
upon the latter, the title pages immediately attract one's attent
Kierkegaard's reads: "Either/Or. A fragment of Life. Edited
Victor Eremita." And Unamuno's: "Miguel de Unamuno. Nieb
Nivola. Pr6logo de Victor Goti." In both cases the need was
to provide a definition for an unconventional fictional form. N
are the two definitions dissimilar, for nivola, a term of Unamu
invention, designates a heavily dialogued narrative written "co
se vive, sin saber lo que vendr&."9 There is not only the simila
in the names of the supposed editor and the supposed author of
prologue and the fact that there follows immediately a pre
signed by the editor and a prologue signed by the prologuizer,
there is also the similarity in games played with the reader by
two authors.10 In Unamuno, however, there is nothing that co
pares to the elaborate triple pseudonymity of Kierkegaard,
has Victor Eremita purport to find in an old secretary two set
documents, the papers of A, which form the first part of Either
and the letters of B, the second part. The reader of Niebla doe
discover until his reading is well advanced Unamuno's little jok
the effect that the writer of the prologue Victor Goti is a char
in the novel and is, in fact, Unamuno's mouthpiece on seve
important occasions, notably in the discussion of the concep
nivola (chap. XVII) and in the matter of "devorarse o ser de
vorado" (chap. XXX).
Turning now to a consideration of the Diary of the Seducer
relation to Niebla, we find that the diary form is the basis of b
works. After the introductory pages of the Diary containi
Cordelia's final letters, there comes a series of dated entrie
dicating irregular time intervals. As the narrative progresses t
dating becomes less, then disappears completely only to reappe
with the two final entries. In the meantime there are numerous

9 Niebla, Chap. XVII. All references to Niebla are by chapter number only
10 Both authors obviously used names symbolically. In reference to Kie
kegaard, Walter Lowrie, Kierkegaard, (London, 1938), p. 240, says, ". . . t
name of Victor was meant to suggest that the better side of S. K.'s soul prevailed
at the cost of loneliness and separation from the world (Eremita)." For Una-
muno, see his essay of 1903, "La selecci6n de los Fulanez" in Obras completas,
429-442.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 121

extraneous interludes introduced alternating with letters writt

Johannes to Cordelia. Though Niebla is not set up obsten
as a diary, as Zubizarreta commented, "Diario perpetuo es l
de Unamuno. . . ."" It is a chronicle of Augusto P6rez' inti
life in which the chronological sequence is never broken an
chapters act as entries spaced at irregular intervals. Dialogu
monologue predominate. As the narrative progresses vario
novelistic episodes are introduced as well as two critical letters
at the beginning from Augusto to Eugenia and one at the end f
the latter to the former.
Both works begin chronicling the hero's thoughts as he strolls
along the street-much more prolonged, however, in the Diary of
the Seducer-as a prelude to the chance encounter with the girl.
The encounters are as follows:
"I was walking along the esplanade, apparently unconcerned
and indifferent to my surroundings, although my roving eye let
nothing pass unnoticed, when I saw her. My eye fixed itself stead-
fastly upon her, it paid no attention to its master's will. It was
impossible for me to direct its attention to the object I wished to
look at, so I did not look, I stared. Like a fencer who becomes
frozen in his pass, so was my eye fixed, petrified in the one appointed
direction. It was impossible for me to look away, to withdraw
my glance, impossible for me to see because I saw too much" (Diary
of the Seducer, p. 319).12
"En esto pas6 por la calle no un perro, sino una garrida moza,
y tras de sus ojos se fu6 como imantado y sin darse de ello cuenta,
Augusto" (Niebla, chap. I).
Both Johannes and Augusto are troubled by not being able to
remember afterward what she looked like.
"Have I gone blind? Has the inner eye of my soul lost its
power? I have seen her, but it is as if I had seen a heavenly vision
so absolutely has her image again vanished from me. Vainly have
I exerted all the power of my soul to recall this image. If I were to
meet her again, then I should recognize her instantly, even among
a hundred other girls. Now she has fled away, and my soul's eye
vainly seeks to overtake her with its longing" (Diary, p. 319).
1 A. Zubizarreta, Unamuno en su "nivola" (Madrid, 1960), p. 117.
12 All the page references to this work are from the following edition: S. Kier-
kegaard, Either/Or, translated by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson
with revisions and a foreword by Howard A. Johnson (New York, 1959).

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122 Ruth House Webber HR, XXXII (1964)

"^Se borrara su imagen de mi memoria? Pero lc6mo es?

