Chapter I
RETURN TO BRAZIL
ABOUT SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, Senhor Camilo Seabra disembarked in Rio de Janeiro on his return from Europe. Born in the province of Goiás, he had gone to Europe to study medicine and was returning with his degree in his pocket and a deep sense of longing in his heart. He had been away for eight years, and had seen and admired all the major things that a man can see and admire over there, always assuming he lacks neither taste nor means. He lacked for neither, and if he had possessed, I won’t say a lot, but at least a little more common sense, he would have enjoyed the experience far more than he did, and could then, with some justification, have said that he had truly lived.
As he crossed the bar into Brazil’s capital city, his face betrayed little patriotic feeling. He looked withdrawn and melancholy, like someone holding back an emotion that was not exactly one of earthly bliss. He cast a jaundiced eye over the city gradually unfolding before him as the ship approached its anchorage. When the moment came to disembark, he did so about as blithely as would a prisoner when entering the prison gates. As the skiff moved away from the ship, on whose mast fluttered the French tricolor, Camilo murmured:
“Farewell, France!”
Then he wrapped himself in a magnificent silence and allowed himself to be rowed ashore.
After such a long absence, the sight of the city did manage to hold his attention a little. However, unlike Ulysses, his soul did not thrill to see his homeland again, but was filled, rather, with dullness and tedium. He was comparing what lay before him with what he had seen during those long years away, and his heart was gripped by an all-pervading sense of loss. He found the nearest convenient hotel and decided to stay for a few days before continuing his journey to Goiás. He dined in sad solitude, his mind full of a thousand recollections of the world he had just left, and, after dinner, in order to give his memory free rein, he lay down on the sofa in his room and began to count off, like beads on a rosary, the many cruel misfortunes that had befallen him.
In his opinion, no mortal had ever been so sorely abused by a hostile fate. The whole of Christian martyrology, all the Greek tragedies, and the Book of Job paled into insignificance beside his own misfortunes.
Let us review some of the cruel facts of our hero’s life.
He had been born rich, the son of Comendador Seabra, a landowner in Goiás, who had never himself left his native province. In 1828, a French naturalist had visited Goiás, and become such firm friends with the comendador that the latter chose him and him alone as godfather to his only son, who, at the time, was just one year old. The naturalist, long before he became a naturalist, had committed a few venal poetic sins that had garnered him a certain amount of praise in 1810, but time—the old rag-and-bone man of eternity—had carried them off to the infinite dumping ground of all worthless things. The ex-poet forgave time everything except the consignment to oblivion of a poem in which he had celebrated in verse the life of the Roman soldier and statesman Marcus Furius Camillus, a poem he still read with genuine enthusiasm. As a souvenir of that youthful work, he named his godson Camilo, and, to the great delight of family and friends, Father Maciel baptized him with that name.
“My friend,” said Comendador Seabra to the naturalist, “if my boy reaches maturity, I will send him to your country to study medicine or some other subject that will make a man of him. If, like you, my friend, he should reveal a talent for the study of plants or minerals, then don’t hesitate to let him follow whichever profession you think best suits him, just as if you were his father, which, spiritually speaking, you are.”
“Who knows if I will still be alive then?” said the naturalist.
“Of course you will!” cried Seabra. “That body of yours doesn’t lie. You possess an iron constitution. Why, I’ve seen you out and about in fields and forests, day after day, come rain or shine, and never even suffer so much as a slight headache. If I did half as much as you, I’d have been dead long ago. You must live and take care of my boy, as soon as he’s finished his studies here.”
Seabra kept his promise to the letter. Camilo left for Paris as soon as he had completed his preparatory exams, and there his godfather looked after him as if he really were his father. The comendador made sure his son lacked for nothing, for the monthly allowance he sent him would have been enough for two or three people in his position. As well as the allowance, he received traditional Easter and Christmas gifts from his mother, which reached him in the welcome form of a few thousand francs.
So far the only black cloud in Camilo’s existence was his godfather, who kept an all-too-keen eye on him, fearful that the boy might topple over the edge of one of the many precipices that await the unwary in any large city. Fate, however, decided that the ex-poet of 1810 should join his defunct artistic creations in the great void, leaving just a few traces in science of his passage through life. Camilo immediately wrote his father a letter full of philosophical reflections.
The concluding paragraph read as follows:
In short, Father, if you feel confident that I have the necessary good sense to complete my studies here, and are prepared to trust in the inspiration I will draw from the soul of he who has now exchanged this vale of tears for infinite bliss, then allow me to remain here until I can return to my country as an enlightened citizen ready to serve his nation, as is my duty. Should you be opposed to my suggestion, then please say so frankly, and I will stay not a moment longer in this place, which has been half a homeland to me and which now (hélas!) is merely a place of exile.
His father was not a man capable of looking beneath the surface of this tearful epistle to see its real intention. He wept with joy when he read his son’s words, showed the letter to all his friends, and wrote at once to tell his son that he could stay in Paris as long as necessary to finish his studies, and that, in addition to his monthly allowance, he would always help him out should any unforeseen difficulty arise. Moreover, he wholeheartedly approved of his son’s sentiments regarding his own country and his godfather’s memory. He passed on to him the sincere good wishes of family and friends, in particular Uncle Jorge, Father Maciel, and Colonel Veiga, and concluded by sending him his blessing.
This paternal response reached Camilo in the middle of a lunch he was giving at the Café de Madrid for a couple of first-class ne’er-do-wells. His father’s response was exactly as he had expected, but he could not resist the desire to drink to his health, and was accompanied in this toast by those elegant vultures, his friends. That same day, Camilo invented one of those unforeseen difficulties mentioned by his father, and the next post carried to Brazil a long letter in which he thanked his father for his kindness, told him how much he missed him, confided his hopes for the future, and asked him very respectfully, in a postscript, to send him a small amount of money.
Thanks to this extra help, our Camilo threw himself into a dissolute, spendthrift life, although without neglecting his studies. He was considerably helped in this by his native intelligence and a certain degree of lingering pride, and when he finished his course, he passed his exams and was awarded the degree of doctor.
News of this success was sent to his father with a request for permission to go and visit other European countries. Permission was duly given, and he left Paris to visit Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and England. A few months later, he was back in Paris, and there he resumed his former existence, free this time from any irksome duties imposed from without. This promising young man ran the gamut of sensuous, frivolous pleasures with an enthusiasm that bordered on the suicidal. He had numerous solicitous, faithful friends, some of whom did not hesitate to give him the honor of becoming their creditor. He was extremely popular among the ladies of the night, a few of whom fell madly in love with him. There was not a scandal worthy of the name in which the key to his apartments was not a factor, and cet aimable brésilien was sure to be found in the best seats at any bullfight, banquet, or outing.
Eager to see his son again, the comendador wrote asking him to return to Brazil, but the son—by now a Parisian to his fingertips—could not imagine how any man could possibly leave the capital of France and bury himself in Goiás. He proffered various excuses, and stayed put. His father allowed this first act of disobedience to pass. He wrote again some time later, summoning him home; more excuses from Camilo. His father grew angry, and his third letter was full of bitter recriminations. Camilo came to his senses then and, with great sadness, prepared to return to Brazil, still hopeful that he would be able to come back and end his days on the Boulevard des Italiens or at the door of the Café Helder.
However, something happened that further delayed the young doctor’s return. Up until then, he had enjoyed only trivial love affairs and fleeting passions, but he suddenly fell head over heels in love with a beautiful Russian princess. Don’t be alarmed: the Russian princess I speak of was, at least according to some, a child of Rue du Bac and had worked in a fashion house until the Revolution of 1848. In the middle of the revolution, a Polish major fell in love with her and carried her off to Warsaw, where she was transformed into a princess with a name ending in -ine or -off, I’m not quite sure which. She led a mysterious life, mocking all her many adoring suitors, with the exception of Camilo, or so she said, declaring that, for him, she would be capable of setting aside her widow’s weeds. Mind you, one moment she would be uttering these thoughtless words and the next she would be gazing heavenward and protesting:
“Ah, no, my dear Alexis, I will never besmirch your memory by marrying another.”
These words were like dagger thrusts to Camilo’s heart. He would swear by all the saints of the Roman and Greek calendar that he had never loved anyone as he loved the beautiful princess. The cruel lady would, at times, seem disposed to believe Camilo’s protestations of love; at others, though, she would shake her head and beg forgiveness from the ghost of the venerable Prince Alexis. In the meantime, a final letter from his father arrived, giving his son one last warning, saying that if he did not come home, he would cut off all funds and bar his door to him.
Camilo could prevaricate no longer. He considered inventing some grave illness, but the thought that his father might not believe him and might actually stop his allowance soon put paid to that particular plan. Camilo did not even have the courage to confess all to the beautiful princess, fearing that she, on a generous impulse—perfectly natural in one who is in love—might offer to share with him her lands in Novgorod. To accept such an offer would be a humiliation and to reject it might cause offense. Camilo preferred to give up Paris, leaving the princess a letter in which he gave a brief account of what had happened and a promise to return one day.
