‘Come, come, counsellor, you’re beginning to talk in verse.’
‘All men should have their lyrical side – without it, they’re not men. I’m not saying it should surface all the time, or for just any reason; but now and then, for some particular memory … Do you know why I sound like a poet, in spite of my grey hairs and my lawyer’s training? It’s because we’re walking along here by Glória, by the foreign ministry … There’s the famous hill … Just ahead there, there’s a house …’
‘Let’s walk on.’
‘Let’s go … Divine Quintilia! All these faces passing by have changed, but they speak to me of that time, as if they were just the same; it’s that lyrical side again, and my imagination does the rest. Divine Quintilia!’
‘Was that her name? When I was a medical student, I knew a lovely girl called that, though only by sight. They said she was the most beautiful girl in town.’
‘It’ll be the same one, because she had that reputation. Tall and thin, was she?’
‘That’s the one. What became of her?’
‘She died in 1859. The twentieth of April. I’ll never forget the day. I’ll tell you what I think is an interesting story, and I think you’ll find it interesting too. Look, that’s the house … She lived with an uncle, a retired naval commander; she had another house in Cosme Velho. When I met Quintilia … How old do you think she was when I met her?’
‘If it was in 1855 …’
‘It was.’
‘She must have been twenty.’
‘She was thirty.’
‘Thirty?’
‘Thirty. She didn’t look it, but it wasn’t just said by some rival. She admitted to it herself, even insisted on it. In point of fact, one of her friends said that Quintilia was no older than twenty-seven; but since both of them were born on the same day, she said it to make herself look younger.’
‘Now, now, less of the irony; you can’t be ironic and nostalgic.’
‘What is nostalgia but an irony of time and fortune? There you are; I’m beginning to sound pompous. Thirty; but she really didn’t look it. Remember too that she was tall and thin; as I used to say back then, she had eyes that seemed as if they’d just been plucked from the night sky, but though they were dark, they had no mysteries, no depths. Her voice was very soft, with a bit of a São Paulo accent, and an ample mouth; she only had to talk, and her teeth made it seem she was laughing. She laughed, too, and it was her laughter, together with her eyes, that caused me a great deal of pain for a long while.’
‘But if her eyes had no mysteries …’
‘It’s true; so much so that I thought they were the open doors to the castle, and her laughter the clarion summoning the knights to combat. We already knew her, my colleague João Nóbrega and I, when we were both beginning our careers and were very close friends; but it never occurred to us to woo her. She was on the top rung; she was beautiful, rich, elegant and a member of high society. But one day, in the old Pedro II theatre, between two acts of I Puritani,1 when I was in the corridor, I heard a group of young men talking about her, referring to her as an impregnable fortress. Two of them confessed they’d tried something on, but had got nowhere; and all of them were amazed by the girl’s aloofness, for which they could find no explanation. And they joked about it: one said that it was a vow, and she wanted to see if she could get fat first; another that she was waiting for her uncle’s second childhood so she could marry him; another that she’d probably had a guardian angel specially sent from heaven – childish comments that annoyed me a good deal. Coming from people who admitted they’d wooed her or fallen for her, I thought they were appalling. What they did all agree on was that she was extraordinarily beautiful; on that point, they were enthusiastic and sincere.’
‘Oh! I can still remember! … She was very pretty.’
‘The next day, when I got to the office, in between two of our non-existent cases, I told Nóbrega what I’d heard the day before. Nóbrega laughed, went thoughtful, paced around a bit and stopped in front of me, silently staring. “I bet you’re in love with her?” I asked. “No,” he said, “nor you? I’ve had an idea: let’s see if we can take the fortress. What have we got to lose? Nothing; either she sends us packing, as is only to be expected, or she accepts one of us, and all the better for the loser, who’ll see his friend happy.” “Are you serious?” “Very.” Nóbrega added that it wasn’t just her beauty that made her attractive. It’s as well to say that he prided himself on being the practical sort, but in fact he was a dreamer who spent all his time reading and constructing social and political systems. In his opinion, what those lads in the theatre had avoided mentioning was the girl’s wealth, which was one of her charms, and one of the probable causes of the distress some suffered, and the sarcasm they all dispensed. He said: “Listen, money isn’t everything, but you can’t ignore it; we shouldn’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, but we should admit it provides something – quite a lot, in fact: this watch, for example. Let’s fight for our Quintilia, mine or yours, but probably mine, because I’m the more handsome of the two.”’
