Charito Pérez

Charito Pérez, known among the asylum’s nickname-givers as La Duquesa de Pitiminí, is an older patient whose recurring manic psychosis can make her seem almost unrecognizable from one phase of illness to another. Her story links a vivid public crisis to the quieter work of recovery, while the history of her relapses makes clear that improvement does not mean the illness has ended.

Identity and Background

Charito is unmarried. In her youth she worked as a governess to children, and later she earned her living as a companion to elderly people. Her nickname belongs to the asylum’s informal culture of naming residents, but the account also supplies her real name and a specific history beyond the grandiose persona associated with her crisis.

Her diagnosis is manic psychosis. The episodes tend to recur in spring and summer, and her first psychotic manifestation came unusually late, at the age of sixty-one. Four years passed before the second episode; the next interval was two years, and subsequent outbreaks became more frequent. Doctor César Arellano fears that, given her age, the pattern may eventually lead to a further deterioration, although the surviving account does not specify its outcome.

Episodes and Recovery

During a crisis, Charito caused an uproar in the dining room and was placed in a special unit with other patients undergoing acute episodes. The nickname La Duquesa de Pitiminí evokes the grandiose identity attached to her behavior, but the narrative distinguishes that disturbance from her conduct when the crisis recedes.

As her episode subsides, she is described as markedly improved: an older, polite woman, formerly a governess and companion, with little inclination toward commotion. Alice Gould sees the contrast between this composed figure and the spectacle Charito had made in the dining room only days earlier. In a later conversation, Alice notices that the symptoms associated with the recent madness are present in Charito’s speech, suggesting that outward calm and the course of the illness do not necessarily coincide neatly.

Relationships and Narrative Role

Charito’s account is defined less by a sustained personal relationship than by the way other residents and staff observe her changing condition. The nickname places her within the asylum’s social world, while Doctor Arellano’s concern gives her recurring episodes a clinical dimension. Together, those views resist treating the nickname as a complete portrait of the person.

Her change from dining-room disturbance to courteous calm makes her a concrete example of the difference between a patient in crisis and the person visible as symptoms ease. Through Alice Gould’s attention to that contrast, Charito’s presence also supports a guarded sense of hope: the hospital’s distressing scenes are not all equally fixed or final, even when relapse remains a real possibility.