The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis

by Machado De Assis

  “Really?” he said. “He must be ill.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “I’ll go and see him tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “At his house.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he might be ill.”

  “I doubt it. Why not just wait and see?”

  I spent a horribly anxious night. The thought of Emílio would not let me sleep. I imagined he would be weeping bitter tears, in despair over his rejected love.

  Was this pity? Was it love?

  Carlota, it was both those things. What else could it be? I had set off along a fatal path; a strange force was drawing me along. I was weak when I could have been strong. I blame no one but myself.

  I’ll write more next Sunday.

  V

  The following afternoon, when my husband returned, I asked after Emílio.

  “I took your advice and I didn’t go and see him,” he said. “But if he doesn’t come today, I will.”

  A day passed with no news of him.

  The following day, when he still did not appear, my husband went to his house.

  I’ll be honest. I myself reminded my husband to go.

  I waited anxiously for news.

  My husband returned that evening. He looked rather sad. I asked what had happened.

  “I don’t know. He was in bed. He told me it was just a slight cold, but I think it’s more than that.”

  “But what?” I asked, looking hard at my husband.

  “He spoke of leaving for the North. He seems sad, distracted, preoccupied. He talks about hoping to see his parents, but, at the same time, seems afraid he might never see them again. He’s afraid he might die on the journey. I don’t know what’s happened to him, but something has. Perhaps . . .”

  “Perhaps what?”

  “Perhaps it’s some money problem.”

  This answer troubled me deeply, and played a large part in what happened later.

  After a brief silence, I asked:

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll speak frankly with him. I’ll ask him what the problem is and help him if I can. At any rate, I won’t let him leave. What do you think?”

  “I agree.”

  All these things contributed greatly to keeping Emílio in my thoughts, and, painful though it is for me to admit it, I could not think of him now without my heart beating faster.

  The following night, we had a few friends around, not that I added much to the gaiety of the party. I was sad and disconsolate. I was angry with myself. I imagined I was Emílio’s executioner, and found the idea that he was suffering for my sake deeply painful.

  However, at around nine o’clock, my husband appeared, arm in arm with Emílio.

  There was a general murmur of surprise.

  Since Emílio had not been seen for some days, everyone had started asking after him, and then he turned up looking as pale as wax.

  I won’t tell you what happened that evening. Emílio seemed to be in pain; he wasn’t his usual cheerful self; on the contrary, he was so silent and downcast that everyone felt uncomfortable, and I suffered horribly, imagining myself to be the cause of his pain.

  I only managed to speak to him once, when we were some way away from the others.

  “Forgive me,” I said, “if I spoke harshly to you. You must understand my position. You took me by surprise, and I did not have time to consider my answer. I know you have suffered, but, please, do not suffer any more, forget . . .”

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  “My husband mentioned your plans . . .”

  “Yes, to go back to my hometown.”

  “But you’re ill . . .”

  “Oh, it will pass.”

  And when he said this, he gave me such a strange, sinister look that I felt afraid.

  “How? How will it pass?”

  “There are ways.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What else is left for me here?”

  And he closed his eyes and wiped away a tear.

  “What’s this?” I said. “Are you crying?”

  “My last tears.”

  “Oh, if you knew how it hurts me. Don’t cry, I beg you. More than that, I’m begging you to live.”

  “Oh!”

  “I’m ordering you.”

  “Ordering me? And if I don’t obey? If I can’t? Do you think one can live with a thorn in one’s heart?”

  Written down like that, it sounds contrived, but the way in which he said these words was so impassioned, so painful and moving. I listened, completely oblivious to the world. A few people were coming over to join us, and, wanting to put an end to the conversation, I said:

  “Do you love me? Only love can issue orders, and love is ordering you to live!”

  Emílio’s face lit up with joy. I got up, intending to talk to the approaching guests.

  “Thank you,” he whispered in my ear.

  At the end of the evening, when Emílio said goodbye, his eyes aglow with gratitude and love, I was overwhelmed with a strange confusion of feelings: love, remorse, and tenderness.

  “Emílio seemed much happier,” my husband said.

  And I looked at him, unable to respond.

  Then I went straight up to bed. I seemed to see in my husband the image of my own conscience.

  The following day, I received this letter from Emílio:

  Eugênia. Thank you. I have come back to life, and I owe that entirely to you. Thank you! You made a man of a corpse, now make a god of a man. Please! Please!

  I read and reread this letter, and—can you believe it, Carlota?—I kissed it. I showered it with heartfelt kisses, passionately, deliriously. I was in love! In love!

  The same struggle was going on inside me, but my feelings were quite different. Before, it had been my heart running away from my reason, now it was my reason running away from my heart.

  I could see and feel that it was a crime; but, whether it was fate or simply my own fond nature, I found in the delights of that crime a justification for my error, a way of legitimizing my passion.

  When my husband was near me, I felt better and braver . . .

  But I’ll stop here. I feel a weight on my heart. It’s the memory of all those events.

  I will write again on Sunday.

  VI

  A few days passed following the scenes I described in my last letter.