These were the calamities that fate had chosen to heap on Camilo, and our unhappy traveler sat on in his hotel room recalling each and every one, until he heard the clock strike eight. He went out for a breath of air, but this only fueled his nostalgia for Paris. Everything seemed to him small and mean and gloomy. He gazed with Olympian disdain at all the shops on Rua do Ouvidor, which, to him, resembled a very long, if brightly lit, alleyway. He found the men inelegant and the women graceless. It occurred to him, however, that his hometown of Santa Luzia was even less Parisian than Rio de Janeiro, and then, cast down by this painful thought, he rushed back to the hotel and went to bed.
The following day, immediately after breakfast, he went to see his father’s agent. He declared that he intended to leave for Goiás in the next few days, and received from him the necessary money, in accordance with his father’s orders. The agent added that he had been told to provide him with anything he might need should he wish to spend a few weeks in Rio.
“No,” said Camilo. “There’s nothing to keep me here, and I’m eager now to set off.”
“I can imagine how homesick you must be. How many years has it been now?”
“Eight.”
“Eight! That’s a long time to be away.”
Camilo was about to leave when in walked a tall, thin man sporting a mustache and a chinstrap beard; he was wearing a gray overcoat and a panama hat. He looked at Camilo, stopped short, took a step back, then, after a reasonable interval, exclaimed:
“Unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re Senhor Camilo!”
“Yes, Camilo Seabra,” replied Camilo, shooting a questioning look at the agent.
“This gentleman,” said the agent, “is Senhor Soares, the son of the businessman of the same name from the town of Santa Luzia.”
“You mean Leandro? Why, you only had the merest fuzz of a beard when I left . . .”
“Yes, the very same,” said Soares, “the same Leandro who appears to you now with a full beard, like you, sir, and you also have a very fine mustache!”
“I would never have recognized you . . .”
“Well, I recognized you the moment I saw you, even though you’ve changed enormously. You are now a very refined young gentleman, whereas I have grown old. I’m twenty-six. No, don’t laugh. I’m old. When did you arrive?”
“Yesterday.”
“And when are you planning to travel to Goiás?”
“On the first steamer to Santos.”
“Me too! We can travel together.”
“How is your father? How is everyone? Father Maciel? Colonel Veiga? Give me all the news.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk. For the moment, I’ll just say that they’re all fine. Father Maciel was ill for a couple of months with a bad fever, and no one thought he would pull through, but he did. It would be disastrous were he to fall ill now that the Feast of the Holy Spirit is nearly upon us.”
“Do they still celebrate that?”
“Of course! Colonel Veiga is Emperor this year, and he’s promised to put on a splendid show. He’s already said he’ll hold a ball. But we’ll have plenty of time to talk, either here or on the boat. Where are you staying?”
Camilo told him the name of his hotel and said goodbye to his fellow provincial, pleased to have found a companion who would help lessen the tedium of that long journey. Soares followed Camilo over to the door and watched him walk away.
“You see what happens when you live abroad,” he said to the agent, who had joined him. “How he’s changed, and yet once he was pretty much like me.”
Chapter II
TO GOIáS
A few days later, they both set off for Santos, and from there to São Paulo, where they took the road to Goiás.
As Soares gradually resumed his former friendship with Camilo, he told him what his life had been like during the eight years they had been apart, and, for lack of anything better, this kept Camilo amused on the occasions when nature itself offered him no spectacles of its own. A few leagues into their journey, Camilo was already fully informed of Soares’s electoral battles, hunting exploits, amorous triumphs, and many other things, some important, some banal, but which Soares recounted with equal enthusiasm and interest.
Camilo was not a particularly observant fellow, but Soares so laid bare his soul to him that he had no option but to observe and examine it. Soares did not strike him as being a bad lad, but he was rather given to boasting about everything, be it politics, hunting, gambling, or love. There was one serious paragraph in this latter chapter, which had to do with a young woman, with whom he was so madly in love that he had vowed to kill anyone who dared so much as look at her.
“I mean it, Camilo,” declared Soares, “if anyone is ever bold enough to court her, there will be two poor wretches in this world, him and me. It certainly won’t end happily; people there know me and know that I always keep my promises. A few months ago, Major Valente lost the election because he boldly undertook to force the municipal judge to resign. When he failed to do so, he got his just deserts, and was left off the list of candidates. And I was the one who removed his name. The thing is—”
“But why don’t you marry the girl?” asked Camilo, thus skillfully avoiding a long account of this latest electoral triumph.
“I don’t marry her because . . . but are you really interested?”
“Yes, as a friend, nothing more.”
“I don’t marry her because she doesn’t want to marry me.”
Camilo pulled his horse up short and asked in some amazement:
“If she doesn’t want to, then why do you intend to stop her from marrying anyone else . . . ?”
“It’s a very long story. Isabel—”
“Isabel?” Camilo said, interrupting him. “The daughter of Dr. Matos, who was trial court judge about ten years ago?”
“The very same.”
“She must be a young woman now.”
“She’s twenty years old.”
“Yes, I remember how pretty she was when she was twelve.”
“Oh, she’s changed a lot . . . for the better too! She turns the head of every man who sees her. She’s already rejected a few offers of marriage. I was the last to be rejected, and she herself came to tell me why.”
“ ‘Look, Senhor Soares,’ she said, ‘you deserve to be accepted as a husband by any young woman, and I myself could say yes, but the reason I don’t is that I know we would never be happy.’ ”
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing more. That was all.”
“And you never spoke to her again?”
“No, on the contrary, we speak often. She doesn’t treat me any differently. Were it not for those words—which still wound me deeply—I could still feel as if I had a chance. I can see, though, that it’s hopeless. She doesn’t love me.”
“May I speak frankly?”
“Of course.”
“You strike me as a complete egotist.”
“Possibly, but that’s the way I am. I feel jealous of everything, even the air she breathes. If I saw that she loved another man and could do nothing to stop the marriage, I would move to another province. What keeps me going is the belief that she never will love anyone else, which is what most people think.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that she can’t love anyone,” said Camilo, staring across at the horizon as if he could see there the image of his beloved, that lovely subject of the Czar. “Not all women possess that heavenly gift, which is what distinguishes the most select of minds. There are some, however, who give themselves body and soul to their beloved, filling his heart with deep affection, and thus fully deserving his eternal adoration. Such women are rare, I know, but they do exist . . .”
Camilo ended this homage to the lady of his thoughts, giving wings to a sigh, and had that sigh failed to reach its destination, this would not have been for want of trying on the part of its originator. His companion did not understand what lay behind this speech and repeated that the lovely Isabel was very far from loving anyone and he was still further from allowing her to do so.
This subject was pleasing to both men, and they continued to speak of it until dusk fell. Shortly afterward, they reached an inn, where they would spend the night.
Once the servants had unloaded the mules, coffee and then supper were prepared. It was on such occasions that our hero missed Paris most keenly. What a difference between the suppers he had enjoyed at restaurants on the boulevards and that light, rough-and-ready meal in a miserable roadside inn, with none of the delicacies of French cuisine and no Figaro or Gazette des Tribunaux to read!
Camilo sighed and grew even less communicative. Not that this mattered, because his companion talked enough for both of them.
Once supper was over, Camilo lit an expensive cigar and Soares a rather cheaper one. It was dark by then. The fire that had been lit for supper illuminated a small area around about, although this was hardly necessary, for a pale, brilliant moon was beginning to rise behind a hill, its light glancing off the leaves of the trees and the quiet waters of the river snaking past nearby.
One of the muleteers took out a guitar and began singing a song, the rustic simplicity of whose words and melody would have delighted anyone, but for Camilo it merely stirred sad memories of the trills and tremolos he used to hear at the opera. Other memories surfaced too: one night when the lovely Muscovite, seated languidly in a box at the Comédie-Italienne, stopped listening to the tenor’s tender yearnings in order, instead, to gaze on Camilo, peering at him from afar over a nosegay of violets.
Soares climbed into his hammock and fell asleep.
The muleteer stopped singing, and soon all was silence.
Camilo remained alone in the lovely, solemn night. He was certainly not immune to beauty, and the near-novelty of that spectacle, which he had forgotten after his long absence, made a deep impression on him.
Now and then, he heard the distant howling of some wild animal wandering the wilderness. At other times, he heard night birds calling sadly. The crickets and frogs and toads formed part of the chorus in that opera of the wild, and much as our hero admired it, he would doubtless have preferred to be listening to an opéra bouffe.
He remained like this for a long time, almost two hours, letting his thoughts drift wherever his fancy took him, building up and tearing down endless castles in the air. Suddenly he was woken from his reverie by the voice of Soares, who seemed to be in the grip of a nightmare. Camilo listened and heard the occasional muffled word:
“Isabel . . . dear Isabel . . . What? Oh, dear God! Help!”
These last words were spoken in far more anguished tones than the first. Camilo ran to his friend’s side and shook him hard. Soares started awake, sat up, and, looking around him, murmured:
“You were having a nightmare.”