/Como es la dulce Eugenia? ,S61o me acuerdo de unos ojos....
Tengo la sensaci6n del toque de unos ojos .... Mientras yo
divagaba liricamente, unos ojos tiraban dulcemente de mi coraz6n"
(Niebla, chap. I).
Niebla moves more rapidly and is less verbose than the Diary.
Johannes only catches a glimpse of the girl the first time, the second
time he follows her, and then gradually acquires bits of information
about her. In Augusto's case all of this is accomplished in one
episode by means of his interview with the portera. Both lovers
are charmed by the discovery of the loved one's name and delight
in using it.
"So her name is Cordelia. Cordelia! That is a lovely name.
." (Diary, p. 331).
"Cordelia! What a glorious name! I sit at home and practice
repeating it parrot-like. I say: Cordelia, Cordelia, my Cordelia,
my own Cordelia" (Diary, p. 337).
"Mi Eugenia, si, la mia-iba dici6ndose-, . . ." (Niebla,
chap. II).
"Perdoneme, Eugenia, y deje que le d6 familiarmente este dulce
nombre" (Niebla, chap. II).
"iEugenia, Eugenia, Eugenia, mi Eugenia, finalidad de mi vida,
." (Niebla, chap. III).
It subsequently develops that both young ladies have similar
backgrounds.
"Her name is Cordelia Wahl, and she is the daughter of a Navy
captain. He died some years ago and her mother also. . . . She
now lives with an aunt, her father's sister, who resembles her
brother, but who otherwise is a very respectable woman" (Diary,
pp. 332-333).
"-Pues se llama dofia Eugenia Domingo del Arco. . . . Es
soltera y hu6rfana. Vive con unos tios" (Niebla, chap. I). And
it is also her father's sister with whom she lives.
In the novels of both Kierkegaard and Unamuno the would-be
lover has no difficulty in winning over the aunt.
"I have made myself very acceptable to the aunt; she regards
me as a steady reliable man whom it is a pleasure to entertain, not
like some of our fashionable young gentlemen. .. ." (Diary, p. 344).
"Soon will my humble person be seen from a higher standpoint.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 123

I cease to be a person and become a match; yes, a good match,

aunt will say" (Diary, p. 367).
"-Pues, bien, mi sefior don Augusto: pacto cerrado. Us
me parece un excelente sujeto, bien educado, de buena familia,
una renta mas que regular. . . . Nada, nada; desde hoy es u
mi candidato" (Niebla, chap. VI).
From this point on the two narratives diverge. In Diary of
Seducer the seduction progresses exactly as planned from star
finish. Johannes, the scheming Don Juan, quickly supplant
other suitor, meek, good-natured Edward, and becomes engag
Cordelia. He then plays with her like a cat with a mouse a
manipulates her emotions until the seduction is complete
which point he abandons her utterly. Even Unamuno's di
gencies may well have been suggested by Kierkegaard. Aug
is the meek, albeit determined, suitor who undertakes experim
in feminine psychology until the tables are turned upon him a
becomes the victim of the unscrupulous, scheming Eugen
"Rana, rana completa" as Augusto himself said,l3 and it is Aug
who is left abandoned when Eugenia goes off with her lover M
ricio. The role of seducer in Unamuno's work shifts durin
course of the narrative from the man to the woman, and the
expected switch with its even more unexpected outcome
singularly effective novelistic device.14
In addition to these similarities in structure and plot, ther
numerous motifs and images common to both works. In th
troductory pages of the Diary the narrator says in speaki
Johannes:
"His life had been an attempt to realize the task of living
poetically. . . . With a keenly developed talent for discovering the
interesting in life, he had known how to find it, and after finding it,
he constantly reproduced the experience more or less poetically"
(Diary, p. 300).
Augusto writes in his letter to Eugenia:
"Perdoneme la lirica. Yo vivo en perpetua lirica infinitesimal"
(Niebla, chap. II).
13 Niebla, chap. XXVI.
14 In this connection it is interesting to note that Lowrie found in Kierke-
gaard's Journal plans for future studies, among them a Diary of Seducer No. 2
and a study of a female seducer, Diary of a Hetaera. Kierkegaard, Fear and
Trembling, introduction by W. Lowrie, p. xix.

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124 Ruth House Webber HB, xxxII (1964)

The theme of chance plays an important part in both works.