‘Counsellor, this is a serious thing to confess to; was this the way it began, just a joke …?’
‘Just a joke; like a couple of foolish students, we entered on such an important matter – it might have ended in nothing, but it had consequences. It was a silly beginning, like a children’s game, with nothing sincere about it; but man proposes and the species disposes. We knew her, though we’d not met her often; once we’d started on this common enterprise, a new element came into our life, and in a month we’d fallen out.’
‘Fallen out?’
‘Or almost. We hadn’t reckoned on her, and she cast a powerful spell on us. Within a few weeks we hardly mentioned Quintilia, and then it was with indifference; we were trying to dupe one another, and hide what we were feeling. That was how our friendship collapsed, after six months, with no hatred or quarrels, nothing overtly said, because we still spoke to each other, when we met accidentally; but we had separate offices.’
‘I’m beginning to see the beginnings of a drama …’
‘Tragedy, rather, call it a tragedy; because a little time later, either because she had told him to desist, or because he gave up hope, Nóbrega left the field to me. He got himself appointed as a judge in a small town in the backlands of Bahia, where he pined away and died before he was forty. And I swear to you it wasn’t Nóbrega’s vaunted practical sense that separated us; he, who used to talk so much about the importance of having money, died of love like Werther.’
‘Without the pistol.’
‘Poison kills too; and love for Quintilia could be said to be something like that; it killed him, and still gives me pain … But I see I’m getting on your nerves …’
‘Not for the world. No, I swear to you; it was just a stupid wisecrack. Go on, Counsellor; you were alone in the field.’
‘Quintilia never left anyone alone in the field – not that it was her doing; others answered for that. Many came to drink a hopeful little aperitif, and then went off to dine elsewhere. She showed no particular favours to anyone; but she was affable, charming, and her eyes had a liquid quality about them not made for the jealous among us. I was bitterly, sometimes violently jealous. I thought every mote a beam, and every beam the devil incarnate. In the end, I got used to the idea that they only lasted a day or two. Others gave me more cause for alarm; they were the ones introduced by lady friends. I think these led to one or two attempts at negotiation, but nothing came of it. Quintilia said she would do nothing without consulting her uncle, and the uncle advised refusal – something she knew would happen. The good old fellow never liked men visiting, out of fear his niece would choose one and marry. He was so used to having her by him; it was as if he needed a crutch for his soul, and was afraid of losing her altogether.’
‘Maybe that was the cause of the girl’s systematic coldness?’
‘You’ll see not.’
‘What I can see is that you were more stubborn than the rest …’
‘… Deluded, at first, because in the midst of so many failed candidates, Quintilia preferred me to all other men, and spoke to me more openly and intimately, so much so that the rumour got around that we were to be married.’
‘But what did you talk about?’
‘About everything she didn’t talk to others about; and it was astonishing how a person who loved balls and excursions, waltzing and laughing, was so serious and earnest with me, so different from what she was, or seemed to be.’
‘It’s obvious why: she found your conversation less trivial than that of other men.’
