Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  CLXIX

  The return of Carlos Maria and his wife interrupted Dona Fernanda’s concern regarding Rubião. She went on board to greet them and took them to Tijuca, where an old friend of Carlos Maria’s family had rented and furnished a house on his instructions. Sofia didn’t go on board. She sent her coupé to wait for them on the Pharoux docks, but Dona Fernanda was already there with a caléche that took them along with herself and Palha. Sofia went to visit the new arrivals in the afternoon.

  Dona Fernanda was bursting with contentment. The letters from Maria Benedita had said they were happy. She couldn’t read the confirmation of what had been written immediately in the eyes and manners of the couple, but they seemed satisfied. Maria Benedita couldn’t hold back her tears when she embraced her friend, nor could the latter hers, and they hugged each other like blood sisters. The next day Dona Fernanda asked Maria Benedita if she and her husband were happy, and, finding out that they were, she grasped her hands and stared at her for a long time, unable to find anything to say. All she could manage was to repeat the question.

  “Are you two happy?”

  “We are,” Maria Benedita answered.

  “You don’t know how good your answer makes me feel. It’s not just that I would have felt remorse if you didn’t have the happiness I imagined I’d given you both, but also because it’s so nice to see other people happy. Does he love you as much as on the first day?”

  “More, I think, because I adore him.”

  Dona Fernanda didn’t understand those words. More, I think, because I adore him! In truth, the conclusion didn’t seem to match the premise, but it was a case of improving on Hamlet again: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your dialectics.” Maria Benedita began to tell her about the trip, unwinding her impressions and reminiscences. And since her husband came to join them a short while after, she had recourse to his memory to fill in the gaps.

  “How was it, Carlos Maria?”

  Carlos Maria remembered, explained, or rectified, but without interest, almost impatiently. He’d guessed that Maria Benedita had just confided her good fortune to the other woman, and he had trouble covering the unpleasant effect it had on him. Why say that she was happy with him since it couldn’t be any other way? And why divulge the caresses and loving words, the charity of a great and friendly god?

  The return to Rio de Janeiro had been a concession on his part. Maria Benedita wanted to have her child here. Her husband gave in—with difficulty, but he gave in. Why with difficulty? It’s hard to explain, even harder to understand. Carlos Maria had personal and peculiar ideas regarding motherhood, hidden, not confided to anyone. He found nature to be shameless in making a public phenomenon of human gestation, in full view, growing into physical deformity, suggestive to the point of disrespect. That was what brought on his desire for solitude, mystery, and absence. They would live the final moments with pleasure inside a solitary house on the top of a hill, shut off from the world, and the woman would go down from there one day with her child in her arms and divinity in her eyes.

  He made no such proposal to his wife. He would have had to argue, and he didn’t like arguing. He preferred giving in. Maria Benedita, naturally, had just the opposite feeling. She considered herself a divine and reserved temple in which a god was living, the child of another god. Her gestation went along filled with tedium, pain, discomfort, which she tried to hide from her husband as best she could. But all of it gave a greater value to the future little creature. She accepted her troubles with resignation—if not accepting them with joy—since it was a condition of the coming of the fruit. She fulfilled the duty of her species cordially. And she would repeat without words the reply of Mary of Nazareth: “I am the servant of the Lord; let His will be done in me.”

  CLXX

  “What’s the matter with you?” Maria Benedita asked as soon as they were alone.

  “Me? Nothing. Why?”

  “You seemed annoyed.”

  “No, I wasn’t annoyed.”

  “Yes you were,” she insisted.

  Carlos Maria smiled without answering. Maria Benedita already knew that special smile of his, inexpressive, without tenderness or censure, superficial and wan. She didn’t persist in wanting to know. She bit her lip and withdrew.

  In her room she thought for some time of nothing else but that wan, mute smile, the sign of some annoyance, the cause of which could only have been she. And she went over the whole conversation, all the gestures she’d made, and she found nothing that could explain the coldness or whatever it was with Carlos Maria. Maybe she’d been excessive in her talk. She was accustomed, if she was happy, to opening up her heart to friends and strangers. Carlos Maria disapproved of that generosity because it gave an air of great happiness to their moral and domestic status and because he considered that banal and inferior. Maria Benedita remembered that in Paris, with the Brazilian colony, she’d felt more than once that effect of her expansiveness and had repressed herself. But could Dona Fernanda be in the same situation? Wasn’t she the author of the happiness of them both? She rejected that hypothesis and tried to look for another. Not finding it, she returned to the first one, and, as always happened, she found her husband right. Really, no matter how intimate and pleasing it might be, she hadn’t ought to tell her good friend the minute details of their life, it was thoughtless of her …

  Nausea came along to interrupt her at that point in her reflections. Nature was reminding her of a reason of state—the reason of the species—more immediate and superior to her husband’s annoyances. She gave in to necessity, but a few minutes later she was beside Carlos Maria, curving her right arm around his neck. He, seated, was reading an English magazine. He took the hand hanging over his chest and finished the page.

  “Do you forgive me?” his wife asked when she saw him close the magazine. “From now on I’ll be less of a chatterbox.”

  Carlos Maria took both her hands, smiling and answering yes with his head. It was as if he’d thrown a beam of light over her. The joy penetrated her soul. It might be said that the fetus itself reacted to the feeling and blessed its father.

  CLXXI

  “Perfect! That’s the way I want to see you!” a voice shouted from the window side.

  Maria Benedita moved rapidly away from her husband. The veranda, which was accessible from the living room by three doors, had one of them open. The voice had come from there.

  Rubião’s head was peeping in and smiling. It was the first time they’d seen him. Carlos Maria, without getting up, looked at him, stern, waiting. And the head smiled with its thick mustache and pointed tips, looking from one to the other and repeating:

  “Perfect! That’s the way I want to see you!”

  Rubião came in, held out his hand to them, which they took without warmth, said some words of admiration and praise to Maria Benedita, she so elegant, he so handsome. He noted that they both bore the name Maria, a kind of predestination, and he ended up by giving them the news of the fall of the government.

  “The cabinet fell?” Carlos Maria asked involuntarily.

  “That’s all they’re talking about in the city. I’m going to sit down without asking permission since you haven’t offered me a chair yet,” he went on, sitting down, taking the cane he carried under his arm and placing his hands on it. “Well, it’s true, the government has resigned. I’m going to organize another. Palha will be in it, our Palha—your cousin Palha and you, too, sir, if it should so please you, will be a minister. I need a good cabinet, all strong friends, ready to lay down their lives for me. I’m going to call on Morny, Pio, Camacho, Rouher, Major Siqueira. You remember the major, don’t you, ma’am? I think I’ll give him War. I don’t know any man more apt for military matters.”

  Maria Benedita, annoyed and impatient, walked about the room waiting for her husband to tell her to do something. The latter told her to leave with his eyes. She didn’t wait for a second gesture, excused herself to their gues
t, and withdrew. Rubião, after she’d left, praised her again—a flower, he said, and corrected himself, laughing, “Two flowers, I think there are two flowers there. May the Lord bless them both!” Carlos Maria held out his hand as a sign of saying goodbye.

  “My dear sir …”

  “May I include you in the cabinet?” Rubião asked.

  Not hearing a reply, he assumed the answer was yes, and he promised him a good portfolio. The major would go to War and Camacho to Justice. Did he know them by chance? “Two great men, Camacho even greater than the other.” And obeying Carlos Maria, who was heading toward the door, Rubião was leaving without being aware of it. But he wasn’t all that ready. On the veranda, before going down the steps, he mentioned several facts about the war. For example, he’d given Germany back to the Germans. It was a nice thing to do and good politics. He’d already given Venice to the Italians. He didn’t need any more territory. The Rhineland provinces, yes, but there was time to go after them …

  “My dear sir...,” Carlos Maria repeated, holding out his hand.

