QUINTANILHA BEGAT GONÇALVES. At least that was the impression they gave when you saw them together, even though they did not resemble each other. On the contrary, Quintanilha had a round face and Gonçalves a long face, the former was short and dark, the latter tall and fair; all in all, they could not have been less alike. I should add that they were almost the same age. The idea of paternity sprang from the way in which the former treated the latter, for a father could not have been more affectionate, caring, and thoughtful.
They had studied law together, shared lodgings, and graduated in the same year. Quintanilha did not pursue a career in law or the judiciary, but instead became involved in politics. However, after being elected provincial deputy in 187*, he served just one term, then left when he inherited all his uncle’s wealth, which gave him an income of thirty contos de réis. He returned to Rio to see his friend Gonçalves, who was working as a lawyer there.
Even though he was wealthy, young, and enjoyed the friendship of that one close friend, it could not be said that Quintanilha was entirely happy, as you will see. I will set aside the unhappiness that came along with his inheritance, an unhappiness that was due entirely to his other relatives’ furious reaction, so furious that he came close to giving up the inheritance entirely. He only did not do so because his friend Gonçalves, who advised him on many matters, had convinced him that this would be utter madness.
“It’s not your fault your uncle valued you more than he did his other relatives. You didn’t write the will, nor did you fawn on him, as they did. If he left you all his money that’s because he thought you were better than them. Keep the money, since that was your late uncle’s intention, and don’t be so foolish.”
In the end, Quintanilha did as he advised. Some of the other relatives subsequently tried to make peace with him, but his friend warned him of their ulterior motives, and Quintanilha did not open his door to them. One of his relatives, seeing him so bound to his old university friend, told all and sundry:
“He’s abandoned his blood relatives in favor of a complete outsider. Well, we all know where that will lead.”
Quintanilha was furious when he heard this, and ran to tell Gonçalves. Gonçalves smiled, told him not to be so silly, and generally soothed his anxieties, saying there was no point getting worked up over mere tittle-tattle.
“I ask just one thing,” he went on, “that we separate, so that no one can say—”
“Say what? It would really come to something if I had to choose my friends according to the whim of some shameless ne’er-do-wells!”
“Don’t talk like that, Quintanilha. Don’t speak so coarsely about your relatives.”
“Wretched creatures! Am I supposed to live only with people chosen by half a dozen frauds whose one desire is to get their hands on my money? No, Gonçalves. I’ll do anything else you want, but not that. I am the only one who can choose my friends, I and my heart. Unless, of course, you’re bored with me . . .”
“Me, bored? Really!”
“Well, then.”
“But if they—”
“Ignore them.”
The two friends could not have formed a more united pair. Quintanilha’s first thought when he woke up was of Gonçalves, and after breakfast he would immediately set off to see him. Later, they would dine together, visit a mutual friend or two, go for a stroll, and end up at the theater. If Gonçalves had work to do in the evening, Quintanilha would gladly help him, looking up legal texts, marking them, copying them, carrying books. Gonçalves was always forgetting something: an errand, a letter, his shoes, his cigars, his papers. Quintanilha was his memory. Sometimes, on Rua do Ouvidor, while watching the girls pass by, Gonçalves would suddenly recall some document or other that he had left in the office. Quintanilha would rush off to find it and, having found it, would race back, smiling and exhausted, as excited as if he had retrieved a winning lottery ticket:
“Are these the papers you needed?”
“Let me see, yes, those are the ones. I’ll take them, shall I?”
“No, it’s all right, I’ll carry them.”
At first Gonçalves would sigh:
“Honestly, I’m such a bother to you!”
But Quintanilha would laugh so fondly that Gonçalves, not wishing to hurt his friend’s feelings, would say no more and accept his help without a murmur. Over time, helping his friend became Quintanilha’s full-time occupation. Gonçalves would say: “Now, today you must remind me to do this and this.” And Quintanilha would make a mental note, or write a list if there were too many. Some tasks had to be performed at a particular time, and it was a delight to see Quintanilha sighing anxiously as he waited for the appointed hour, so that he would have the pleasure of reminding his friend what he needed to do. He would bring him his letters and papers, rush off to get some urgently needed response, meet clients, even wait for them at the station and make trips into the interior. On his own initiative, he would search out good cigars, good restaurants, and good plays for his friend to enjoy. Gonçalves could not even mention a book, however new or expensive, without finding a copy waiting for him at home. He would scold Quintanilha, saying:
“You’re such a spendthrift.”
“Spending money on literature and science is hardly money ill-spent!” retorted Quintanilha.
At the end of the year, Quintanilha urged his friend to take a vacation. Gonçalves finally accepted, which pleased his friend enormously. They went up to Petrópolis. On the way back, they got to talking about painting, and Quintanilha remarked that they had no portrait of the two of them together. He immediately commissioned one. When he showed it to Gonçalves, the latter had no compunction in telling him that it was quite dreadful. Quintanilha was speechless.
