Of course the reflections I’ve set down here were not made then, on the way to seminary, but now in my study in Engenho Novo. Then, I really made no reflection at all, unless it was this: that one day I had provided some relief for my neighbor Manduca. Now, on further consideration, I think that not only did I provide some relief: I even gave him some happiness. And this discovery consoles me; now I will never forget that I gave two or three months of happiness to a poor devil, and made him forget his illness and the rest. It’s something when my life’s accounts come to be settled. If there is some kind of prize in the next world for unintentional virtues, this one will pay for one or two of my many sins. As for Manduca, I don’t think it was a sin to have anti-Russian opinions, but if it was, he will have been expiating now for forty years the happiness he had for two or three months—from which he will conclude (too late) that it would have been much better just to groan, and have no opinions at all.