Johannes berates chance at length when he is hoping to catc
glimpse of Cordelia for the second time.
"Accursed Chance! Never have I cursed you because you ha
appeared; I curse you because you do not appear at all . . . un
fathomable being, . . . always incomprehensible, always a rid
. . . Or has the pendulum of the world system stopped, is y
riddle solved, so that you too have hurled yourself into the sea
eternity? . . . Accursed Chance! I await you. ... I will be
your poet" (Diary, pp. 322; 323).
Augusto, however, blesses chance, but in comparable terms.
"Mi Eugenia . . . aparici6n fortuita. . .. .Aparici6n fortuita?
,Y qu6 aparicion no lo es? ,CuAl es la 16gica de las apariciones?
La de la sucesi6n de estas figuras que forman las nubes de humo
del cigarro. El jazar! El azar es el Intimo ritmo del mundo; el
azar es el alma de la poesfa. iAh mi azarosa Eugenia!" (Niebla,
chap. II).
Two motifs which appear independently in Kierkegaard, al-
though in close proximity, are combined and elaborated with great
effectiveness by Unamuno.
". .. it is as if anticipation and memory wove a picture; . . .
It is like a pattern in a fine loom; the pattern is lighter than the
ground; by itself it cannot be seen because it is too light" (Diary,
p. 320).
"0 the street she is on the open sea, everything acts more strongly
upon her, everything seems more mysterious" (Diary, p. 322)'
"Y siguieron los dos, Augusto y Eugenia, en direcciones con-
trarias, cortando con sus almas la enmarafiada telarafia espiritual
de la calle. Porque la calle forma un tejido en que se entrecruzan
miradas de deseo, de envidia, de desd6n, de compasi6n, de amor,
de odio, . .., toda una tela misteriosa que envuelve las almas de
los que pasan" (Niebla, chap. II).16
16 Unamuno in an essay of the year 1915, "Una entrevista con Augusto Perez,"
Obras completas, X, 341-342, speaks of the role of chance in Niebla and says to
Augusto: "-Si, quise hacerte un hijo del azar- le dije-. Como que cuando
te engendraba fantasticamente estaba preocupado por la filosofia del azar y
leyendo a Cournot." It is conceivable that Kierkegaard also knew Antoine
Augustin Cournot (1801-1877), for the latter's major works were apparently
written while he was quite young.
16 The loom image is subsequently re-elaborated by Unamuno in Niebla, at
the end of chap. VII.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 125

One of the most striking of Unamuno's metaphors is that of

currents of the two worlds running in opposite directions
within the other. This idea also could have been suggeste
Kierkegaard, where, however, it is less refined.
"Back of the world in which we live, far in the background,
another world. The relation between the two is not unlike the
relation we sometimes see in the theater between the foresta
scene in the regular acting area and a scrim scene projected behin
it. Through a thin gauze we see, as it were, a world of gauze,
lighter, more ethereal, qualitatively different from the actual worl
(Diary, p. 302).
This is a purely visual image in Kierkegaard while it has more
elements and dimensions in Unamuno.
"Por debajo de esta corriente de nuestra existencia, por dentro
de ella, hay otra corriente en sentido contrario; aquf vamos del ayer
al mafiana; alli se va del mafiana al ayer. Se teje y se desteje a un
tiempo. Y de cuando en cuando nos llegan hAlitos, vahos y hasta
rumores de ese otro mundo, de ese interior de nuestro mundo. Las
entrafias de la Historia son una contrahistoria, es un proceso inverso
al que ella sigue. El rfo subterrineo va del mar a la fuente ....
Alla dentro, muy dentro, en las entrafias de las cosas, se rozan y
friegan la corriente de este mundo con la contraria corriente del
otro, y de este roce y friega viene el m4s triste y el mAs dulce de los
dolores; el de vivir" (Niebla, chap. VII).
When Augusto falls in love with Eugenia, he discovers to his
amazement as he walks along the street that all women are beautiful
and is attracted first by one, then by another. Johannes, the
professional seducer, constantly occupies himself by observing
minutely the actions of as many attractive young women as pos-
sible. These observations fill many pages of the Diary. Compare
the following scenes.
"And now away to life and joy, to youth and beauty; show me
what I have often seen, and what I never weary of seeing, show me
a beautiful young woman, unfold her beauty to me in such a way
that she becomes herself more beautiful; . . .
"There comes a young woman, all stiff and starched; of course,
it is Sunday today. . . . Fan her a little, waft over her the cool air.
. . .How I sense the heightened color of the cheek, the reddening
of the lips, the bosom's lifting. . . . Blow a little stronger, with a
longer sweep! . . .