“It’s utter trash,” insisted Gonçalves.
“But the painter told me—”
“Look, Quintanilha, you know nothing about painting, and the painter took advantage of your ignorance to cheat you. I mean, do you call that a face? And is my arm really all twisted like that?”
“The thief!”
“No, he’s not to blame. He was just doing his job. You’re the one who has no feeling for and no experience of art, and you were well and truly duped. I know you meant well, but . . .”
“Yes, I did.”
“And I suppose you’ve already paid him?”
“I have.”
Gonçalves shook his head, called him an ignoramus, but ended up laughing. Quintanilha stared angrily at the canvas, then took out a penknife and slashed the painting from top to bottom. As if that vengeful gesture were not enough, he returned the picture to the artist with a note in which he passed on to him some of the rude names he himself had been called and added that of “jackass.” Life is full of such trials. Shortly afterward, Quintanilha had his “revenge” when a promissory note issued by Gonçalves fell due and Gonçalves was unable to pay it. Indeed, they almost quarreled, for Gonçalves decided it would be best to reissue the note, whereas Quintanilha, who had guaranteed the note, felt that it was hardly worth reissuing for such a small sum of money (one thousand five hundred mil-réis); he suggested lending him the money, with Gonçalves paying him back when he could. Gonçalves refused this offer and, instead, renewed the note. When payment fell due again, the most he would agree to was accepting a loan from Quintanilha at the same rate of interest.
“Don’t you see how shameful that is for me, Gonçalves, receiving interest from you?”
“You either agree or the deal’s off.”
“But, my dear friend . . .”
He had no alternative but to agree. They were so very close that one lady dubbed them “the newlyweds,” and a more literary gentleman called them “Pylades and Orestes.” The two friends laughed at these epithets, of course, but when Quintanilha laughed, his eyes grew moist with tender tears. The other difference was the note of enthusiasm in Quintanilha’s feelings for his friend, something that was completely lacking in Gonçalves; and enthusiasm cannot be invented. The latter, of course, was more capable of inspiring enthusiasm in the former than the other way around. In truth, Quintanilha was extremely sensitive to praise, it took only a grateful word or look to inflame his heart. A gentle pat on the shoulder or the belly, intended to show approval or to emphasize their closeness, was enough to make him melt with pleasure. He would talk about such gestures and the circumstances that provoked them for two or three days afterward.
He could often be angry or stubborn or even rude to people, but he laughed a lot, too, and sometimes that laughter was all-compassing, flowing forth from mouth, eyes, head, arms, legs, so that he was all laughter. He may have harbored no great passions, but he was certainly not without emotions.
When Gonçalves’s loan fell due six months later, Quintanilha was determined not to accept payment and decided to dine in some other part of town so as not to see his friend, for fear that he might ask him to renew the loan. Gonçalves put paid to this plan by turning up at his house early in the morning to bring him the money. Quintanilha’s initial response was to reject the money, telling him to keep it, saying that he might need it; the debtor, however, insisted on paying and, indeed, paid.
Quintanilha observed Gonçalves and saw how hard he worked, how zealously he defended his clients, and he was filled with admiration. Gonçalves was not a great lawyer, but, within his limitations, he was a distinguished one.
“Why don’t you marry?” Quintanilha asked him one day. “A lawyer ought to marry.”
Gonçalves laughed. He had an aunt, his only relative, whom he loved dearly, and who died when the two friends were in their thirties. Days later, he said to his friend:
“Now I only have you.”
Quintanilha felt his eyes welling up, and did not know what to say. By the time he had thought of a response—that he would stay with him till death did them part—it was too late. Instead, he redoubled his affections, and one day woke up with the idea that he should make his will. Without saying a word to his friend, he named him as his executor and sole heir.
“Keep this document for me, Gonçalves,” he said, handing him the will. “I feel perfectly well, but death could come at any time, and I don’t want to entrust just anyone with my final wishes.”
It was around this time that the following incident occurred.
Quintanilha had a second cousin, Camila, who was twenty-two and a modest, well-brought-up, pretty young woman. She wasn’t rich; her father, João Bastos, worked as a bookkeeper for a coffee exporter. Quintanilha and Bastos had fallen out over his uncle’s inheritance, but Quintanilha had subsequently attended the funeral of João Bastos’s wife, and this act of piety had brought them together again. João Bastos easily forgot all the crude names he had called his cousin and called him other, far sweeter names, and invited him to come and dine with him. Quintanilha went and went again. He listened to his cousin praising his late wife, and, on one occasion when Camila had left the room, João Bastos heaped still more praise on his daughter’s rare qualities, which, he claimed, were her mother’s moral legacy to her.
