I now know the connection between Dr. Urbino and the rest of the story! Remember that arranged marriage that Fermina's father had set up for her? Well he's the lucky guy. But this chapter is written in retrospect so we'll start from the beginning.

So a young Dr. Urbino just stepped off the boat from Paris where he had continued his studies in medicine and surgery. Handsome-looking guy, had all the chicks drooling over him too. He comes back to his hometown, to find it in shambles. His father had died from cholera, which if you don't know what that is, because I sure don't, it's an illness caused by bacteria that infects the intestinal system of the body. So anyways, his father had died of that when he was in Paris. Anyways he comes back home and makes his daily rounds to his patients. He then paid a house visit to take Fermina's pulse one day, kind of like a check-up. He then gave her a compliment and when Fermina heard her friends giggle, she got angry and slammed the door in his face. Her father had heard what happened so he made her apologize to Dr. Urbino and invited him in for a drink. He would talk about his daughter, showing her off and basically trying to fix them two up. But Fermina was still devastated because this was after all that had happened with Florentino; she was still grieving. However, the arranged marriage was set. When Floretino heard the news of Fermina engaged to a doctor, he was devastated, in fact so devastated that he began to sleep with a widow for 6 months.


So now, we know what chapter one is all about. But I still want to know why Dr. Urbino had killed himself.. was it because of Fermina or something else?