Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  “Poor Freitas!” he sighed.

  Immediately thereupon he thought about the money he’d left with the sick man’s mother and felt he’d done a good deed. Perhaps the idea of having given one or two notes too many hovered for a few seconds in our friend’s brain, but he quickly shook it off, not without being angry with himself, and, in order to forget about it completely, he exclaimed aloud:

  “Fine old lady! Poor old lady!”

  LXXXIX

  Since the idea kept coming back, Rubião quickly headed for the cab, got in and sat down, fleeing from himself.

  “I took a good, long walk. But, yes, sir, it’s nice here, it’s interesting. These beaches, these streets, it’s different from other neighborhoods. I like it here. I’ve got to come back more.”

  The cabman smiled to himself in such a particular way that our Rubião became suspicious. He couldn’t hit upon the reason for the smile. Maybe he’d let out some word that had a bad meaning in Rio de Janeiro. But he went over them and couldn’t find anything. They were all ordinary, everyday words. The cabman was still smiling, however, with the same look as at the beginning, half subservient, half rascally. Rubião was on the verge of questioning him, but he held back in time. It was the other man who picked up the conversation.

  “So your worship is quite taken by the neighborhood?” he asked. “You’ve got to allow me not to believe you, without getting angry, because it’s not to offend your worship. I’m not one to upset a good customer. But I don’t believe you’re taken by the neighborhood.”

  “Why?” Rubião ventured.

  The cabman shook his head and repeated that he didn’t believe it—not because the neighborhood wasn’t worthy of appreciation, but because his customer naturally knew it quite well already. Rubião corrected that statement. He’d been there many years before when he’d come to Rio de Janeiro at a different time, but he didn’t remember anything. And the cabman laughed. And as his customer went on explaining, he got more familiar, made negative signs with his nose, lips, hand.

  “I know all about that,” he concluded. “I’m not a man who doesn’t see things. Your worship thinks that I didn’t see the way you looked at that young woman you passed just now? That’s enough to show that your worship has a good nose and good taste …”

  Rubião, flattered, put on a little smile. But he immediately corrected himself.

  “What young woman?”

  “What did I tell you?” the man retorted. “Your worship is sharp and you do things right, but I’m a person who can keep a secret, and this here cab has been used for lots of these comings and goings. Not too many days ago I carried a handsome young man, very well dressed, a refined person—you know, a skirtchaser.”

  “But I …,” Rubião interrupted.

  But he had trouble holding back in. The supposition pleased him. The cabman thought he was playing innocent.

  “Look, I can tell you,” he went on, “just like the young man from the Rua dos Inválidos. Your worship can rest easy, I won’t say a thing. That’s for other people. So, do you expect me to believe that it’s for pleasure that a person who has a cab at his disposal goes along from Praia Formosa to here on foot? Your worship got to the meeting place, but the person didn’t show up...”

  “What person? I went to see a sick man, a friend who’s at death’s door.”

  “Just like the young man from the Rua dos Inválidos,” the man repeated. “That one came to see a lady’s seamstress, as if he’d been a married man …”

  “From the Rua dos Invalidos?” Rubião asked, only now aware of the name of the street.

  “That’s all I’m saying,” the cabman replied. “He was from the Rua dos Invalidos, handsome, a young man with a mustache and big eyes, very big. Oh, if I were a woman I’d be capable of falling in love with him … Her, I don’t know where she was from and I wouldn’t tell if I did. All I know is that she was quite a woman.”

  And seeing that his customer was listening, wide-eyed:

  “Oh, your worship has no idea! She was tall, with a good figure, her face half covered by a veil, a tasty dish. Just because people are poor doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate fine things.”

  “But… what was it?” Rubião murmured.

  “Come, now, what was it? He came the same as your worship, in my cab. He got out and went into a house with a grating. He said he was going to see a lady’s seamstress. Since I hadn’t asked him anything, and he’d traveled quiet during the whole trip, all wrapped up in himself, I caught onto the game right away. Now, it might just have been true, because there really is a seamstress who lives in a house on the Rua da Harmonia …”

  “Da Harmonia?” Rubião repeated.

