Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  “It’s true, you fine fellow, your wife was courted.” “So who was the scoundrel?” he asked, impatient.

  “Easy. If this is the way things are going to go, I won’t tell. Who was it? You want to know who it was? You’ve got to hear it calmly. It was Rubião.”

  “Rubião?”

  “I couldn’t have imagined such a thing. He always seemed so bashful and respectful to me. It only proves that the habit doesn’t make the monk. I’ve never heard the slightest peep out of all the men who’ve come here. They look at me, naturally, because I’m not ugly … Why are you walking back and forth like that? Stop. I don’t want to have to raise my voice … Fine, like that… Let’s get down to cases. He didn’t make an out and out declaration to me …”

  “Oh, no?” her husband put in eagerly.

  “No, but it amounted to the same.” And then she told him what had happened in the garden, from the time the two of them had gone out there until the major appeared.

  “That’s all there was,” she concluded, “but it’s enough to see that if he didn’t say love it was because the word hadn’t got to his tongue. But it did get to his hand, which squeezed my fingers … That’s all, but, even so, it’s too much. It’s good you’re not getting angry, but we’ve got to shut the door on him—either all at once or little by little. I’d prefer it all at once, but I’ll accept either way. What do you think is the best way to do it?”

  Biting his lower lip, Palha continued looking at her like a dunce. He sat down on the settee, silent. He was thinking the matter over. He found it natural that his wife’s charms should captivate a man—and Rubião could be that man. But he trusted Rubião so much that the note Sofia had sent him along with the strawberries had been dictated by him. His wife had limited herself to copying it down, signing it, and sending it off. Never, however, had the idea crossed his mind that his friend would make a declaration of love to anybody, much less Sofia, if it really was love. He might have been making a joke between close friends. Rubião would look at her a lot, it was true, and it also seemed that Sofia, on some occasions, would repay those looks with others of her own … The concessions of a pretty woman! But, after all, while their eyes stayed like that some flashes might come out of them. One shouldn’t be jealous of the optic nerve, the husband was thinking. Sofia got up, went to put the handkerchief with the hairpins on the piano, and took a look in the mirror to see herself with her hair down. When she returned to the settee her husband took her hand, laughing:

  “It seems to me that you’ve got more upset than the case deserves. Comparing a young woman’s eyes to the stars and the stars to her eyes, after all, is something that can be done in front of everybody among close friends and in prose or verse in front of the general public. The blame belongs to those pretty eyes of yours. Besides, in spite of what you’re telling me, you know that he’s just a bumpkin …”

  “Then the devil’s a bumpkin, too, because he didn’t seem like anything less than the devil to me. What about his asking me to look at the Southern Cross at a certain time so that our souls could meet?”

  “That, yes, that does have the smell of lovemaking about it,” Palha agreed. “But you can see that it’s the request of a poor innocent soul. That’s the way fifteen–year–old girls talk. That’s the way boobs talk all the time; poets, too. But he’s not a young girl and he’s not a poet.”

  “I don’t think so. And what about grabbing my hand to keep me in the garden?”

  Palha felt a chill. The idea of the contact of hands and the force taken to hold his wife back was what mortified him most. Frankly, if he could have done so, he was capable of having it out with Rubião and laying his hands on his throat. Other ideas, however, came and dissipated the effect of the first. So that although Sofia had thought she’d upset him, she saw him shrug his shoulders with disdain and respond that it was only a matter of coarse manners after all.

  “But after all, Sofia, whatever gave you the idea of inviting him to go have a look at the moon, please tell me?”

  “I called Dona Tonica to come with us.”

