Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  Rubião told him about the incident on the Rua da Ajuda. The lawyer asked him a lot of questions about the child, the parents, the number of the house. But Rubião ran out of answers.

  “Don’t you even know the little one’s name?”

  “I heard him called Deolindo. Let’s get down to important matters. I’ve come to subscribe to your newspaper. I received a copy, and I want to contribute to …”

  Camacho replied that he didn’t need subscriptions. As far as subscriptions were concerned, the paper was doing well. What he needed was material to print and develop in the text, to expand it, put in more news, articles, the translation of a novel for the supplement, activity at the port, the marketplace, etc. He had advertisements, as you could see!

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve got almost all the backing I need. Ten people are enough, and we’re already eight, myself and seven others. We need two more. With two more people the backing will be complete.”

  Camacho tapped the edge of the desk with a pocket knife, silent, watching the other man out of the corner of his eye. Rubião cast his eyes about the room. Not too much furniture, a few briefs on a stool beside the lawyer, shelves with books, Lobão, Pereira e Sousa, Dalloz, National Ordinances, a portrait on the wall facing the desk.

  “Do you know him?” Camacho asked, pointing to the portrait.

  “No, sir.”

  “You must know him.”

  “I have no way of knowing who it is. Nunes Machado?”

  “No,” the ex–deputy replied, putting on a sad look. “I couldn’t get a good picture of him. They sell some prints that don’t seem too good to me. No, that’s the marquis.”

  “Of Barbacena?”

  “No, of Parana. It’s the great marquis, a personal friend of mine. He tried to bring the factions together, and that’s how I got to be associated with him. He died too soon. The work couldn’t go forward. Today, even if he wanted me, he’d find me on the other side. No! No conciliation. War to the death. We’ve got to destroy them. Read Atalaia, my good comrade–in–arms. You’ll receive it at home . ..”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  Rubião lowered his eyes before Camacho’s inquiring nose. “No, sir. I stand firm. I want to help my friends. Getting the paper free …”

  “But I just told you that we’re doing fine as far as subscriptions are concerned,” Camacho replied.

  “Yes, sir, but didn’t you also say that you still needed two backers?”

  “Two, yes. We’ve got eight.”

  “How much is the backing?”

  “It comes to fifty cantos, five per person.”

  “Then I’ll come in with five.”

  Camacho thanked him in the name of ideas. He’d had the intention of asking him to join. It was a right earned through the convictions, the fidelity, the love for public affairs of his new friend. Since he’d joined spontaneously, he begged his forgiveness. He showed him the list of the others. Camacho was the first. He went on about the paper, the material at hand, the subscriptions, and the labors of Hercules … He was about to correct himself, but he boldly repeated: the labors of Hercules. He could say that it was just that without faking or lying. Strangling snakes while they’re still young. It was becoming an addiction. He enjoyed a good fight, he would die in it, wrapped in the flag …

  LXII

  Rubiao left. In the hallway he passed a tall lady dressed in black with a rustle of silks and beads. Going down the stairs he heard Camacho’s voice, higher pitched than before: “Oh, baroness!̶

  He halted on the first step. The lady’s silvery voice began to speak her first words; it was a lawsuit. Baroness! And our Rubião went down carefully, softly, so as not to let it seem he’d been eavesdropping. The breeze was putting a delicate, fine aroma into his nostrils, a dizzying sort of thing, the aroma left by her. Baroness! He reached the street door. Parked there he saw a coupé, the footman standing on the sidewalk, the coachman on his perch watching, both in livery… What news could there be in all that? None. A titled lady, perfumed and wealthy, bringing suit perhaps to relieve her boredom. But the fact of the matter was that he, Rubião, without knowing why, in spite of his own wealth, felt like the same old teacher from Barbacena …

  LXIII

  On the street he ran into Sofia and an older lady and another young woman. His eyes weren’t up to taking a good look at their features. Everything he had was barely enough for Sofia. They chatted awkwardly for scarcely two minutes and went their ways. Rubião stopped and turned around, but the three ladies were going along without looking back. After dinner, to himself:

  “Shall I go there tonight?”