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126 Ruth House Webber HR, XXXII (1964)

"How bravely and challengingly she looks about in the world.

. . . Can I be mistaken? She hangs on a man's arm, hence she
must be engaged. . . . Oh, so! he seems to be a very substantial
fellow. . . . Blow up a little! . .. When one walks so fast, it is n
wonder the ribbons on her hat stiffen in the wind. . . . There comes
a girl friend who must be greeted. . . . Now blow a little! ...
That's right, throw the silk shawl back over our shoulder; walk
very slowly, that will make the cheek a little paler, and the eyes to
shine not quite so brightly . . ." (Diary, pp. 351-355).
"Un cuerpo de mujer irradiante de frescura, de salud y de alegria,
que pas6 a su vera, le interrumpio el soliloquio y le arrastr6 tras de
si. Pusose a seguir, casi maquinalmente, al cuerpo aquel, mientras
proseguia soliloquizando:
'iY qu6 hermosa es! Esta y aqu6lla, una y otra. . . . Pero iqu6
alegria es esta chiquilla! iY con qu6 gracia saluda a aquel que va
por all&! ,De d6nde habr6 sacado esos ojos? iSon casi como los
otros, como los de Eugenia! iQu6 dulzura debe de ser olvidarse de
la vida y de la muerte entre sus brazos! . . . Pero icuantas mujeres
hermosas hay en este mundo, Dios mio! . . . Pero ique cabellera.
Dios mlo; qu6 cabellera!'
"Era, en efecto, una gloriosa cabellera la de aquella criada de
servicio que con su cesta al brazo cruzaba en aquel momento con el.
Y se volvi6 tras ella. La luz parecia anidar en el oro de aquellos
cabellos, y como si 6stos pugnaran por soltarse de su trenzado y
esparcirse al aire fresco y claro. Y bajo la cabellera, un rostro todo
el sonrisa. ...
"Arranc61e del soliloquio un estallido de goce que parecia
de la serenidad del cielo. Un par de muchachas reian jun
y era su risa como el gorjeo de dos pajaros en una entra
flores. Clav6 un momento sus ojos sedientos de hermosura en
aquella pareja de mozas, y apareci6ronle como un solo cuerpo
germinando. Iban cogidas de bracete. Y a el le entraron furiosas
ganas de detenerlas, coger a cada una de un brazo, e irse asi, en
medio de ellas, mirando al cielo, adonde el viento de la vida los
llevara" (Niebla, chap. X).
While there are few textual similarities between these two
sketches, their similarity of spirit is clearly recognizable. The
are many passages in Kierkegaard, like the one above, based up
selective observation of external reality, which attain an effe

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 127

analogous to that produced by the stream-of-consciousness

nique and could have suggested the latter to Unamuno bef
had become a recognized novelistic device. In fact, one rec
the impression that Unamuno was systematically experime
with narrative techniques in Niebla for one can find a ser
variations upon this device: first, the free association of ideas
stimulated by external reality as Augusto is walking down the
street (chap. I); the recognition of stimulus of external reality upon
his mental processes as Augusto is waking up one morning (chap.
V); the continual interruption of Augusto's train of thought by the
invasion of the external world in the complete version of the passage
quoted above (chap. X); finally, the free association of ideas
without any form of external intervention, such as Augusto's
"monodidlogos" (chap. IV).17
The matter of the novelistic interludes which appear in both
Niebla and the Diary of the Seducer is a more complex problem.
Most of Unamuno's critics in speaking of these interpolations
assume that he is following Cervantes' model in employing narra-
tions extraneous to the story to provide the reader with variety and
a change of pace. Typical among these judgments is that of Julian
Marlas,18 while Carlos Claverfa characterizes them as ". . capi-
tulos de chismografia de cualquier casino provinciano."19 Una-
muno's own words on other occasions, however, describe them
better than do anyone else's: ". . el cuento no es sino un pretexto
para observaciones mas o menos ingeniosas, rasgos de fantasia,
paradojas, etc., etc."20 And again in his prologue to Tres novelas
ejemplares: "Y llamo ejemplares a estas novelas porque las doy
como ejemplo-, asi, como suena-, ejemplo de vida y de reali-
dad."21 These interludes in Niebla are truly exemplary novels as
17 "Monodialogos"-the term used by Unamuno to indicate dialogues held
with all the other people that make up one's self. "Pr6logo" of San Manuel
Bueno, mdrtir y tres historias mds (Madrid, 1933), p. 15.
18 "Adem6s, el afan de Unamuno por crear personajes lo lleva a incluir en el
relato otros menores, dramas brevisimos, que pone en boca de sus criaturas, a
modo de las novelas que Cervantes inserta en el Quijote; no menos de seis en el
escaso volumen de Niebla; algunos . . . son verdaderos relatos aut6nomos, en
que crea Unamuno minimos mundos intimos o de grotesca trivialidad, interpolados
en la nebulosa atm6sfera de la vida de Augusto." Julian Marias, Obras completas,
V (Madrid, 1960), 94-95.
19 Carlos Claveria, Temas de Unamuno (Madrid, 1953), p. 52.
20 Unamuno, Espejo de la muerte (Madrid, 1930), p. 154.
21 Unamuno, Tres novelas ejemplares y un pr6logo (Madrid, 1920), p. 11.

