I
IT’S ELEVEN O’CLOCK in the morning.
Dona Augusta Vasconcelos is reclining on a sofa with a book in her hand. Adelaide, her daughter, is tinkering at the piano.
“Is Papa up yet?” Adelaide asked her mother.
“No,” Dona Augusta said, without glancing up from her book.
Adelaide left the piano and went over to her mother.
“But it’s so late, Mama,” she said. “It’s eleven o’clock. Papa does sleep a lot.”
Augusta put the book down on her lap and, looking at Adelaide, said:
“That’s because he came home very late.”
“I’ve noticed that now Papa’s never here to kiss me good night when I go to bed. He’s always out somewhere.”
Augusta smiled.
“You’re still such a country bumpkin,” she said. “You go to bed at the same time as the chickens. Things are different here. Your father has things to do at night.”
“Is it to do with politics, Mama?” asked Adelaide.
“I don’t know,” said Augusta.
I began by saying that Adelaide was Augusta’s daughter, and this information, so necessary to the story, was no less necessary in reality, because, at first sight, no one would ever have thought they were mother and daughter; Vasconcelos’s wife was so young that mother and daughter looked more like sisters.
Augusta was thirty and Adelaide fifteen, but, comparatively speaking, the mother looked even younger than the daughter. She still had all the freshness of a fifteen-year-old, as well as something that Adelaide lacked: an awareness of her own beauty and youth, an awareness that would have been praiseworthy were it not combined with a vanity that was as immense as it was deep. She was of only average height, but nevertheless cut an imposing figure. Her skin was, at once, very pale and very rosy. She had brown hair and green eyes. Her long, shapely hands seemed made for loving caresses. Augusta, however, put her hands to better use, covering them in soft kid gloves.
All of Augusta’s graces were there in Adelaide, but in embryonic form. You could tell that, by the time Adelaide was twenty, she would rival Augusta; meanwhile, she still retained certain childish qualities that somewhat masked those natural gifts.
And yet a man could easily have fallen in love with her, especially if he was a poet with a liking for fifteen-year-old virgins, perhaps because she was rather pale, and poets down the ages have always had a weakness for pale women.
Augusta dressed with supreme elegance, and while she did spend a lot of money on clothes, she made the most of those enormous expenditures, if one could describe it as “making the most” of them. To be fair, though, Augusta never haggled, she always paid the asking price for everything. She was proud of this, and felt that to behave otherwise was ridiculous and low-class.
In this, Augusta both shared the sentiments and served the interests of certain traders, who agreed that it would be dishonorable to beat them down on the price of their merchandise.
Whenever they spoke of this, Augusta’s draper would tell her:
“Asking one price and then selling the product for a lower price is tantamount to confessing that you intended to swindle your customer.”
The draper preferred to do so without confessing to anything.
And again to be fair to Augusta, we must acknowledge that she spared no expense in ensuring that Adelaide was always dressed as elegantly as she herself was.
From the age of five, Adelaide had been brought up in the country by some of Augusta’s relatives, who were more interested in growing coffee than in spending money on clothes, and Adelaide grew up with those habits and those ideas. This is why arriving in Rio to rejoin her family proved to be a real transformation. She passed from one civilization to another; she lived through several years in the space of one hour. Fortunately for her, she had an excellent teacher in her mother. Adelaide changed, and on the day this story begins, she was already quite different, although still a long way behind her mother.
As Augusta was answering her daughter’s curious question about what Vasconcelos actually did at night, a carriage drew up at the front door.
Adelaide ran to the window.
“It’s Dona Carlota, Mama,” she said.
A few minutes later, Dona Carlota entered the room. To introduce readers to this new character, I need say only that she was like a volume two of Augusta: beautiful, like her; elegant, like her; vain, like her, which is to say that they were the very best of enemies.
Carlota had come to ask Augusta to sing at a concert she was planning to give at home, a concert dreamed up purely as an opportunity to show off her magnificent new dress.
Augusta gladly accepted.
“How’s your husband?” she asked Carlota.
“He’s gone into town. And yours?”
“He’s sleeping.”
“The sleep of the just?” asked Carlota with a mischievous smile.
“Apparently,” said Augusta.
At this point, Adelaide, who, at Carlota’s request, had gone over to the piano to play a nocturne, rejoined them.
Augusta’s friend said to her:
“I bet you’ve already got a sweetheart in your sights.”
Greatly embarrassed, Adelaide blushed deeply and said:
“Don’t say such things.”
“I’m sure you do; either that or you’re getting to the age when you certainly will have a sweetheart, and I’m telling you now that he’ll be very handsome.”
“It’s still too early for that,” said Augusta.
“Yes, she’s only a child. She’ll get married when she’s ready, but that won’t be for a while yet.”
“I see,” said Carlota, laughing, “you want to prepare her. And I entirely approve, but in that case, don’t take her dolls away from her.”
“Oh, she’s given up dolls already.”
“Then it will be very hard to fend off any sweethearts. One thing replaces the other.”
Augusta smiled, and Carlota got up to leave.
“Are you going already?” said Augusta.
“Yes, I must. Bye-bye.”
“’Bye!”
They exchanged kisses, and Carlota left.
Immediately afterward, two delivery boys arrived: one bearing some dresses and the other a novel, all of which had been ordered the day before. The dresses had cost a fortune, and the book was Ernest-Aimé Feydeau’s novel Fanny, a satire on society manners.
