Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  The barber cast his eyes about the study where the main item was the desk and on it the busts of Napoleon and Louis Napoleon. Relative to the latter, hanging on the wall there was also an engraving or lithograph showing the Battle of Solferino and a portrait of the Empress Eugénie.

  Rubião was wearing a pair of damask slippers edged in gold. On his head, a cap with a black silk tassel. On his mouth, a pale blue smile.

  CXLVI

  “Sir …” “Grr!” Quincas Borba repeated, standing on his master’s knees.

  Rubião came to and saw the barber. He recognized him from having seen him recently in the shop. He got up from the chair, and Quincas Borba barked, as if defending him against the intruder.

  “Quiet! Be still!” Rubião told him, and the dog, ears down, went over behind the wastebasket. During this time Lucien was unwrapping his implements.

  “You’re going to lose a beautiful beard,” he told him in French. “I know people who did the same thing, but to please some lady. I’ve had the confidence of important men …”

  Precisely!” Rubião interrupted.

  He hadn’t understood a word. Even though he knew some French, he could barely understand the written language—as we know—and he didn’t understand the spoken at all. But, a strange phenomenon, he didn’t answer as a false pretense. He heard the words as a compliment or praise and, stranger still, answering him in Portuguese, he thought he was speaking French.

  “Precisely!” he repeated. “I want to restore my face to its earlier form. Like that.”

  And as he pointed to the bust of Napoleon III, the barber responded in our language:

  “Ah! The emperor. A nice bust, really. A fine piece of work. Did you buy it here or have it sent from Paris? They’re magnificent. There’s the first, the great one. He was a genius. If it hadn’t been for betrayal, oh, the traitors. Do you see, sir? Traitors are worse than Orsini’s bombs!”

  “Orsini! Poor devil!”

  “He paid dearly.”

  “He paid what he should have. But neither bombs nor Orsini can stand up to a great man,” Rubião went on. “When the fate of a nation places the imperial crown on the head of a great man, there’s no evil that can do anything … Orsini! A fool!”

  In just a few minutes the barber began dropping Rubião’s beard to the floor, leaving only the mustache and the goatee of Napoleon III. It was hard work. He stated that it was difficult to make one thing match the other exactly. And as he cut the beard he praised it.—Such fine hair! It was a great and honest sacrifice he was making, really…

  “Mister barber, you’re being presumptuous,” Rubião interrupted him. “I already told you what I want. Make my face the way it used to be. You’ve got a bust there to guide you.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do just as you say, and you’ll see how close the resemblance will turn out.”

  And snip, snip, he gave the last cuts to Rubião’s beard and began to shave his cheeks and chin. The operation took a long time, and the barber was going along peacefully shaving, comparing, dividing his gaze between the bust and the man. Sometimes, for a better comparison, he would step back two paces, look at them alternatively, lean over, ask the man to turn to one side or the other, and go to take a look at the corresponding side of the bust.

  “How’s it coming?” Rubião asked.

  Lucien made a gesture for him not to talk and went on with his work. He trimmed the goatee, left the mustache, and shaved freely, slowly, in a friendly way, relaxed, his fingers discovering some little, imperceptible hair on the chin or the cheeks. Sometimes Rubião tired of looking at the ceiling while the other man perfected his chin, asked to rest. As he rested, he stroked his face and felt the change through touch.

  “The mustache isn’t very long,” he observed.

  “I have to fix the edges. I’ve got little irons here to make them curve over the lips, and then we’ll fix the tips. Oh, I’d rather do ten original pieces of work than just one copy!”

  It took ten more minutes before the mustache and goatee were trimmed. Finally, all ready, Rubião jumped up, ran to the mirror in the bedroom next door. He was the other one; in a word, they were the same.

  “Just right!” he exclaimed, returning to the study where the barber, having put his implements away, was petting Quincas Borba.

  And, going to the desk, Rubião opened a drawer, took out a twenty mil–réis note, and gave it to him.

  “I don’t have any change,” the other man said.

  “There’s no need for change,” Rubião hastened to say with a sovereign gesture. “Take out what you have to pay the shop, and the rest is yours.”

  CXLVII

  When he was alone, Rubião dropped into an armchair and V V watched all sorts of sumptuous things pass by. He was in Biarritz or Compiégne, which one isn’t really known. Compiégne, it would seem. He governed a great state, he listened to ministers and ambassadors, he danced, he dined—and performed other acts mentioned in newspaper reports which he had read and which had stuck in his memory. Not even Quincas Borba’s whines succeeded in rousing him. He was far away and high up. Compiégne was on the road to the moon. On his way to the moon!

  CXLVIII

  When he came down from the moon, he heard the whining of the dog, and his chin felt cold. He ran to the mirror and verified that the difference between his bearded face and his smooth face was great but that even smooth like that it didn’t look too bad on him. His tablemates reached the same conclusion.

  “It’s perfectly fine! You should have done it a long time ago. Not that a full beard took away the nobility of your face, but the way it is now, it keeps what it used to have and has a modern look as well...”