  He said goodbye to him and closed the door. Rubião came up with a few more words and went down the steps. Maria Benedita, who was spying on them from inside, came over to her husband, took his hand, and stayed looking at Rubião as he crossed the garden. He wasn’t walking straight, or hurriedly, or silently. He would stop, gesticulate, pick up a dry twig, seeing a thousand things in the air, more elegant than the lady of the house, more handsome than the man. They were watching our friend from the window, and after one grotesque action Maria Benedita couldn’t hold back a laugh. Carlos Maria, however, looked on placidly.

  CLXXII

  “But if the fall of the government is true,” she said, “do you know who’s going to be a minister?”

  “Who?” Carlos Maria asked with his eyes.

  “Your cousin Teófilo. Nana told me that he’s got his hopes up, and that’s why he stayed in the capital this year. He suspected, or there was already talk of the government’s falling. He must have suspected. I don’t remember exactly what she told me, but it seems he’ll be joining in.”

  “It could be.”

  “Look, there goes Rubião. He stopped, he’s looking up, maybe he’s waiting for the public coach or his carriage. He had a carriage. There he goes, walking…”

  CLXXIII

  “So Teófilo’s a minister!” Carlos Maria exclaimed. And after a moment:

  “I think he’ll make a good minister. Would you like to see me a minister, too?”

  “If you’d like to be, why not?”

  “So I have your vote then, right?” Carlos Maria asked.

  “What am I supposed to answer?” she thought scrutinizing her husband’s face.

  He, laughing:

  “Confess that you’d adore me even if I were only a minister’s errand boy.”

  “Exactly!” the young lady exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck.

  Carlos Maria stroked her hair and murmured seriously: “Bernadotte was a king and Bonaparte an emperor. Would you like to be the queen mother of Sweden?”

  Maria Benedita didn’t understand the question nor did he explain it to her. In order to explain it to her it would be necessary to say that possibly she was carrying a Bernadotte in her womb. But that supposition meant a desire and the desire a confession of inferiority. Carlos Maria ran his hands over his wife’s head again with a gesture that seemed to be saying: “Maria, you chose the best there was…” And she seemed to understand the meaning of that gesture.

  “Yes! Yes!”

  Her husband smiled and went back to the English magazine. She, leaning on the armchair, ran her fingers through his hair, ever so lightly and silently so as not to disturb him. He went on reading, reading, reading. Maria Benedita was limiting her caresses, withdrawing her fingers little by little until she left the room, where Carlos Maria continued reading a study by Sir Charles Little, M.P., on the famous statuette of Narcissus in the Naples Museum.

  CLXXIV

  When Rubião got to Dona Fernanda’s in the late afternoon, he heard from the servant that he couldn’t come in. The lady wasn’t feeling well. Her husband was with her. It seems that they were waiting for the doctor. Our friend didn’t insist, and he went away.

  It was just the opposite. It was the husband who was ill, and his wife was with him. But the servant couldn’t change the message they’d given him. Another servant was suspicious, it’s true, that he was the ill one and not she, because he’d seen him come in in low spirits. Upstairs in their bedroom there was the sound of voices, sometimes loud, sometimes low, with intervals of silence. A servant girl who’d tiptoed up came down saying that she’d heard the master complaining. The mistress was probably in trouble. Downstairs soft words back and forth, sharp ears, conjectures. They noted that there was no request from upstairs for water, medicine, a broth at least. The table was set, the butler in uniform, the cook proud and anxious … Surely one of his finest dinners!

  What was it? Teófilo had the same downcast expression as when he came in. He was on a settee, his vest off, staring. Next to him, also sitting, grasping one of his hands, Dona Fernanda was asking him to calm down, that it wasn’t worth it. And, leaning over to look into his face, she pulled him over, wanting him to lay his head on her shoulder …

  “Let it go, let it go,” her husband murmured.

