Reading Adolphe Belot in Spain: <i>La Bouche de Madame X***</i> in Andrés Pérez de la Greda's <i>Cabeza de mujer</i>

Abstract This essay focuses on Andrés Pérez de la Greda's Cabeza de mujer (1892), an adultery novel in the tradition of Madame Bovary, in which the heroine Leonor reads Adolphe Belot's La Bouche de Madame X*** (1882), an erotic novel about a dandy obsessed with the mouth of a noblewoman he has encountered in a brothel. In the Spanish text, Leonor reimagines this plot from the perspective of the woman, converting it into the story of an unhappy wife whose situation mirrors her own. The essay begins by showing how Belot's novel anticipates the possibility of a female reader and imagines her reactions. It then analyzes Leonor's response to the novel. Although she retells the story in her own image, she is capable of critical distance and ultimately distinguishes herself from Madame X. Unlike classic Bovaresque adulteresses, who look down on their surroundings because they identify with an idealized heroine, Leonor feels herself to be superior to her fictional analogue. The final section examines the extent to which the subsequent plot confirms this hypothesis of difference and how the author adapts the risqué French tale to a Spanish context in such a way as to avoid its trivialization of adultery.