II
At about one in the afternoon that same day, Vasconcelos rose from his bed.
He was about forty, good-looking, and endowed with a magnificent pair of graying side-whiskers, which gave him the air of a diplomat, something that he was a million miles from being. He had a smiling, expansive face, and positively oozed robust health.
He possessed a decent fortune and did not work, or, rather, he worked very hard at squandering said fortune, with his wife as enthusiastic collaborator.
Adelaide had been quite right about her father; he went to bed late, always woke up after midday, and left again in the evening, only to return the following morning in the early hours, which is to say that he made regular brief visits to the family home.
Only one person had the right to demand that Vasconcelos become a more assiduous visitor, and that was Augusta; but she said nothing. They got on well enough, though, because the husband, as a reward for his wife’s tolerant behavior, denied her nothing and every whim of hers was quickly granted.
If Vasconcelos could not accompany her to every outing and every ball, a brother of his stood in for him; Lourenço was a commander of two different orders, an opposition politician, an excellent player of ombre, and, in his few moments of leisure, a most amiable fellow. He was what might be described as “an awkward so-and-so,” at least as regards his brother, for while he obeyed his sister-in-law’s every order, he would address the occasional admonitory sermon to his brother. Good seed that fell on stony ground.
Anyway, Vasconcelos had eventually woken up, and he woke in a good mood. His daughter was very pleased to see him; he spoke to his wife most affably, and she responded in kind.
“Why do you always wake up so late?” asked Adelaide, stroking his side-whiskers.
“Because I go to bed late.”
“But why do you go to bed late?”
“What a lot of questions!” said Vasconcelos, smiling.
Then he went on:
“I go to bed late because my political duties require it. You don’t know what politics is: it’s something very ugly, but very necessary.”
“I do know what politics is!” said Adelaide.
“All right, then, tell me.”
“In the country, whenever they were beating up the magistrate, they always used to say that the motive was political, which I thought was really odd, because politically speaking, not beating him up would have made much more sense . . .”
Vasconcelos laughed out loud at his daughter’s remark, and was just going off to have his breakfast when in came his brother, who could not resist saying:
“A fine time to be having breakfast!”
“Don’t you start. I have my breakfast whenever I feel like it. Don’t try and pin me down to certain hours and certain meanings. Call it breakfast or lunch, I don’t mind, but whatever it is, I’m going to eat it.”
Lourenço responded by pulling a face.
When breakfast was over, Senhor Batista arrived. Vasconcelos received him in his private study.
Batista was twenty-five and the typical man-about-town; excellent company at a supper attended by rather dubious guests, but absolutely useless in respectable company. He was witty and quite intelligent, but he had to be in the right situation for these qualities to be revealed. Otherwise, he was handsome, sported a fine mustache, wore expensive shoes, and dressed impeccably; he also smoked like a trooper, but smoked only the finest cigars.
“Only just woken up, have you?” Batista asked as he went into Vasconcelos’s study.
“Yes, about three-quarters of an hour ago. I’ve just finished breakfast. Have a cigar.”
Batista took one and sat down in a chair, while Vasconcelos struck a match.
“Have you seen Gomes?” asked Vasconcelos.
“Yes, I saw him yesterday. The big news is that he’s given up society life.”
“Really?”
“When I asked him why he hadn’t been seen for over a month, he told me he was undergoing a transformation, and that the Gomes he was will live on only as a memory. Incredible though it may seem, he appeared to mean it.”
“I don’t believe him. He’s having a joke at our expense. Any other news?”
“None, not unless you’ve heard any.”
“Not a peep.”
“Come on! Didn’t you go to the Jardim yesterday?”
“Yes, there was a supper on there . . .”
“A family do, eh? I was at the Alcazar. What time did that ‘family supper’ end?”
“At four in the morning.”
Vasconcelos lay down in a hammock, and the conversation continued along the same lines, until a houseboy came to tell Vasconcelos that Senhor Gomes was in the parlor.
“Ah, the man himself!” said Batista.
“Tell him to come up,” ordered Vasconcelos.
The houseboy went back downstairs, but Gomes only joined them a quarter of an hour later, having spent some time chatting with Augusta and Adelaide.
“Well, long time no see,” said Vasconcelos when Gomes finally entered the room.
“You haven’t exactly searched me out,” Gomes retorted.
“Excuse me, but I’ve been to your house twice, and twice they told me you were out.”
“That was pure bad luck, because I hardly ever go out now.”
“So you’ve become a hermit, have you?”
“I’m a chrysalis at the moment, and will reemerge as a butterfly,” said Gomes, sitting down.
“Poetry, eh? Watch out, Vasconcelos.”
This new character, the longed-for, long-lost Gomes, appeared to be about thirty. He, Vasconcelos, and Batista were a trinity of pleasure and dissipation, bound together by an indissoluble friendship. When, about a month before, Gomes stopped appearing in the usual circles, everyone noticed, but only Vasconcelos and Batista really felt his absence. However, they did not try too hard to drag Gomes out of his solitude, in case there was some ulterior motive on his part.
Nevertheless, they greeted Gomes like the prodigal son.
“Where have you been hiding? What’s all this business about chrysalises and butterflies? Who do you think you’re fooling?”
“No, really, my friends. I’m growing wings.”
“Wings!” said Batista, trying not to laugh.