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128 Ruth House Webber HR, XXXII (1964)

Unamuno defines the term as well as in a literal sense. An examina-

tion of the interpolated stories in relation to the surrounding
narrative reveals that they afford illustrative examples from other
people's lives of solutions to problems analogous to those faced by
the characters of Niebla.22
The first interlude of this sort is a brief one (chap. XIII),
Augusto's encounter with don Avito Carrascal of Amor y pedagogia,23
who relates to Augusto the tragic death of his son, as a consequence
of which his wife has become like a mother to him. He advises
Augusto to marry a woman who loves him in order to regain
mother. This offers a solution to Augusto's quandary following
two disturbing interviews, first with Rosario, the laundress, then
with an irate Eugenia, which left him longing for the peace and
quiet affection bestowed upon him by his mother.
In the following chapter Victor Goti reviews for Augusto's
benefit the story of his marriage, long a childless one but now with
an unwanted child in the offing. Victor concludes sardonically
advising Augusto to go ahead and marry the pianist (Eugenia) so
that the same could happen to him. So these first two stories
present to Augusto in his perplexity two concrete examples of the
possible outcome of marriage: the wife as a mother to her husband
and the wife as a mother to his children.
Chapter XV contains the brief episode of don Emeterio narrated
by Eugenia to her aunt to illustrate how brutish men are. The
story of don Elofno Rodriguez de Alburquerque y Alvarez de Castro
comes in Chapter XVII, related by Victor to Augusto, in which the
proud don Eloino marries the boardinghouse keeper in order to
assure himself of continued lodging and care and she in order to
receive his pension at his death, which appears to be imminent.
This ugly tale illustrates how revolting a marriage based on economic

22 Harriet S. Stevens in a study titled "Las novelitas intercaladas en Niebla,"

Insula, no. 170 (1961) discusses the relation of these accounts to the main plot
and says, "Ninguna se inserta por azar o capricho; todas responden a un prop6sito:
iluminan la psicologia del protagonista, anuncian sucesos futuros, subrayan los
pasados o los presentes . . . facilitando la fusi6n entre el mundo real y el ficticio."
This is the best discussion of this aspect of Niebla to date, but she does not always
appreciate, however, the directness and the immediacy of the application to what
has just occurred in the novel.
23 It should be remarked here that Kierkegaard also has his fictional characters
appear in subsequent works. In Stages on Life's Way there reappear many of his
characters and pseudonymous authors.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 129

