I’ve never been able to understand the conversation I had with a lady, many years ago, when I was seventeen, and she was thirty. It was Christmas Eve. I had arranged to go to Midnight Mass with a neighbour, and decided not to go to bed; it was fixed that I’d wake him at midnight.
The house where I lodged belonged to the notary Meneses, whose first marriage had been with one of my cousins. His second wife, Conceição, and her mother had made me feel welcome when I came from Mangaratiba, some months before, to study for my entrance exams. I lived a quiet life, in that two-storey house on the Rua do Senado, with my books, a few acquaintances, outings from time to time. It was a small family, consisting of the notary, his wife and mother-in-law and two female slaves. They had old-fashioned habits. At ten at night everyone was in their rooms; by half past ten the whole house was asleep. I’d never been to the theatre, and more than once, hearing Meneses say he was going, I asked him to take me with him. When this happened, the mother-in-law made a face, and the slaves stifled their giggles; he didn’t answer, got dressed, went out and only came back the next morning. Later on I found out that the theatre was a living, breathing euphemism. Meneses had an ongoing affair with a lady who was separated from her husband, and slept away one night a week. Conceição had suffered at the outset from the existence of this rival; but finally she’d resigned herself to the arrangement, got used to it, and ended up thinking it was just fine.
Dear, good Conceição! They called her ‘the saint’ and she merited the title, so easily did she put up with her husband’s neglect. In truth, she was of a middling temperament, given neither to floods of tears nor to bursts of laughter. In the department we’re talking of she was like a Muslim; she’d accept a harem, so long as appearances were kept up. God forgive me, if I misjudge her. Everything about her was passive and attenuated. Even her face was average, neither pretty nor ugly. She was what we call a nice person. She spoke ill of no one, and pardoned everything. She didn’t know how to hate; maybe even she didn’t know how to love.
On that Christmas Eve, the notary went to the theatre. It was in 1861 or 1862. I should have been back in Mangaratiba, on my holidays; but I stayed till Christmas to see ‘Midnight Mass in the big city’. The family went to bed at the usual time; I went into the front room, dressed and ready. From there I could go into the vestibule and leave without waking anyone. There were three keys to the door; the notary had one, I’d take another and the third was kept in the house.
‘But, Senhor Nogueira, what will you do all this time?’ Conceição’s mother asked me.
‘I’ll read, Dona Ignacia.’
I had a novel with me, The Three Musketeers, in an old translation published by the Jornal do Commercio, I think. I sat down at the table in the middle of the room, and by the light of a kerosene lamp, while the house was asleep, I leaped once more on to d’Artagnan’s scrawny horse and embarked on my adventures. In a short while I was completely drunk on Dumas. The minutes flew by, instead of dragging as they usually do when we’re waiting; I heard the clock strike eleven, but only by chance – I hardly noticed a thing. However, a little noise I heard from inside the house awoke me from my reading. Someone was walking along the corridor leading from the parlour to the dining room; I lifted my head; soon I saw the figure of Conceição appear at the door.
‘Haven’t you gone yet?’ she asked.
‘No, I don’t think it’s midnight yet.’
‘How patient you are!’
Conceição came into the front room, trailing along in her bedroom slippers. She was wearing a white dressing gown loosely tied at her waist. Thin as she was, she looked like a romantic vision, not out of keeping with my novel. I shut the book; she went to sit on the chair in front of me, near the settee. I asked her if I’d made a noise and unintentionally woken her; quickly she replied:
‘No! Of course not! I just woke, that’s all.’
I looked at her a little and doubted what she said. Her eyes didn’t look as if she’d just been asleep; she looked as if she’d been awake. Someone else would have made something of this observation; I hurriedly rejected it, without realising that maybe she’d not been sleeping because of me, and was lying so as not to worry or annoy me. I’ve already said she was a good woman, very good.
‘But it must be nearly time,’ I said.
‘What patience you have to wait up, while our neighbour’s asleep! And alone! Aren’t you afraid of ghosts? I thought I gave you a fright when you saw me.’
‘I was surprised when I heard the steps; but you soon came in.’
‘What were you reading? Don’t tell me, I know, it’s the Musketeers.’
‘That’s right; it’s very good.’
‘Do you like novels?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you read A moreninha?’1
‘By Dr Macedo? I’ve got it in Mangaratiba.’
‘I’m very fond of novels, but I don’t read much, for lack of time. What novels have you read?’
