Who She Is
Wife of the deputy Teófilo, mother of little Nuno and cousin of Carlos Maria. She acts out of pity and a taste for command: she arranges her cousin's marriage to Maria Benedita and, later, is the only one moved by the madness of Rubião. The book places her as the counterpoint to Sofia.
Trajectory
With the Alagoas commission, she becomes friends with Maria Benedita and decides to marry her to her cousin; only afterward does she pry the nameless confession from her, at the country house: the young woman loves as one loves God (chapter CXVIII).
Gosto dele, como gosto de Deus, que está no Céu, I love him as I love God, who is in Heaven
On leaving Mass, she tells her cousin that someone adores him in secret and, finally, that it is Maria Benedita (chapter CXX); she sees the newlyweds off on the packet boat, without crying, glad to see them happy (chapter CXXIV).
She asks why no one is treating Rubião (chapter CLVIII) and thinks he may recover (chapter CLXIV). Dr. Falcão examines him at her request and, from the delirium, concludes that he and Sofia loved each other; Rubião's suspicion turns against her (chapter CLXVII, chapter CLXVIII). Rubião does not go up to her house, because the servant says he is ill, but the one who arrives downcast is Teófilo, left out of the new Ministry (chapter CLXXIV); she leads him from fury to hope without contradicting him, proposing a trip to Europe, which he refuses (chapter CLXXV). She stays in Rio with her son, separated from her husband for four months, and promises to dust his books (chapter CLXXVIII).
Rubião, interned, asks for the dog to be sent to him, and she, to fulfill the request, seeks out Sofia (chapter CLXXXVII); in the abandoned house on Rua do Príncipe she is moved by the thin dog (chapter CLXXXVIII). She rushes to Tijuca after Maria Benedita gives birth and forgets Rubião for a time (chapter CXC), and when he disappears she gets her husband to ask the police for a search (chapter CXCIII).
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through her are Desire and Ambition.
Dona Fernanda undoes the poetry in the name of marriage: a husband, even a bad one, is worth more than the dream. She acts out of pity and a taste for command, and the book places her beside Sofia as the other way a woman can wield domestic power, with the difference that she looks the thin dog in the eyes.
Relationships
- Maria Benedita: the protégée whose secret she pries out.
- Carlos Maria: the cousin she convinces to marry.
- Rubião: the man she wants to see treated.
- Sofia: the woman she seeks out at Rubião's request and who barely conceals her disgust.