  “This is bad! Your worship is pulling the secret out of me. Let’s change the subject. I’m not saying anything more.”

  Rubião looked at the man with astonishment as he really did fall silent for two or three minutes, but immediately after he went on:

  “Besides, there isn’t very much to say. The young man went in, I stayed waiting. A half hour later I saw the figure of a woman in the distance and I suspected right away that she was headed there. It happened just the way I said. She came, came along slow, sneaking looks on all sides. As she passed in front of the house, I can’t say, she didn’t even have to knock. It was like magic. The grating opened all by itself and she slipped inside. If I only knew what it was all about. Wouldn’t your worship let us earn a few pennies more? The price of the fare barely gives us enough to eat. We’ve got to do these little extras.”

  XC

  No, it couldn’t have been she, Rubião reflected, at home, getting dressed in black.

  Ever since he’d arrived, he could think of nothing else but the episode told him by the cabman. He tried to forget about it, putting papers in order or reading or snapping his fingers to watch Quincas Borba leap. But the picture wouldn’t go away. His reason told him that there were a lot of women with good figures, and there was no proof that the one on the Rua da Harmonia was she. But the good effect was short-lived. A little while later, sketched in the distance, head down, hesitant, was a person who was none other than Sofia herself, and she was walking and suddenly going through the door of a house, which closed immediately … The vision was such on one occasion that our friend remained staring at the wall as if the grating on the Rua da Harmonia were there. In his imagination he followed a series of actions: he knocked, entered, grabbed the seamstress by the throat, and demanded the truth or her life. The poor woman, threatened with death, confessed everything. She took him to see the lady, who was somebody else. It wasn’t Sofia. When Rubião came to, he felt annoyed.

  “No, it couldn’t have been she.”

  He put on his vest and was buttoning it by one of the windows that opened on the back at the moment when a caravan of ants was crossing the sill. How many of those had he seen pass before? But this time, he never found out why, he picked up a towel and gave the poor ants a couple of swats, killing a good portion of them. Maybe one of them seemed to him to have had “a good figure and a pretty body.” He immediately regretted his act and, really, what did the ants have to do with his suspicions? Fortunately a locust began singing so appropriately and so meaningfully that our friend stopped at the fourth button of his vest. Soooo …fia, fia, fia, fia, fia, fia … Soooo …fia, fia, fia, fia … fia…

  Oh, sublime and merciful care of nature, to place a living locust alongside twenty dead ants to compensate for them! That reflection is the reader’s. It can’t be Rubião’s. He wasn’t capable of getting into things and drawing a conclusion from them—nor would he be doing it now as he reached the last button on his vest, all ears, all locust… Poor dead ants! Go now to your Gallic Homer who made you famous. The locust is the one who’s laughing now, correcting the text:

  Vous marchiez? J’en suisfort aisé.

  Eh bun! Mourez maintenant.

  XCI

  The dinner bell rang. Rubião composed his face so that his regulars (the
re were always four or five) wouldn’t notice anything. He found them in the parlor chatting, waiting. They all arose and went to shake his hand eagerly. Rubião had an inexplicable urge at that moment—to offer them his hand to kiss. He overcame it in time, surprised at himself.

  XCII

  At night he hurried to Flamengo. He couldn’t speak to Maria Benedita, who was upstairs with two girls from the neighborhood, friends of hers. Sofia came to receive him at the door and took him into the study, where two seamstresses were sewing mourning dresses. Her husband had just come in and hadn’t come down yet.

  “Sit here,” she told him.

  She took good care of him. She was divine. Her words came out loving and grave, mingled with friendly, open smiles. She spoke about her aunt, her cousin, the weather, the servants, the theater, the water shortage, a multitude of things, common and uncommon, but as they passed through the young woman’s mouth they changed their nature and their aspect. Rubião listened in fascination. She, in order not to be idle, was sewing some ruffles, and when there was a pause in the conversation, Rubião was on the verge of devouring her agile hands as they seemed to be playing with the needle.

