“Give it here, let me write something.”
Capitu looked at me, but in a way that reminded me of José Dias’ definition, oblique and sly; she raised her gaze without raising her eyes. Her voice a little subdued, she asked me:
“Tell me something, but tell me the truth, I want no pretence; tell me, hand on heart.”
“What is it? Go on.”
“If you had to choose between me and your mother, who would you choose?”
“Me?”
She nodded.
“I’d choose … but why choose? Mamma would never ask me that.”
“Perhaps not, but I am asking. Suppose that you’re in the seminary and you get news that I’m going to die …”
“Don’t say that!”
“… or that I’ll kill myself out of longing for you if you don’t come straight away, and your mother doesn’t want you to come; tell me, would you come?”
“I’d come.”
“Against your mother’s orders?”
“Against Mamma’s orders.”
“You’d leave the seminary, leave your mother, leave everything, to come to see me when I’m dying?”
“Don’t talk about dying, Capitu!”
Capitu gave a colorless, incredulous little laugh, and with the stick she wrote a word on the ground. I bent over and read: liar.
It was all so strange, that I didn’t know what to do in reply. I couldn’t fathom the reasons for what she had written, any more than for what she had said. If I could have thought of an insult, great or small, I might have written one, too, with the same stick, but I couldn’t think of any. My mind was blank. At the same time I became alarmed lest anyone heard us or saw what was written. Who could have, since we were alone? Dona Fortunata had come to the back door once, but had gone in soon after. We were all alone. I remember that some swallows passed over the yard and flew towards Santa Teresa hill; nothing more. The vague, confused sound of voices in the distance, a clatter of hooves in the street, the twittering of Pádua’s birds coming from the house itself. Nothing else, or only this curious phenomenon, that the word she had written not only looked at me from the ground as if in mockery: it even seemed as if it were echoing in the air. Then I had a cruel notion; I said that a priest’s life was not so bad after all, and that I could accept it without too much trouble. As revenge, it was puerile; but I nursed the secret hope of seeing her fling herself at me bathed in tears. Capitu only opened her eyes wide, and finally said:
“Being a priest is a good thing, no doubt of it; the only thing better is being a canon, because of the purple stockings. Purple is a lovely color. The more I think about it, you’d better be a canon.”
“But you can’t be a canon without being a priest first,” I said to her, biting my lip.
“Well, start with the black stockings, and the purple ones will come later. What I wouldn’t miss for anything is your first mass; tell me in time so that I can make a fashionable dress, with a hoop skirt and big flounces … But by that time fashion may have changed. It’ll have to be a big church, the Carmo or São Francisco.”
“Or the Candelária.”
“Candelária, too. Any one will do, so long as I can come to your first mass. I’ll really make an impression. Lots of people will say: “Who’s that charming young woman there in such a pretty dress?” “That’s Dona Capitolina, a girl that used to live in the Rua de Matacavalos …”
“Used to live? Are you going to move?”
“Who knows where he’ll be living tomorrow?” she said, with a slightly melancholy tone to her voice; but, coming straight back to her sarcasm; “And you up at the altar, with your alb, and a golden cape over it, chanting … Pater noster …”
Ah, how I regret not being a romantic poet, to recount this duel of ironies! I would tell of my sallies and hers, the humor of one and the quick-wittedness of the other, the blood flowing, and the fury in my soul, right up to my final thrust, which was as follows:
“All right, Capitu, you can come to my first mass, but on one condition.”
To which she replied:
“Promise me something?”
“What is it?”
“Say you promise.”
“I’ll not promise till I know what it is.”
“Well, it’s really two things,” I went on, for something else had occurred to me.
“Two? Tell me what they are.”
“The first is that you must make confession with me, so that I can administer penance and absolution. The second is that …”
“I promise the first,” she said, seeing me hesitate, and added that she was waiting for the second.
On my word it was a struggle, and I wish it had never come out of my mouth; I would not have heard what I did hear, and I would not have to write something here which some might not believe.
“The second thing … yes … it’s that … Promise me that I’ll be the priest that marries you?”
“That marries me?” she said, somewhat taken aback.
Then she dropped the corners of her mouth, and shook her head.
“No, Bentinho,” she said, “that would mean waiting a long time; you won’t be a priest for a while, it takes many years … Look, I’ll promise something else; I’ll promise that you will baptize my first child.”