“Oh, yes, it was a nightmare. Thank heavens for that. What time is it?”
“It’s still dark.”
“Are you awake already?”
“No, I was just about to get into my hammock. Let’s go to sleep. It’s late.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my dream.”
And the next day, when they were only a few yards into their journey, Soares told him about that terrible dream.
“I was standing by a river,” he said, “with a rifle in my hand, watching for capybara. I happened to glance up at a steep hill on the other side and saw a young woman riding a black horse. She was all dressed in black, too, and her black hair hung loose over her shoulders.”
“Nothing but blackness, then,” commented Camilo, interrupting him.
“No, listen. I was really surprised to see her there and on horseback, too, a delicate young woman like her. Who do you think she was?”
“Isabel?”
“Yes, Isabel. I ran along the bank and climbed onto a rock just opposite where she had stopped, and I asked her what she was doing there. She remained silent for a while, then, pointing down into the depths of the river, she said:
“ ‘My hat has fallen in the water.’
“ ‘Ah!’
“ ‘Do you love me?’ she asked moments later.
“ ‘More than life itself.’
“ ‘Will you do as I ask?’
“ ‘Anything.’
“ ‘Well, then, go and fetch my hat.’
“I stared down into a vast chasm in which the muddy, churning water boiled and roared. Instead of being carried downstream to be lost forever, her hat had become caught on an outcrop of rock and seemed to be inviting me to go and fetch it. However, this was quite impossible. I looked all around me to see if I could find a way, but in vain.”
“What a febrile imagination you have!” remarked Camilo.
“I kept searching for the right words to dissuade Isabel from sending me on that terrifying mission, when I felt someone place a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was a man. It was you.”
“Yes. You regarded me scornfully, then smiled at her and stared into the abyss. Suddenly, I don’t know how, you were down there, reaching out to grab the fateful hat.”
“Goodness.”
“The waters, however, grew still wilder and threatened to drown you. Uttering an anguished cry, Isabel spurred on her horse and plunged in too. I shouted, called for help, but it was no use. The swirling water had enveloped you both . . . It was then that you woke me.”
When Leandro Soares concluded this account of his nightmare, he still seemed terrified by what had happened, even though it had all been in his imagination. I should point out that he believed in dreams.
“That’s what happens when you go to sleep on a full stomach!” cried Camilo, once Soares had finished his account. “What tosh! The hat, the river, the horse, and, to top it all, my presence in that fantastical melodrama; it’s simply the creation of someone with a bad case of indigestion. Some theaters in Paris put on nightmares like that, which are far worse because they’re much longer. What is clear to me is that you’re still thinking of that girl even when you’re asleep.”
“Yes, even when I’m asleep.”
Soares spoke these last words almost like a disembodied echo. After finishing his description of his dream, and after listening to what Camilo had to say, he had a series of thoughts that remained hidden from the author of this story. The most I can say is that they were clearly not happy thoughts, because he bowed his head, furrowed his brow, and, fixing his gaze on his horse’s ears, withdrew into an inviolable silence.
From that day on, Camilo found the journey less bearable. Apart from the vague melancholy that had taken hold of his traveling companion, he was beginning to grow bored with riding league after apparently endless league. Eventually, Soares recovered his customary verbosity, but, by then, nothing could dispel the mortal tedium overwhelming poor Camilo.
However, when they spotted the town, near to the farm where Camilo had spent his early youth, he felt his heart beat faster. He grew serious. For a while, at least, Paris and its splendors gave way to the small, honest homeland of the Seabra family.
THE MEETING
It was real day of celebration when the comendador clasped to his breast the son he had dispatched to foreign lands eight years before. The kind old man could not hold back his tears, for they sprang from a heart still brimming with love and overflowing with tenderness. Camilo’s joy was no less intense or sincere. He repeatedly kissed his father’s hands and brow, embraced other relatives and friends from his youth, and, for a few days, albeit not many, he appeared to be completely cured of any desire to return to Europe.
In the town itself and its environs, people spoke of nothing else. The comendador’s son was the sole, exclusive topic of conversation. People never wearied of praising him. They admired his manners and his elegance. Even the rather superior way in which he spoke found sincere enthusiasts. For many days, it was absolutely impossible for the young man to do anything but recount his travels to his adoring compatriots. It was worth the effort, though, because everything he said had for them an indefinable charm. Father Maciel, who had baptized him twenty-seven years before, and who was seeing him now a grown man, was the first to speak of this transformation.
“You must be very proud, sir,” he said to Camilo’s father, “you must be very proud that heaven has given you such a fine son! Now, it may just be my own fondness for the young man, who, only yesterday, was a mere scrap of a boy, but I think Santa Luzia is going to have a first-class doctor. And not just a doctor, either, but a philosopher, because he really does seem to me to be a philosopher too. I sounded him out on the matter yesterday, and I couldn’t fault his reply.”
Uncle Jorge was always asking everyone what they thought of his nephew. Colonel Veiga was constantly thanking Providence for Camilo’s arrival so close to the Feast of the Holy Spirit.
“Without him, the ball would have been incomplete.”
Dr. Matos was the last person to visit the comendador’s son. He was a tall, robust old man, only slightly bowed down by the years.
“Come in, Doctor,” said Camilo’s father as soon as he arrived, “come in and meet my young man.”
“And he is indeed a man,” answered Dr. Matos, looking at Camilo. “He’s more of a man than I imagined. But then, it has been eight years. Let me embrace you, sir.”
Camilo opened his arms to the old man. Then, as he did with all those who came to visit him, he told him a little of his travels and his studies. Needless to say, our hero omitted anything that might tarnish his image. If he was to be believed, he had more or less lived the life of a hermit, and no one dared think otherwise.
Joy was unbounded in the town and its environs, and, flattered by this unexpectedly warm reception, Camilo rarely thought about Paris. But time passes, and our feelings alter. After two weeks, the novelty of those first impressions had worn off; the farm began to change in appearance: the fields seemed monotonous, the trees monotonous, the rivers monotonous, the town monotonous, he himself seemed monotonous. He was filled then by what we might call the nostalgia of exile.
“No,” he said to himself, “I cannot possibly stay here for another three months. It’s either Paris or the graveyard, that’s the choice I’m faced with. In three months’ time, I’ll either be dead or en route to Europe.”
Camilo’s boredom did not escape his father, who spent almost all his time gazing at his son.
“He’s right,” thought the comendador. “No one who has lived in those beautiful, lively places could ever be very happy here. He needs something to occupy him—politics, for example.”
“Politics!” cried Camilo, when his father mentioned this as a possibility. “Where would politics get me, Father?”
“A long way. You could become the province’s first deputy, then join the Chamber of Deputies in Rio de Janeiro. One day, you could challenge the government, and if it fell, you might then get a seat in the cabinet. Have you never wanted to be a minister?”
“Never.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s good to be a minister.”
“What, and try to govern other men?” said Camilo, laughing. “The male sex is entirely ungovernable, Father. Personally, I prefer the fairer sex.”
Seabra laughed, too, but still did not lose hope of one day convincing his son and heir.
Camilo had been in his father’s house for nearly three weeks when he recalled what Soares had told him and the dream he’d had. The first time he went into town and met Soares, he asked:
“Tell me, how’s your Isabel? I haven’t so much as caught a glimpse of her yet.”
Soares gave him a louring look, shrugged, and muttered:
“I don’t know.”
Camilo did not insist, thinking: “His illness is obviously still at the acute stage.”
He was curious, though, to see the lovely Isabel, who had brought that garrulous electioneer so low. He had already spoken to every other girl for ten leagues around. Isabel was the only one who had so far eluded him. No, “eluded” is the wrong word. Camilo had visited Dr. Matos’s farm once, but his daughter had been ill. Or so he was told.
“Don’t worry,” said a neighbor to whom he had expressed his impatience to meet Leandro Soares’s beloved, “you’ll see her at Colonel Veiga’s ball, or at the Holy Spirit festivities, or on some other occasion.”
Various things could not help but prick Camilo’s curiosity: the young woman’s beauty—even though he could not believe it could possibly be superior or even equal to that of Prince Alexis’s widow—together with Soares’s own unquenchable passion, and the mysterious tone in which people spoke of Isabel.
The following Sunday, eight days before the Festival of the Holy Spirit, Camilo left the farm to attend mass at the church in town, as he had on the previous Sundays. His horse trotted slowly along, and his thoughts kept the same indolent pace, spreading out over the countryside in eager search of some lost sensation it yearned to have again.
A thousand remarkable ideas passed through Camilo’s mind. One moment he was wishing he could fly through the air, horse and all, and land slap-bang in front of the Palais Royal, or any other spot in the world’s capital city. The next he was imagining some great deluge that would sweep him off to have lunch in Café Tortoni just two minutes after kneeling at Father Maciel’s altar.