considerations can be, ironically re-enacting the theme of t

ous scene in which Eugenia urges Mauricio to marry her,
means her continuing to work. Mauricio refuses and declar
to a friend: "Yo naci para que una mujer me mantenga,
dignidad, ,sabes? y si no, inada!" (chap. XVI).
The next interpolation follows the scene of the call of a now
ingratiating Eugenia made upon Augusto, which is interrupted by
the arrival of Rosario at an inopportune moment. At the con-
clusion of these two encounters Augusto doesn't know which of the
two young ladies he loves most and seeks the advice of his servant
Domingo. Domingo cynically tells him to marry both of them,
that it can be done as long as there is enough money to keep both
women happy. The story that follows in Chapter XXI is the
tragedy of a man who had two wives, his legal wife, who deserted
him, and the one he considers his true wife, the mother of his
children. The tale of the pyrotechnist, blinded by an explosion,
who was ignorant of the fact that his wife's beauty had been de-
stroyed at the same time illustrates Victor's preceding remark to the
effect that he found his wife more attractive than ever after the
birth of their son even though everyone else said that she had been
left disfigured (chap. XXII).
When Augusto goes to visit Antolln S. Paparrig6pulos to seek
help for his project of studying feminine psychology, we have the
last of these interpolations in the description of this scholar's life
and ideas. The figure of Paparrig6pulos, related to that of don
Fulgencio Entrambosmares of Amor y pedagogia and of the same
cast as Professor Teufelsdrochk of Carlyle's Sartor Resartus,24 is a
violent diatribe on Spanish scholarship with all the pointed vehe-
mence of a topical allusion. Juan L6pez-Morillas in his admirable
study of this episode finds it inopportune and a curious anachronism
as far as Unamuno's literary development is concerned.25 L6pez-
24 Carlos Claveria in his Temas de Unamuno, pp. 9-58, has studied the influence
of Carlyle upon Unamuno, which he feels to be extensive. He relates both
Paparrig6pulos and the characters of Amor y pedagogia to Sartor Resartus but
not specifically to the figure of Professor Teufelsdrochk, whereas Geoffrey Ribbans
relates Teufelsdrochk to Entrambosmares but not to Paparrig6pulos in "The
Development of Unamuno's novels Amor y pedagogia and Niebla," Hispanic
Studies in honour of I. Gonzdlez Llubera (London, 1959), p. 273.
25Juan L6pez-Morillas, "Unamuno y sus criaturas: 'Antolin S. Paparrig6-
pulos,' Cuadernos americanos, VII (no. 4, 1948), 249, and Intelectuales y espiri-
tuales (Madrid, 1961), p. 37.

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 130 Ruthz House Webber HR, XXXII (1964)

Morillas' hypothesis that it was conceived of and written years

earlier is convincing for there are many examples of Unamuno's
having reused in a new setting material which had been written
and published previously.26 Nevertheless, the Paparrig6pulos
interlude is necessary to the plot of Niebla even though it is not
exemplary in the same way as are the other interpolations. Despite
its prolixity, it performs a double function: to warn Augusto against
his avowed intent to carry out experiments in feminine psychology,
which is to be his undoing, and, more important, to provide, in
Augusto's seeking advice of an authority, a precedent by which to
establish the logic of Augusto's subsequent action in going to
Salamanca to consult with Unamuno concerning the proposition of
suicide (chap. XXXI).
Critics' reluctance to accept these interpolations as an organic
part of a carefully thought-out plan in a tightly constructed work is
perhaps the result of their having been misled by Unamuno's
declared intention of becoming an "escritor vivlparo"27 together with
the nivola discussion (chap. XVII) and the sub-titling of Niebla as
a nivola-a novel without plan that develops as it goes along.28
That this was the effect Unamuno intended to create and that he
was eminently successful in creating it is undeniable, but that this
was the process of composition is quite a different matter.
The use of this device of novelistic interludes corresponds to the
26 One example of this in Niebla which readily comes to mind is the nihil
volitum quin praecognitum versus nihil cognitum quin praevolitum discussion which
appeared in an earlier essay, "Almas de j6venes," Obras completas, III, 535 as
well as in Del sentimiento trdgico de la vida (Madrid, 1913), pp. 115, 138. Luis
Farre also commented upon this passage in the essay and related it to William
James in "Unamuno, William James y Kierkegaard," Cuadernos hispanoameri-
canos, no. 57 (1954), 296.
27 "Y de esto es precisamente de lo que quiero escribir aqui, de esto de ponerse
uno a escribir una cosa sin saber a d6nde ha de ir a parar, descubriendo terreno
segfin marcha, y cambiando de rumbo a medida que cambian las vistas que se
abren a los ojos del espiritu. Esto es caminar sin plan previo, y dejando que el
plan surja. Y es lo mas orgAnico, pues lo otro es mecanico; es lo m6s espontatneo.
Yo he sido casi siempre escritor oviparo, y s61lo desde hace algfin tiempo me
ha entrado la comez6n de convertirme en escritor viviparo." "A lo que salga,"
Obras completas, III, 528. For a further discussion of this matter, see L6pez-
Morillas, Cuadernos americanos, VII, 234-249, and Intelectuales y espirituales,
pp. 11-39.
28 Typical of such opinions is that of Ribbans: "Niebla is a novel written
allegedly without premeditation, as is brought out explicitly in the discussion of
Victor's nivola . . ." Hispanic Studies in honour of Gonzdlez Llubera, p. 283.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 131

