José Maria de Eça de Queiroz was born on 25th November 1845 in the small town of Povoa de Varzim in the north of Portugal. His mother was nineteen and unmarried. Only the name of his father – a magistrate – appears on the birth certificate. Following the birth‚ his mother returned immediately to her respectable family in Viana do Castelo‚ and Eça was left with his wetnurse‚ who looked after him for six years until her death. Although his parents married later – when Eça was four – and had six more children‚ Eça did not live with them until he was twenty-one‚ living instead either with his grandparents or at boarding school in Oporto‚ where he spent the holidays with an aunt. His father only officially acknowledged Eça as his son when the latter was forty. His father did‚ however‚ pay for his son’s studies at boarding school and at Coimbra University‚ where Eça studied Law‚ and was always supportive of his writing ambitions. After working as the editor and sole contributor on a provincial newspaper in Évora‚ Eça made a trip to the Middle East. Then‚ in order to launch himself on a diplomatic career‚ he worked for six months in Leiria as a municipal administrator‚ before being appointed consul in Havana (1872–74)‚ Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1874– 79) and Bristol (1879–88). In 1886‚ he married Emília de Castro with whom he had four children. His last consular posting was to Paris‚ where he served until his death in 1900.
He began writing stories and essays as a young man and became involved with a group of intellectuals known as the Generation of ’70‚ who were committed to reforms in society and in the arts. He published five novels during his lifetime: The Crime of Father Amaro (3 versions: 1875‚ 1876‚ 1880)‚ Cousin Bazilio (1878)‚ The Mandarin (1880)‚ The Relic (1887) and The Maias (1888). His other novels were published posthumously: The City and the Mountains‚ The Illustrious House of Ramires‚ To the Capital‚ Alves & Co.‚ The Letters of Fradique Mendes‚ The Count of Abranhos and The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers.
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Leiria‚ the setting for Eça’s first novel‚ The Crime of Father Amaro‚ may also have provided the inspiration for Cousin Bazilio. When the latter was published in 1878‚ many people were convinced that he had simply transposed to Lisbon the protagonists and events of a scandalous affair that had shaken Leiria in 1870‚ the year in which Eça took up a post there as an administrator. Whatever the truth of this‚ according to Eça himself‚ the book was intended as an attack on the kind of ‘Lisbon marriage’ which he described as ‘an unpleasant meeting of warring egotisms and [which]‚ sooner or later‚ descends into debauchery’‚ adding that it was also‚ and perhaps more importantly‚ an attack on contemporary bourgeois society.
Cousin Bazilio is indeed much more than just another tale of adultery. The adultery and its consequences are set‚ as always with Eça‚ against an extraordinary gallery of characters: the pompous pillar of society‚ Councillor Acácio‚ who writes books no one reads and who sleeps with his housekeeper; wily Tía Vitória who can turn her hand to anything‚ from finding a young‚ willing maid for an ageing bachelor to conducting a little light blackmail; Ernestinho‚ the civil servant who moonlights as a writer of theatrical melodramas; plump Dona Felicidade‚ who suffers equally acutely from wind and from her unrequited passion for Acácio; the impossibly refined Viscount Reinaldo‚ the hopelessly romantic and sexually voracious Leopoldina … the list goes on.
And parallel to Luiza’s downfall runs the brief‚ ill-fated rise of her maid Juliana. Indeed‚ it is perhaps the life-or-death struggle between these two women that makes Cousin Bazilio such a remarkable work. It is rare for a nineteenth-century novelist to paint such a detailed‚ even sympathetic picture of the servant’s lot. Juliana’s dream is to own a shop selling knick-knacks and to have a husband‚ but she is happy to make do‚ when she gets the chance‚ with a carpeted room‚ drawerfuls of crisp underwear and a few silk dresses – in short‚ a little bourgeois ease and comfort. The servants in the novel are expected to leave their bed at midnight to make tea for guests‚ some are dressed in grimy rags and have chilblained fingers‚ others cannot sleep for the heat or the cold or the bedbugs and must rise before dawn to do the starching and ironing‚ risking dismissal at the first sign of any serious illness. Eça is just as acute on the pleasures of life in service – the camaraderie‚ the gossip‚ the rumbustious sex when the master and mistress are away‚ the filched dishes of quince jelly and the odd glass of wine.
They and their employers occupy parallel universes‚ their lives touching only when the servant (female) becomes the confidante or blackmailer of the mistress or where the servant (male or female) becomes the bedfellow of the mistress or master. While Luiza’s life is blighted by indolence and that of Juliana by unremitting drudgery‚ Eça makes it clear that‚ despite the very real differences in wealth‚ comfort and status‚ the options of both mistress and maid are equally limited by social convention and financial dependence.
However‚ what made the book an instant bestseller in 1878 – the first edition of 3‚000 sold out at once and the book was immediately reprinted – was not so much the social realism or even the social satire as the sexual frisson afforded by the story and the scenes of adulterous sex. Cousin Bazilio was the only one of Eça’s novels to be translated into several languages during his lifetime. His own father praised the book‚ but chastised him for one particularly frank scene between Bazilio and Luiza‚ declaring that this was ‘realism at its crudest’ and advising his son to avoid‚ in future‚ ‘any descriptions that ladies cannot read without blushing’. The book made Eça famous‚ but possibly for the wrong reasons.
Cousin Bazilio was equally successful in Brazil‚ though it received a mixed critical reception. The Brazilian novelist‚ Machado de Assis‚ while admiring certain scenes and episodes and the author’s style‚ accused Eça of being merely a pale imitation of Balzac or Zola. His other criticism of Cousin Bazilio seems to have been not only‚ to use his words‚ ‘the crude sensuality’ of some of the descriptions‚ but that Luiza was too banal a figure to be a heroine‚ and that Eça had allowed a servant‚ of all people‚ to dominate the second half of the novel.
Writing years later‚ the Portuguese novelist‚ José Régio‚ on the other hand‚ declared Cousin Bazilio to be not only Eça’s finest novel‚ but also his most human. Eça may mock the banality of these bourgeois Lisbon lives‚ but his characters are not mere cardboard cut-outs. Luiza‚ for example‚ is undoubtedly emptyheaded; she may‚ like Emma Bovary‚ have her imagination overly stuffed with foolish romances and so prove easy game for the likes of Bazilio; yet she does‚ within her capabilities‚ learn from her mistakes and make every attempt to redeem herself. She is‚ ultimately‚ a deeply affecting figure‚ as are Juliana‚ Dona Felicidade‚ Sebastião and Jorge. Indeed‚ Eça’s description of the latter’s sufferings towards the end of the book must be one of literature’s most telling accounts of the pain of sexual betrayal.
The book may well have been intended‚ in part‚ as an attack on the hypocrisy of bourgeois marriage‚ and yet all its characters crave domesticity (a state‚ incidentally‚ in which Eça himself later found great contentment). Both Jorge and Luiza long to have a child; Dona Felicidade‚ Sebastião and Julião‚ all in their very different ways‚ yearn for conjugal bliss; Councillor Acácio erroneously believes he may have found it … The few exceptions – Leopoldina‚ Bazilio‚ Viscount Reinaldo – are all deeply corrupt. The title of the novel may be Cousin Bazilio‚ but Bazilio is merely the catalyst‚ and as if to underline this‚ when the second edition was published‚ Eça added a subtitle: ‘A domestic episode’. For it is the home that matters‚ and it is the home that the rootless Bazilio so thoughtlessly destroys.