The Illusions of Doctor Faustino

Juan Valera — Spanish writer, diplomat, and philosopher. He spent six months in St. Petersburg due to his diplomatic duties. Thus appeared his «Letters from Russia». In them, Juan Valera captured humorous sketches of Petersburg life, diplomatic news, and his thoughts on the development of Russian literature from chronicles to Pushkin and Gogol. He is also linked to Russian literature by Western European critics who called him the «Spanish Turgenev».

Even the title of the novel — «The Illusions of Doctor Faustino» — refers to the famous «Faust» by Goethe and hints at the «lost illusions» in the works of Balzac and Flaubert. But Doctor Faustino is more of a miniature Faust. The character created by Juan Valera is not endowed with extraordinary abilities, he is not visited by the devil, nor offered immortality. Don Faustino Lopez de Mendoza is a impoverished aristocrat who is consumed by destructive illusions. He graduates from university, receives his doctorate, and tries to find his place in life. He believes that as soon as he moves to Madrid, he will immediately become an outstanding philosopher, poet, or politician.
At the same time, Doctor Faustino aspires to ideal love, for which he is ready to sell his soul to the devil. Don Faustino seeks it in the image of his cousin Constantia, the daughter of the notary Rosita and the Eternal Companion — a mysterious stranger who watches him invisibly. Juan Valera dismantles the principles of romanticism and allows the ideal to be realized. It's just that the illusions shatter into pieces, and without them, ideal love fades.