“Only if they’re the wings of a sparrow-hawk ready to pounce on its prey . . .”
“No, I’m serious.”
And Gomes seemed absolutely genuine.
Vasconcelos and Batista exchanged a sideways glance.
“Well, if it’s true, tell us about these wings of yours and where exactly you want to fly,” said Vasconcelos, and Batista added:
“Yes, you owe us an explanation, and if we, your family council, think it a good explanation, we will give our approval. If not, there’ll be no wings for you, and you’ll go back to being what you’ve always been.”
“I second that,” said Vasconcelos.
“It’s quite simple. I’m growing angel’s wings so that I can fly up into the heaven of love.”
“Love!” exclaimed his two friends.
“Yes, love,” said Gomes. “What have I been up until now? A complete wastrel, a total debauchee, squandering both my fortune and my heart. But is that enough to fill a life? I don’t think so.”
“I agree, it isn’t enough, there needs to be something else, but the difference lies in how . . .”
“Exactly,” said Vasconcelos, “exactly. It’s only natural that the two of you will think otherwise, but I believe I’m right in saying that without a chaste, pure love, life is a mere desert.”
Batista gave a start.
Vasconcelos fixed his eyes on Gomes.
“You’re thinking of getting married, aren’t you?” he said.
“I don’t know about marriage, I only know that I’m in love and hope one day to marry the woman I love.”
“Marry!” cried Batista.
And he let out a loud guffaw.
Gomes was so serious, though, and insisted so gravely on his plans for his own regeneration, that the two friends ended up listening with equal seriousness.
Gomes was speaking a strange language, entirely new on the lips of a man who, at any dionysian or aphrodisiac feast, was always the wildest and rowdiest of guests.
“So, you’re leaving us, then?” said Vasconcelos.
“Me? Yes and no. You will find me in certain salons, but never again will we meet in theaters or in houses of ill repute.”
“De profundis . . .” sang Batista.
“May we at least know where and who your Marion is?” asked Vasconcelos.
“She’s not a Marion, she’s a Virginie. At first I merely felt fond of her, then fondness became love and is now out-and-out passion. I fought it for as long as I could, but lay down my arms in the face of a far more potent force. My great fear was that I would not have a soul worthy to be offered to this gentle creature, but I do, a soul as fiery and pure as it was when I was eighteen. Only the chaste eyes of a virgin could have discovered the divine pearl beneath the mud in my soul. I am being reborn a far better man than I was.”
“The boy’s clearly insane, Vasconcelos. We should pack him off to the lunatic asylum this minute, and just in case he should suffer some new attack of madness, I’ll leave right now.”
“Where are you going?” asked Gomes.
“I have things to do, but I’ll come and see you shortly. I want to find out if there’s still time to haul you out of the abyss.”
And with that he left.
III
Once they were alone, Vasconcelos asked:
“So you really are in love?”
“Yes, I am. I knew you’d find that hard to believe; I myself don’t quite believe it, and yet it’s true. I’m ending up where you began. For better or worse? For better, I think.”
“Do you intend to conceal the person’s name?”
“I’ll conceal it from everyone but you.”
“You clearly trust me, then . . .”
Gomes smiled.
“No,” he said, “it’s a necessary condition. You, above all men, should know the name of my heart’s chosen one, for she’s your daughter.”
“Adelaide?” asked Vasconcelos in astonishment.
“Yes, your daughter.”
This revelation was a real bombshell. Vasconcelos had never suspected such a thing.
“Do you approve?” asked Gomes.
Vasconcelos was thinking, and, after a few moments of silence, he said:
“My heart approves of your choice; you’re my friend, you’re in love, and as long as she loves you . . .”
Gomes was about to speak, but, smiling, Vasconcelos went on:
“But what about society?”
“What society?”
“The society that believes both you and me to be libertines; they’re hardly going to approve.”
“So that’s a no, is it?” said Gomes sadly.
“No, it’s not, you fool! It’s an objection you could rebut by declaring that society is a great slanderer and famously indiscreet. My daughter is yours, on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“Reciprocity. Does she love you?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you’re not sure . . .”
“I really don’t know, I only know that I love her and would give my life for her, but I have no idea if my feelings are requited.”
“They will be. I’ll test the waters. In two days’ time, I’ll give you my answer. To think you could be my son-in-law . . .”
Gomes’s response was to fall into his friend’s arms. The scene was verging on the comic when three o’clock struck. Gomes remembered that he’d arranged to meet another friend. Vasconcelos remembered that he had to write some letters.
Gomes left without speaking to the two ladies.
At about four o’clock, Vasconcelos was preparing to go out, when he was told that Senhor José Brito had come to see him.
When he heard this name, the normally jovial Vasconcelos frowned.
Shortly afterward, Senhor José Brito entered his study.
Senhor José Brito was, as far as Vasconcelos was concerned, a specter, an echo from the abyss, the voice of reality—a creditor.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” said Vasconcelos.
“I’m surprised,” answered Senhor José Brito with a kind of piercing calm, “because today is the twenty-first.”
“I thought it was the nineteenth,” stammered Vasconcelos.
“The day before yesterday it was, but today is the twenty-first. Look,” said the creditor, picking up the Jornal do Commercio lying on a chair, “Thursday the twenty-first.”
“Have you come for the money?”
“Here’s the bill of exchange,” said Senhor José Brito, taking his wallet out of his pocket and a piece of paper out of the wallet.