I began to tell her the names of some. Conceição listened to me with her head leaning on the back of the chair, her eyes peeping between half-shut lids, fixed on me. From time to time she passed her tongue over her lips, to wet them. When I stopped talking she said nothing to me; we stayed that way for a few seconds. Then I saw her lift her head, entwine her fingers and rest her chin on them, with her elbows on the arms of the chair, all this without taking her big sharp eyes off me.
‘Maybe she’s bored,’ I thought.
Then, out loud:
‘Dona Conceição, I think it’s about time, and I …’
‘No, no, it’s still early. I saw the clock this minute, and it’s half past eleven. You’ve got time. If you can’t sleep at night can you get through the day without sleeping?’
‘I have done in the past.’
‘Not me; if I lose a night’s sleep I’m useless the next day unless I nod off, even for half an hour. But I’m getting old too.’
‘You, old, Dona Conceição?’
Perhaps my saying this so warmly made her smile. Usually, her gestures were slow and her attitudes calm; now, however, she suddenly got up, went over to the other side of the room and paced back and forth between the street window and her husband’s study door. Like this, in this respectable state of disarray, she made a singular impression on me. Though she was thin she had a kind of sway to her walk, as if she found it hard to carry her own weight; this had never seemed as marked as on that night. She stopped from time to time, examining a piece of curtain, or putting some object into its right place on the sideboard; finally she stopped in front of me, with the table between us. The circle of her ideas was narrow; she went back to her surprise at finding me waiting up alone; I repeated what she already knew, that is, that I had never seen Midnight Mass in the capital, and didn’t want to miss it.
‘It’s the same as in the country; all Masses are alike.’
‘I believe you; but here there’s bound to be more show, and more people. Holy Week in Rio is more colourful than in the country. Not to mention St John’s Night, and St Anthony’s …’
Little by little, she’d leaned forward; she’d put her elbows on the marble top of the table and her face between her outspread hands. Her sleeves weren’t buttoned, and fell naturally; I saw half her arms, very pale, and not as thin as you might have thought. I had seen her arms before, though not often; at that moment, however, they made a great impression on me. Her veins were so blue that in spite of the dim light I could count them from where I was. More than the book, it was Conceiço’s presence that kept me awake. I went on saying what I thought about festivals in the country and the town, and other things that came into my head. As I went on I changed the subject without knowing why, going from one to another and then back to the first, and laughing to make her smile and see her white, gleaming teeth, all neat and even. Her eyes weren’t exactly black, but they were dark; her nose, long, narrow and slightly curved, gave her face an interrogative look. When I raised my voice a little, she restrained me:
‘Not so loud! You might wake Mama.’
She never abandoned that position: with our faces so close, it filled me with delight. It was true, there was no need to raise our voices to be heard; the two of us whispered, I more than she, because I talked more; at times, she looked earnest, very earnest, with her forehead a little furrowed. In the end, she tired of this; her manner changed and she moved. She came round to my side of the table and sat on the settee. I turned round, and secretly caught sight of the tips of her slippers; but this was only while she was sitting down, for her dressing gown was long and instantly covered them. I remember they were black. Conceição said in a low voice:
‘Mama’s room is way off, but she sleeps very lightly; if she woke now, poor thing, she’d take a while to get back to sleep.’
‘I’m like that too.’
‘What?’ she asked, leaning towards me to catch my words better.
I went to sit on the chair next to the settee and repeated what I’d said. She laughed at the coincidence; she was a light sleeper too – that made three of us.
‘There are times when I’m like Mama; when I wake up, I can’t get back to sleep. I roll around in the bed, get up, light a candle, walk round, go back to bed, but it’s no good.’
‘That’s what happened to you tonight.’
‘No, no,’ she interrupted.