  “But once Dona Tonica refused you should have found ways and means not to go into the garden. They’re things that can immediately incite a person. You’re the one who gave him the opportunity…”

  Sofia looked at him, contracting her thick eyebrows. She was going to answer, but she remained silent. Palha continued developing the same theme. The blame was hers. She shouldn’t have given him the opportunity…

  “But didn’t you tell me yourself that we should treat him with special consideration? I certainly wouldn’t have gone into the garden if I could have imagined what was going to happen. But I never expected that a man who was so quiet, so I don’t know what, would throw care to the winds and say strange things to me …”

  “Well, from here on avoid the moon and the garden,” her husband said, trying to smile …

  “But, Cristiano, how do you want me to talk to him the next time he comes here? I’m not up to such a thing. Look, the best thing would be to break off relations.”

  Palha crossed his legs and began to drum on his shoe. For a few seconds they remained silent. Palha was thinking about the proposal to break off relations, not that he wanted to accept it, but he didn’t know how to reply to his wife, who was showing such resentment and was reacting so properly. It was necessary neither to reject nor accept the proposal, but nothing came to mind. He got up, put his hands in his pockets, and, after taking a few steps, stopped, facing Sofia.

  “Maybe we’re getting all upset over the simple effect of some wine. He’s wet behind the ears. A weak head, a little prodding, and he pours out everything he’s got inside … Yes, I won’t deny that you might have given a certain impression, like so many other women. A few days ago he went to a ball in Catete and came back all dazzled by the ladies he’d seen there, one most of all, the widow Mendes ...”

  Sofia interrupted:

  “Then why didn’t he invite that beauty to look at the Southern Cross?”

  “He didn’t dine there, naturally, and there wasn’t any garden or any moon. What I’m trying to say is that our friend wasn’t in control of his senses. Maybe right now he’s sorry for what he did, ashamed, not knowing how to explain himself or if he’ll ever be able to explain anything … It’s even quite possible that he’ll stay away...”

  “That would be best.”

  “… if we don’t invite him,” Palha finished. “So why invite him?”

  “Sofia,” her husband said, sitting down beside her. “I don’t want to go into details. I’m only saying that I won’t allow anyone to show you a lack of respect...”

  There was a slight pause. Sofia was looking at him, waiting. “I won’t allow it, and God help the one who does it, and God help you if you let him. You know that I’m made of steel in that respect and that the certainty of your friendship—or, getting right down to it—the love you have for me is what keeps me calm. So nothing has shaken me regarding Rubião. Believe me, Rubião’s our friend, I owe him obligations.”

  “A few presents, a few jewels, boxes at the theater, they’re no reason for me to gaze at the Southern Cross with him.”

  “God grant it were only that!” the opportunist sighed.

  “What else?”

  “Let’s not go into details … There are other things … We’ll talk about them later … But rest assured that nothing would make me draw back if you came to tell me about some serious matter. There isn’t any. The man’s a simpleton.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Sofia got up. She didn’t want to go into details either. Her husband took her by the hand. She stood there in silence. Palha, his head resting on the back of the sofa, looked at her smiling, unable to find anything to say. After a few minutes his wife decided it was late, she should have all the lights turned out.

  “All right,” Palha replied after a brief silence. “I’ll write him tomorrow not to set foot here.”

  He
looked at his wife, expecting a refusal. Sofia was frowning and didn’t answer anything. Palha repeated his solution, and it might have been that he was sincere that time. His wife then said, with an air of tedium:

  “Come on, Cristiano … Who’s asking you to write any letters? I’m already sorry I brought the matter up. I told you about an act of disrespect and said it was best to break off relations—little by little or all at once.”

  “But how can relations be cut off all at once?”

  “By shutting the door on him, but I didn’t say as much. Let it be little by little if you want…”

  It was a concession. Palha accepted it but immediately grew somber, released his wife’s hand with a gesture of desperation. Then, taking her around the waist, he said in a louder voice than he had used until then:

  “But, my love, I owe him a lot of money.”

  Sofia covered his mouth and looked toward the hallway, concerned.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Let’s drop it. I’ll keep an eye on his behavior, and I’ll try to be colder . . . In that case you’re the one who mustn’t change, so it won’t look as if you knew what had happened. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You know. Business troubles, mistakes … having to plug a hole here, another there … damned business! That’s why… But let’s laugh at it, my sweet. It’s not worth anything. Just know that I trust you.”