  “Modern,” the host repeated.

  Outside there was the same surprise. Everybody sincerely found that this changed look became him better than the previous one. Only one person, Dr. Camacho, even though he found that the mustache and goatee looked very good on his friend, argued that it wasn’t a good idea to change one’s face, a true mirror of the soul, whose stability and constancy should be reproduced.

  “I’m not just talking about myself,” he concluded, “But I’ll never see your face in any other way. It’s a moral necessity of my person. My life, sacrificed to principles—because I’ve never tried to compromise principles, only with men—my life, I say, is a faithful image of my face and vice versa.”

  Rubião listened seriously and nodded yes, that it must be that way out of necessity. Then he felt he was Emperor of the French, incognito on a stroll. Going down the street he went back to what he was. Dante, who saw so many extraordinary things, states that in Hell he witnessed the punishment of a Florentine who was embraced by a six-footed serpent in such a way that they blended so closely that in the end it was impossible to tell if they were one or two entities. Rubião was still two. There was the mixture in him of his own persona and the Emperor of the French. They took turns. They grew to forget about each other. When he was only Rubião, he was no different from the usual man. When he rose up to emperor, he was only emperor. They were in equal balance, one without the other, both integral.

  CXLIX

  “What kind of a change is that?” Sofia asked when he appeared at the end of the week.

  “I came to find out about your knee. Is it better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  It was two in the afternoon. Sofia had just finished dressing to go out when the maid came to tell her that Rubião was there—with his face so changed that he looked like somebody else. Curious, she came down to see him. She found him in the parlor standing, reading the calling cards.

  “But what kind of a change is that?” she repeated.

  Rubião, without any imperial feelings, replied that he thought he would look better in a mustache and goatee.

  “Or do I look uglier?” he concluded.

  “You look better, much better.”

  And Sofia said to herself that perhaps she was the cause of the change. She sat down on t
he sofa and began to put her fingers into her gloves.

  “Are you going out?”

  “Yes, but the carriage hasn’t come yet.”

  She dropped one of her gloves. Rubião leaned over to pick it up, and she did the same. Both grabbed the glove, and as they insisted on picking it up, their faces met up above, her nose touching his, and their mouths remained intact, laughing, oh, how they laughed.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No! I’m the one who should ask you …”

  And they laughed again. Sofia put on her glove, Rubião stared at one of her feet that was moving surreptitiously until the servant came to say that the carriage had arrived. They stood up and laughed once more.

  CL

  Stiff, his hat off, the footman opened the door of the coupé when Sofia appeared in the doorway. Rubião gave her his hand to help her in. She accepted the offer and got in.

  “Well, until…”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. Rubião had got in after her and sat down beside her. The footman closed the door, climbed up onto his seat, and the carriage left.

  CLI

  It all happened so fast that Sofia lost her voice and her movement, but after a few seconds:

  “What’s this? … Mr. Rubião, have them stop the carriage.”

  “Stop? But didn’t you tell me that you were going out and were waiting for it?”

  “I wasn’t going out with you … Can’t you see that? … Have them stop ...”

  At her wit’s end, she tried to tell the coachman to stop, but the fear of a possible scandal made her halt halfway. The coupé turned down the Rua Bela da Princesa. Sofia once more asked Rubião to be aware of the impropriety of going like that in the sight of God and everybody. Rubião respected her scruples and suggested they lower the curtains.

  “I think it’s all right if people see us,” Rubião explained, “but if we lower the curtains no one will see us. Shall I?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he lowered the curtains on both sides, and the two of them were all alone, because if on the inside they could see one or another person pass, from the outside no one could see them. Alone, completely alone, as on that day when also at two o’clock in the afternoon at her house Rubião had thrown his despair into her face. There, at least, the young woman was free; here, inside the closed carriage, she was unable to calculate the consequences.

  Rubião, however, made his legs comfortable and didn’t say anything.

  CLII

  Sofia huddled in the corner as much as she could. It could have been because of the bizarre situation, it could have been out of fear, but it was mainly out of repugnance. Never had that man had made her feel such aversion, such disgust, or something less harsh if you wish, but which all came down to incompatibility—how shall I put it so as not to injure any ears?—skindeep incompatibility. Where had the dreams of a few days ago gone? At the simple invitation to a ride to Tijuca by themselves, she’d gone up the mountain with him, dismounted, heard words of adoration, and felt a kiss on the back of her neck. Where had those imagined things gone? Where had the large, staring eyes, the loving, long hands, the restless feet, the bashful words, and the ears filled with pity gone? It was all forgotten, it had all disappeared now that they both found themselves alone, isolated by the carriage and by scandal.