Suddenly, in the distance, as he rounded a bend in the road, he saw two ladies on horseback, accompanied by a page. Spurring his horse, he soon caught up with them. One of the ladies turned, smiled, and stopped. Camilo doffed his hat and held out his hand, which she shook.
This lady was the wife of Colonel Veiga. She was probably about forty-five, but certainly did not look her age. The other lady, aware that her companion had stopped, also stopped and turned around. Camilo had not yet looked at her, however, for he was listening to Dona Gertrudes, who was giving him news of the colonel.
“He thinks of nothing but the festivities now,” she was saying. “He’s probably at church already. Are you going to mass?”
“I am.”
“Let’s go together, then.”
After this rapid exchange, Camilo finally looked at the other rider. She, however, was already some way ahead. He drew his horse up alongside Dona Gertrudes, and the procession set off again. They had been chatting for about ten minutes, when the horse of the lady in front came to an abrupt halt.
“What is it, Isabel?” asked Dona Gertrudes.
“Isabel?” cried Camilo, oblivious to the incident that had provoked Dona Gertrudes’s question.
The young woman turned and shrugged, saying only:
“I don’t know.”
The horse had heard a noise coming from the thick bamboo grove to the left of the road, but before Camilo’s page could discover the cause of the horse’s reluctance to proceed, the young woman had made a supreme effort and, vigorously whipping her horse, had managed to persuade it to overcome its fear and gallop on ahead.
“Isabel?” Camilo said again. “Is that young woman Dr. Matos’s daughter?”
“Yes, didn’t you recognize her?”
“I haven’t seen her for eight years. She’s a real beauty! I’m not surprised that people here talk so much about her. I was told she’d been ill . . .”
“She has, but her illnesses are minor things. It’s her nerves, apparently; at least that, I believe, is what people say when they don’t know what’s wrong with someone.”
Isabel had stopped farther up the road, and seemed to be admiring the splendors of the nature around her. They almost caught up with her a few minutes later, and she was just about to ride on, when Dona Gertrudes called to her:
“Isabel!”
The young woman turned, and Dona Gertrudes rode over to her.
“Don’t you remember Dr. Camilo Seabra?”
“You may not remember me,” said Camilo. “You were only twelve when I left, and that was eight years ago!”
“No, I do remember,” answered Isabel, slightly turning her head, but still without looking at him.
Then, gently urging on her horse, she rode ahead. Although this was rather a strange way to greet an old acquaintance, what most impressed Camilo was Isabel’s beauty, which thoroughly deserved its reputation.
As far as he could judge from that first encounter, the slender horsewoman was tall rather than short. She had an olive complexion, but her skin was satin-smooth, with a faint rosy tinge, doubtless the effect of her agitation, for people usually described her as very pale. Camilo had not been able to see what color her eyes were, but despite this, and possibly more importantly, he had sensed their brightness, and understood at once how the eyes of that lovely maiden could have so enchanted poor Soares.
He did not have time to study her other features, but was able to contemplate at his leisure what he had already admired from afar, namely, her naturally elegant, upright posture, and the graceful ease with which she rode. He had seen many elegant, skillful horsewomen, but she had a quality that gave her an advantage over them all; perhaps it was her easy, casual gestures or the spontaneity of her movements, or something else entirely, or a combination of all those things, that gave this interesting young woman incontestable supremacy.
Isabel occasionally slowed her horse and spoke to Dona Gertrudes, pointing out some trick of the light or a bird flying by or a sound she had heard—but not once did she turn to face Camilo or give him so much as a sideways glance. Absorbed in contemplation of her, Camilo let the conversation lapse, and he and Dona Gertrudes rode along in silence for some minutes. They were interrupted by another rider approaching at a fast trot from behind.
It was Soares.
He seemed completely different from their last encounter. He greeted them all in the same smiling, jovial manner he had affected during the first few days of his journey with Camilo. It was easy enough, though, to see that this was all a façade. His face would cloud over from time to time, or he would make a despairing gesture which, fortunately, escaped the notice of the others. He feared the triumph of a man who was his physical and intellectual superior, and who, what’s more, had the great advantage of being very much in the public eye: the main attraction, the star performer, the man of the moment. Everything was conspiring to demolish Soares’s last hope, which was to see the young woman die without ever marrying. This unfortunate lover had the all-too-common tendency of wishing to see the cup he himself could not raise to his lips lying shattered or useless.
His fear had grown all the greater, when, hiding in the bamboo grove to watch Isabel ride by, as he often did, he saw Camilo in their company. He could not suppress a cry of surprise and even took a step in their direction, but stopped himself in time. As we saw, the party rode on, leaving the jealous suitor swearing to all the powers in heaven and on earth that he would have his revenge on his bold rival, if, indeed, he was his rival.
As we well know, he was not a rival; the memory of the Muscovite Artemis was still fresh in Camilo’s heart, and despite the distance that lay now between them, he could still feel her ardent, sorrowful tears. But who could persuade Leandro Soares that the elegant “young man from Europe,” as people called him, would not fall in love with that elusive young woman?
Isabel, on the other hand, reined in her horse as soon as she saw her unfortunate suitor and affectionately held out her hand to him, accompanying this gesture with the most adorable of smiles. This was not enough, alas, to dispel the poor young man’s doubts. Camilo, however, interpreted her actions quite differently.
“She either loves him or she’s a complete fraud,” he thought.
At that precise moment—and for the first time—Isabel chanced to look at Camilo. Whether through instinct or sheer perspicacity, she read this hidden thought of his; she frowned slightly and a look of such bewilderment crossed her face that Camilo felt utterly perplexed and could not help adding, this time actually murmuring the words:
“Or else she’s in league with the devil.”
“Perhaps she is,” responded Isabel softly, her gaze fixed now on the ground.
These words were spoken so quietly that no one else heard. Half astonished, half curious, Camilo could not take his eyes off the lovely Isabel after those words uttered in such strange circumstances. Soares was gazing at Camilo as tenderly as a hawk looks at a pigeon. Isabel was playing with her whip. Dona Gertrudes, afraid they might miss Father Maciel’s mass and be affectionately scolded by her husband, gave orders for them to proceed, and so they did.
Chapter IV
THE FESTIVAL
The following Saturday, the town had a very different air about it. Crowds of people had arrived to join in the annual Festival of the Holy Spirit.
Very few places have entirely lost their taste for such old-fashioned celebrations, a remnant from past ages, which the writers of future centuries will study with interest in order to describe to their contemporaries a Brazil they will no longer recognize. At the time of these events, one of the most authentic of such festivals was that held in the town of Santa Luzia.
Colonel Veiga, who had been appointed that year’s Emperor of the Holy Spirit, was staying in a house he owned in town. This was the meeting place on the Saturday night for the traditional group of shepherds and shepherdesses, who all arrived in their picturesque outfits, accompanied by the classic “old man” in breeches and stockings, flat shoes, a long vest and overcoat, and holding a large stick.
Camilo was at the colonel’s house for the arrival of the shepherds, with, at their head, a few musicians and, behind them, a whole throng of people. They formed a circle out in the street, and a shepherd and shepherdess initiated the dancing. Then everyone danced, sang, and played both outside the house and in the colonel’s parlor, and the colonel was quite beside himself with glee. It is a moot point, and one that will probably never be resolved, whether, on that day, Colonel Veiga actually preferred being Emperor of the Divine Holy Spirit to being a government minister.
And yet this was merely a small example of the colonel’s majestic status. The Sunday morning sun would reveal far greater things. And this, it seems, was why the king of light chose to bless that day with his finest rays, for the sky had never been more limpidly blue. Overnight, a few dark clouds had rather dimmed the hopes of the festivalgoers; fortunately, though, a stiff morning breeze had swept the sky clean and freshened the air.
The population responded to nature’s bounty, and, bright and early, sallied forth in their Sunday best, joking, laughing, talking, and feeling utterly content.
The air crackled with fireworks, and the church bells gaily summoned the people to worship.
Camilo had spent the night in town at Father Maciel’s house, and was woken far earlier than expected by the bells and fireworks and other festive noises. At his father’s house, he had kept to his Parisian habits, and the comendador judged it best not to disrupt this pattern. He woke at eleven in the morning, except on Sundays, when he would go to mass so as not entirely to offend against the local customs.
“What on earth is going on, Father Maciel?” shouted Camilo from his room, when the flashing lights from a girandola firework finally forced him to open his eyes.
“What do you think?” answered Father Maciel, poking his head around the door. “It’s the start of the festival.”
“You mean they begin in the middle of the night?”
“What do you mean, ‘the middle of the night’?” exclaimed Father Maciel. “It’s broad daylight.”
Unable to go back to sleep, Camilo was obliged to leave his bed. He had breakfast with the priest, recounted a few anecdotes, declared that Paris was the ideal city, and set off for the Emperor’s house. Father Maciel left with him, and on the way, they saw Leandro Soares in the distance.
“Can you tell me, Father,” asked Camilo, “why Dr. Matos’s daughter refuses to accept that poor man’s love?”
Father Maciel adjusted his spectacles and gave the following thoughtful response.
“That’s a rather foolish question.”
“It can’t be so very foolish,” retorted Camilo, “because I’m hardly the only person to have asked it.”
“That’s true,” said the priest, “but one shouldn’t necessarily repeat what other people say. Isabel doesn’t love Soares because she doesn’t love him.”
“Don’t you think her slightly strange?”
“No,” said the priest, “she seems to me extremely astute.”
“Why so?”
“I suspect that she’s very ambitious. She doesn’t accept Soares’s protestations of love because she wants to see if she can get a husband who will open a door for her into the world of politics.”
“Surely not!” said Camilo, shrugging dismissively.
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I may be wrong, but I think that is the real reason. Everyone here has his own explanation as to why Isabel won’t marry. However, all their explanations strike me as absurd. I think mine is much better.”
Camilo made a few further objections, then said goodbye and headed for the colonel’s house.
The Emperor of the festivities could barely contain his excitement. This was the first time he had held this honorific post and he was determined to carry out his duties brilliantly, even more brilliantly than his predecessors. While this demonstrated a perfectly natural desire not to be outdone, there was also an element of political envy. Behind his back, some of his opponents were saying that the proud colonel wasn’t up to the job.
“I’ll show them,” he said when certain friends reported this malicious gossip to him.
Camilo entered the room as the colonel was in the process of giving some last-minute instructions about the supper that would follow the festivities, and listening to the details that one of the fraternity brethren was giving him about the ceremony in the sacristy.
“I won’t keep you, Colonel,” said Camilo once he was alone with Veiga, “I’d hate to delay you.”
“No, not at all,” said the Emperor of the Divine Holy Spirit, “everything’s in hand. Is your father coming?”
“Yes, he should be here already.”
“Have you seen the church?”
“No, not yet.”
“It’s looking very pretty. I don’t wish to boast, but I think the festivities will certainly be as good as those of other years, if not better.”
It was absolutely impossible to disagree with this opinion when the man giving it was doing so in his own honor. Camilo, in turn, praised the celebrations. The colonel listened to him with a rather smug smile on his face, and was about to point out to his young friend that he clearly didn’t appreciate their full significance, when Camilo changed the subject and asked:
“Has Dr. Matos arrived?”
“Yes, he has.”
“With his family?”
At this point, they were interrupted by the sound of approaching music and many fireworks exploding.
“It’s them!” cried Veiga. “They’re coming to fetch me. If you’ll excuse me.”
And with that he rushed upstairs to change his black trousers and linen jacket for the uniform and insignia appropriate to his lofty position. Camilo went over to the window to watch the procession arrive, which it soon did, composed of a band of musicians, the Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit, and the shepherds and shepherdesses from the night before. The brethren were wearing their scarlet chasubles and were walking slowly and gravely along, surrounded by the crowds filling the street and clustering around the door to the colonel’s house, waiting for him to emerge.
When the procession stopped outside, the music also stopped, and all eyes peered curiously up at the windows. However, the new Emperor had not yet finished dressing, and the onlookers had to content themselves with looking at Camilo. Meanwhile, four or five of the higher-ranking brethren had left the group and climbed the steps to the colonel’s front door.
Minutes later, those same high-ranking brethren were greeting Camilo, one of them higher up than the others and not just as regards his rank, for Major Brás’s great height would have been his most notable feature were it not in direct competition with his extreme thinness. Despite this, the major’s chasuble fit him well, because it neither hung down below his knees, as it did with the others, nor just below his waist, as it would have done had it been made to the same measurements. It was a sort of middle way. It reached to just above the knee, and had been made specifically to reconcile the major’s enormous stature with the accepted principles of elegance.
All the brethren shook Camilo’s hand and asked anxiously for the colonel.
“He won’t be long,” said Camilo. “He’s just getting dressed.”
“The church is full,” said one of the brethren. “We’re just waiting for the colonel now.”
“And it’s only right that we should wait,” said Major Brás.
“Seconded,” said the brethren in unison.
“Besides,” added the immensely tall officer, “we have plenty of time. We don’t have to go far.”
The other brethren nodded their assent, and the major then went on to tell Camilo how much work both he and his colleagues had put into organizing the festival—in fact, just as much work as the colonel.
“As a reward for our modest efforts”—Camilo dismissed this remark with a shake of his head—“things shouldn’t go too badly.”
The major had barely spoken these words when the colonel appeared at the door to the parlor in all his splendor.
Camilo had no idea what the Emperor’s uniform and insignia would be like, and so he regarded him with some astonishment.
As well as the black trousers, which he had been wearing when Camilo had arrived, the colonel had donned a tailcoat, whose cut and style could have rivaled that of the most impeccably dressed member of the Cassino Fluminense. So far, so good. On his chest glinted the vast insignia of the Order of the Rose, which, again, was perfectly acceptable. However, what exceeded all expectation, and what accounted for the look of amazement on Camilo’s face, was the gleaming, ornate crown made of cardboard and gold paper that the colonel had on his head.
Camilo took a step back and fixed his eyes on the colonel’s imperial crown. He had forgotten that this was an indispensable item on such occasions, and, after living for eight years in a very different culture, he had assumed that such costumes would have long since been dead and buried.
The colonel shook hands with all his friends and declared that he was ready to accompany them.
“We don’t want to keep the people waiting,” he said.
They immediately went out into the street. The crowd stirred into life when they caught sight of the scarlet chasuble worn by one of the brethren. Behind him came another chasuble, quickly followed by all the other chasubles, on either side of the richly adorned Emperor. As soon as the sun’s rays fell on the golden crown, it glinted and glittered in the most extraordinary fashion. The colonel looked to left and right, nodding to various people in the throng, then took up the place of honor in the procession. The band immediately broke into a march, and off they all went to the church, the colonel, the brotherhood, the shepherds and shepherdesses.
As soon as the procession came within sight of the church, the bell ringer, who had been watching and waiting, put into practice all the most complicated tricks of his trade, while a girandola, along with a few other stray fireworks, announced to the heavens that the Emperor of the Divine Holy Spirit had arrived. His arrival caused general excitement in the church. A burly, energetic master of ceremonies was trying, albeit with great difficulty, to clear a path through, but the disorderly crowd kept undoing all his good work. Finally, what always happens on these occasions happened, and a path opened up of its own accord, and, with some effort, the colonel made his way through the crush, preceded and accompanied by the members of the fraternity, until he reached the throne that had been placed next to the altar. He confidently climbed the steps up to the throne and sat down as proudly as if he were Emperor of all the empires of the world.
When Camilo arrived at the church, the ceremony had already begun. He found a reasonable place to sit, or, rather, an excellent one, because it provided him with a view of a large group of ladies, among them the lovely Isabel.
Camilo was anxious to speak to Isabel again. He could not forget their encounter on the road and the remarkable perspicacity she had shown on that occasion. She appeared not to notice him, but Camilo was so experienced in dealing with the fairer sex that he realized at once that she had, in fact, seen him and was deliberately avoiding his gaze. This, along with the incidents of the previous Sunday, made the following question surface in his mind:
“What has she got against me?”
The ceremony continued without further incident. Camilo did not take his eyes off his beautiful enigma, as he already called her, but the enigma seemed immune to any feelings of curiosity. Once, though, toward the end of the ceremony, their eyes did meet. It should be pointed out that he found her looking at him. He bowed, she reciprocated, and that was that. Once the ceremony was over, the brotherhood escorted the colonel back to his house. In the hurly-burly of leaving the church, Camilo, who still had his eyes fixed on Isabel, heard an unfamiliar voice whisper in his ear:
“Watch what you’re doing!”
Camilo turned and came face-to-face with a short, thin man with small, bright eyes; he was poorly but neatly dressed. They stared at each other for a few seconds in silence. Camilo didn’t recognize the face and didn’t dare demand an explanation for the words he had just heard, even though he was burning to know more.
“There’s a mystery,” the stranger said at last. “Would you like to know what it is?”
Another silence.
“This is hardly the appropriate place,” said Camilo, “but if you have something to tell me . . .”
“No, you must find out for yourself.”
And with that, the short, thin man with the small, bright eyes vanished into the crowd. Camilo elbowed his way past ten or twelve people, trod on fifteen or twenty corns, apologizing just as often for his rash behavior, only to find himself out in the street with not a sign of the stranger.
“This is like a novel,” he said. “I’m caught up in the middle of a novel!”
At that moment, Isabel, Dona Gertrudes, and Dr. Matos came out of the church. Camilo went over to greet them. Dr. Matos gave his arm to Dona Gertrudes, and Camilo timidly offered his to Isabel. She hesitated, but since she could hardly refuse, she linked arms with him, and they walked to the colonel’s house, where the colonel and various other important people were already installed. In the midst of the throng, another man was making his way to the colonel’s house, and he did not once take his eyes off Camilo and Isabel.
That man bit his lip until it bled.
Need I add that the man was Leandro Soares?