  He thought about it a lot without getting anywhere. Now yes, now no. He’d found her in a strange mood, but he remembered that she’d smiled—only a little, but she’d smiled. He put the matter up to chance. If the first carriage that passed came from the right, he’d go, if from the left, he wouldn’t. And he sat there on the couch in the parlor watching. Right away a tilbury came from the left. It was settled. He wouldn’t go to Santa Teresa. But here his conscience reacted. He wanted to follow the strict terms of the proposition: a carriage. A tilbury isn’t a carriage. It has to be what’s commonly called a carriage, a whole or half calèche, or even a victoria. In a short while, coming from the right, several calŌches came along, returning from a funeral. He went.

  LXIV

  Sofia shook his hand politely with no trace of rancor. The two ladies from her stroll were with her, in indoor clothing. She introduced them: the young one was her cousin, the old one her aunt—that aunt from the country who’d sent the letter Sofia got in the garden from the hands of the postman who’d taken a tumble immediately after. The aunt’s name was Dona Maria Augusta. She had a small estate, a few slaves, and some debts that her husband had left her along with nostalgia. The daughter was Maria Benedita—a name that bothered her because it was an old woman’s name, she said. But her mother replied that old women had been young ladies and girls once and that names that fit people were the invention of poets and storytellers. Maria Benedita was the name of her grandmother, the goddaughter of Luís de Vasconcelos, the viceroy. What more could she ask?

  They told all that to Rubião, and she didn’t get annoyed. Sofia, either to settle the matter or for other reasons, added that the ugliest names can become beautiful, it’s all according to the person. Maria Benedita was a beautiful name.

  “Don’t you think so?” she concluded, turning to Rubião.

  “Stop teasing, cousin!” Maria Benedita put in, laughing.

  We can believe that neither the old lady nor Rubião understood what was being said—the old lady because she was beginning to nod off—Rubião because he was petting a little dog Sofia had been given, small, thin, nimble, rowdy, with dark eyes and a bell on its neck. But since his hostess insisted, he answered yes, not knowing what it was all about. Maria Benedita went tsk–tsk. If the truth be known, she was no beauty. She didn’t have fascinating eyes or one of those mouths that whisper something even when silent. She was natural, but without the awkwardness of a country girl. And she had a charm of her own that offset her incongruous attire.

  She’d been born in the country, and she liked it there. Their place wasn’t too far away, Iguaçú. From time to time she would come to town to spend a few days, but after the first two or so she was already anxious to return home. Her education had been brief: reading, writing, religion, and a little needlework. In more recent times (she was going on nineteen), Sofia had been pushing her to take piano lessons. Her aunt consented and Maria Benedita came to her cousin’s and was there for around eighteen days. She couldn’t take any more. She missed her mother and returned to the country, to the consternation of her teacher, who’d declared from the very first day that she had great musical talent.

  “Oh, no doubt about it! A great talent!”

  Maria Benedita laughed when her cousin told her that, and she could never take the man seriously a
fterward. Sometimes she would break out in laughter in the middle of a lesson. Sofia would frown, as if scolding her, and the poor man wondered what was going on and would explain to himself that it must have been some girlish memory and would go on with the lesson. Neither piano nor French—another gap that Sofia could scarcely excuse. Dona Maria Augusta couldn’t understand her niece’s consternation. Why French? Her niece told her that it was indispensable for conversation, for shopping, for reading a novel…

  “I’ve always been content without any French,” the old lady would answer. “And country bumpkins are too. They don’t need it any more than blacks do.”

  One day she added:

  “There’ll be no lack of prospective husbands because of it. She can get married. I’ve told her already that she can get married whenever she wants to, that I got married, too. And she can even leave me in the country all alone to die like an old animal…”

  “Mama!”

  “Don’t feel sorry. All you need is for a fiancé to appear. When he does, go off with him and leave me behind. Did you see what Maria José did to me? She’s living up there in Ceará.”

  “But her husband’s a judge,” Sofia argued.