  “It’s not worth it, Teófilo! Is it a ministry now . .. ? Is a short-term position full of annoyances, insults, and hard work worth all that? What for? Isn’t a peaceful life much better? Of course it’s unfair. I do think you’ve got the capacity, but is it that great a loss? Come, my dear, relax. Let’s go down to dinner.”

  Teófilo bit his lip, pulling on one of his sideburns. He hadn’t heard anything his wife had said, neither exhortations nor consolations. He’d heard the conversations of the night before and that morning, the political combinations, the remembered names, the refusals and the acceptances. No combination included him, even though he’d spoken to a lot of people concerning the real aspect of the situation. He was listened to with attention by some, impatience by others. Once the eyeglasses of the organizer seemed to be interrogating him—but it was a quick and illusory gesture. Teófilo was reconstructing the agitation of so many hours and places now—he remembered the ones who looked askance, the ones who smiled, the ones who had the same expression as he. Finally, he was no longer speaking. His last hopes had been blown out in his face like a night-light at dawn. He’d heard the names of the ministers, was obliged to find them good. But what strength it took for him to articulate a single word! He was afraid they would discover his disappointment or resentment, and all his efforts ended up accentuating them even more. He grew pale, his hands trembled.

  CLXXV

  “Come, let’s go down to dinner,” Dona Fernanda repeated. Teófilo slapped his knee and stood up, speaking disjointed, angry words, walking back and forth, stamping his foot, threatening. Dona Fernanda was unable to overcome the violence of that new attack, she hoped it was brief, and it was brief. Teófilo went to an armchair, shook his head, dropped into it again, prostrate. Dona Fernanda took a chair and sat down beside him.

  “You’re right, Teófilo, but you’ve got to be a man. You’re young and strong, you’ve still got a future, and maybe a great future. Who knows, getting into the cabinet now might mean a loss later. You’ll get into another one. Sometimes what looks like misfortune is good luck.”

  Teófilo squeezed her hand with thanks.

  “It’s treachery, it’s intrigue,” he murmured, looking at her. “I know all of those swine. If I were to tell you everything, everything … But what’s the use? I’d rather forget... It isn’t because of a miserable cabinet position that I’m upset,” he went on after a few moments. “Ministries aren’t worth anything. A person who knows how to work and has talent can laugh at a cabinet position and show that it’s beneath him. Most of those people can’t hold a candle to me, Nanã. I’m sure of that and so are they. Dir
ty bunch of schemers! Where can they find more sincerity, more loyalty, more readiness for a fight? Who worked more with the press during our time out of power? They excuse themselves, say that cabinets come all set up from Sao Cristóvão … Oh, if I could only speak to the Emperor!”

  “Teófilo!”

  “I’d tell the Emperor: ‘Sire, Your Majesty is unaware of these lobby politicians, these arrangements of cliques. Your Majesty wants the best people to work in your councils, but the mediocre ones arrange them … Merit is put aside.’ That’s what I’ll tell him someday. It might even be tomorrow…”

  He fell silent. After a long pause he arose and went to his study, which was next door to the bedroom. His wife went with him. It was already dark. He lighted the gas jet and ran his eyes veiled with melancholy about the room. There were four wide bookcases full of books, reports, budgets, Treasury ledgers. The desk was orderly. Three tall cabinets without doors held manuscripts, notes, memoranda, calculations, appointments, all stacked methodically and labeled—Extraordinary Credits—Supplementary Credits—Army Credits—Navy Credits—1868 Loan—Railroads—Internal Debt—Budget for 61–62, for 62–63, for 63–64 etc. That was where he worked in the morning and at night, adding, calculating, gathering together the material for his speeches and reports, because he was a member of three parliamentary committees and generally worked for himself and six colleagues. The latter listened and approved. One of them, when the reports were extensive, would approve them without hearing them.