Chapter V
PASSION
It was only a short distance from the church to the house, and the conversation between Isabel and Camilo was neither long nor sustained. And yet, dear reader, if the Muscovite princess deserves any sympathy at all, then now is the time to take pity on her, for the dawn of a new feeling was beginning to gild the peaks of Camilo’s heart. As they went up the steps to the colonel’s house, Camilo had to admit to himself that the intriguing Isabel was possessed of qualities far superior to those of the lovely Russian princess. An hour and a half later—that is, toward the end of supper—Camilo’s heart confirmed the discovery made by his inquiring mind.
The couple stuck entirely to neutral topics of conversation, but Isabel spoke with such sweetness and grace—although always with her habitual reserve—and her eyes, seen from close up, were so pretty, as was her hair and her mouth, not to mention her hands, that our ardent young hero could only have resisted the allure of such combined charms had he entirely changed his nature.
Supper passed without incident. The colonel had gathered together all the local worthies: the priest, the magistrate, the merchant, the farmer, and the utmost cordiality and harmony reigned from one end of the table to the other. The Emperor of the Divine Holy Spirit, now back in his normal clothes, presided over the table with real enthusiasm. The festival was the main topic of conversation, intermingled, it’s true, with a few political reflections, with which everyone agreed, because the men and women present all belonged to the same party.
Major Brás was in the habit of making one or two long, eloquent toasts at any important supper to which he was invited. His facility as a speaker had no rival in the entire province. Moreover, given his great height, he could dominate any audience simply by getting to his feet.
He could not allow the colonel’s supper to pass without some intervention on his part; dessert was about to be served when the eloquent major asked permission to say a few simple, artless words. A murmur equivalent to a round of nays in the Chamber of Deputies greeted this announcement, and the audience prepared their ears to receive the pearls about to fall from his lips.
“This illustrious audience,” he said, “will forgive my boldness. I speak not simply because I can, ladies and gentlemen, no, I speak from the heart. My toast will be a brief one; in order to celebrate the virtues and abilities of our illustrious Colonel Veiga no long speech is necessary. His name says it all, and my voice would add nothing new . . .”
The audience gave an indication that while it unreservedly applauded the first part of that sentence, it had its reservations about the second, thus complimenting both the colonel and the major; and the speaker, who, if he was to be true to what he had just said, should merely have drained his glass, continued as follows:
“I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that the extraordinary event we have just witnessed will never be expunged from our memories. This town and other towns have seen many Festivals of the Holy Spirit, but never have the people enjoyed a more splendid, lively, triumphant affair than the one put on by our illustrious fellow believer and friend, Colonel Veiga, who is an honor to his class and one of the glories of his party . . .”
“The party in which I will remain until I die,” added the colonel, in a tone of voice that made clear these words were a mere parenthesis.
Despite having begun by declaring that there was no need to say anything more about the colonel’s many merits, the intrepid orator went on to speak for a good twenty-five minutes, much to the chagrin both of Father Maciel, who had his eye on a seductively quivering bread pudding at the far end of the table, and of the magistrate, who was dying for a cigarette. This memorable discourse concluded more or less like this:
“I would, however, be neglecting my duties as a friend, fellow believer, subordinate, and admirer if I were not to speak out on this occasion and put into words—rough-and-ready, yes (disapproving murmurs), but sincerely felt—all the emotions that crowd my breast, all the enthusiasm that fills my heart, when I gaze on the venerable, the illustrious Colonel Veiga, and if I were not to invite you now to join me in drinking to his health.”
The audience enthusiastically joined in the toast, to which the colonel responded with these few, heartfelt words:
“The praise heaped on me by the distinguished Major Brás is the gift of a large and generous heart; I do not deserve such a gift, ladies and gentlemen, and I return it intact to the illustrious orator himself.”
In the midst of the feast and the prevailing gaiety, no one noticed Camilo’s attentions to Dr. Matos’s lovely daughter. No, I lie. Leandro Soares, who had also been invited to the supper, did not once take his eyes off his elegant rival or his beautiful and elusive lady.
It must seem to the reader a near-miracle that Soares should remain so unmoved and even happy to see his rival’s clear intentions, but it is no miracle. Soares was also studying Isabel’s gaze, and he saw in it only the indifference or even disdain with which she treated the comendador’s son, and he thought to himself: “She loves neither of us.”
Camilo was in love, and the following day, he was even more in love; with each day that passed, the consuming flame of passion grew higher. Paris and the princess had vanished from his heart and mind. Only one being and one place merited a space in his thoughts: Isabel and Goiás.
The young woman’s haughty, scornful demeanor contributed in large measure to this transformation. Considering himself better than his rival, Camilo was thinking:
“If she cares nothing for me, how much less must she care for Soares. But why is she so offhand with me? Why should I be defeated like any other vulgar suitor?”
When he thought this, he recalled what the stranger in the church had said to him and told himself:
“There really must be some mystery behind this, but how to find out what it is?”
He asked various townspeople if they knew the identity of the short man with the small, bright eyes. No one could help him. It seemed incredible that he could not find the whereabouts of a man who must be known to someone; he redoubled his efforts, but no one could tell him who the mysterious stranger was.
Meanwhile, he became a frequent visitor to Dr. Matos’s house and occasionally dined there. It was difficult to speak to Isabel with the freedom that more modern manners would allow, and yet he did what he could to communicate his feelings to the beautiful young woman. She, however, seemed to grow more and more impervious to his protestations. She didn’t exactly treat him scornfully, but coldly; she appeared to have a heart of ice.
Spurned love was joined by wounded pride, resentment, and embarrassment, and all these things, along with an epidemic raging in the area, landed our Camilo in bed, where we will leave him to be cared for by his medical colleagues.
Chapter VI
REVELATION
There are no mysteries for an author who can scrutinize every nook and cranny of the human heart. While the people of Santa Luzia came up with a thousand theories to explain the real reason behind the lovely Isabel’s inability to love, I am in a position to tell the impatient reader that she is perfectly capable of love.
“But who does she love?” asks the reader urgently.
She loves . . . a flower. A flower? Yes, a flower. It must be a very pretty flower, then, a miracle of perfumed freshness. No, it’s a very ugly flower, dried and withered, a mere corpse of a flower, which must once have been very beautiful, but which now, lying in its little basket, inspires only curiosity. Because it really is very odd that a young woman of twenty, when she is at her most passionate, should seem indifferent to the men around her and focus all her affections on the faded, withered remains of a flower.
Ah, but the flower was picked in very special circumstances. It happened a few years ago. There was a boy who lived locally and who was very fond of Isabel, because she was a delightful creature; he even used to call her his wife, an innocent joke to which time gave the lie. Isabel was equally fond of the boy, so much so that the following idea took root in the mind of the girl’s father:
“If she still feels the same in a few years’ time, and if he does truly love her, then I think I could well marry them off.”
Isabel knew nothing of her father’s idea, but she continued to be fond of the boy, and he continued to find her a very interesting creature.
One day, Isabel saw a pretty blue flower growing among the branches of a tree.
“What a lovely flower!” she said.
“I suppose you’d like it, would you?”
“I would, yes,” said the girl, who, though untutored in these matters, already understood such oblique, disguised ways of speaking.
He took off his jacket with all the nonchalance of a grown-up in the presence of a child and climbed the tree. Isabel waited below, tense and eager to have the flower. The obliging boy soon reached the flower and delicately plucked it.
“Catch!” he said from up above.
Isabel went closer to the tree and held out her skirts to catch the flower. Pleased to have granted the girl’s wish, the boy began to descend, but so clumsily that, only two minutes later, he was lying on the ground at Isabel’s feet. She gave a terrified cry and called for help; the boy tried to calm her, saying it was nothing, and trying to clamber cheerfully to his feet. He did eventually manage to stand up, but his shirt was spattered with blood, for he had cut his head.
The wound was declared to be only superficial, and, after a few days, the brave boy had completely recovered.
The incident made a deep impression on Isabel. Up until then, she had merely been fond of the boy; thenceforth, she adored him. The flower he had picked inevitably withered, but Isabel kept it as if it were a relic, kissing it every day and, later on, even shedding tears over it. A kind of superstitious cult bound her heart to that shriveled flower.
However, she was not so callous that she did not feel deeply concerned when she learned that Camilo was ill. She asked assiduously after his health and, five days later, went with her father to visit him.
While the mere fact of her visit did not cure the patient, it did console and encourage him; a few faint hopes sprang up in him, hopes that had grown as dried and withered as the flower of the story.
“Perhaps now she will love me,” he thought.
As soon as he was more or less restored to health, his first act was to go to Dr. Matos’s house, and his father offered to go with him. Dr. Matos was not at home, only his sister and daughter. The sister was a poor old lady, who, as well as suffering the usual afflictions of old age, had two further afflictions, namely, deafness and a love of politics. The occasion proved propitious; while Isabel’s aunt monopolized the comendador’s person and attention, Camilo had time to deliver a quick, decisive blow, addressing these words to the young woman:
“I wanted to thank you for your kindness and concern while I was ill. That same kindness gives me the courage to ask you one other thing.”