  “He could be a crook! As far as I’m concerned it’s the same thing. The old lady’s left like a rag. Get married, Maria Benedita, get married as soon as you can. I’ll die in God’s hands. I won’t have any children, but I’ll have Our Lady, who’s everybody’s mother. Get married, go on, get married!”

  All that bad temper was calculated. What she had in mind was to draw her daughter away from marriage, arouse fright and pity in her, slow her down at least. I don’t believe that she revealed that sin to her confessor, or that she came to realize it herself. It was the product of the resentful selfishness of old age. Dona Maria Augusta had been loved deeply. Her mother was crazy about her, her husband loved her with the same intensity until his last day. With both of them dead, all of her filial and matrimonial longings were placed on the heads of her two daughters. One had abandoned her by getting married. Threatened with solitude if the other one also got married, Dona Maria Augusta was doing everything she could to avoid the disaster.

  LXV

  Rubiao’s visit was a short one. At nine o’clock he got up discreetly, awaiting some word from Sofia, a request to stay a little longer, a request to wait for her husband, who was on his way, any kind of surprise: Wait! But not even that. Sofia held out her hand, which he was barely able to touch. In spite of it all, the young woman had appeared quite natural during the visit, showing no bitterness … Of course, she didn’t have those long, loquacious looks of before. It even seemed that nothing had happened, neither good nor bad, neither strawberries nor moonlight. Rubião trembled, he couldn’t find the words. She’d found all she wanted, and if she had to look at him, she did it directly and calmly.

  “Regards to Palha,” he murmured, hat and cane in hand.

  “Thank you! He had to make a call. I think I hear steps. Maybe it’s he.”

  It wasn’t he. It was Carlos Maria. Rubião was startled to see him there, but he immediately thought that the presence of the plantation owner and her daughter probably explained everything. They might even be related.

  “I was just leaving when you came in,” Rubião told Carlos Maria after he saw him sitting next to Dona Maria Augusta.

  “Ah!” the other man answered, looking at Sofia’s portrait. Sofia went to the door to take leave of Rubião. She told him that her husband would be sorry he hadn’t been at home, but he’d been obliged to make a call. Business … He’d ask to be forgiven.

  “Forgiven?” Rubião replied.

  It appeared as if he wanted to say something more, but Sofia’s handshake and the bow she made were the signal for him to leave. Rubião bowed and crossed the garden, hearing Carlos Maria’s voice coming from the parlor.

  “I’m going to denounce your husband, my dear lady, he’s a man of very bad taste.”

  Rubião stopped.

  “Why?” Sofia asked.

  “He’s got this portrait in the living room here,” Carlos Maria went on. “You’re much more beautiful, infinitely more beautiful than the painting. Just make a comparison, ladies.”

  LXVI

  “The natural way in which he says those thingsé” Rubião thought at home, recalling Carlos Maria’s words. “Negating the portrait in order to praise the person! The portrait is obviously a good likeness.”

  LXVII

  In the morning in bed he had a surprise. The first newspaper he opened was Atalaia. He read the editorial, a letter to the editor, and a news item. Suddenly he came upon his name.

  “What’s this?”

  It was his very name in print, bold, repeated, nothing less than a report of what had happened on the Rua da Ajuda. After surprise, annoyance. What kind of a devilish idea was that, printing a personal matter told in confidence? He didn’t want to read anything. As soon as he saw what it was, he dropped the newspaper onto the floor and picked up another. Unfortunately, he’d lost his calm and he read cursorily, skipped lines, didn’t understand others, or he’d find himself at the end of a column without knowing how he’d slipped down to that point.

  When he got up, he sat down in an armchair beside the bed and picked up the Atalaia, He cast his eyes over the article: it was more than one column. A column and more for such a minor matter! he thought to himself. And with an aim to see how Camacho had filled up the page, he read everything, somewhat hurriedly and annoyed at the adjectives used and the dramatic description of the incident.

  “A fine job!” he said aloud. “Who told me to be such a blabbermouth?”