“I would never say such a thing to her, of course, and please don’t tell her I did. She’s very modest, you see, and if we were to start praising her, it might go to her head. For example, I’ll never say she’s as pretty as her mother was when she was her age because she might become vain. The truth is, though, she’s even prettier, don’t you think? She even plays the piano well, which her mother never did.”
When Camila returned to the dining room, Quintanilha felt like telling her everything, but restrained himself and merely winked at her father. He then asked her if she would play the piano for them, but she replied sadly:
“Ah, no, not yet. Mama only died a month ago. I’d prefer to allow a little more time to pass. Besides, I play very badly.”
“Really?”
“Yes, very badly.”
Quintanilha again winked at her father and suggested that he could only know if she played well or badly if she sat down at the piano. As for the time that had elapsed since her mother’s death, it was true that it was only a month since her passing, but it was also true that music was a natural and lofty distraction. And she could always play a sad tune. João Bastos approved of this way of looking at things and reminded Camila of a particularly elegiac piece she knew. Camila shook her head.
“No, no, I would still have to play the piano, and the neighbors could easily lie and say that they heard me playing a polka.”
Quintanilha thought this rather amusing and laughed. Then he bowed to her wishes and waited for a further three months to pass. Meanwhile, he saw her several times, and his last three visits were more prolonged and closer together. When he did finally hear her play, he greatly enjoyed it. Her father confessed that, at first, he hadn’t really liked that German music, but, with time and habit, he had come to appreciate it. He called his daughter “my little German,” a nickname that was adopted by Quintanilha, who simply changed it to a plural: “our little German.” Possessive pronouns add intimacy, an intimacy that soon existed among the three of them—or four, if we count Gonçalves, who was introduced to father and daughter by Quintanilha—but let’s stick with three for now.
As I’m sure you, wise reader, will already have guessed, Quintanilha ended up falling in love with the girl. How could he not, when Camila had such large, fatally beautiful eyes? Not that she often directed them at him, and if she did, she did so with a certain degree of awkwardness at first, like a child reluctantly obeying orders from her teacher or father; but she did sometimes look at him, and those eyes, however unintentionally, inflicted a mortal wound. She also smiled a great deal and spoke very charmingly. At the piano, even when obliged to play, she played well. In short, Camila did not voluntarily weave a spell, but she was no less a sorceress for that. One morning, Quintanilha realized that he had been dreaming about her all night, and that same night he realized he had been thinking about her all day, and he concluded from this discovery that he loved her and was loved. He found this idea so intoxicating that he felt like publishing it in all the newspapers. At the very least, he wanted to tell his friend Gonçalves, and so he hurried to his office. Quintanilha’s affection for Gonçalves was mingled with respect and fear. As soon as he opened his mouth, he immediately swallowed his secret again. He didn’t dare to tell him either that day or the next. He knew that he ought to speak, to declare himself and be done with it, but he put off telling him for a whole week. Then, one evening, he went to supper with his friend and, after much hesitation, told him everything, that he loved his cousin and was loved in return.
“Do you approve, Gonçalves?”
Gonçalves turned very pale, or at least grew very serious, but with him seriousness and pallor were often one and the same. But, no, he really did turn pale.
“So you approve?” asked Quintanilha again.
After a few seconds, Gonçalves opened his mouth to reply, only to close it again, then he fixed his eyes “on yesterday” as he used to say of himself whenever he sat staring off into the distance. In vain did Quintanilha try to find out what was wrong, what he was thinking, if he thought this love of his was sheer nonsense. He was so used to hearing Gonçalves pronounce these words that it no longer wounded or offended him, even regarding such a delicate, personal matter as this. Gonçalves finally surfaced from his meditation, shrugged indifferently, and, in a barely audible voice, he said:
“Don’t ask me any more questions, just do what you like.”
“Gonçalves, what’s wrong?” asked Quintanilha, anxiously clasping his friend’s hands.
Gonçalves gave a great sigh, which, had it had wings, would still be flying now. That, at least, was Quintanilha’s impression, although not expressed in the same paradoxical form. The clock in the dining room struck eight, and Gonçalves declared that he had to pay a visit to a magistrate, and so Quintanilha said good night.
He stood out in the street, too stunned to move. He could not understand his friend’s gestures, his smile, his pallor, the whole mysterious effect that the news of his love had provoked in him. He had arrived and spoken, ready to have his friend hurl one of his usual fond epithets at him—idiot, dupe, nincompoop—but had heard none of them. On the contrary, there had been something almost respectful in Gonçalves’s manner. He could think of nothing he had said during supper that could have offended him; his friend had only become distressed when he told him of these new feelings for his cousin Camila.