  There began a correspondence between Emílio and myself, and after two weeks, I thought only of him.

  None of our regular visitors, not even you, would have noticed. We were extremely discreet lovers.

  True, people often asked why I was so distracted and melancholy, and this would bring me back to real life, and I would immediately change my behavior.

  My husband seemed the person most affected by my sad moods.

  I must admit that his solicitude made me feel uncomfortable, and I would often reply rather abruptly, not because I hated him, but because he was the one person I could not bear to be questioned by.

  One afternoon, he came home and said:

  “Eugênia, I have news for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll be really pleased.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “It’s a little trip out.”

  “Where to?”

  “It was my idea, and I’ve already told Emílio, and he thought it an excellent plan. We’ll go to Gávea on Sunday, bright and early. Not that anything’s been arranged, of course. That depends on you. What do you say?”

  “I approve.”

  “Good. Carlota can come too.”

  “And so she should,” I added. “As well as a few of my other friends.”

  Shortly afterward, you all received your invitations.

  You’ll remember that day. What you don’t know is that, on that outing, thanks to the general hubbub and distraction, Emílio and I had a conversation that gave me my first bitter taste of love’s sorrow.r />
  “Eugênia,” he said, taking my arm, “are you sure you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, what I’m asking you—not that it’s me asking, but my heart and your heart—is for a noble action that would exalt us both in our own eyes. Is there not some corner of the world where we could live, far from everyone and close to heaven?”

  “Do you mean run away together?”

  “Yes!”

  “No, never!”

  “You don’t love me, then.”

  “Yes, I do, and that is crime enough. I don’t want to go beyond that.”

  “Are you rejecting a chance of happiness?”

  “I’m rejecting dishonor.”

  “You don’t love me, then.”

  “What can I say? I do love you, but I want to remain the same woman in your eyes, loving, yes, but also, up to a point, pure.”

  “A love that stops to think is not true love.”

  I said nothing. Emílio had spoken these words so scornfully and so woundingly that I felt my heart begin to pound and the blood rush to my face.

  The excursion ended badly.

  After that scene, Emílio grew very cold toward me, which hurt me. I tried to go back to how things had been before, but failed.

  One day, when we were alone, I said:

  “Emílio, if I were to run away with you tomorrow, what would you do?”

  “I would obey that divine command.”

  “And afterward?”

  “What do you mean, ‘afterward’?” asked Emílio, as if bemused by my question.

  “Yes, afterward,” I went on. “After a while, would you not view me with scorn?”

  “Scorn? I don’t see—”

  “Yes, why not? What else would I deserve?”

  “If you’d made that sacrifice for my sake, then it would be cowardly of me to throw it back at you.”

  “Deep down, though, you would despise me.”

  “I swear that I would not.”

  “Well, I would despise myself. I would never forgive myself.”

  Emílio covered his face with his hands and appeared to be crying. I had been speaking quite confidently until then, and I went over to him and removed his hands from his face.

  “What’s this?” I said. “Can’t you see you’re making me cry too?”

  He looked at me, his eyes brimming with tears. My eyes, too, were moist.

  “Goodbye,” he said suddenly. “I’m leaving.”

  And he took a step toward the door.

  “If you promise me that you will live,” I said, “then leave; if you have some other, more sinister plan, then stay.”

  I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but, clasping the hand I held out to him, he kissed it several times (those were our first kisses) and said urgently:

  “I’ll stay, Eugênia!”

  We heard a noise outside. I went to see what it was. It was my husband, who had returned home feeling ill. He had suffered some kind of attack or fainting fit at the office. When he came around, he had still felt very unwell. Some friends had brought him back in a cab.

  I ran to the door. My husband looked disheveled and deathly pale. He could only barely walk with the help of his friends.

  I was so shocked that I forgot everything else. The doctor who had accompanied my husband immediately prescribed some medication. I was anxious and kept asking everyone if my husband would be all right.

  They all assured me that he would.

  Emílio seemed cast down by these events. He went over to my husband and squeezed his hand.

  When Emílio was about to leave, my husband said:

  “Listen, I know you can’t be here all the time, but do come and see me every day, if you can.”

  “Of course,” said Emílio, and left.

  My husband was in a bad way for the rest of that day and night. I did not sleep, but spent the night in his room.

  The following day, I was exhausted. All those conflicting feelings combined with a lack of sleep had left me utterly drained. Unable to go on, I summoned my cousin Elvira and went to bed.

  I will close at this point. I am almost at the end of my sad tale.

  Until Sunday.

  VII

  My husband’s illness did not last long. He got worse with each day that passed. After a week, the doctors told him frankly that he did not have long to live.

  When I received this fateful news, I almost lost my mind. He was still my husband, Carlota, and, despite all, I could not forget that he had been my companion in life and the one safe haven during all my emotional storms.

  Finding me in this state of despair, Emílio tried to console me. I made no attempt to conceal from him what a great blow my husband’s death would be.