  “Let’s go, it’s late.”

  “Let’s go,” Palha repeated, kissing her on the cheek.

  “I’ve got an awful headache,” she murmured. “I think it’s the dew, or this whole story . . . I’ve got an awful headache.”

  Bathed, shaved, half–dressed, Palha was reading the newspapers, waiting for breakfast, when he saw his wife come into the study, a little pale.

  “Are you feeling worse?”

  Sofia answered with a gesture of her lips that was as negative as it was positive. Palha believed that as the day went on the upset would pass. Last night’s agitation, dining late … Then he asked her to let him finish an article dealing with a certain matter in the market. It was a fight between two merchants that had to do with some loans. One of them had written the day before, and today the other one was replying. A complete reply, he said, as he finished reading. And he explained in detail to his wife the matter of the loans, the mechanism of the operation, the situation of the two adversaries, the rumors on the exchange, all with technical vocabulary. Sofia listened and sighed. But the despotism of the profession admitted neither the sighs of women nor the courtesies of men. Luckily, breakfast was on the table.

  Left alone, our friend, who’d only had some broth around two o’clock, went to sit in the garden by the door of the house. Naturally she started thinking again about the episode of the night before. She didn’t feel right or wrong, either with God or with the devil. She regretted having told her husband about the episode, and at the same time she was bothered by the attempts at an explanation that he gave her. In the midst of her reflections she distinctly heard the major’s words: “Hello there! Appreciating the moon?” as if the leaves had held them and were repeating them now that the breeze had set them in motion. Sofia shuddered. Siquiera was indiscreet—indiscreet in sniffing about and looking into other people’s business. Would he be capable of making it public? Sofia now considered herself the object of suspicion or calumny. She made plans. She wouldn’t visit anyone. Or she’d go away, to Nova Friburgo or even farther. Her husband’s demand to receive Rubião as before was too much. Especially after what had happened. Not wishing to obey or disobey, she considered leaving town, under any pretext.

  “It was my fault!” she sighed to herself.

  The fault lay in the special attention she’d paid the man: concerns, mementoes, special favors, and, the night before, those eyes fixed on him for so long. If it: hadn’t been for that… That was how she was getting lost in multiple reflections. Everything was bothering her: plants, furniture, a cicada that was singing, the sound of voices in the street, another of dishes in the house, the coming and going of the slave girls, and even a poor old black man across from her house who was having trouble climbing up a section of the hill. The black man’s difficulties were getting on her nerves.

  LII

  At that moment a tall young man passed who greeted her smiling and languidly. Sofia returned the greeting, somewhat startled by the person and by the act.

  “Who is that fellow?” she wondered.

  And she went in to ponder where it was she’d met him, because his face really wasn’t strange to her, nor his manner, nor his large placid eyes. Where could she have seen him? She reviewed several houses without hitting the right one. Finally, she thought, at a certain ball—the month before—at the home of a lawyer who was celebrating his birthday. That was it. She’d seen him there. They’d danced a quadrille, a concession on his part, as he never danced. She remembered hearing many pleasant words from him concerning a woman’s beauty, which, he said, consisted mainly in her eyes and shoulders. Hers, as we know, were magnificent. And he spoke about almost no other subject—shoulders and eyes—he related several anecdotes involving them, things that had happened to him, some of them interesting, but he spoke so well! And the subject was so close to her! She was remembering now that as soon as he’d left her Palha came over, sat down in the chair beside her, and told her the young man’s name because she hadn’t heard too clearly the person who’d introduced them. It was Carlos Maria—the very same who’d lunched with our Rubião.

  “He cuts the finest figure in the room,” her husband told her with the pride of having seen him spend so much time with her.

  “Among the men,” Sofia explained.