‘Thank you; the cause of the difference was deeper than that, and it grew over time. When life here in town got on her nerves she went up to Cosme Velho, and there our conversations became longer and more frequent. I can’t tell you – you wouldn’t understand anyway – what the hours I spent there were like; all the life bursting out of her blended into mine. Often I wanted to tell her what I felt, but the words took fright and stayed in my heart. I wrote one letter after another; all of them seemed cold, wordy or pompous. What’s more, she never gave any opening; she seemed like an old friend. At the beginning of 1857 my father fell ill in Itaboraí; I hurried to his bedside, and found him dying. This kept me away from Rio for some four months. I came back around the end of May. When I visited Quintilia, she seemed affected by my sadness, and I saw clearly that my mourning had migrated to her eyes …’
‘But surely that could only be love?’
‘That’s what I thought, and I organised my effects as if to marry her. At that point, her uncle fell seriously ill. Quintilia wouldn’t be left alone if he died, because, as well as a lot of other relatives she had here and there, there was a cousin living with her now, in the Catete house, Dona Ana, a widow; still, it is true that her principal companion would no longer be there, and in this transition from the present life to the future, I might get what I wanted. The uncle’s illness was short; old age contributed, and it took him in a space of two weeks. I can tell you that his death reminded me of my father’s, and I felt almost the same grief. Quintilia saw my suffering, understood the double cause, and, so she told me later, she was glad of the coincidence, since it had to happen anyway, and it happened quickly. These words seemed to me like an invitation to marriage; two months later I decided to ask for her hand. Dona Ana was now living with her, and they were up in Cosme Velho. I went there, and found them both on the terrace, which was close to the mountain. It was four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Dona Ana, who thought we were in love, left the field open.’
‘At last!’
‘The terrace was a solitary place, even a bit wild – it was there I said the first word. My plan was to precipitate everything, afraid that after five minutes of conversation my strength would fail me. Even so, you’ve no idea what it cost me; a real battle would have been less effort, and I swear to you I wasn’t born for war. But that thin delicate woman held more sway over me than any other, before or after …’
‘Well then?’
‘Quintilia had gathered what I was going to ask her by the strength of feeling evident in my face, and let me speak so she could prepare her reply. Her reply was interrogative and negative. Marry, what for? It was better for us to remain friends. I answered that friendship had been for me, for a long time, the mere sentinel of love; now love could no longer be contained, I’d let it come out in the open. Quintilia smiled at the metaphor, which hurt me, needlessly; seeing the effect she’d had, she became serious again, and set out to persuade me that it was better not to marry. “I’m old,” she said; “nearly thirty-three.” “But I love you just the same,” I replied, and said a whole lot of things I can’t possibly repeat now. Quintilia reflected for a moment; then she insisted again on feelings of friendship; she said that, though I was younger than her, I had the dignity of an older man, and inspired confidence in her as no one else did. I paced around a bit in despair, then sat down again and recounted everything. When she heard about my fight with my friend and fellow student, and the way we had separated, she felt upset or irritated, I’m not sure which is the right word. She blamed us both; we should never have gone so far. “You say that,” I said, “because you don’t feel the same.” “But is it some kind of delirium?” “I think so; what I can swear to you is that still now, if I had to, I’d break with him a hundred times over; and I think I can say he would do the same thing.” Here she looked at me in shock as one might at someone no longer in charge of his faculties; then she shook her head, and repeated that it had been a mistake; it wasn’t worth it. “Let’s stay friends,” she said, holding out her hand. “It’s impossible,” I said, “you’re asking something beyond my power to give, I can never see you as just a friend; I don’t want to impose anything on you; I’ll even say that I’ll insist no longer, because no other reply would satisfy me now.” We exchanged a few more words, and I left … Look at my hand.’
‘It’s still shaking …’
‘And I’ve still not told you everything. I won’t tell about the distress I underwent, nor the pain and resentment I was left with. I was angry, sorry I’d done what I had – I should have provoked her to it in the early weeks; but hope was to blame – it’s a weed, and it took over the space occupied by other, more useful plants. After five days, I left for Itaboraí to attend to some business connected with my father’s will. When I came back, three weeks later, I found a letter from Quintilia waiting for me at home.’
‘Oh!’