Isabel frowned.
“A few days ago, a hope I had long thought dead and buried suddenly revived,” Camilo went on. “Was that a mere illusion? A single word, a single gesture from you would resolve that doubt.”
Isabel shrugged.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” said Camilo somewhat bitterly. “But, if you insist, I’ll put it plainly. I love you. I’ve told you so a thousand times, but you always ignore me. Now, though—”
Camilo would have happily ended this brief speech there and then, if he’d had before him the person he had hoped would be listening to him. Isabel, however, did not even give him time to finish. Without a word or gesture, she walked the entire length of the veranda and went and sat at the far end, where her old aunt was testing the comendador’s excellent lungs to the limit.
Camilo’s disappointment was beyond description. Complaining of a nonexistent heat, he left the house to get some fresh air, and, now slowly, now quickly, depending on which emotion dominated, whether irritation or despair, he, the wretched suitor, wandered off. He invented endless plans for revenge and endless ways of throwing himself at her feet; he recalled all their previous encounters, and, after a very long hour, he reached the sad conclusion that all was lost. At this point, he realized that he was standing beside a stream that crossed Dr. Matos’s farm. It was a rather desolate place and perfectly suited to the situation in which he found himself. Two hundred paces away, he saw a cabin, where he thought he could hear someone singing a song from the sertão.
Another person’s happiness is always a tiresome thing when one has oneself suffered some misfortune! Camilo felt even more irritated, and ingenuously wondered how anyone could possibly be happy when his own despairing heart was bleeding. Then a man appeared at the cabin door and walked over to the stream. A shiver ran through Camilo, for he seemed to recognize in him the mysterious stranger who had spoken to him in the church. He was the same stature and had the same air about him; Camilo walked rapidly over to him and stopped a few feet away. The man turned around: it was him!
Camilo ran up to him.
“At last!” he said.
The stranger smiled smugly and shook Camilo’s proffered hand.
“Do you need to sit down?” he asked.
“No,” said Camilo. “I don’t mind where we talk, it can be here or somewhere else if you like, but, please, explain what you said to me the other day in the church.”
The stranger smiled again.
“So?” said Camilo, seeing that the man did not answer.
“First of all, tell me honestly: do you really love her?”
“Oh, yes, very much.”
“Do you swear that you will make her happy?”
“I swear.”
“Then, listen. What I’m about to tell you is true, because I heard it from my wife, who was Dona Isabel’s wet nurse. That’s her over there.”
Camilo glanced back at the cabin door and saw a tall, elegant mulatto woman eyeing him curiously.
“Let’s move a little farther off so that she can’t hear us,” said the stranger, “because I don’t want her to know who you heard this story from.”
And they did move away, walking along beside the stream. The stranger then told Camilo the story of the flower and the cult the young woman had built up around it. A less canny reader will imagine that Camilo listened to this story feeling sad and downcast. However, a more experienced reader will have guessed at once that the stranger’s revelation made Camilo’s soul turn somersaults of joy.
“So that’s how it is,” said the stranger in conclusion. “You now know where you stand.”
“Oh, yes, I do, I do!” cried Camilo. “I am loved! I am loved!”
Once he knew the story, Camilo could not wait to go back to the house he had left some time before. He put his hand in his pocket, opened his wallet, and took out a twenty-mil-réis note.
“You have done me an enormous service,” he said, “one that is beyond price. Please accept this small token of my appreciation.”
And he handed the money to the man. The stranger gave a scornful laugh and, at first, said nothing. Then he took the note Camilo was offering and, to the latter’s great astonishment, threw it into the stream. The thread of water, which ran burbling and leaping over the pebbles, carried off the note, along with a leaf that the wind also carried off with it.
“That way,” said the stranger, “you don’t owe me a favor and I receive no payment for it. Please don’t think my intention was to serve you; it wasn’t. I simply wanted to make the daughter of my benefactor happy. I knew that she had been in love with a boy, and that he would be able to make her happy; I merely opened up the way that would lead him to her. That is not something you pay for, your gratitude is enough.”
Having said these words, the stranger returned to the cabin. Camilo watched the rustic fellow walk away, and, shortly afterward, he was back at Isabel’s house, where his return was awaited with some anxiety. Indeed, Isabel’s face lit up with joy when she saw him.
“I know everything,” Camilo said to her shortly before he left to go home.
She stared at him in amazement.
“Everything?” she said.
“I know that you love me, and I know that your love began many years ago, when you were a child, and that even now—”
He was interrupted by his father coming over to join them. Isabel looked pale and confused, and was grateful for this interruption, because she had no idea how to respond.
The following day, Camilo wrote her a passionate letter, invoking the love she had kept hidden in her heart, and asking her to make him happy. He waited two whole days for a reply. It came on the third day, and was short and to the point. She admitted that she had indeed loved him for all those years and had sworn never to love anyone else.
“That is all,” concluded Isabel. “As for becoming your wife, that can never be. I want to give my life to someone whose love is equal to mine. Your love began yesterday, mine nine years ago; the difference in age is too great; ours could never be a good marriage. Forget about me. Farewell.”
To say that this letter only increased Camilo’s love would be to set down in writing what the reader has already guessed. Camilo’s heart needed only a written confession from her to push him over the edge into madness. Her letter made him take leave of his senses.
Chapter VII
EVENTS TAKE ON THEIR OWN MOMENTUM
The comendador had not yet lost hope of getting his son involved in politics. There happened to be an election that year, and the comendador wrote to all the influential bigwigs in the province to ensure his son a place in the relevant constituency.
Camilo greeted his father’s plan with a shrug, determined to accept no proposals apart from that of marrying Isabel. The comendador, Father Maciel and the colonel all tried in vain to tempt him with a glittering future and the prospect of lofty government posts. However, the only post that interested him was marriage to Isabel.
This, of course, was not easy. Isabel’s resolve appeared to be unshakable.
“But she does love me,” he thought, “and that’s half the battle.”
And since his love was more recent than hers, Camilo realized that the only way to solve the problem of that age difference was to show her that his love was more passionate and capable of still greater sacrifices.
He stopped at nothing to prove this. He braved wind and rain to visit her every day; he was a slave to her every desire, however small. If Isabel had expressed the childish wish to hold the morning star in her hand, he would very likely have found a way to bring it to her.
At the same time, he had stopped pestering her with letters and declarations of love. In his last letter, he said only:
“I will live in hope!”
This hope had to sustain him for many weeks, and still he saw no real improvement in his situation.
Some less demanding reader may find Isabel’s resolve odd, especially now that she knew her love was requited. I agree, but I do not wish to alter the character of my heroine, because she was exactly as I describe her in these pages. She felt that the fact that she was loved was pure chance, simply because the young man had happened to return from Paris, whereas she had spent long years thinking of him and living solely on that memory; she clearly found this thought humiliating, and because she was extremely proud, she had resolved not to marry him or anyone else. Absurd, maybe, but that is how it was.
Weary with vainly laying siege to the young woman’s heart, and convinced, on the other hand, that if he were ever to break her resolve, he had to demonstrate that his was an invincible passion, Camilo drew up a master plan.
One morning, he vanished from the farm. At first no one was concerned about his absence, because he often went for long walks when he woke earlier than usual. As time passed, though, they began to grow worried. Emissaries were sent out, but they returned with nothing to report.
His father was distraught, and news of his disappearance spread everywhere for ten leagues around. After five days of fruitless searching, they learned that a young man fitting Camilo’s description had been spotted half a league away, on horseback. He was alone and seemed very sad. A muleteer stated that he had seen a young man standing beside a river, as if assessing the likelihood of death were he to jump.
The comendador began offering large sums of money as a reward for anyone who brought him news of his son. His friends dispatched their servants to scour forests and fields, and a whole week passed with nothing to justify these useless labors.
Need I describe the lovely Isabel’s anguish when she was told of Camilo’s disappearance? At first sight, she seemed unmoved; her face revealed nothing of the storm that immediately broke in her heart. Ten minutes later, the storm had risen to her eyes and burst forth in a veritable sea of tears.
It was then that her father learned of that long-incubated passion. Seeing that explosion of grief, he feared that her love could prove fatal to her. His first thought was that the young man had disappeared in order to flee a forced marriage. Isabel reassured him, saying that, on the contrary, she had been the one to reject Camilo’s love.
“I killed him!” she cried.
Her kindly father found it hard to understand why a young woman in love with a young man, and a young man in love with a young woman, should do their best to remain apart, instead of heading straight for the altar, as he had done when he first fell in love.
After a week, our old acquaintance, the inhabitant of the cabin, came to find Dr. Matos, and arrived at his house breathless and happy.
“He’s safe!” he said.
“Safe!” exclaimed both father and daughter.
“It’s true,” said Miguel (for that was the man’s name). “I found him yesterday evening lying in a stream, almost drowned.”
“Why did you not come and tell us?” asked Dr. Matos.
