About thirty people allied themselves with the barber. They prepared a formal complaint and took it to the Town Council, which rejected it on the ground that scientific research must be hampered neither by hostile legislation nor by the misconceptions and prejudices of the mob.
“My advice to you,” said the President of the Council, “is to disband and go back to work.”
The group could hardly contain its anger. The barber declared that the people would march to the Green House and destroy it; that Itaguai must no longer be used as a corpse for dissection in the experiments of a medical despot; that several esteemed and even distinguished individuals, not to mention many humble but estimable persons, lay confined in the cubicles of the Green House; that the alienist was clearly motivated by greed, for his compensation varied directly with the number of alleged madmen in his care—
“That’s not true,” interrupted the President.
“Not true?”
“About two weeks ago we received a communication from the illustrious doctor in which he stated that, in view of the great value, to him as a scientist, of his observations and experiments, he would no longer accept payment from the Council or from the patients’ families.”
In view of this noble act of self-denial, how could the rebels persist in their attitude? The alienist might, indeed, make mistakes, but obviously he was not motivated by any interest alien to science; and to establish error on his part, something more would be needed than disorderly crowds in the street. So spoke the President, and the entire Council applauded.
The barber meditated for a few moments and then declared that he was invested with a public mandate; he would give Itaguai no peace until the final destruction of the Green House, “that Bastille of human reason”—an expression he had heard a local poet use and which he now repeated with great vigor. Having spoken, he gave his cohorts a signal and led them out.
The Council was faced with an emergency. It must, at all costs, prevent rebellion and bloodshed. To make matters worse, one of the Councilmen who had supported the President was so impressed by the figure of speech, “Bastille of the human reason,” that he changed his mind. He advocated adoption of a measure to liquidate the Green House. After the President had expressed his amazement and indignation, the dissenter observed:
“I know nothing about science, but if so many men whom we considered sane are locked up as madmen, how do we know that the real madman is not the alienist himself?”
This Councilman, a highly articulate fellow named Sebastião Freitas, spoke at some length. He presented the case against the Green House with restraint but with firm conviction. His colleagues were dumbfounded. The President begged him at least to help preserve law and order by not expressing his opinions in the street, where they might give body and soul to what was so far merely a whirlwind of uncoordinated atoms. This figure of speech counterbalanced to some extent the one about the Bastille. Sebastião Freitas promised to take no action for the present but reserved the right to seek the elimination of the Green House by legal means. And he murmured to himself lovingly: “That Bastille of the human reason!”
Nevertheless, the crowd grew. Not thirty but three hundred now followed the barber, whose nickname ought to be mentioned at this point because it gave the rebellion its name: he was called Stewed Corn, and the movement was therefore known as the Revolt of the Stewed Corners. Storming through the streets toward the Green House, they might well have been compared to the mob that stormed the Bastille, with due allowance, of course, for the difference between Paris and Itaguai.
A young child attached to the household ran in from the street and told Dona Evarista the news. The alienist’s wife was trying on a silk dress (one of the thirty-seven she had bought in Rio).
“It’s probably just a bunch of drunks,” she said as she changed the location of a pin. “Benedita, is the hem all right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the slave, who was squatting on the floor, “it looks fine. Just turn a little bit. Like that. It’s perfect, ma’am.”
“They’re not a bunch of drunks, Dona Evarista,” said the child in fear. “They’re shouting: ‘Death to Dr. Bacamarte the tyrant.’”
“Be quiet! Benedita, look over here on the left side. Don’t you think the seam is a little crooked? We’ll have to rip it and sew it again. Try to make it nice and even this time.”
“Death to Dr. Bacamarte! Death to the tyrant!” howled three hundred voices in the street.
The blood left Dona Evarista’s face. She stood there like a statue, petrified with terror. The slave ran instinctively to the back door. The child, whom Dona Evarista had refused to believe, enjoyed a moment of unexpressed but profound satisfaction.
“Death to the alienist!” shouted the voices, now closer than before.