“Why didn’t you come earlier?” asked Vasconcelos, trying to put off the evil hour.
“I came at eight o’clock this morning,” replied the creditor, “and you were asleep; I came at nine, idem; I came at ten, idem; I came at eleven, idem; I came at noon, idem. I could have come at one o’clock, but I had to send a man to prison and I couldn’t get away any earlier. At three, I had my dinner, and here I am at four o’clock.”
Vasconcelos took a puff on his cigar to see if he could come up with some clever way of avoiding making a payment he had not been expecting.
Nothing occurred to him, but then the creditor himself gave him an opening.
“Besides,” he said, “the time hardly matters, since I was sure you would pay me.”
“Ah,” said Vasconcelos, “that explains it. I wasn’t expecting you today, you see, and so I don’t have the money with me.”
“What’s to be done, then?” asked the creditor innocently.
Vasconcelos felt a glimmer of hope.
“You could wait until tomorrow.”
“Ah, tomorrow I’m hoping to be present at the confiscation of assets from an individual I took to court for a very large debt, so I’m afraid I can’t . . .”
“I see, well, in that case, I’ll bring the money to your house.”
“That would be fine if business worked like that. If we were friends, then obviously I would accept your promise and it would all be settled tomorrow, but I’m your creditor, and my one aim is to protect my own interests. Therefore, I think it would be best if you paid me today.”
Vasconcelos smoothed his hair with one hand.
“But I don’t have the money!” he said.
“Yes, that must be very awkward for you, but it doesn’t upset me in the least; that is, it ought to upset me a little, because you clearly find yourself in a very precarious situation.”
“Do I?”
“Indeed. Your properties in Rua da Imperatriz are mortgaged up to the hilt; the house in Rua de São Pedro was sold, and the money from the sale long since spent; your slaves have all left one by one, without you even noticing, and you recently spent a vast amount on setting up house for a certain lady of dubious reputation. You see, I know it all. More than you do yourself.”
Vasconcelos was visibly terrified.
The creditor was telling the truth.
“But,” said Vasconcelos, “what are we to do?”
“That’s easy enough, we double the debt, and you give me a deposit right now.”
“Double the debt, but that’s—”
“Throwing you a lifeline. I’m really being very reasonable. Come on, say yes. Write me a note for the deposit now and we’ll tear up the bill of exchange.”
Vasconcelos tried to object, but it was impossible to convince Senhor José Brito.
He signed a note for eighteen contos.
When his creditor left, Vasconcelos began thinking seriously about his life.
Up until then, he had spent so wildly and so blindly that he hadn’t noticed the abyss he himself had dug beneath his feet.
It had taken the voice of one of his executioners to alert him to this.
Vasconcelos pondered, calculated, and went through all his expenses and his obligations, and saw that he had less than a quarter of his fortune left—a mere pittance if he were to continue living as he had until now.
What to do?
Vasconcelos picked up his hat and went out.
It was growing dark.
After walking for some time, deep in thought, he went into the Alcazar.
It was a way of distracting himself.
There he found the usual people.
Batista came to greet his friend.
“Why the glum face?” he asked.
And for want of a better answer, Vasconcelos replied: “Oh, it’s nothing. Someone just stepped on a corn.”
However, a chiropodist standing nearby heard this remark and thereafter did not take his eyes off poor Vasconcelos, who was in a particularly sensitive mood that night. In the end, he found the chiropodist’s insistent gaze so troubling that he left.
He went to the Hotel de Milão to have supper. However preoccupied he might be, his stomach was still making its usual demands.
In the middle of eating, he suddenly remembered the one thing he should never have forgotten: Gomes’s proposal of marriage to his daughter.
It was like a ray of sunshine.
“Gomes is rich,” thought Vasconcelos. “That’s the best way out of all these problems. Gomes can marry Adelaide, and, since he’s my friend, he couldn’t possibly deny me what I need. For my part, I will try to get back what I’ve lost. What a stroke of luck!”
Vasconcelos continued his meal in the best of moods, then returned to the Alcazar, where a few other lads and some members of the female sex helped him to forget his troubles completely.
He returned peacefully home at his regular time of three o’clock in the morning.
IV
The following day, Vasconcelos’s first priority was to sound out Adelaide. He wanted to do so, though, when Augusta was not there. Fortunately, she needed to go to Rua da Quitanda to view some new fabrics, and she set off with her brother-in-law, leaving Vasconcelos entirely free.
As readers will already know, Adelaide loved her father deeply, and would do anything for him. She was, moreover, the soul of kindness. Vasconcelos was counting on those two qualities.
“Come here, Adelaide,” he said, going into the living room. “How old are you now?”
“Fifteen.”
“Do you know how old your mother is?”
“She’s twenty-seven, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s thirty, which means that your mother married when she was just fifteen.”
Vasconcelos paused to gauge the effect of these words, but in vain. Adelaide had no idea what he was getting at.
Her father went on:
“Have you considered marriage?”
She blushed deeply and said nothing, but when her father insisted, she answered:
“Oh, Papa, I don’t want to marry.”
“You don’t want to marry? Whyever not?”
“Because I don’t want to. I’m happy living here.”
“You could marry and still live here.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to.”
“Come on, you’re in love with someone, aren’t you? Admit it.”
“Don’t ask me such things, Papa. I’m not in love with anyone.”
Adelaide sounded so genuine that Vasconcelos could not doubt her sincerity.