“But that’s impossible,” he thought. “Why on earth would Camila not make a good wife?”
He stood outside the house for more than half an hour. He realized then that Gonçalves had not, as he had announced, left the house. He waited another half an hour, but still no Gonçalves. He was tempted to go back in again, to embrace his friend and question him, but he didn’t have the courage. He set off down the street in a state of despair. He went to João Bastos’s house, but Camila had retired to her room with a cold. He wanted to tell her everything, and I should explain here that he had not yet declared his feelings to his cousin. It was true that she certainly did not now avoid his gaze, but that was all, and this might well have been mere flirtatiousness. This, though, was the perfect moment to clarify the situation. Revealing what had just happened with his friend would give him a chance to disclose his love for her and his intention to ask her father for her hand. It would have been some consolation in the midst of all that anguish. Fate, however, denied him this chance, and Quintanilha left the house feeling worse than when he had arrived. He went straight home.
He did not get to sleep until at least two in the morning, not that this brought him any rest, it only increased his anxiety. He dreamed that he was about to cross a very long, old bridge between two mountains, when, halfway across, rising up from below, a figure appeared and stood before him. It was Gonçalves. “Wretch,” Gonçalves said, his eyes ablaze, “why have you come to take from me my heart’s belovèd, the woman whom I love and who is mine? Why not take my whole heart and be done with it?” And with a rapid gesture he wrenched open his chest, tore out his heart, and thrust it into Quintanilha’s mouth. Quintanilha tried to remove this piece of his friend’s viscera from his mouth and put it back in Gonçalves’s chest, but this proved impossible. His jaws locked tight. He tried to spit the thing out, but that only made matters worse, for his teeth only sank deeper into the heart. He tried to speak, but how could he speak with his mouth stuffed full like that? Finally, his friend reached out his arms and hands to him as if to curse him, a gesture Quintanilha recalled from the melodramas of his youth. Two vast tears flowed from Gonçalves’s eyes, filling the whole valley with water; then Gonçalves threw himself off the bridge and disappeared. Quintanilha woke, struggling for breath.
The nightmare had seemed so real that he again put his hands to his mouth, as if to remove his friend’s heart. He found only his own tongue. He rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed. Where was he? What was he? And where was the bridge? And Gonçalves? Finally, he came to his senses, realized that it had all been a dream, and lay down again for another bout of insomnia, fortunately briefer than the first, falling asleep at around four o’clock.
During the day, going over what had happened the previous night, both reality and dream, he reached the conclusion that Gonçalves was his rival, that he loved his cousin and was perhaps loved by her. Yes, that was it. Two very painful hours passed. In the end, he got a grip on himself and went to Gonçalves’s office determined to learn the whole truth, and if it was true, then, yes, if it was true . . .
Gonçalves was drafting a statement for the defense. He stopped what he was doing and looked at Quintanilha for a moment, then he stood up, opened the safe where he kept confidential documents, took out the will, and handed it to Quintanilha.
“What’s this for?”
“You’re about to marry, aren’t you?” said Gonçalves, sitting down again.
Quintanilha heard how his voice almost broke when he said this, or so it seemed to him. He asked him to put the will away, saying that he was still its natural depositary, but the only response he received was the scratching of his friend’s pen racing over the paper. Actually, Gonçalves’s pen stumbled rather than raced, his writing was shaky, with far more emendations than usual, the dates doubtless wrong. And when he consulted one of his books, he did so with a look of such melancholy that it saddened even his friend. Sometimes he would stop everything—writing and consulting books—and fix his eyes “on yesterday.”
“I understand,” Quintanilha said suddenly. “She will be yours.”
“Who?” Gonçalves was about to ask, but his friend was already flying down the stairs like an arrow, and Gonçalves continued his scribbling.
No need to guess what happened next, it’s enough to know the ending. You won’t guess or even believe what happened, but the human soul is capable of doing great things, both for good and ill. Quintanilha made another will, leaving everything to his cousin, on condition that she marry his friend. Camila would not accept the will, but was so happy when Quintanilha told her of Gonçalves’s tears that she accepted both Gonçalves and the tears. Then Quintanilha felt that the only remedy was to draw up a third will, leaving everything to his friend.
The end of the story was spoken in Latin. Quintanilha was best man to the groom and godfather to the couple’s first two children. One day, during the disturbances of 1893, when he was crossing Praça Quinze de Novembro to take some sweets to his godchildren, he was hit by a stray bullet, which killed him almost instantly. He is buried in the cemetery of São João Batista; the grave is a simple one, with an epitaph that concludes with this pious phrase: “Pray for him!” And that is also the end of my story. Orestes is still alive, feeling none of the remorse felt by his Greek counterpart. And, as in Sophocles’s play, Pylades is completely silent. Pray for him!