  And the horses went along kicking up their hooves, slowly pulling the carriage along over the stones of the Rua Bela da Princesa. What would she do when they got to Catete? Would she ride downtown with him? She thought of going to the house of some friend, leaving him inside, telling the coachman to go on. She would tell her husband everything. In the middle of that agony, some banal memories crossed her mind, or ones strange to that situation, like a jewel theft she’d read about in the morning papers, the wind storm the day before, a hat. Finally, she centered on one concern. What was she going to say to Rubião? She saw that he’d kept on looking straight ahead in silence, with the knob of his cane under his chin. The position didn’t look too bad on him, tranquil, serious, almost indifferent, but, then, why had he got into the carriage? Sofia tried to break the silence. Twice she moved her hands nervously. She was almost irritated by the quietness of the man, whose act could only be explained by his old and fervent passion. Later she imagined that he himself was repentant, and she told him so in a pleasant way.

  “I don’t see that I have to be sorry for anything,” he answered, turning. “When you said it wasn’t right to travel like this in full view of everyone, I lowered the curtains. I didn’t agree, but I obeyed.”

  “We’re coming to Catete,” she put in. “Do you want me to tell him to take you home? We can’t ride downtown together.”

  “We can go along drifting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Drifting, the horses will go along, and we’ll go on chatting, with no one hearing us or guessing what we’re talking about.”

  “Good heavens! Don’t talk like that. Leave me, get out of the carriage, or I’ll get out right here and you can take it over. What are you trying to say? A few minutes are enough … Look, we’ve already turned toward downtown. Tell him to go to Botafogo, and I’ll drop you at the door of your house …”

  “But I only left my house a little while back. I’m going downtown. What’s wrong with taking me there? If it’s because we shouldn’t be seen together, I’ll get out anywhere—on the Praia de Santa Luzia, for example—on the side by the shore …”

  “The best thing would be for you to get out right here.”

  “But why can’t we go downtown?”

  “No, it can’t be. I ask you by everything you hold most sacred. Don’t make a scandal. Come, tell me what it takes to get something so simple from you. Do you want me to go down on my knees right here?”

  In spite of the narrowness of the space, she started bending her knees, but Rubião quickly made her sit again.

  “You don’t have to kneel,” he said softly.

  “Thank you. Then I ask you in God’s name, for your mother in heaven …”

  “She must be in heaven,” Rubião confirmed. “She was a holy woman! All mothers are good, but everyone who knew that one could only say that she was a saint. And skilled like few others. What a housekeeper! When it came to guests, whether five or fifty, it was all the same to her, she took care of everything at the right time and in the right place and was famous for it. The slaves gave her the name of Missy Mother because she really was a mother to them all. She has to be in heaven!”

  “Fine, fine,” Sofia put in, “so do this for me out of love for your mother. Will you?”

  “Do what?”

  Get out right here.”

  “And go downtown on foot? I can’t. It’s a notion of yours. Nobody’s going to see us. And, besides, these horses of yours are magnificent. You’ve seen how they pick up their hooves, slowly, clip … clop … clip … clop …”

  Tired of asking, Sofia fell silent, folded her arms, and withdrew even more, if possible, into the corner of the carriage.

  “Now I remember,” she thought, “I told the driver to stop at the door of Cristiano’s warehouse. I’ll tell him how this man got into the coupé, how I begged him, and the answers he gave me. That’s better than having him get out mysteriously on just any street.”

  In the meantime Rubião was quiet. Every so often he would twirl the diamond ring on his finger—a splendid solitaire. He wasn’t looking at her, wasn’t saying anything or asking her for anything. They went along like a bored married couple. Sofia had begun not to understand what motive could have made him get into the carriage. It couldn’t have been a need for transportation. Nor vanity; he’d drawn the curtains at her first complaint of being seen in public. No word of love, as remote an allusion as it might have been out of fear, full of veneration and beseeching. He was an inexplicable man, a monster.

  CLIII

  “Sofia. . .,” Rubião said suddenly and continued without a spause. “Sofia, the days pass, but no man can forget
the woman who truly loves him and deserve the name of man. Our love will never be forgotten—by me, that’s for certain, and I’m sure not by you either. You gave me everything, Sofia. Your very life was in danger. It’s true that I would have avenged you, my lovely. If vengeance can bring happiness to the dead, you would have had the greatest possible pleasure. Luckily, my fate protected us, and we could love without blood or bounds …”

  The young woman looked at him with astonishment.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he went on. ‘We’re not going to separate. No, I’m not talking about separation. Don’t tell me that you would die. I know that you would shed many tears. Not I—I didn’t come into the world to weep—but my grief would be no less because of it. On the contrary, sorrows kept in the heart are more painful than others. Tears are good because a person can open up. My dear friend, I’m talking to you like this because we have to be careful. Our insatiable passion might make us forget that need. We’ve run a lot of risks, Sofia. Since we were born for each other, we think we’re married, and we run risks. Listen, my dear, listen, soul of my soul… Life is beautiful! Life is great! Life is sublime! With you, however, what can I call it? Do you remember our first meeting?”

  As Rubião said those last words, he tried to take her hand. Sofia drew back in time. She was disoriented, she didn’t understand, she was afraid. His voice grew louder, the coachman might hear something … And here a suspicion shook her: maybe Rubião’s intent was precisely to let himself be heard, to oblige her through fright—or so that people would slander her then. She had an urge to throw herself against him, shout for help, and save herself by the clamor.