BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
"The main plot concerns two unhappily married Spanish women of different classes. Fortunata is the working-class wife of Maxi Rubín and the mistress of Juanito Santa Cruz, a self-indulgent Madrileño (citizen of Madrid). Middle-class Jacinta is Santa Cruzs wife. Ironically, Fortunata bears Santa Cruz's children out of wedlock but is childless with her husband; the marriage of Jacinta and Santa Cruz is similarly barren. After sundry vicissitudes, now on her deathbed, Fortunata sends her newborn child to Jacinta." -