Father Cabral was in the first flush of glory, when the slightest congratulations seem like laudatory odes. The time comes when those who have been honored take this praise for granted, and accept it without acknowledgement, blankfaced. The excitement of the first moment is the best; that state of mind which sees the bending of a tree in the wind as a personal homage from the world’s flora brings more delicate, more intimate sensations than any other. Cabral listened to Capitu’s words with infinite pleasure.
“Thank you, Capitu, thank you very much; I am delighted you are pleased. Is Papa well? And Mamma? No need to ask you: your face is the picture of health. Are we keeping up with our prayers?”
To all these questions, Capitu had ready, appropriate answers. She had a better dress on, and her most formal shoes. She did not come in with her usual familiarity, but stopped at the living-room door, before going to kiss my mother’s hand, then the priest’s. As she gave him the title of protonotary twice in five minutes, José Dias, to get even with the competition, made a little speech in honor of the “paternal heart of the most august Pius IX.”
“You’re a great speechifier,” said Uncle Cosme, when he finished.
José Dias smiled without being offended. Father Cabral endorsed the dependent’s praises, though without his superlatives; José Dias added that Cardinal Mastai had plainly been cut out for the papal tiara from the beginning of time. And, winking at me, he concluded:
“Vocation is everything. The ecclesiastical state is most perfect, so long as the priest has been destined from the cradle. If there is no vocation—I speak of real, sincere vocation—a young man can quite well study humanities, which are also useful and honorable.”
Father Cabral replied:
“Vocation stands for a great deal, but the sovereign power belongs to God. A man may well have no liking for the Church, and even persecute it: one day, God speaks to him, and he becomes an apostle: look at St. Paul.”
“I don’t contest that, but what I am saying is something else. What I am saying is that one can well serve God without being a priest, in this world; is that not so?”
“It is.”
“Well then!” exclaimed José Dias triumphantly, looking around him. “Without a vocation one cannot have a good priest, and in any liberal profession one may serve God, as is our duty.”
“Quite so, but vocations do not only come from the cradle.”
“But it is the best way.”
“A boy with no taste for the life of the church may well end up by being a very good priest; all is as God determines. I don’t want to set myself up as an example, but look at me: I was born with a vocation for medicine; my godfather, who was curate at the church of Santa Rita, kept on at my father to send me to the seminary, and my father gave way. Well, sir, I enjoyed the lessons and the company of the priests so much that I ended up taking orders. But suppose things had not happened that way, and that I had not changed my vocation, what would have happened? I would have studied some subjects it is useful to know, and which are always better taught in such places.”
Cousin Justina intervened:
“What? Can one go to a seminary and not come out a priest?”
Father Cabral said yes, that one could, and turning to me, spoke of my. vocation, which was manifest; my toys had always had to do with the Church, and I loved divine service. This was no proof: all the children in my time were devout. Cabral added that the rector of São José, whom he had recently told of my mother’s promise, held that my birth was a miracle; he himself was of the same opinion. Capitu, who stayed close to my mother, paid no attention to the anxious looks I directed at her; she did not even seem to be listening to the conversation about the seminary and its consequences, though she had its main points by heart, as I found out afterwards. Twice I went to the window, hoping that she would go too, and that we would be free and alone till the end of the world, if it should ever end, but Capitu did not come. She didn’t leave my mother’s side, until she went home. It was time for her ave marias, and she said goodbye.
“Go with her, Bentinho,” said my mother.
“There’s no need, Dona Glória,” she said with a laugh, “I know the way. Goodbye, Senhor protonotary …”
“Goodbye, Capitu.”
I had already taken a step across the room, and of course my duty, my desire, all the impulses of my youth and of the moment were to cross it completely, follow my neighbor down the corridor, go down through our garden into her yard, give her a third kiss and say goodbye. I took no notice of her refusal, which I thought was a pretence, and went down the corridor: but Capitu, who was hurrying, stopped and signalled to me to go back. I did not obey; I went up to her.
“Don’t come with me; we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But I wanted to tell you …”
“Listen!”
“Stay here!”
She was speaking low; she took my hand, and put a finger to my lips. A slave woman, who came from inside the house to light the lamp in the corridor, seeing us like that, almost in the dark, laughed sympathetically and murmured, loud enough for us to hear it, something that I did and didn’t understand. Capitu whispered to me that she had suspected us, and might well tell the others. Again she insisted that I stay, and went out; I stayed there motionless, glued to the spot.