PEOPLE BEGAN TO MUTTER about the lawyer’s affection for the brigadier’s widow long before they had even passed the stage of initial flirtation. Such are the ways of the world. It is how some bad reputations are made, and, absurd though it may seem, some good ones too. Indeed, there are lives that have only a prologue, but everyone talks about the great book that ensues, and the author dies with the pages left blank. In the present case, the pages were written and formed a fat volume of three hundred dense pages, not counting the notes. These were placed at the end, not to enlighten the reader, but to remind him or her of the preceding chapters; that is how these collaborative books work. The truth is, though, that they were merely settling on a plan, when the lawyer’s wife received this anonymous note:
Madam, you cannot possibly allow yourself to be so scandalously deceived for a moment longer by one of your own friends, who seeks comfort in her widowhood by seducing other women’s husbands, when it would be enough to keep her ringlets . . .
What ringlets? Maria Olímpia did not ask which ringlets these were; they belonged to the brigadier’s widow, who wore them for pleasure and not for fashion. I believe this took place in 1853. Maria Olímpia read and reread the note; she examined the handwriting, which appeared to be a woman’s, albeit disguised, and mentally she ran through the names of her closest friends, trying to think who the author might be. No one came to mind, and so she folded up the piece of paper and stared down at the carpet, her eyes falling on precisely the part of the pattern where two doves were teaching each other how to make one beak out of two. Some of these ironies of coincidence make you want to tear down the universe. Finally, she put the note in her pocket and turned to face her slave, who was patiently waiting, and who asked her:
“Don’t you want to see the shawl no more, missy?”
Maria Olímpia took the shawl the slave was holding out for her and draped it over her shoulders in front of the mirror. She thought it looked much better on her than it would have on the widow. She compared her own charms with the other woman’s. Neither eyes nor mouth bore any comparison; the widow had narrow little shoulders, a big head, and an ugly gait. She was tall, but what use was that? And thirty-five years old, nine more than her! While she was thinking these thoughts, she adjusted the shawl, pinning and unpinning it this way and that.
“This one looks nicer than the other,” ventured the slave.
“I don’t know,” said the lady, moving closer to the window with both shawls in her hands.
“Put the other one on, missy.”
Missy obeyed. She tried on five of the ten shawls that surrounded her, still in their boxes, from a shop on Rua da Ajuda. She concluded that the first two were the best, but here there was a complication—a minor one, really, but so subtle and so profound in its solution that I would not hesitate to recommend it to our thinkers of 1906. The question was to know which of the two shawls she would choose, given that her husband, a recently qualified lawyer, was asking her to be economical. She looked at them one after another, first preferring one, then the other. Suddenly she remembered her husband’s perfidy, the need to punish him, to make him suffer, to show him that she was no one’s patsy, nor some ragamuffin; and so, out of anger, she bought both shawls.
When four o’clock struck (being the time her husband was due home), there was no husband. Not at four, nor at half-past four. Maria Olímpia imagined all sorts of distressing things; she went to the window, then came back again, fearing an accident or a sudden illness; she also wondered if it might be a jury session. Five o’clock and still nothing. The widow’s ringlets also loomed darkly before her, somewhere between the illness and the jury, in shades of dark blue, which was probably the devil’s color. It really was enough to exhaust the patience of a young woman of twenty-six. Twenty-six, that’s all she was. She was the daughter of a parliamentarian from the time of the Regency, who had died when she was still a child, and an aunt had given her a most unusual upbringing, not taking her to dances or spectacles before her time. She was a religious woman and took her first to church. Maria Olímpia’s vocation was for the outside world, and at the processions and sung masses what she liked best was the hubbub and the pomp; her devotion was sincere, but tepid and absentminded. The first thing she saw on the church balcony was herself. She particularly enjoyed looking down from above, staring at the crowd of women, kneeling or seated, and the young men who, standing below the choir or at the side doors, enlivened the Latin liturgy with their passionate glances. She didn’t understand the sermons, but the rest—musicians, song, flowers, candles, canopies, gold, people—all cast a peculiar spell on her. A meager faith, then, which became even more so after her first theatrical spectacle and her first ball. She didn’t manage to see Candiani, but she saw Ida Edelvira, danced exuberantly, and gained a reputation for elegance.
It was half-past five when Galvão arrived. When she heard his footsteps, Maria Olímpia, who by then was pacing the drawing room, did what any other lady would do in a similar situation: she picked up a fashion magazine and nonchalantly sat down to read. Galvão entered, smiling and out of breath, asking her affectionately if she was angry, and swearing that he had a good reason for being late, a reason she would thank him for, once she knew . . .
“There’s no need,” she said coldly, interrupting him in midsentence.