“She’s telling the truth,” he thought. “I need to try another tack.”
Adelaide sat down next to him and said:
“So can we just not talk about this anymore, Papa?”
“We must talk, my dear. You’re still a child and can’t yet look to the future. Imagine if I and your mother were to die tomorrow. Who would look after you? Only a husband.”
“But there’s no one I like.”
“Not at the moment, but if your fiancé were a handsome lad with a good heart, you would come to like him. I’ve already chosen someone who loves you deeply, and you’ll come to love him too.”
Adelaide shuddered.
“I will?” she said. “But who is it?”
“Gomes.”
“But I don’t love him, Papa.”
“Not now, I’m sure, but you can’t deny that he’s worthy of being loved. In a couple of months you’ll be madly in love with him.”
Adelaide said not a word. She bowed her head and started playing with one of her thick, dark plaits. She was breathing hard and staring down at the carpet.
“So that’s agreed, is it?” asked Vasconcelos.
“But, Papa, what if I was unhappy?”
“That’s impossible, my dear. You will be happy and you’ll adore your husband.”
“Oh, Papa,” said Adelaide, her eyes brimming with tears, “please don’t make me marry yet.”
“Adelaide, a daughter’s first duty is to obey her father, and I’m your father. I want you to marry Gomes and you will marry him.”
To have their full effect, these words needed to be followed by a quick exit. Vasconcelos knew this and immediately departed, leaving Adelaide in deep despair.
She didn’t love anyone. No other love object lay behind her refusal, nor did she feel any particular aversion for her would-be suitor. She merely felt complete indifference.
In the circumstances, marriage could only be a hateful imposition.
But what could Adelaide do? Who could she turn to?
She had only her tears.
As for Vasconcelos, he went up to his study and wrote the following lines to his future son-in-law:
Everything is going well. I give you permission to come and pay court to my daughter, and hope to see you married in a couple of months.
He sealed the letter and sent it off.
Shortly afterward, Augusta and Lourenço returned.
While Augusta disappeared up to her boudoir to change her clothes, Lourenço went looking for Adelaide, who was out in the garden.
Noticing that her eyes were red, he asked her why, but she denied she had been crying.
Lourenço didn’t believe his niece and urged her to tell him what was wrong.
Adelaide trusted her uncle, almost because he was so direct and gruff. After a few minutes, Adelaide told Lourenço all about the scene with her father.
“So that’s why you’re crying, little one.”
“Yes. How can I avoid getting married?”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to. I promise.”
Adelaide felt a shiver of joy.
“Do you promise, Uncle, to persuade Papa?”
“Well, persuade or prevail, one or the other, but you won’t have to get married. Your father is a fool.”
Lourenço went up to see Vasconcelos at precisely the moment when the latter was about to leave.
“Are you going out?” asked Lourenço.
“I am.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Lourenço sat down, and Vasconcelos, who already had his hat on, stood waiting for him to speak.
“Sit down,” said Lourenço.
Vasconcelos sat down.
“Sixteen years ago—”
“You’re going an awfully long way back. If you don’t shave off half a dozen years, I can’t promise to hear you out.”
“Sixteen years ago,” Lourenço went on, “you got married, but the difference between that first day and today is enormous.”
“Of course,” said Vasconcelos. “Tempora mutantur, nos et—”
“At the time,” Lourenço went on, “you said you’d found paradise, a true paradise, and for two or three years you were a model husband. Then you changed completely, and paradise would have become a real hell if your wife were not the cold, indifferent creature she is, thus avoiding some truly terrible domestic scenes.”
“But what has this got to do with you, Lourenço?”
“Nothing, and that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. What I want to do is to stop you sacrificing your daughter on a whim, handing her over to one of your fellow dissolutes.”
Vasconcelos sprang to his feet:
“You must be insane,” he said.
“No, I’m perfectly sane and prudently advising you not to sacrifice your daughter to a libertine.”
“Gomes isn’t a libertine. True, he’s led the life of many a young man, but he loves Adelaide and is a reformed character. It’s a good marriage, and that’s why I think we must all accept it. That’s what I want, and I’m the one who gives the orders around here.”
Lourenço was about to say more, but Vasconcelos had left.
“What can I do?” thought Lourenço.
V
Vasconcelos was not greatly bothered by Lourenço’s opposition to his plans. He could, it’s true, sow the seeds of resistance in his niece’s mind, but Adelaide was easily persuaded and would agree with whoever she happened to be speaking to, and the advice she received one day would easily be overthrown by any contrary advice she was given the following day.
Still, it would be wise to get Augusta’s support. Vasconcelos decided to do this as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, he needed to organize his own affairs, and so he found a lawyer, to whom he gave all the necessary documents and information, charging him with providing the necessary guidance and advising him on what measures he could take to oppose any claims made against him because of his debts or his mortgages.
None of this should make you think that Vasconcelos was about to change his ways. He was simply preparing himself to continue life as before.
Two days after his conversation with his brother, Vasconcelos went in search of Augusta, in order to speak frankly with her about Adelaide’s marriage.
During that time, the future bridegroom, taking Vasconcelos’s advice, was already paying court to Adelaide. If the marriage was not forced on her, it was just possible that she might end up liking the lad. Besides, Gomes was a handsome, elegant fellow and knew how to impress a woman.