  One night, we were all together, me, my cousin Elvira, one of my husband’s relatives, and Emílio. We were keeping the patient company. After a long silence, my husband turned to me and said:

  “Give me your hand.”

  And, squeezing my hand hard, he turned his face to the wall, and died.

  FOUR MONTHS PASSED. Emílio shared my grief and was a faithful presence at all the funeral ceremonies held for my late husband.

  His visits, however, became less frequent, but I thought this was simply natural delicacy on his part.

  After those four months, I learned from one of my husband’s friends that Emílio was about to leave Rio. I couldn’t believe it. I wrote him a letter.

  I loved him then, as I had before, only even more so now that I was free.

  In my letter I said:

  Emílio: I understand that you are about to leave Rio. Is that possible? I myself could not believe my ears! You know how much I love you. Now is not the time to celebrate our vows, but it will not be long before the world will grant us the union our love demands. Come and see me and explain in person. Your Eugênia.

  Emílio did come and see me. He assured me that, although he was going away, it was on a matter of business and he would be back shortly. He would be leaving in a week’s time.

  I asked him to swear this was true, and he swore.

  I let him leave.

  Four days later, I received the following letter:

  I lied, Eugênia. I’m leaving now. I told you a further lie. I will not be coming back. I won’t come back because I can’t. Marriage to you would be my ideal of happiness were I not a man whose habits make him entirely unsuited for marriage. Goodbye. Forgive me, and wish me a safe journey. Goodbye. Emílio.

  You can easily imagine my feelings on reading that letter. It was like a whole castle crumbling into rubble. This was the reward I received for my love, my first love: ingratitude and scorn. It was only right: such a guilty love should not end well; I was being punished by the consequences of my crime.

  I wondered, though, how that man, who seemed so deeply in love with me, could reject a woman whose honesty he could guarantee, given that she had resisted the wishes of her own heart. This seemed to me a complete mystery. Now I see that there was nothing mysterious about it: Emílio was a vulgar seducer, and all that distinguished him from the others was that he was slightly more adept.

  That is my story. You can imagine how I have suffered over these last two years. Time, though, is a great healer, and I am now cured.

  My rejected love and my feelings of remorse for having, in a way, betrayed my husband’s trust, hurt me deeply. However, I think I have paid dearly for my crime and believe I have been rehabilitated in the eyes of my conscience.

  But will I be rehabilitated in the eyes of God?

  And in your eyes? You will tell me that tomorrow, for I will be with you just twenty-four hours after sending this letter.

  Goodbye!

  STRAIGHT LINE, CURVED LINE

  I

  IT HAPPENED IN PETRóPOLIS, in 186*. My story, as you see, happened not so very long ago. It is drawn from contemporary records and present-day customs. A few readers may even know some of the characters who will appear in this brief
portrait. It wouldn’t be so very odd if, tomorrow, on meeting, say, Azevedo, one of my readers might exclaim:

  “I’ve just read a story about you. The author was quite kind and discreet, but the description was so like you and he took so little care to disguise your features, that, as I turned the pages, I kept saying to myself: ‘Yes, it’s Azevedo to the life.’ ”

  He’s a happy man, Azevedo! At the moment when this story begins, he is a happy husband, entirely happy. Just married, possessed of a wife who was the most beautiful woman in Petrópolis society, and possessed, too, of the kindest heart to be found beneath the sun of the Americas, the owner of a couple of well-situated and eminently rentable properties, respected, loved, and untroubled, that is our Azevedo, who, to complete his great good fortune, is a handsome, healthy twenty-six-year-old.

  Fortune has also given him a very easy job—doing nothing. He has a degree in law, but has never made any use of it; it’s still in the classic tin box in which he brought it from the University of São Paulo. He would occasionally revisit his degree certificate, but only very rarely, and then not again until another long period of time had elapsed. It’s not so much a certificate as a relic.

  When Ernesto Azevedo left university and went back to the family estate in the province of Minas Gerais, he had a plan: to go to Europe. After a few months, his father agreed to let him go, and Azevedo began preparations for the voyage. He arrived in Rio with the firm intention of taking a berth on the first steamer available, but not everything depends on the will of man. Before embarking, Azevedo went to a dance, and awaiting him there was the net in which he would be caught. And what a net! Twenty years old, a slim, frail, delicate figure, one of those insubstantial creatures who seems to dissolve in the first light of day. Azevedo could not help himself; he fell passionately in love; a month later, he was married, and a week after that, the couple left for Petrópolis.

  What house would be home to that handsome, loving, happy couple? The house they chose could not have been more appropriate; it was a light, slender, elegant affair, more of a holiday home than a permanent dwelling; a real little love nest for those two fugitive doves.

  Our story begins exactly three months after their departure to Petrópolis. Azevedo and his wife were still as deeply in love as they had been on the first day. Then love took on a new and far greater importance, for—dare I say it, O couples who have only been married for three months—their first child had already appeared on the horizon. And both heaven and earth rejoice when the first ray of sun appears on the horizon. I am not using this image for purely stylistic reasons, it is simply a logical deduction. Anyway, Azevedo’s wife was called Adelaide.