  “Did you know that they’re forming a committee of women?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know. What for?”

  “Didn’t you read the news about that epidemic in a town in Alagoas?”

  She told him that she’d felt so sorry that she’d immediately resolved to organize a committee of women to seek donations. Her aunt’s death interrupted the first steps, but she was going to continue once the seventh-day mass was over. And she asked him what he thought of the idea.

  “It sounds fine to me. Aren’t there any men on the committee?”

  “Only women. The men just give money,” she finished, laughing.

  Rubião immediately agreed to a large amount in order to obligate those who came after. It was all true. It was also true that the committee was going to make Sofia visible and give her a lift up in society. The women chosen were not from our lady’s circle, and she really knew only one of them. But through the intervention of a certain widow who’d dazzled between 1840 and 1850 and was still nostalgic for those times, and through her own efforts, Sofia got everyone to join in that charitable work. For several days she could think about nothing else. Sometimes at night before her tea, she would seem to be asleep in her rocking chair. She wasn’t sleeping, she was closing her eyes to think of herself in the midst of her colleagues, people of quality. Understandably, this was the main topic of conversation, but from time to time Sofia would get back to her friend there. Why was he staying away for such long periods, eight, ten, fifteen days and more? Rubião answered for no reason but in such an emotional way that one of the seamstresses tapped the other one on the foot. From then on, even during the long silences cut only by the needles on the woolen cloth, the shears, the ripping, neither one took her eyes off the person of our friend with his eyes fastened on the lady of the house.

  A visitor arrived to offer his condolences—a man, a bank director. They immediately went to call Palha, who came down to receive him. Sofia excused herself to Rubião for a few seconds. She was going to look in on Maria Benedita.

  XCIII

  Rubião, left alone with the two women, began to walk back and forth, muffling his steps so as not to bother anyone. From the parlor an occasional word of Palha’s came out. “In any case, you can believe …”—“The administration of a bank isn’t child’s play…“—“Absolutely…” The director spoke sparsely, dry and softly.

  One of the seamstresses folded up her sewing and hurriedly gathered up cuttings, shears, spools of thread, and silk. It was late, she was leaving.

  “Wait a bit, Dondon, I’m leaving too.”

  “No, I can’t. Could you please tell me what time it is, sir?”

  “It’s eight–thirty,” Rubião replied.

  “Good Lord! It’s so late.”

  Rubião, just to say something, asked her why she wouldn’t wait as the other woman had asked.

  “I’m only waiting for Dona Sofia,” Dondon put in respectfully. “But do you know where this one lives? She lives on the Rua do Passeio. And I’ve got to drag my boots to the Rua da Harmonia. And you know that the Rua da Harmonia is a fair piece from here.”

  XCIV

  sofia came down right after and found Rubião all upset, avoiding her with his eyes. She asked him what was wrong and he said nothing, a headache. Dondon left, and the bank director took his leave. Palha thanked him for his kindness, wished him good health. Where was his hat? He found it. He also gave him his coat, and, as it appeared that he was looking for something else, he asked him if it was his cane.

  “No, sir. It’s my umbrella. I think this is it. This is it. Goodbye.”

  “Once more, thank you, thank you very much,” Palha said. “Put your hat on, it’s damp, don’t stand on ceremony. Thank you, thank you very much,” he finished, squeezing the man’s hand in both of his and bowing.

  Returning to the study he found his business partner, who was bent on leaving. He, too, pressed him, telling him to have a cup of tea, that it would soon go away. Rubião refused everything.

  “Your hand’s cold,” the young woman observed to Rubião as she shook it. “Why don’t you wait? Lemon-balm water is very good. I’ll go get some.”

  Rubião stopped her. It wasn’t necessary. He knew these attacks, they were cured with sleep. Palha wanted to send for a cab, but the other man said that the night air would do him good and that he could find transportation in Catete.

  XCV

  I’ll catch up with her before she reaches Catete, Rubião said, going up the Rua do Príncipe.