  He went into the bathroom, dressed, combed his hair, not forgetting the chitchat in the newspaper, embarrassed at the publication of something he considered unimportant and even more at the exaggeration the writer had given it, as if it were a matter of evaluating something political. At breakfast he picked up the paper again to read other things: government appointments, a murder in Garanhuns, the weather, until his unfortunate eye fell on the item, and this time he read it slowly. Here Rubião confessed that he might very well believe the writer’s sincerity. The enthusiasm of the language was explained by the impression the deed had made on him. It was such that it didn’t allow him to be more circumspect. Naturally, that’s how it was. Rubião remembered going into Camacho’s office, the way he spoke, and from there he went back to the act itself. Relaxing in his study he brought back the scene: the boy, the cart, the horses, the cry, the leap he made, carried along by an irresistible impulse—even now he couldn’t explain it. It was as if a shadow had passed over his eyes … He threw himself onto the child and onto the horses, blind and deaf, without considering the risk to himself… And he could have ended up there, under the animals, crushed by the wheels, dead or injured, any kind of injury… Could he or couldn’t he have? It was impossible to deny that the situation had been serious … The proof was that the parents and the neighbors …

  Rubião interrupted his thoughts to read the item one more time. It was well written, that it was. There were parts he reread with great satisfaction. The devil of a fellow seemed to have witnessed the scene. What narration! What a vivid style! A few points had been added—the confusion of memory—but the addition didn’t detract. And didn’t he feel a certain pride as he saw his name repeated? “Our friend, our distinguished friend, our brave friend...”

  At lunch he laughed at himself. He thought he’d been too mortified. After all, why shouldn’t the man give his readers a news item that was true, that was interesting, dramatic—and certainly—uncommon? As he left he received some compliments. Freitas called him Saint Vincent de Paul. And our friend smiled, thanked him, played it down, it was nothing …

  “Nothing?” someone replied. “I’d like to have a lot of nothings like that. Risking your own life to save a child’s ...”

  Rubião went along agreeing, listening, smiling. He retold the scene to a few curious people who wanted to hear it f
rom the mouth of the man who’d done it himself. A few listeners replied with deeds of their own—one who’d saved a man, another a girl about to drown in the estuary by the Passeio where she was swimming. There were also unsuccessful suicides because of the intervention of a listener who took the poor man’s pistol away and made him swear … Every little hidden glory pecked at the shell of the egg and stuck its head out, eyes open, featherless, all around Rubião’s maximum glory. There were also envious people, some who didn’t even know him except from hearing him being praised aloud. Rubião went to thank Camacho for the item, not without a bit of censure for the abuse of confidence, but gentle censure, out of the corner of his mouth. From there he went to buy some copies of the newspaper for his friends in Barbacena. No other paper carried the item. On the advice of Freitas he had it reprinted in the letters to the editor in the jorna do Comércio, in boldface type.

  LXVIII

  Maria Benedita finally consented to learn French and piano. For four days her cousin pressed her at every moment and in such an artful way that the girl’s mother resolved to hasten their return to the plantation in order to avoid her accepting in the end. The daughter resisted mightily. Her mother’s answer was that they were superfluous things, that a young woman from the country had no need for city accomplishments. One evening, however, when Carlos Maria was there, he asked her to play something. Maria Benedita turned beet red. Sofia came to her aid with a lie:

  “Don’t ask her that. She hasn’t played anything since she got here. She says that she only plays for country people now.”

  “Well, it’s all right. We’re country people,” the young man insisted.

  But then he changed the subject to the ball at the Baroness of Piauí’s (the same that our friend Rubião had met in Camacho’s office), a splendid ball, oh, splendid! The baroness thought highly of him, he said. The following day Maria Benedita declared to her cousin that she was prepared to learn piano and French, fiddle, and even Russian if she wanted to. The difficulty was in winning her mother over. The latter, when she learned of her daughter’s decision, put her hands to her head. What French? What piano? She roared no, or she’d cease to be her daughter. She could stay and play and sing and speak Cabinda or the language of the devil himself, who could take them all. Palha was the one who finally persuaded her. He told her that no matter how superfluous those accomplishments might seem to her, they were the minimum embellishments of an education for society.