period in which Kierkegaard's influence upon Unamuno was

strongest.29 In the Diary of the Seducer there are eleven such
novelistic interpolations of varying length. In the opening pages
the purported editor refers to them as follows: "In addition to the
complete revelation of his relationship with Cordelia, the Diary also
contained, interspersed here and there, several occasional sketches.
. . . These sketches have absolutely nothing to do with Cordelia's
story, but they have given me a vivid conception of the meaning of
an expression he often used, which I formerly understood in a
different way: 'One ought always to have a little extra line out.'
Had an earlier volume of the Diary fallen into my hands, I should
probably have come across a number of these, which he somewhere
on the margin characterized as actiones in distans; . . ." (Diary,
p. 307). Although they are separate entries in the diary and,
indeed, appear to have no direct connection with the seduction,
nevertheless these sketches of other young ladies and other couples
in love fill out the portrait of the seducer and parallel Cordelia's
story, with the frequency and length of the interludes in inverse
proportion to the pace and tension of the narrative. Again the
total effect is one of casualness, the deceptive casualness which is
the result of a carefully contrived plan.30 In "Quidam's Diary" of
Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way, also based on the unhappy
experience of his engagement to Regina, there are six novelistic epi-
sodes interpolated. Lowrie calls them "autobiographic enigma."31
Like Unamuno's interpolations they appear to have no relation to
the narrative, but in reality they have an important one. It should
be noted that this work also was referred to by Unamuno in this
essay Ibsen y Kierkegaard.
Nor is it necessary to restrict other aspects of this comparison
with Niebla to a consideration of Either/Or. Whichever work of

29 Abel Sdnchez is the only other novel by Unamuno in which this device is
used in the same way, but the episodes are fewer and shorter and less vital to the
narrative except for the story of the aragones in Chapter XXIII, which is essenti
because it suggests to Joaquin that under certain conditions the killing of a
brother is justified.
30 Lowrie, Kierkegaari, p. 242, encountered the following passage in Kier-
kegaard's Journal: "The fact that there is a plan in Either/Or which stretches
from the first word to the last, likely never occurred to anybody, since the Preface
treats the whole thing jestingly. . . ." This could just have well been said by
Unamuno in relation to Niebla.
31 S. Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, translated by Walter Lowrie (Prince-
ton, 1945), p. 236, note 50, and Lowrie, Kierkegaard, pp. 132; 284.

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132 Ruth House Webber HR, XXXII (1964)

the Danish master one picks up, suggestive passages meet

eye. There is an entry in Kierkegaard's diary describing his
proposal to Regina32 which is reminiscent of the occasion when
Eugenia accepted Augusto (chap. XXVI). In Repetition there is a
passage in which the Silent Confidant is trying to help his young
friend break his engagement and finds a pretty young seamstress
to form the triangle who recalls Rosario, the delightful little laun-
dress of Niebla.33 This also suggests that Unamuno's recurring
tendency to novelize himself may have had its origin in Kierkegaard,
or at least Kierkegaard's model encouraged him to develop an idea
which had already occurred to him. The author's breaking into the
story to address the reader is also found in Kierkegaard, at the end
of "The Banquet" in Stages on Life's Way, though with a different
spirit from Unamuno's god-like intervention in Niebla (chap. XXV).
So it is that in a period in which Unamuno read Kierkegaard
avidly and felt in him a kindred spirit, it appears likely that not
only in his philosophical development is the Danish genius' influence
perceptible, but also in the realm of literary technique Kierkegaard's
ideas and innovations stimulated Unamuno to experiment in
novelistic form. Furthermore, it is even possible that it was
Kierkegaard who suggested the basic idea of Niebla to Unamuno.
In the appendix of Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the work of
Kierkegaard which had most influence upon Unamuno's thought,
according to Julian Marias,34 Johannes Climacus discusses con-
temporary Danish literature and describes Either/Or as follows:

"The first part represents an existential possibility which cannot

win through to existence, a melancholy that needs to be ethically
worked up. ... It is an imagination-existence in aesthetic passion,
and therefore paradoxical, colliding with time; it is its maximum
despair; it is therefore not existence; but an existential possibility
tending toward existence, and brought so close to it that you feel
how every moment is wasted as long as it has not yet come to a
decision. But the existential possibility in the existing "A" refuses
to become aware of this, and keeps existence away by the most
32 The Diary of S#ren Kierkegaard, translated from the Danish by Gerda M.
Andersen, edited by Peter P. Rohde (New York, 1960), no. 51, pp. 36-37.
33 S. Kierkegaard, Repetition. An Essay in Experimental Psychology, trans-
lated with Introduction and Notes by Walter Lowrie (Princeton, 1946), pp. 25-26.
Even the title of this work is suggestive as far as Niebla is concerned.
4 Julian Marias, Obras completas, V, 33, note 5.