“Because I needed to take care of him first. When he came to, all he wanted was to make another attempt to end his life, but my wife and I stopped him. He’s still a little weak, which is why he didn’t come with me now.”
Isabel’s face was radiant. A few silent tears still filled her eyes, but they were tears of joy, not sorrow.
Miguel left with the promise that Dr. Matos would come and fetch Camilo.
“Now, Isabel,” said her father, as soon as he was alone with her, “what do you intend to do?”
“I’ll do whatever you say, Father!”
“I will only tell you to do what your heart tells you to do. What does your heart say?”
“It says . . .”
“What?”
“It says yes.”
“Which is what it should have said a long time ago, because . . .”
“What if there’s another reason behind this attempted suicide? I must find that out.”
When the comendador was informed of what had happened, he went straight to Dr. Matos’s house, where Camilo soon joined them. Written on the poor lad’s face was the shock of having escaped the tragic death he himself had sought; that, at least, is what he repeatedly told Isabel’s father on their way back to his house.
“But why were you so determined to kill yourself?” asked Dr. Matos.
“Well . . .” said Camilo, who had been expecting this question. “I hardly dare say.”
“Is it something to be ashamed of?” asked Dr. Matos, smiling benevolently.
“No, not at all.”
“So what was the reason?”
“Will you forgive me if I tell you?”
“Of course.”
“No, I daren’t say,” said Camilo resolutely.
“Look, there’s no point in lying. I know already.”
“Oh!”
“And I forgive your reasons for doing it, but not the act itself; that was pure childishness.”
“But she despises me!”
“No, she doesn’t. She loves you!”
Camilo gave a perfect imitation of someone taken completely by surprise, and accompanied the doctor back to his house, where he also found his father, who was uncertain whether to be stern with his son or as pleased as punch.
Camilo saw at once the effect his near-suicide had had on Isabel’s heart.
“Right,” said her father, “now that we’ve resurrected you, we need to attach you firmly to life with a good strong chain.”
And without any of the usual formalities and ignoring all the usual niceties, he announced to the comendador that their respective children must marry at once.
The comendador had not yet recovered from the news that his son had been found, and when he heard this, he could not have been more astonished had the whole Xavante tribe hurled themselves upon him armed with bows and arrows. He kept looking around at everyone present as if wanting to know the reason for something that required no explanation at all. Finally, he was told about the love between Camilo and Isabel, the sole cause of his son’s attempted suicide. The comendador approved of his son’s choice, and took gallantry so far as to say that, in the circumstances, he would have done just the same had the young lady spurned his love.
“Am I at last worthy of your love?” Camilo asked Isabel when he found himself alone with her.
“Of course!” she said. “If you had died, I would have died too!”
Camilo quickly added that Providence had been watching over him, although it was never quite clear what he meant by Providence.
It was not long before news of the outcome of this tragic episode had spread throughout the town and its environs.
The announcement of Camilo and Isabel’s forthcoming marriage drove Leandro Soares almost to the brink of madness. A thousand acts of vengeance rushed into his mind, each bloodier than the last; in his opinion, they were both vile traitors, and he must exact a solemn revenge on them.
No despot could ever have imagined more hideous torments than those dreamed up by Leandro Soares’s overheated imagination. The poor lover spent a whole two days and nights in pointless conjectures. On the third day, he decided to seek out his fortunate rival, throw his villainy in his face, and then kill him.
He armed himself with a knife and set off.
The happy bridegroom-to-be was leaving his house, unaware of the fate awaiting him, and imagining a life brimming with happiness and celestial delights. The thought of Isabel painted everything around him in a poetic rosy glow. He was completely immersed in these daydreams when he saw before him his former rival. Absorbed as he was in his own happiness, he had forgotten all about him, but he immediately grasped the danger he was in and prepared to face it.
Faithful to his self-imposed plan, Leandro Soares unleashed a litany of insults that Camilo listened to in silence. When Soares had finished and was about to put into practice the bloody conclusion, Camilo said:
“I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and I ask you now to listen to me. Yes, it’s true that I’m going to marry Isabel, but it’s also true that she doesn’t love you. What, then, is our crime? Now, while you have been thinking only hateful thoughts about me, I have been thinking of your happiness.”
“Oh, have you?” said Soares with heavy irony.
“It’s true. I said to myself that a man of your talents should not be eternally condemned to act as a stepping-stone for the ambitions of other men; and then, when my father wanted to force me to become provincial deputy, I told him that I would accept the post only in order to give it to you. My father agreed, but there was still a certain amount of political resistance to overcome and, even now, I still have some way to go. A man who would do that for you does, I think, deserve a little gratitude, or at least a little less hatred.”
There are not, I believe, strong enough words in the human language to describe the look of indignation on Leandro Soares’s face. He flushed bright scarlet, and his eyes seemed to spit fire. His lips trembled as if they were quietly rehearsing a sufficiently eloquent insult to hurl at his fortunate rival. Finally, he managed to say:
“What you have done was quite villainous enough without stooping to mockery—”
“Mockery!” cried Camilo, interrupting him.
“What else would you call what you have just said? Gratitude indeed, when, after robbing me of my greatest, my only happiness, you offer me politics as some kind of compensation!”
Camilo managed to explain that it wasn’t a matter of compensation; he had come up with the plan because he knew of Soares’s political interests and thought that this would please him.
“At the same time,” he said gravely, “I also wanted to do a good service to the province, because, even if it cost me my life, I would never do anything that might prove detrimental to my province and my country. I was hoping to serve both province and country by putting you forward as a candidate, and I know that everyone would agree with me on that.”
“But you mentioned some resistance,” said Soares, fixing his adversary with an inquisitorial eye.
“Yes, but for purely political reasons, not because they’re opposed to you personally,” explained Camilo. “And what does that matter? Reason will prevail, as will the true principles of the party that has the honor of counting you among its members.”
Leandro Soares did not for a moment take his eyes off Camilo; an ironic, threatening smile played upon his lips. He studied him for a few seconds without saying a word, then again broke his silence.
“What would you do in my place?” he asked, and his ironic smile took on a truly menacing air.
“I would refuse,” said Camilo fearlessly.
“Ah!”
“Yes, I would refuse, because I have no political vocation. That’s not the case with you, though, for you do have such a vocation, as well as the support of the party throughout the province.”
“Yes, so I believe,” said Soares proudly.
“And you’re not alone in believing that, everyone says the same.”
Soares began pacing up and down. Was his mind filled with a tumult of terrible thoughts or was a glimmer of humanity demanding moderation in the kind of death he dealt his rival? Five whole minutes passed. Then Soares stopped pacing, stood face-to-face with Camilo, and asked bluntly:
“Will you swear one thing?”
“What’s that?”
“That you will make her happy.”
“I’ve already sworn as much to myself, and it will be my sweet duty to do so.”
“It would have been my duty, too, had fate not turned against me. No matter, I’m ready to do whatever is necessary.”
“And I know what a generous heart you have,” said Camilo, holding out his hand to him.
“Possibly, but what you do not know, what you cannot know, is the storm raging in my soul, the terrible pain that will go with me to the grave. A love such as mine will never die.”
He paused and shook his head, as if to drive away some baleful idea.
“What are you thinking?” asked Camilo.
“Don’t worry,” Leandro replied, “I’m not hatching any plots. I will resign myself to fate, and if I do accept the political candidacy you’re offering, it is only so as to drown in it the grief filling my heart.”
I’m not sure that this electoral remedy would cure every lover’s complaint, but in Soares’s heart it provoked a healthy crisis, which resolved itself in the patient’s favor.
Readers will already have guessed that Camilo had not, in fact, spoken up for Soares, but he immediately set about doing just that, as did his father, and he finally managed to have Leandro Soares included on the list of candidates to be presented to the electorate at the next campaign. Soares’s opponents, knowing the circumstances in which he had been offered the candidacy, took delight in repeating that he had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Camilo had been married for a year when a French traveler came to his door. He brought with him letters of recommendation from one of his former teachers in Paris. Camilo received him gladly and asked for news of France, a country he still loved, he said, as his intellectual homeland. The traveler told him many things and finally produced from his bag a bundle of newspapers.
It was the Figaro.
“Ah, the Figaro!” cried Camilo, seizing the newspapers.
They were all out of date, but from Paris nonetheless. They reminded him of the life he had led for eight long years, and although he had no desire to change his present life for that other life, he felt a natural curiosity to revisit old memories.
In the fourth or fifth newspaper he came upon a piece of news that he read with horror:
The notorious Leontina Caveau, who claimed to be the widow of a certain Prince Alexis, a subject of the Czar, was arrested yesterday. The lovely lady (for she was lovely!), not content with deceiving a few unwary young men, made off with all the jewelry belonging to a neighbor, Mlle. B. Fortunately, the victim complained to the police before the so-called princess could escape.
Camilo had just read this article for the fourth time when Isabel came into the room.
“Are you missing Paris?” she asked when she saw him reading the French newspaper.
“No,” said her husband, putting his arm around her waist, “I was missing you.”