You will have gathered that the Emperor’s suggestion about medicine was the simple product of my lack of desire to leave Rio de Janeiro. Daydreams are like other dreams: they are woven according to the patterns of our wishes and memories. It was one thing to go to São Paulo, but Europe … It was a long way off, a lot of sea to cross and a long time to spend. Long live medicine! I would tell Capitu of these hopes.
“It seems the Sacrament is coming out,” said someone on the bus. “I can hear a bell; yes, I think it’s in Santo Antonio dos Pobres. Stop, conductor!”
The conductor pulled the cord which was connected to the driver’s arm, the bus stopped, and the man got off. José Dias jerked his head round twice, grabbed me by the arm and made me get off with him. We too were going to accompany the Sacrament. The bell was indeed calling the faithful to the service of extreme unction. There were already some people in the sacristy. It was the first time I had ever been present at such a solemn occasion; I obeyed, somewhat embarrassed at first, but soon pleased with myself, less because of the charity being performed than because I was taking a man’s position. When the sacristan began to hand out the surplices, someone came in out of breath; it was my neighbor Pádua, who had also come to accompany the Sacrament. He saw us and came over to greet us. José Dias gave an irritated gesture, and barely replied with one brief word: he was looking at the priest, who was washing his hands. Then, as Pádua was talking to the sacristan in a low voice, he went nearer; I did the same thing. Pádua was asking the sacristan if he could carry one of the poles of the canopy. José Dias asked for one for himself:
“There’s only one available,” said the sacristan.
“That one then,” said José Dias.
“But I’d asked first,” ventured Pádua.
“You asked first, but you came in late,” retorted José Dias, “I was already here. You carry a candle.”
Pádua, for all he was afraid of José Dias, insisted that he wanted the pole, all this in a low, muted voice. The sacristan found a way of contenting both rivals, taking it on himself to ask one of the other carriers of the poles to give up his to Pádua, who was well known in the parish, as was José Dias. He did so, but José Dias upset this arrangement too. No, since there was another pole available, he asked for it to be given to me, a “young seminarist,” who had a better right to this honor. Pádua went as pale as the candles. It was a severe trial for a father’s heart. The sacristan, who recognized me from seeing me there with my mother on Sundays, asked out of curiosity if I really was a seminarist.
“Not yet, but he will be,” replied José Dias winking at me with his left eye: in spite of this, I was furious.
“Very well, I give way to our Bentinho,” sighed Capitu’s father.
For my part, I wanted to give him the pole; I remembered that he was accustomed to accompanying the Blessed Sacrament to the dying, carrying a candle, but that the last time he had got one of the canopy poles. The special distinction attaching to the canopy came from the fact that it covered the priest and the Sacrament; anyone could carry a candle. He himself had told me this, full of smiles and pious pride. So one can understand the excitement with which he had come into the church; for the second time he was going to get the canopy, so much so that he decided to go straight away and ask for it. No such luck! He went back to the common candle: it was the temporary administration all over again; he was going back to his old role … I wanted to give him the pole; but José Dias prevented this act of generosity, and asked the sacristan to give us, him and me, the two front poles, so that we led the procession.
With our surplices on, the candles distributed and lit, the priest and the ciborium ready, the sacristan with the aspersorium and the bell in his hands, the procession went out into the street. When I saw myself carrying one of the poles, passing through the kneeling ranks of the faithful, I was filled with emotion. Pádua had to gnaw his candle with bitterness. A metaphor, no doubt, but I can think of no better way of conveying our neighbor’s pain and humiliation. In any case, I couldn’t look at him for long, nor at the dependent who, parallel with me, held his head high as if he himself were the Lord God of Hosts. In a short while, I felt tired; my arms were dropping, but luckily the house was close by, in the Rua do Senado.
The sick person was a widow, a consumptive with a daughter of fifteen or sixteen, who was crying at the door to the room. She was not a pretty girl, perhaps not even agreeable; her hair hung down uncombed, and her tears wrinkled her eyes. All the same, the whole scene spoke to my heart and moved me. The priest confessed the sick woman, gave her communion and extreme unction. The girl began to weep so much that I felt the tears coming to my eyes and fled. I went over to a window. Poor creature! The pain itself was catching; wound up with memories of my mother, it hurt me more, and when I finally thought of Capitu I felt the urge to cry. I ran into the corridor, and heard someone say to me:
“Don’t cry like that!”
The image of Capitu was in my mind, and just as I had imagined her crying a little before, now I saw her brimful of laughter; I saw her write on the wall, speak to me, turn around with her arms in the air; I distinctly heard my name, with an intoxicating sweetness, and it was her voice that uttered it. The burning candles, which before had seemed so gloomy, now had the look of nuptial lustre … What was nuptial lustre? I don’t know; it was the opposite of death, and nothing fits that description better than weddings. This new feeling so took hold of me that José Dias came over to me, and whispered in my ear:
“Don’t laugh like that!”
I quickly composed myself. Now it was the moment to leave. I took hold of my pole; and, as I already knew how far it was and we were now going back to the church, the distance seemed less—the pole hardly weighed at all. Moreover, the sun outside, the stir in the street, the boys of my age who gazed enviously at me, the women who came to the windows and alley ways and piously knelt down as we passed, all of this made me feel quite sprightly again.
Pádua, on the other hand, looked even more humiliated. Although it was I who had taken his place, he could not console himself with that candle, that miserable candle. All the same, there were others who were also carrying candles, and whose demeanor suited their position; they were not delighted, but neither were they sad. One could see that they walked with honor.