Dona Evarista, although an easy prey to emotions of pleasure, was reasonably steadfast in adversity. She did not faint. She ran to the inside room where her husband was studying. At the moment of her precipitate entrance, the doctor was examining a passage in Averroës. His eyes, blind to external reality but highly perceptive in the realm of the inner life, rose from the book to the ceiling and returned to the book. Twice, Dona Evarista called him loudly by name without his paying her the least attention. The third time, he heard and asked what was troubling her.
“Can’t you hear the shouting?”
The alienist listened. The shouts were coming closer and closer, threatening, terrifying. He understood. Rising from the armchair, he shut the book and, with firm, calm step, walked over to the bookcase and put the volume back in its place. The insertion of the volume caused the books on either side of it to be slightly out of line. Simão Bacamarte carefully straightened them. Then he asked his wife to go to her room.
“No, no,” begged his worthy helpmeet. “I want to die at your side where I belong.”
Simão Bacamarte insisted that she go. He assured her that it was not a matter of life and death and told her that, even if it were, it would be her duty to remain alive. The unhappy lady bowed her head, tearful and obedient.
“Down with the Green House!” shouted the Stewed Corners.
The alienist went out on the front balcony and faced the rebel mob, whose three hundred heads were radiant with civism and somber with fury. When they saw him they shouted: “Die! Die!” Simão Bacamarte indicated that he wished to speak, but they only shouted the louder. Then the barber waved his hat as a signal to his followers to be silent and told the alienist that he might speak, provided his words did not abuse the patience of the people.
“I shall say little and, if possible, nothing at all. It depends on what it is that you have come to request.”
“We aren’t requesting anything,” replied the barber, trembling with rage. “We are demanding that the Green House be destroyed or at least that all the prisoners in it be freed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You understand all right, tyrant. We want you to release the victims of your hatred, your whims, your greed. . . .”
The alienist smiled, but the smile of this great man was not perceptible to the eyes of the multitude: it was a slight contraction of two or three muscles, nothing
more.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “science is a serious thing and it must be treated seriously. For my professional decisions I account to no one but God and the authorities in my special field. If you wish to suggest changes in the administration of the Green House, I am ready to listen to you; but if you wish me to be untrue to myself, further talk would be futile. I could invite you to appoint a committee to come and study the way I treat the madmen who have been committed to my care, but I shall not, for to do so would be to account to you for my methods and this I shall never do to a group of rebels or, for that matter, to laymen of any description.”
So spoke the alienist, and the people were astounded at his words. Obviously they had not expected such imperturbability and such resoluteness. Their amazement was even greater when the alienist bowed gravely to them, turned his back, and walked slowly back into the house. The barber soon regained his self-possession and, waving his hat, urged the mob to demolish the Green House. The voices that took up the cry were few and weak. At this decisive moment the barber felt a surging ambition to rule. If he succeeded in overthrowing the alienist and destroying the Green House, he might well take over the Town Council, dominate the other municipal authorities, and make himself the master of Itaguai. For some years now he had striven to have his name included in the ballots from which the Councilmen were selected by lot, but his petitions were denied because his position in society was considered incompatible with such a responsibility. It was a case of now or never. Besides, he had carried the street riot to such a point that defeat would mean prison and perhaps banishment or even the scaffold. Unfortunately, the alienist’s reply had taken most of the steam out of the Stewed Corners. When the barber perceived this, he felt like shouting: “Wretches! Cowards!” But he contained himself and merely said:
“My friends, let us fight to the end! The salvation of Itaguai is in your worthy and heroic hands. Let us destroy the foul prison that confines or threatens your children and parents, your mothers and sisters, your relatives and friends, and you yourselves. Do you want to be thrown into a dungeon and starved on bread and water or maybe whipped to death?”
The mob bestirred itself, murmured, shouted, and gathered around the barber. The revolt was emerging from its stupor and threatening to demolish the Green House.
“Come on!” shouted Porfírio, waving his hat.
“Come on!” echoed his followers.
At that moment a corps of dragoons turned the corner and came marching toward the mob.