I dined out. In the evening I went to the theater. The play was none other than Othello, which I had never seen or read; I only knew the subject, and was pleased at the coincidence. I saw the moor’s rage, because of a handkerchief—a mere handkerchief!—and here I provide material for the consideration of the psychologists of this and other continents, for I could not help observing that a handkerchief was enough to kindle Othello’s jealousy and so bring forth the most sublime tragedy ever written. The handkerchiefs have gone, now we need the sheets themselves; sometimes not even the sheets are there, and nightshirts will do. These were the ideas that were passing through my head, vague and confused, as the moor rolled convulsively around, and Iago distilled his calumny. In the intervals I did not leave my seat; I didn’t want to risk encountering anyone I knew. Nearly all the ladies stayed in their boxes, while the men went out to smoke. Then I asked myself if one of these women might not have loved someone now lying in a cemetery, and other incoherent thoughts came into my head, until the curtain rose and the play went on. The last act showed me that it was not I but Capitu that ought to die. I heard Desdemona’s pleas, her pure, loving words; then came the moor’s fury, and the death he meted out to her amidst the audience’s frenetic applause.
“And she was innocent,” I said over and over as I walked down the street, “what would the public do if she were really guilty, as guilty as Capitu? And what death would the moor give her then? A pillow would not be enough; he would need blood and fire, a vast, intense fire, which would consume her completely, reduce her to dust, and the dust would be thrown to the winds, extinguished for ever …”
I wandered around the streets for the rest of the night. I dined, it’s true, eating almost nothing, just enough to go on till morning. I saw the last hours of the night and the first of the day, I saw the last strollers of the night, and the first streetsweepers, the first carts, the first noises, the first light of dawn, one day coming after another, but one that would see me go, never to return. The streets I wandered around seemed to slip away from me of their own accord. I would never again see the sea from the Glória, nor the Serra dos Órgāos, the Fortress of Santa Cruz and the others. There were not so many people passing by as on normal weekdays, but they were already numerous and going to some kind of job, which they would do again another day; I would never return to mine.
I got home, opened the door slowly, went in on tiptoe, and shut myself in my study; it was nearly six. I took the poison from my pocket, sat there in my shirt sleeves and wrote yet another letter, the last, addressed to Capitu. None of the others was to her; I felt the need to write her a word which would make her suffer remorse for my death. I wrote two versions. The first I burned, as being long and diffuse. The second contained only what was needful, and was clear and short. I did not recall our past, nor our quarrels, nor any happiness; I spoke to her only of Escobar and the need to die.