She stood up and they went in to dinner. They spoke little, she less than he, but without appearing to be at all upset. Perhaps she had begun to doubt the anonymous letter; it may also be that the two shawls were weighing on her conscience. At the end of dinner, Galvão explained his lateness; he had gone, on foot, to the Teatro Provisório to buy tickets for a box that very evening: they were putting on I Lombardi. On his way back, he had gone to order a carriage—
“I Lombardi?” interrupted Maria Olímpia.
“Yes. Laboceta’s singing, and Jacobson, and there’s a ballet scene. You’ve never seen I Lombardi?”
“Anyway, that’s why I’m late. So what punishment do you deserve now? Perhaps I should cut off the tip of that turned-up little nose of yours . . .”
As he accompanied his words with a gesture, she drew back her head; then she finished her coffee. We really should have pity on the soul of this young lady. While the first chords of I Lombardi were already echoing inside her, the anonymous letter struck a lugubrious note, a kind of requiem. And might the letter not simply be a vicious calumny? Obviously it couldn’t be anything else: some wild invention of her enemies, either to upset her or to set the couple quarreling. That was it. In the meantime, now that she was forewarned, she wouldn’t let them out of her sight. Here an idea came to her: she asked her husband if he would send an invitation to the widow to join them.
“No,” he replied. “The carriage only has two seats, and I have no intention of sitting up with the coachman.”
Maria Olímpia smiled contentedly, and stood up. She had long wanted to hear I Lombardi. Let’s go! Tra, la, la, la . . . Half an hour later, she went upstairs to dress. When Galvão saw her come down a short time later, ready to go, he was delighted. “My wife is beautiful,” he thought, and made as if to clasp her to his chest. But his wife pulled back, telling him not to rumple her dress. And when he, playing the valet, tried to straighten the feather in her hair, she said to him, rather irritated:
“Stop it, Eduardo! Is the carriage here yet?”
They got into the carriage and set off for the theater. And who should be in the box next to theirs? The widow and her mother, of course. This coincidence—the daughter of fate—might lead one to believe there had been some prior arrangement. Maria Olímpia did, indeed, suspect as much, but the sensation caused by her arrival gave her no time to examine her suspicion. The entire audience had turned to look at her, and she drank in, in slow draughts, the milk of public admiration. Moreover, her husband had the Machiavellian inspiration to say in her ear: “Perhaps you should have invited her, then she would have owed us the favor.” Any suspicion would evaporate at such words. Nevertheless, she took care not to let them out of her sight, a resolution she renewed every five minutes for half an hour, until, unable to remain vigilant, she allowed her attention to wander. Off the restless thing goes, heading straight for the bright lights, the magnificent costumes, lingering briefly on the opera itself, as if demanding from all those things some delicious sensation in which a cold, individual soul could luxuriate. And then back it came to her, to her fan, her gloves, the frills on her dress, which really was rather magnificent. Talking with the widow during the intervals, Maria Olímpia maintained her usual voice and gestures, uncalculated and effortless, not a trace of resentment, the letter entirely forgotten. And during the intervals her husband, of course, with a discretion rare among the sons of men, went off to the aisles or the foyer, looking for news about the government.
At the end, the two ladies left the box together and made their way down to the foyer. The modesty with which the widow was dressed may well have emphasized the magnificence of her friend. Her features, however, were not as the latter had described them while trying on shawls that morning. No, sir; the widow’s features were charming, with a certain originality about them. Her shoulders were pretty and perfectly proportioned. She was not thirty-five but thirty-one; she was born in 1822, on the very eve of independence, so much so that her father, jokingly, began to call her Ipiranga, and the nickname stuck among her friends. Furthermore, the baptism registry was there for all to see in Santa Rita.
A week later, Maria Olímpia received another anonymous letter. It was longer and more explicit. Others followed, once a week for three months. Maria Olímpia read the first with some irritation, but she gradually became hardened to those that followed. There was no doubt that, unlike before, her husband often came home late from work, or he would go out in the evenings and return very late; but, according to him, he spent the time at Wallerstein’s or Bernardo’s, discussing politics. And this was true, but only for five or ten minutes, the time necessary to pick up some anecdote or novelty he could repeat at home as an alibi. From there he would go to Largo de São Francisco and catch the public omnibus.
It was all true. And yet, still she refused to believe the letters. Lately, she no longer bothered to take the trouble to reject what they said; she would read them just once and tear them up. As time passed, other, less vague signs began to appear, little by little, in the way that land gradually appears to sailors; but this Columbus stubbornly refused to believe in America. She denied what she saw; and when she could no longer deny it, she interpreted it; then she would recall some instance of a hallucination, a tale about illusory appearances, and on this soft and comfortable pillow she would lay her head and sleep. By now the law practice was prospering, and Galvão hosted card games and dinner parties; they went to balls, theaters, and horse races. Maria Olímpia was happy and radiant; she was beginning to be thought of as one of the foremost ladies of fashion. And she was frequently in the company of the widow, despite the letters, and to such an extent that one letter commented: “There seems little point in writing to you again, since you are evidently relishing this distasteful concubinage.” What on earth was concubinage? Maria Olímpia wanted to ask her husband, but promptly forgot the word and thought no more about it.