  He calculated that the seamstress had probably gone that way. In the distance he could make out two shapes on both sides. One of them looked like a woman’s. It must be she, he thought, and picked up his pace. It has to be understood, of course, that his head was all dizzy: Rua da Harmonia, seamstress, a lady, and all the open gratings. Don’t be surprised that, at wit’s end and walking rapidly, he collided with a certain man who was going along slowly with his head down. Nor did he excuse himself, but lengthened his pace, seeing that the woman was also walking fast.

  XCVI

  And the man who was bumped scarcely felt it. He was walking along absorbed but content, open-spirited, free of cares and annoyances. It was the bank director who’d just paid Palha a visit of condolence. He felt the bump but didn’t become angry. He straightened his coat and his spirits and continued along calmly.

  It should be mentioned, in order to explain the man’s indifference, that within the space of one hour he’d had two contrasting encounters. He’d gone first to the home of a cabinet minister to deal with a brother’s petition. The minister, who’d just finished dinner, was smoking, silently and peacefully. The director laid out the matter in a jumbled way, going back, jumping ahead, tying up and untying words. Barely sitting so as not to cross the line of respect, he kept a constant and worshipful smile on his lips. And he bowed, asking to be excused. The minister asked a few questions. He, encouraged, gave long answers, extremely long ones, and ended up handing him a petition. Then he got up, thanked the minister, shook his hand. The latter accompanied him to the veranda. There the director bowed twice—one full one before going down the steps—another useless one already below in the garden. Instead of the minister, he only saw the frosted glass of the door and on the veranda, hanging from the roof, the gas lamp. He put on his hat and left. He went away humiliated, annoyed with himself. It wasn’t the matter at hand that bothered him, but the bows he’d made, his begging his pardon, the attitude of a subaltern, a string of unrewarding acts. That was his state of mind when he reached Palha’s.

  Within ten minutes his spirits had been dusted off and returned to what they’d been before, such were the courtesies of the man of the house, the approving nods of his head and the ray of a perpetual smile, not to mention the offer of tea and cigars. The director then became st
ern, superior, cold, with few words. He disdainfully tossed aside an idea of Palha’s, and the latter immediately retreated, agreeing that it was absurd. He copied the minister’s slow gestures. As he left, the bows were coming not from him but from his host.

  He was a different man when he reached the street. Therefore his walk was calm and satisfied. The opening up of his spirits devolved to his whole being and led to the indifference with which he received Rubião’s bump. Away went the memory of his bowing and scraping. What he was savoring now was Cristiano Palha’s bowing and scraping.

  XCVII

  When Rubião got to the corner of Catete, the seamstress was chatting with a man who’d been waiting for her and who immediately gave her his arm. He saw them both go off like husband and wife in the direction of Gloria. Married? Friends? They disappeared around the first corner of the street while Rubião stood there recalling the words of the cabman, the grating, the young man with a mustache, the lady with a pretty figure, the Rua da Harmonia… Rua da Harmonia. She’d said Rua da Harmonia.

  He went to bed late. Part of the time he spent by the window, reflecting, cigar lighted, unable to come to any explanation of that business. Dondon had to be the go-between in the affair. She had to be, she had cunning eyes, Rubião was thinking.

  “I’m going there tomorrow. I’ll leave very early, go and wait for her on the corner. I’ll give her a hundred mil-reis, two hundred, five hundred. She’ll have to confess everything to me.”

  When he grew tired, he looked at the sky. There was the Southern Cross … Oh, if she’d only consented to gaze at the Southern Cross! The life of both of them would have been different. The constellation seemed to confirm that train of thought, gleaming brilliantly. And Rubião stayed there looking at it, composing a thousand beautiful love scenes—living what might have been. When his spirit had had enough of never-revealed love, it came to our friend’s thought that the Southern Cross wasn’t only a constellation, it was also a medal of honor. From there he went on to a different series of thoughts. He thought that it had been a stroke of genius to get the idea of making the Southern Cross a symbol of national distinction and privilege. He’d already seen the decoration on the chests of a few public servants. It was beautiful, but, best of all, rare.