Would Augusta have noticed his unusually assiduous presence in the house? That was the question Vasconcelos was asking himself as he went into his wife’s boudoir.
“Are you going out?” he asked her.
“No, I’m expecting a visitor.”
“Oh, who?”
“Seabra’s wife,” she said.
Vasconcelos sat down and tried to find a way of beginning the special conversation that had brought him there.
“You’re looking very pretty today!”
“Really?” she said, smiling. “Well, I’m no different today than on any other day, and it’s odd that you should pick today to say so.”
“No, I mean it, you’re even prettier than usual, so much so, that I could almost feel jealous.”
“Come, now!” said Augusta with an ironic smile.
Vasconcelos scratched his head, took out his watch, wound it up, tugged at his beard, picked up a newspaper, read a couple of advertisements, then threw the paper down on the floor; finally, after a rather long silence, he thought it best to make a frontal assault on the citadel.
“I’ve been thinking about Adelaide,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“She’s a young woman—”
“A young woman!” exclaimed Augusta. “She’s still a child.”
“She’s older than you were when you got married.”
Augusta frowned slightly.
“What are you getting at?” she asked.
“What I’m getting at is that I want to make her happy by seeing her happily married. Some days ago, a very worthy young man asked me for her hand and I said yes. When I tell you the young man’s name, I’m sure you’ll approve. It’s Gomes. They should marry, don’t you think?”
“Certainly not!” retorted Augusta.
“Why not?”
“Adelaide’s just a child. She’s not old enough or sensible enough yet. She’ll marry when the time is right.”
“When the time is right? Are you sure the young man will wait that long?”
“Patience,” said Augusta.
“Do you have something against Gomes?”
“No. He’s a distinguished enough young fellow, but he’s not right for Adelaide.”
Vasconcelos hesitated before continuing; it seemed to him there was no point in going on. However, the thought of Gomes’s fortune gave him courage, and he asked:
“Why isn’t he?”
“Are you so very sure he’s right for Adelaide?” said Augusta, avoiding her husband’s question.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, whether he’s right or not, she shouldn’t get married now.”
“What if she were in love?”
“What does that matter? She’ll wait!”
“I have to tell you, Augusta, that we can’t let this marriage pass us by. It’s an absolute necessity.”
“An absolute necessity? I don’t understand.”
“Let me explain. Gomes has a large fortune.”
“So do we.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Vasconcelos, interrupting her.
“How so?”
Vasconcelos went on:
“You’d have to find out sooner or later, and I think this is the moment to tell you the truth, and the truth is that we’re poor, ruined.”
Augusta heard these words, her eyes wide with horror.
“It’s not possible!”
“Unfortunately, it is.”
A silence fell.
“There, I’ve got her,” thought Vasconcelos.
Augusta broke the silence.
“But if our fortune has gone, I’d have thought you would have something better to do than sit around talking about it; you need to rebuild that fortune.”
Vasconcelos gave her a look of utter astonishment, and as if this look were a question, Augusta quickly added:
“Don’t look so surprised. I think it’s your duty to rebuild our fortune.”
“That isn’t what surprises me, what I find surprising is that you should put it like that. Anyone would think I was to blame.”
“Oh,” said Augusta, “I suppose you’re going to say that I am.”
“If blame there is, then we’re both to blame.”
“What, me too?”
“Yes, you too. Your wildly extravagant spending sprees have been a major contributor to our downfall; and since I’ve denied you nothing and still deny you nothing, I take full responsibility. And if that’s what you’re throwing in my face, then I agree.”
Augusta gave an angry shrug and shot Vasconcelos a look of such scorn that it would have been valid grounds for divorce.
Vasconcelos saw the shrug and the look.
“A love of luxury and excess,” he said, “will always have the same consequences, which are terrible, but perfectly understandable. The only way of avoiding them is to live more moderately, but that never even occurred to you. After six months of married life, you plunged into the whirlwind of fashion, and your little stream of expenditures became a vast river of profligacy. Do you know what my brother said to me once? He said that the reason you sent Adelaide off to the country was so that you would be free to live with no obligations of any kind.”
Augusta had stood up and taken a few steps across the room; she was pale and trembling.
Vasconcelos was continuing this litany of recriminations, when his wife interrupted him, saying:
“And why did you not put a stop to my extravagance?”
“For the sake of domestic harmony.”
“Lies!” she cried. “You wanted to live a free and independent life. Seeing me embarking on that life of excess, you thought you could buy my tolerance of your behavior by tolerating mine. That was the only reason. The way you live may be different from mine, but it’s far worse. I may have squandered money at home, but you did the same out in the street. There’s no point denying it, because I know everything; I know all the names of the succession of rivals you’ve given me, and I never said a word, and I’m not censuring you now, that would be pointless and too late.”
The situation had changed. Vasconcelos had begun as judge and ended up as codefendant. It was impossible to deny, and arguing was risky and futile. He preferred to appear reasonable, even cajoling.
“Given the facts (and I accept that you’re right), we are clearly both to blame, and I see no reason to lay all the blame on me. I should rebuild our fortune, I agree. And one way of doing that is to marry Adelaide off to Gomes.”
“No,” said Augusta.
“Fine, then, we’ll be poor and even worse off than we are now; we’ll sell everything . . .”
“Forgive me,” said Augusta, “but I don’t understand why you, a strong young man, who clearly played the larger role in bringing about this disaster, cannot throw yourself into rebuilding our squandered fortune.”