Meanwhile, it came to the attention of her husband that his wife was receiving letters in the post. Letters from whom? This was a hard and unexpected blow. Galvão scoured his memory for all the people who came to their house, those they might meet at theaters and balls, and found many likely candidates. Indeed, she did not lack admirers.
“Letters from whom?” he repeated, biting his lip and furrowing his brow.
For seven days he was restless and irritable, spying on his wife and spending most of his time at home. On the eighth day, a letter arrived.
“For me?” he asked brightly.
“No, it’s for me,” replied Maria Olímpia, reading the envelope. “It looks like Mariana or Lula Fontoura’s handwriting.”
She didn’t want to open it, but her husband told her to read it; it might be some grave news. Maria Olímpia read the letter and folded it up, smiling; she was about to put it away when her husband asked her what it was.
“You smiled,” he said teasingly. “It must be some joke at my expense.”
“As if! It’s about sewing patterns.”
“Then let me see.”
“What for, Eduardo?”
“What’s the matter? If you don’t want to show me, there must be some reason. Give it here.”
He was no longer smiling; his voice trembled. She again refused to hand over the letter, once, twice, three times. She even considered tearing it up, but that would only make matters worse, and she wouldn’t be able to destroy it completely. It really was a rather peculiar situation. When she saw that there was no other solution, she decided to give in. What better occasion to read the expression of truth on his face? The letter was one of the most explicit; it talked about the widow in the crudest of terms. Maria Olímpia handed it to him.
“I didn’t want to show you this,” she said first, “just as I haven’t shown you the others that I’ve received and thrown away. It’s all silly tittle-tattle, designed to . . . Go on, read it, read the letter.”
Galvão opened the letter and read avidly. She hung her head low, studying at close quarters the fringe on her dress. She did not see him turn pale. When, a few minutes later, he said a few words, his face was already perfectly composed and bore an inkling of a smile. But his wife, failing to divine his true feelings, replied with her head still bowed; she raised it only three or four minutes later, and not to look straight at him, but bit by bit, as if she feared finding in his eyes confirmation of the anonymous letter. Seeing, on the contrary, that he was smiling, she thought this was the smile of innocence, and changed the subject.
The husband redoubled his precautions; it would also seem that he could not help feeling a certain admiration for his wife. The widow, for her part, having been warned about the letters, felt deeply ashamed, but reacted quickly by becoming even more affectionate toward her dear, dear friend.
In the second or third week of August, Galvão became a member of the Cassino Fluminense club. This was one of his wife’s fondest dreams. September 6 was the widow’s birthday, as we already know. The day before, Maria Olímpia (accompanied by her aunt who was visiting the city) went to buy her a gift, as was their usual habit. She bought her a ring. At the same establishment she saw a charming piece of jewelry, a diamond hairpiece in the shape of a crescent moon, the emblem of Diana, which would suit her very well, pinned just above her forehead. Even when the symbol comes from Muhammad, anything with diamonds in it counts as Christian. Maria Olímpia naturally thought of the first night that they would be attending the Cassino, and her aunt, seeing that she wanted it, offered to buy it for her. Too late; it had already been sold.
The evening of the ball arrived. Maria Olímpia felt a thrill of excitement as she ascended the staircase at the Cassino. People who knew her at the time say that what she experienced when out in the world was a sense of being caressed by the public gaze, albeit at a distance; it was her way of being loved. Now that they were members of the Cassino, she would be gathering a veritable cornucopia of admiring looks. She was not mistaken, for this is precisely what happened, and from the highest echelons too.
It was at around half-past ten that the widow arrived. She looked really beautiful, impeccably dressed, and wearing the crescent moon of diamonds on her head. The wretched jewel suited her devilishly well, with its two points turned upward, emerging from among her dark hair. Everyone in the hall had always admired the widow. She had many female friends, some closer than others, and more than a few admirers, and she possessed the kind of personality that comes alive under the bright lights. The head of a certain legation simply would not stop recommending her to newer members of the diplomatic corps: “Causez avec Mme. Tavares; c’est adorable!” Thus it had been on other nights, and thus it was on this one.
“I’ve had hardly a moment to talk to you tonight,” she said to Maria Olímpia, as midnight approached.
“It’s only natural,” said the other, opening and closing her fan. And, after moistening her lips, as if to prime them with all the venom she had in her heart: “My dear Ipiranga, tonight, you are a very charming widow . . . Have you come to seduce yet another husband?”
The widow turned pale and speechless. With her eyes, Maria Olímpia added something that humiliated the widow utterly, splattering her triumph with mud. For the rest of the night, they spoke little; three days later, they broke with each other for good.