Cathegory: Books Subcathegory: Classic literature. Title: Fortunata and Jacinta – A store of two married women Autor: Benito Pérez Galdós According to Pérez Galdós: “ The human science is the one we learn from typed books as well as the one that walks, talks and eats in those living texts that we call persons.” Fortunata and Jacinta, two rivals sharing the same man, one as the legal spouse and the other playing the part of the lover, shows us the contrast of two different
social classes in the XIXcentury Spain. Fortunata Izquierdo, the poor one, social paradigm of the masses&
acute;simplicity and innocence, has been cheated by a rich man, Juan Santa Cruz, “Juanito”, who had promised her
marriage knowing that it was something he would never do. Juanito Santa Cruz, the frivolous and petulant lawyer born to enjoy the pleasures of life and in love just with himself, recognises that he deserves contempt and anger from his wife, Jacinta Arnáiz, and pretends that Fortunata is in the past, that there is nothing that unites him with that woman. But Jacinta, who was eager to have children, has the news about the existence of a child who was supposed to be Fortunata and Juanito´s son. Extremely tactful, Juanito declares that the boy had died long befote Time passes calmly for the couple until he hears that Fortunata is in Madrid. All the passion that he
thought vanished came back so strongly that he begins to seek her desperately and gets sick altogether. In those days, Fortunata meets Maximiliano Rubin, a shy and ill- favoured pharmacy student who falls in love with her as soon as he knows her. She does not feel the same but accepts his protection and marriage proposal. Maximiliano faces a confrontation with his aunt, the widow and money lender Doña Lupe, who had heard about Fortunata´s bad reputation and does not agree with the relationship. But Maximiliano´s resolution to redeem Fortunata and his love for her make him feel so invincible that he sees well what Nicolás, a priest and one of his brothers, had planned to prove the woman´s decision of change: she would spend a period of time with the Micaelas, a religious order of catholic nuns that would help her improve her character. During the enclosure Fortunata meets Mauricia la Dura, ( Mauritia the Hard One), an alcoholic woman who tells her about Juanito and his still vivid interest in her. Fortunata despises the chance but Juanito manages to find her and, in spite of her marriage, they live a short romance until Maximiliano discovers the situation and all the family condemns her attitude. Fortunata leaves home. Politically, those were days of change for Spain. The Restoration took place and King Alfonso XII enters triumphally in Madrid. That very day Jacinta knows her husband´s love affaire and demands him to stop it. Meanwhile, the anarquist Juan Pablo Rubin, Maximiliano´s second brother, was sent to prison and, after being released, he gets a job thanks to Colonel Don Evaristo Feijóo, a retired and confirmed sixty-nine-year-old bachelor who falls in love with Fortunata and becomes her lover and councelor He persuades her about the convenience of coming back to Maximiliano, and helps her with some bank shares and cash. Also, he touches certain influences and gets a
canonry for Nicolás, the priest; a whole mise-en scène to ease Fortunata´s reappearance to the family. Everything seemd to go on normally, when Maximiliano begins to develop a taste for metaphysical matters, which increases his
misanthropy and suspicion about his wife´s behaviour. Those were not unreal feelings as Fortunata and Juanito had renewed their relationship. Maximiliano announces that he had received a sort of revelation that the Son of the Pure Thought was to come, and Fortunata was carrying this future Mesiah. The pregnancy caused a new rejection and she has to move to her aunt´s home. Some days after the baby is born Maximiliano, who had temporarily recovered his mind and seemed calm and reasonable, visits Fortunata and tells her that Juanito was having an affaire with another woman. She blows up in fury and rushes to give the woman a beating. As a consequence of such an effort, Fortunata weakens and, feeling the death coming, decides to give her baby to Jacinta, who accepts the son but repels the father, her husband. Maximiliano realises that everything that had happened has been Mother Nature´s decision, and in his madness of love, decides to retire himself to a mental hospital.
More reviews about the Fortunata and Jacinta - A story of two married women