199 entre su posición real y la artificial que se había creado con amistades de chicos pudientes‖ (desheredada 192). We see why Galdós had Rufete name Madrid Envidiópolis, the city of avarice and envy, and why he as narrator mockingly editorializes on the unkind indifference of economic inequality, ―es cruel eso de que todos seamos distintos por la fortuna.‖ (desheredada 192)
Isidora‘s wishful thinking develops new levels of intensity when she sees and mentally appropriates the interior of the Aransis mansion, declaring, ―todo es mìo,‖ and spends the following night in a hypomanic state, which Galdós portrays in an extended interior monologue, imagining herself warmly recieved by the marquesa and inheritor of all that she has seen. Galdós gives us an idea of the vividness of Isidora‘s imagination and its tenuous relation to reality. Having enabled us to draw a parallel with Melchor, the narrator goes on to show us, in a direct address to the reader, that Joaquín Pez is a bird of the same feather and, as a spendthrift seducer of women, ―su vicio era todavìa un vicio del corazón, intervenido con la fantasia‖ (desheredada 229); another madrileño dominated by his imagination, ―con fantasmagorìas y esfuerzos de iluminismo‖324 (desheredada 230).
That Isidora is not alone in her madness is emphasized even further on the arrival of Christmas when Galdós, as extradiegetic narrator, describes Madrid as un manicomio suelto, which might be taken humorously were it not that he continues with biting criticism, ―todo lo que es espiritual, moral y delicado, todo lo que es del
Iluminismo: the amoral philandering of Pez is peculiarly well expressed by this reference to the beliefs of the Iluminados, ―individuo[s] de una secta herética‖ who, ―pretendìa establecer un sistema moral contrario al orden existente en religión, propiedad y familia‖ (DRAE 21ª ed. 1992). 324