I didn’t understand her denial; maybe she didn’t either. She picked up the ends of the cord of her gown and tapped them on her knees – her right knee, rather, for she’d just crossed her legs. Then she told me a story from a dream, and told me she’d only ever had one nightmare, when she was a child. She asked me if I had them. The conversation began again, slowly, lengthily, without my thinking about the time or the Mass. When I ended one story or an explanation, she invented another question or another subject, and I began talking again. From time to time, she restrained me:
‘Not so loud, not so loud …’
There were pauses too. Twice I thought I saw her going to sleep; but her eyes, shut for an instant, opened soon after, with no sign of sleepiness or fatigue, as if she’d shut them to see better. At one of these moments, I think she saw me absorbed by her presence, and I remember she closed them again – whether slowly or hurriedly, I don’t know. There are impressions from that night which seem truncated or confused. I contradict myself, and get mixed up. One that I still have fresh in my mind is that, on one occasion, this woman who was merely nice looked beautiful, truly beautiful. She was standing with her arms crossed; out of respect for her, I tried to get up; she didn’t let me, put one of her hands on my shoulder, and made me sit down. I think she was going to say something; but she shivered, as if she had felt the cold, turned her back on me and went to sit on the chair where she’d found me reading. From there she gave a glance at the mirror, which was above the settee, and talked about two pictures hanging on the wall.
‘These pictures are getting old. I’ve already asked Chiquinho to buy some others.’
Chiquinho was the husband. The pictures spoke of the man’s principal interest. One represented Cleopatra; I can’t remember what the subject of the other was, but it was women. Both were vulgar; at that time I didn’t think they were ugly.
‘They’re pretty,’ I said.
‘They are, I agree; but they’re stained. And anyway, to be honest, I’d prefer two images, two saints. These are more suitable to a young man’s room, or a barber’s shop.’
‘A barber’s? You’ve never been to a barber’s.’
‘But I imagine the customers while they’re waiting, talking about girls and love affairs, and naturally the owner likes to cheer their surroundings up with nice pictures. In a family house, though, I don’t think it’s suitable. That’s what I think; but I think lots of funny things like that. Anyhow, I don’t like the pictures. I’ve got an Our Lady of the Conception, my patron saint, very pretty; but it’s a statue, and you can’t put it on the wall – I don’t want to anyway. It’s in my oratory.’
The idea of the oratory reminded me of Mass; I remembered it was getting late and thought of saying so. I think I got as far as opening my mouth, but I soon shut it to listen to what she was saying, sweetly, charmingly, so softly that a laziness spread over my spirit and made me forget the Mass and the church. She was talking about her devotions when she was a child and a young girl. Then she told some stories about dances, things that had happened on outings, memories of boat trips to Paquetá, all jumbled up, one thing following on from another. When she tired of the past she spoke about the present, what she did in the house, the burden of family duties. They’d told her before she was married it would be bad, but her duties were no bother. She didn’t tell me, but I knew she’d married when she was twenty-seven.
She wasn’t moving around now, as she had done before, and stayed almost in the same position. Her eyes no longer had that wide, distant look in them, and she began looking aimlessly round the walls.
‘We should change the wallpaper,’ she said a little later, as if talking to herself.
I agreed, so as to say something, to get out of the kind of magnetised sleep, or whatever it was, that was paralysing my tongue and my senses. I wanted to end the conversation, but didn’t want to at the same time; I made an effort to tear my eyes from her, and did so, out of respect; but the idea that she might think it was boredom when it wasn’t brought my eyes back again to Conceição. The conversation was slowly dying. In the street, the silence was complete.
We stayed completely quiet for a while, even – I can’t say for how long. The only tiny noise was the gnawing of a mouse in the study, which awoke me from my state of somnolence; I went to speak of it, but I couldn’t find a way. Conceição seemed to be daydreaming. Suddenly I heard a knock on the window, from outside, and a voice shouting: ‘Midnight Mass! Midnight Mass!’
‘There’s your friend,’ she said, getting up. ‘That’s funny; you were going to wake him, and it’s he who’s come to awaken you. Off you go, it must be time; goodnight.’
‘Is it time already?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Midnight Mass!’ the person repeated from outside, knocking.
‘Go on, off you go, don’t make them wait for you. It was my fault. Goodnight; till tomorrow.’
And with the same sway to her body, Conceição went down the corridor into the house, treading softly. I went out into the street to find the neighbour waiting. We went off to the church. During Mass, the figure of Conceição came once or twice between me and the priest; put it down to my seventeen years. The following morning, at breakfast, I talked about the Midnight Mass and the people in the church without arousing Conceição’s curiosity. During the day, I found her as she always was, natural, kind, with nothing about her that reminded me of the previous night’s conversation. At New Year I went to Mangaratiba. When I came back to Rio de Janeiro, in March, the notary had died of apoplexy. Conceição was living in Engenho Novo, but I didn’t go to visit, nor did I happen to see her. Later, I heard she’d married her late husband’s apprenticed clerk.