  “Among the women it’s you,” he was quick to add, looking at his wife’s bosom, then casting his eyes about the room with a look of possession and domination that his wife was already familiar with and which made her feel good.

  When she’d finished remembering it all, the young man was probably already well on his way. At least it was an interruption in the series of annoyances that occupied her spirit. She had a pain in her back that had abated for a few moments. It returned immediately, insistent, annoying. Sofia leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. She wanted to see if she could get some sleep, but she couldn’t. Her thoughts were as insistent as the pain and even worse for her. From time to time a quick flutter of wings would break the silence. It was the doves from a neighboring house returning to their loft. Sofia at first opened her eyes, once, twice, then she became accustomed to the sound and left them closed to see if she could sleep. After some time had passed she heard footsteps on the street and raised her head, thinking it was Carlos Maria on his way back. It was the postman, who was bringing her a letter from the country. He handed her the letter. As he left the garden, the postman tripped over the leg of a bench and sprawled on the ground, scattering his letters all over. Sofia couldn’t hold back a laugh.

  LIII

  You must forgive that laugh. I know quite well that an upset, a bad night, the fear of public opinion, everything is in contrast to that inopportune laugh. But, my dear lady reader, perhaps you’ve never seen a postman take a fall. The gods of Homer—and, moreover, they were gods—once had a serious and even furious argument on Olympus. Proud Juno, jealous of the conversation between Thetis and Jupiter about help for Achilles, interrupted the son of Saturn. Jupiter thunders and threatens. His wife trembles with rage. The others moan and sigh. But when Vulcan picks up an urn of nectar and limps over to serve everybody, a great inextinguishable gale of laughter bursts forth on Olympus. Why? My dear lady, you most certainly have never seen a postman take a tumble.

  Sometimes he doesn’t even have to fall. Other times he doesn’t even have to exist. It’s enough to imagine him or remember him. The shadow of the shadow of a grotesque memory casts itself over the midst of the most hateful passion, and a smile will sometimes come to the surface of one’s face, faint as it may be—a trifle. Let’s leave her laughing and readi
ng her letter from the country.

  LIV

  Two weeks later, while Rubião was at home, Sofia’s husband appeared. He was coming to ask what had become of him. Where had he been keeping himself since he hadn’t made an appearance? Had he been ill? Or didn’t he care about poor people anymore? Rubião was fumbling with words, unable to put a complete sentence together. In the middle of that Palha saw that there was a man in the room looking at the pictures, and he lowered his voice.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see that you had company,” he said.

  “Sorry for what? He’s a friend, just like you. Doctor, this is my friend Cristiano de Almeida e Palha. I think I’ve mentioned him to you before. This is my friend Dr. Camacho—João de Sousa Camacho. Camacho nodded, spoke two or three phrases, and made ready to leave, but Rubião hurried over, no, sir, he should stay. They were both friends of his, and in a little while the moon would soon light up the beautiful cove of Botafogo.

  The moon—the moon again—and that phrase, I think I’ve mentioned him to you before, so stupefied the new arrival that it was impossible for him to speak a single word for some time. It well might be added that the host, too, didn’t know what to say. The three of them sat there, Rubião on the couch, Palha and Camacho in chairs facing each other. Camacho, who’d kept his cane in his hand, held it upright between his knees, touching his nose with it and looking at the ceiling. Outside the sound of carts, a troop of horses, and voices. It was seven–thirty in the evening, or closer to eight o’clock. The silence was longer than was proper for the occasion. Neither Rubião nor Palha was aware of it. Camacho was the one who was troubled, and he went to the window and exclaimed to the two of them from there:

  “There’s the moon coming out!”

  Rubião assumed one expression, Palha another, but how different they were! Rubião was ready to be carried off to the window, Palha was ready to grab him by the throat. He relented, less from possibly divulging the adventure than from the memory of the ferocity with which he’d grabbed his wife’s hands and pulled her to him. They both held back. Immediately thereupon Rubião, crossing his left leg over his right, turned to Palha and asked him: