I won’t take the patient out of bed now without recounting what happened to me. After five days, my mother awoke one morning so disturbed that she ordered them to send for me at the seminary. In vain Uncle Cosme said:
“Sister Glória, you’re becoming alarmed for no reason, the fever will pass …”
“No! no! send for him! I might die, and my soul will not be saved if Bentinho isn’t by my side.”
“We’ll alarm him.”
“Don’t tell him anything then, but go and get him now, this minute, without delay.”
They thought it was delirium; but since it was no trouble to send for me, José Dias was entrusted with the message. He came in so bewildered that he alarmed me. He told the rector privately what had happened, and I received permission to go home. In the street, we walked along silently, without him altering his usual step—the premise before the consequence, the consequence before the conclusion—but his head was bowed, and from time to time he gave a sigh. I was afraid of reading in his face some shocking, irrevocable piece of news. He had only spoken to me of the illness as a simple matter; but the fact that they had sent for me, the silence, the sighs might mean something more. My heart was pounding, my legs were giving way under me, more than once I thought I was falling down…
My anxious desire to hear the truth was complicated by the fear of knowing it. It was the first time that death had appeared so close to me, surrounding me, and staring at me with its dark, hollow eyes. The further I went along the Rua dos Barbonos, the more I was terrified by the idea of getting home, going in, hearing the sobs, seeing a dead body … Oh! I could never set down here everything that I felt in those terrible moments. However superlatively slowly José Dias walked along the street, it seemed to slide beneath my feet, the houses flew past me on each side, and a bugle that at that moment sounded in the Municipal Guard barracks echoed in my ears like the last trumpet.
I went on, got to the arches of the Lapa aqueduct, and turned into the Rua de Matacavalos. The house was not there, but a long way past the Rua dos Inválidos, near the Rua do Senado. Three or four times, I had wanted to question my companion, without daring to open my mouth; but now, I didn’t even want to do that. I only walked on, accepting the worst, as a stroke of destiny, as a necessary part of the human condition, and it was then that Hope, to combat Terror, whispered into my ear—not these words, for nothing reached expression in words, but an idea which could be translated by them: “If Mamma’s dead, it’s the end of the seminary.”
Reader, it was a lightning flash. No sooner had it lit up the night that it went, and the darkness became all the deeper, from the remorse it left behind. It was the prompting of my lust and egotism. Filial piety fainted away for an instant, with the prospect of certain freedom, through the disappearance of the debt and the debtor; it was an instant, less than an instant, the hundredth part of an instant, and even so it was enough to complicate my distress with remorse.
José Dias was sighing. Once he looked at me with such pity that I thought he had seen what had happened, and I almost asked him not to say anything to anybody, that I would punish myself, etc. But in the pity there was so much love that it could not be sorrow at my sin; but then it was still my mother’s death … I felt a great anguish, a knot in my throat, and I could help it no longer, and burst out crying.
“What is it, Bentinho?”
“Mamma…?”
“No! No! What an idea! Her condition is of the gravest, but the illness is not fatal: God can do all things. Dry your eyes: it’s not right for a boy of your age to be crying in the street. It’s nothing, a fever … The stronger they come, the sooner they go … No, not with your hands; where’s your handkerchief?”
I dried my eyes, although the only word that had remained in my heart from what José Dias had said was gravest. Afterwards, I saw that he had only wanted to say grave, but the use of the superlative stretches things out, and for the love of a phrase, José Dias increased my misery. If you find anything similar in this book, dear reader, let me know, so that I can correct it in the second edition: there’s nothing worse than giving the longest of legs to the shortest of ideas. I dried my eyes, as I say, and went on, anxious now to get home, and ask my mother’s pardon for the wicked thought I had had. Finally, we arrived, went in, I went trembling up the six steps, and soon, leaning over the bed, I heard my mother’s tender words as she clasped my hands, calling me her son. She seemed to be on fire, and her eyes burned in mine; her whole being seemed consumed by a volcano inside her. I knelt by the bed, but as it was high, I was far from her caresses:
“No, my son, get up, get up!”
Capitu, who was in the bedroom, approved of my entrance, my gestures, words, and tears, as she told me afterwards; but naturally she did not suspect all the reasons for my distress. Going to my room, I thought of telling my mother everything, as soon as she was better, but this idea soon lost its hold over me. It was nothing more than a whim, an action I would never carry out, however much the sin weighed on me. So, moved by remorse, once more I used the old expedient of spiritual promises, and asked God to pardon me and save my mother’s life, and I would say two thousand paternosters. If any priest is reading me, may he forgive this device; it was the last time I had recourse to it. The crisis I found myself in, no less than my habits and my faith, explains everything. It was two thousand more; and where had the old ones gone? I paid neither the latter-nor the former, but if such promises come from pure, true souls, they are like fiduciary money—even though the debtor does not redeem them, they are worth their face value.