“It would take a very long time, and meanwhile life goes on and we keep spending. As I’ve said, the best way out of this is to marry Adelaide off to Gomes.”
“No, I don’t want that,” said Augusta, “I won’t consent to such a marriage.”
Vasconcelos was about to respond, but Augusta, having uttered these words, had flounced out of the room.
Vasconcelos followed a few minutes later.
VI
Lourenço knew nothing about this scene between his brother and sister-in-law, and, given Vasconcelos’s stubbornness, he had decided to say nothing more; however, since he was very fond of his niece and did not want to see her handed over to a man of whose habits he disapproved, he decided to wait until the situation took a more decisive turn and only then play a more active role.
In order not to waste time, though, and possibly to gain the use of some potentially powerful weapon, Lourenço began an investigation intended to gather detailed information on Gomes.
Gomes, for his part, believed the marriage to be a certainty, and did not waste a moment in his conquest of Adelaide.
He could not fail to notice, however, that for no reason he could ascertain, her mother Augusta was becoming increasingly cold and indifferent, and it occurred to him that she was possibly the source of some opposition.
As for Vasconcelos, discouraged by the discussion in his wife’s boudoir, he was hoping for better days and depending, above all, on the sheer force of necessity.
One day, however, exactly forty-eight hours after his argument with Augusta, he asked himself this question:
“Why is Augusta refusing to give Adelaide to Gomes in marriage?”
One question led to another, one deduction led to another, and a painful suspicion took root in Vasconcelos’s mind.
“Does she perhaps love him?” he wondered.
Then, as if one abyss attracted another abyss, and one suspicion called to another suspicion, Vasconcelos thought:
“Were they once lovers?”
For the first time, Vasconcelos felt the serpent of jealousy biting his heart.
I say “jealousy” for want of a better word, because I don’t know if what he was feeling was jealousy or merely wounded pride.
Could Vasconcelos’s suspicions have any basis in fact?
To be honest, no. However vain Augusta might be, she remained faithful to her unfaithful husband, and for two reasons: her conscience and her temperament. Even if she hadn’t been convinced of her duty as a wife, she would never break her wedding vows. She was not made for passions, apart from the ridiculous passions aroused by vanity. She loved her own beauty above all things, and her best friend was whoever would tell her she was the most beautiful of women; and yet, while she would give away her friendship, she would never give away her heart, and this is what saved her.
And there you have the truth: But who would tell Vasconcelos? Once he began to suspect that his honor was at risk, Vasconcelos started to review his whole life. Gomes had been a visitor to his house for six years and was free to come and go as he liked. An act of betrayal would be easy enough. Vasconcelos recalled words, gestures, glances, none of which had been of any significance before, but which, now, began to look suspicious.
For two days, Vasconcelos was consumed by these thoughts. He did not leave the house, and whenever Gomes arrived, he would observe his wife with unusual interest; even the coldness with which she received Gomes was, in her husband’s eyes, proof of the crime.
Then, on the morning of the third day (Vasconcelos now rose early), his brother came into his study, looking his usual disapproving self.
Lourenço’s presence prompted Vasconcelos to reveal everything to him.
Lourenço was a man of good sense and, when necessary, could be supportive too.
He listened to Vasconcelos, and when the latter had finished, he broke his silence with these words:
“This is pure nonsense. If your wife is against the marriage, then it’s for some other reason.”
“But it’s the marriage to Gomes she’s objecting to.”
“Yes, because you presented Gomes to her as the suitor, but she might well have reacted in the same way if you had suggested someone else. There must be another reason; perhaps Adelaide has spoken to her and asked her to oppose the marriage, because your daughter doesn’t love Gomes and can’t marry him.”
“But she will.”
“That’s not the only reason she can’t marry him, though . . .”
“Go on.”
“There’s also the fact that the marriage is pure speculation on Gomes’s part.”
“Speculation?” asked Vasconcelos.
“Just as it is for you,” said Lourenço. “You’re giving him your daughter because you have your eyes on his fortune; and he will take her because he has his eyes on yours . . .”
“But he—”
“He has nothing. He’s ruined like you. I did a little investigating and learned the truth. Naturally, he wants to continue the same dissolute life he has led up until now, and your fortune is a way to do that.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”
Vasconcelos was terrified. In the midst of all his suspicions, he had still clung to the hope that his honor would be saved and that the marriage would set him up financially.
Lourenço’s revelation put paid to that hope.
“If you want proof, send for him and tell him you’re penniless and, for that reason, cannot allow him to marry your daughter. Observe him closely and see what effect your words have on him.”
There was no need to summon the suitor. An hour later, he called at the house.
Vasconcelos told him to come straight up to his study.
After an initial exchange of courtesies, Vasconcelos said:
“I was just about to write and ask you to come.”
“Why’s that?” asked Gomes.
“So that we could talk about . . . about the marriage.”
“Ah, is there a problem?”
“I’ll explain.”
Gomes grew more serious, foreseeing some grave difficulty.
Vasconcelos spoke first.
“There are certain circumstances,” he said, “that need to be set out very clearly, so that there can be no room for misunderstanding . . .”
“I agree entirely.”
“Do you love my daughter?”
“How often do I have to tell you? Yes, I do.”
“And you will love her whatever the circumstances?”
“Yes, unless those circumstances might affect her happiness.”