‘I opened it with my heart in turmoil: it was four days old. It was long; it alluded to recent events, and its tone was tender and serious. Quintilia said she had waited for me every day, not thinking I could be so egotistical as never to go back, and for that reason she was writing to me, to ask me to make my personal, unrequited feelings history; to be a friend, and go and see her as a friend. She ended with these strange words: “Do you want a guarantee? I swear to you that I will never marry.” I realised that a bond of moral sympathy linked us; with the difference that what for me was a physical passion was for her simply an elective affinity. We were two partners, entering the business of life with different capital: I with everything I had; she with barely more than a shilling. That’s how I answered her letter; and I declared that my obedience and my love were such that I gave way, but unwillingly, because after what had happened between us, I would feel humiliated. I crossed out “ridiculous”, which I’d already written, so that I could go and see her without that embarrassment – the other word was enough.’
‘I bet you followed soon after the letter? That’s what I’d do, because either I’m much mistaken or that girl was dying to marry you.’
‘Forget your usual psychological theories; this is a very individual case.’
‘Let me guess the rest; the oath was a sublime stratagem; later, you, the recipient, could release her from it, so long as you got the benefits of your own absolution. But, anyway, you hurried to her house.’
‘I didn’t; I went two days later. In the meantime, she replied to my letter with an affectionate note, which concluded with this argument: “Don’t speak of humiliation, where there were no witnesses.” I went, returned a few times, and we re-established our relationship. Nothing was said; at first, it was a great effort to pretend I was as I had been; then, the accursed hope lodged in my heart again; and, saying nothing, I thought that one day, in the future, she’d marry me. It was that hope that made me able to look myself in the eye, in the situation I found myself in. Rumours of impending marriage got around. They reached our ears; I denied them, formally and with a serious look; she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. That was the most serene period of our life for me, except for a brief incident with a diplomat, Austrian or something of the sort, a strapping fellow, elegant, red-haired, large attractive eyes, and a nobleman to boot. Quintilia was so charming with him that he thought he’d found favour, and tried to take the matter further. I think some quite unconscious gesture of mine, or perhaps a little bit of Heaven-sent intuition, soon brought disillusionment to the Austrian legation. A little later she fell ill; and then our friendship grew. She decided she shouldn’t go out while she was being treated, and those were the doctors’ orders. I spent many hours a day there. Quintilia and her cousin played the piano, or we had a game of cards, or read something; mostly, we just talked. That was when I studied her closely. Listening to her reading, I saw that she found books about love incomprehensible, and if there was violent passion she was bored and put them aside. It wasn’t that she was ignorant; she had vaguely heard about passion, and had witnessed it in other cases.’
‘What illness did she have?’
‘It was in her spinal column. The doctors said that perhaps it had been there for a while, and it was getting dangerous. It was now 1859. From March of that year on, the illness got much worse; it gave a short respite, but towards the end of the month things were in a desperate state. Never since have I seen anyone react with more energy to an imminent catastrophe; she was so thin she was transparent, almost pellucid; she laughed, or rather smiled, and seeing me hiding my tears she gratefully pressed my hands. One day, when I was alone with the doctor, she asked him for the truth; he tried to lie; she said it was useless – there was no hope. “I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor murmured. “Do you swear?” He hesitated, and she thanked him. Now she was certain she would die, she organised what she’d promised herself.’
‘She married you, I’ll wager?’
‘Don’t remind me of that unhappy ceremony; or rather, let me remind myself, because it brings me a breath of the past. She wouldn’t accept my refusals or pleas; she married me at the portals of death. It was on the eighteenth of April, 1859. I spent the last days, till the twentieth of April, at my dying bride’s bedside, and embraced her for the first time when she was a corpse.’
‘It’s all very strange.’
‘I don’t know what your theories would tell you. I’m only a layman in these matters, but I think that girl had a purely physical aversion to marriage. She married when she was half dead, at the edge of the abyss. Call her a monster if you like, but say she was divine too.’