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 Unamuno's "Niebla" 133

subtle of all deceptions, by thinking; he has thought e

possible, and yet he has not existed at all ...
"The second part represents an ethical individual exi
virtue of the ethical ... ; he is a husband . . . , and concen-
trated himself, precisely in opposition to the concealment of the
aesthetic, upon marriage as the deepest form of life's revelation, by
which time is taken into the service of the ethically existing indi-
vidual, and the possibility of gaining a history becomes the ethical
victory of continuity over concealment, melancholy, illusory passion,
and despair. Through phantom-like images of the mist, through
the distractions of an abundant thought-content, . . . we win
through to an entirely individual human being, existing in the
strength of the ethical .. ."35
If one disregards the separation into two parts as representing
two different individuals, the foregoing description would apply
equally well to Niebla: the Augusto who existed in thought only
represents the first part, and the Augusto who sought love and
marriage in order to break through the spiritual fog and gain an
existence, the second part. Unamuno had already elaborated the
idea of niebla espiritual in an essay of 1904, A lo que salga.3 It was
perhaps the juxtaposition of these two ideas in Kierkegaard that
suggested to Unamuno the idea for his hero, Augusto P6rez, and
the form which the novelization should take.
In this same work of Kierkegaard's we find in a final section
entitled "A First and Last Declaration" another significant passage
in which he elucidates his own elaborate system of pseudonyms:
"My pseudonmity or polynymity has not had a casual ground
in my person . . . , but it has an essential ground in the character
of the production, which for the sake of the lines ascribed to the
authors and the psychologically varied distinctions of the indi-
vidualities poetically required complete regardlessness in the direc-
tion of good and evil, of contrition and high spirits, of despair and
presumption, of suffering and exultation, etc., which is bounded
only ideally by psychological consistency, and which real actual
persons in the actual moral limitations of reality dare not permit
themselves to indulge in, nor could wish to. What is written
3 Kierkegaard's 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript,' translated from the
Danish by David F. Swenson, with Introduction and Notes by Walter Lowrie
(Princeton, 1944), pp. 226-227.
36 Unamuno, Obras completas, III, 533-534.

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134 Ruth House Webber HR, xxxII (1964)

therefore is in fact mine, but only in so far as I put into the mou
of the poetically actual individuality whom I produced, his life-vi
expressed in audible lines. For my relation is even more exter
than that of a poet, who poetizes characters, and yet in the prefa
is himself the author. For I am impersonal, or am impersonal in t
second person, a souffleur who has poetically produced the author
whose preface in turn is their own production, as are even their o
names. So in the pseudonymous works there is not a single word
which is mine, I have no opinion about these works except as th
person, no knowledge of their meaning except as a reader, not t
remotest private relation to them, since such a thing is impossi
in the case of a doubly reflected communication."37
Here we have a precedent for, not only Victor Goti, a characte
in Niebla who is also the book's prologuizer, but also for the mo
fundamental idea which pervades all of Unamuno's work, that of t
independent life of an author's creations.38
The last two instances serve to point up the nature of th
relationship between these two geniuses. Unamuno can never
called an imitator. It is rather than the two men were remarkab
alike in their ideas and in the way their minds functioned. U
muno became completely imbued with Kierkegaard and was great
stimulated by him. Unamuno encountered in the Danish phil
osopher ideas analogous to his own, he found concrete exemplifi
tion in novelistic form of the sort of figures he wanted to crea
and he found new vehicles for the expression of his own ideas.3
So it is that the models of Kierkegaard in this period provid
number of threads, to borrow one of Unamuno's favorite metapho
which appear woven into the infinitely rich fabric of Unamuno
creation.
RUTH HOUSE WEBBER
The University of Chicago
37 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 551.
38 Claveria, Temas de Unamuno, pp. 43-45 attributes this idea to the influence
of Carlyle. Mesnard and Ricard, La Vie Intellectuelle (February, 1946), p. 119,
are the only ones who identify what they call ". .. le fameux 'pirandellisme'
expose dans Niebla et dans les Trois nouvelles exemplaires . ." with the foregoing
passage from Kierkegaard.
39 Joan Estelrich, "Kierkegaard, Unamuno," La gaceta literaria (March 15,
1930), p. 11, summed up Kierkegaard's philosophical influence in a similar way:
"Unamuno, uero, no es un imitador; sin6 que pren impuls del punt on deixa
Kierkegaard el problema per a llan?ar-se mes enlla . . . o potser mes enca."

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