“Let’s be frank, then, since, as well as the friend you have always been, you are now almost my son. For us to be discreet would be decidedly indiscreet.”
“Indeed,” said Gomes.
“I’ve just found out that my financial affairs are in a parlous state. I have overspent and am basically ruined, and it would be no exaggeration to say that I am now poor.”
Gomes did his best not to look shocked.
“Adelaide,” Vasconcelos went on, “has no fortune, not even a dowry. All I am giving you is a young woman, although I can promise you that she’s a real angel and will make an excellent wife.”
Vasconcelos fell silent, his eyes fixed on Gomes, as if, by scrutinizing his face he might discover what was going on in his heart.
Gomes should have responded at once, but, for a few minutes, a deep silence reigned.
Finally, he spoke.
“I appreciate your frankness and I will be equally frank.”
“I would expect no less.”
“It was certainly not money that prompted my love for your daughter; I trust you will do me the justice of believing that I am above such base considerations. Besides, on the day when I asked you for the hand of my beloved, I believed myself to be rich.”
“Believed?”
“Yes, only yesterday, my lawyer told me the true state of my financial affairs.”
“Not good, eh?”
“Oh, if only it were as simple as that. But it seems that for the last six months I have been existing thanks entirely to my lawyer’s extraordinary efforts to scrape together some money, because he couldn’t bring himself to tell me the truth. And I only found out yesterday!”
“I see.”
“Imagine the despair of a man who believes himself to be wealthy and, one day, discovers he has nothing!”
“I don’t need to imagine it!”
“I came here today feeling happy, because any happiness I still have resides in this house; but the truth is that I’m poised on the edge of an abyss. Fate has chosen to punish us both at the same moment.”
After this explanation, to which Vasconcelos listened unblinking, Gomes tackled the thorniest part of the matter.
“As I say, I appreciate your frankness and I accept your daughter even without a fortune. I have no fortune, either, but I am still strong enough to work.”
“You accept her, then?”
“Listen, I accept Dona Adelaide on one condition: that she wait awhile for me to begin my new life. I intend going to the government and asking for a post there, if I can still remember what I learned at school. As soon as I’m properly established, I will come back for her. Do you agree?”
“If she’s happy with that,” said Vasconcelos, grasping at this one last hope, “then it’s decided.”
Gomes went on:
“Good, speak to her about this tomorrow, and send me her response. Ah, if only I still had my fortune, then I could prove to you how much I love her.”
“Fine, we’ll leave it at that.”
“I await your response.”
And with that they said goodbye.
Vasconcelos was left with this thought:
“The only credible part of what he said is that he now has nothing. But there’s no point in waiting: hard on hard never made a brick wall.”
As Gomes was going down the stairs, he was saying to himself:
“What I find odd is that he should tell me that he’s poor at precisely the moment when I’ve just discovered my own ruin. But he’ll wait in vain: in this case, two halves don’t make a whole.”
Vasconcelos went downstairs.
His intention was to tell Augusta the result of his conversation with Adelaide’s suitor. One thing, however, was still bothering him: Augusta’s refusal to agree to Adelaide’s marriage without giving any reason.
He was still thinking about this when, as he walked through the hall, he heard voices in the parlor.
It was Augusta talking to Carlota.
He was about to go in when these words reached his ears:
“But Adelaide’s still such a child.”
It was Augusta’s voice.
“A child!” said Carlota.
“Yes. She’s not old enough to marry.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t stop this marriage, even if it does take place in a few months’ time, because Gomes really doesn’t seem such a bad fellow.”
“Oh, he isn’t, but I just don’t want Adelaide to marry.”
Vasconcelos pressed his ear to the keyhole, anxious not to miss a single word of this dialogue.
“What I don’t understand,” said Carlota, “is your insistence on her not marrying at all. Sooner or later, she’ll have to.”
“Yes, but as late as possible,” said Augusta.
A silence fell.
Vasconcelos was growing impatient.
“Oh,” Augusta went on, “if you knew how I dread Adelaide getting married.”
“But why?”
“Why? You seem to have forgotten something, Carlota. What I dread are the children she’ll have—my grandchildren! The idea of being a grandmother, Carlota, is just too awful!”
Vasconcelos breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door.
“Oh!” cried Augusta.
Vasconcelos bowed to Carlota, and, as soon as she left, he turned to his wife and said:
“I overheard your conversation with that woman.”
“Well, it wasn’t a secret conversation, but what exactly did you hear?”
Vasconcelos smiled and said:
“I heard the reason why you’re afraid. I never realized that love of one’s own beauty could lead to such egotism. The marriage to Gomes won’t now happen, but if Adelaide ever does love someone, I really don’t see how we can withhold our consent.”
“We’ll see,” answered Augusta.
The conversation stopped there, because these two consorts were drifting ever further apart; one was thinking about all the noisy pleasures of youth, while the other was thinking exclusively about herself.
The following day, Gomes received a letter from Vasconcelos:
Dear Gomes,
Something unexpected has happened. Adelaide does not wish to marry. I tried to reason with her, but could not convince her.
Yours, Vasconcelos
Gomes folded up the letter and used it to light a cigar, then began thinking this deep thought:
“Where am I going to find an heiress who’ll want me as a husband?”
If anyone knows of one, do tell him.
Vasconcelos and Gomes still sometimes meet in the street or at the Alcazar; they talk and smoke and take each other’s arm, exactly like the friends they never were or like the rogues they are.