“Yes, as a friend, nothing more.”
“I don’t marry her because she doesn’t want to marry me.”
Camilo pulled his horse up short and asked in some amazement:
“If she doesn’t want to, then why do you intend to stop her from marrying anyone else . . . ?”
“It’s a very long story. Isabel—”
“Isabel?” Camilo said, interrupting him. “The daughter of Dr. Matos, who was trial court judge about ten years ago?”
“The very same.”
“She must be a young woman now.”
“She’s twenty years old.”
“Yes, I remember how pretty she was when she was twelve.”
“Oh, she’s changed a lot . . . for the better too! She turns the head of every man who sees her. She’s already rejected a few offers of marriage. I was the last to be rejected, and she herself came to tell me why.”
“And what did she say?”
“ ‘Look, Senhor Soares,’ she said, ‘you deserve to be accepted as a husband by any young woman, and I myself could say yes, but the reason I don’t is that I know we would never be happy.’ ”
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing more. That was all.”
“And you never spoke to her again?”
“No, on the contrary, we speak often. She doesn’t treat me any differently. Were it not for those words—which still wound me deeply—I could still feel as if I had a chance. I can see, though, that it’s hopeless. She doesn’t love me.”
“May I speak frankly?”
“Of course.”
“You strike me as a complete egotist.”
“Possibly, but that’s the way I am. I feel jealous of everything, even the air she breathes. If I saw that she loved another man and could do nothing to stop the marriage, I would move to another province. What keeps me going is the belief that she never will love anyone else, which is what most people think.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that she can’t love anyone,” said Camilo, staring across at the horizon as if he could see there the image of his beloved, that lovely subject of the Czar. “Not all women possess that heavenly gift, which is what distinguishes the most select of minds. There are some, however, who give themselves body and soul to their beloved, filling his heart with deep affection, and thus fully deserving his eternal adoration. Such women are rare, I know, but they do exist . . .”
Camilo ended this homage to the lady of his thoughts, giving wings to a sigh, and had that sigh failed to reach its destination, this would not have been for want of trying on the part of its originator. His companion did not understand what lay behind this speech and repeated that the lovely Isabel was very far from loving anyone and he was still further from allowing her to do so.
This subject was pleasing to both men, and they continued to speak of it until dusk fell. Shortly afterward, they reached an inn, where they would spend the night.
Once the servants had unloaded the mules, coffee and then supper were prepared. It was on such occasions that our hero missed Paris most keenly. What a difference between the suppers he had enjoyed at restaurants on the boulevards and that light, rough-and-ready meal in a miserable roadside inn, with none of the delicacies of French cuisine and no Figaro or Gazette des Tribunaux to read!
Camilo sighed and grew even less communicative. Not that this mattered, because his companion talked enough for both of them.
Once supper was over, Camilo lit an expensive cigar and Soares a rather cheaper one. It was dark by then. The fire that had been lit for supper illuminated a small area around about, although this was hardly necessary, for a pale, brilliant moon was beginning to rise behind a hill, its light glancing off the leaves of the trees and the quiet waters of the river snaking past nearby.
One of the muleteers took out a guitar and began singing a song, the rustic simplicity of whose words and melody would have delighted anyone, but for Camilo it merely stirred sad memories of the trills and tremolos he used to hear at the opera. Other memories surfaced too: one night when the lovely Muscovite, seated languidly in a box at the Comédie-Italienne, stopped listening to the tenor’s tender yearnings in order, instead, to gaze on Camilo, peering at him from afar over a nosegay of violets.
Soares climbed into his hammock and fell asleep.
The muleteer stopped singing, and soon all was silence.
Camilo remained alone in the lovely, solemn night. He was certainly not immune to beauty, and the near-novelty of that spectacle, which he had forgotten after his long absence, made a deep impression on him.
Now and then, he heard the distant howling of some wild animal wandering the wilderness. At other times, he heard night birds calling sadly. The crickets and frogs and toads formed part of the chorus in that opera of the wild, and much as our hero admired it, he would doubtless have preferred to be listening to an opéra bouffe.
He remained like this for a long time, almost two hours, letting his thoughts drift wherever his fancy took him, building up and tearing down endless castles in the air. Suddenly he was woken from his reverie by the voice of Soares, who seemed to be in the grip of a nightmare. Camilo listened and heard the occasional muffled word:
“Isabel . . . dear Isabel . . . What? Oh, dear God! Help!”
These last words were spoken in far more anguished tones than the first. Camilo ran to his friend’s side and shook him hard. Soares started awake, sat up, and, looking around him, murmured:
“What’s wrong?”
“You were having a nightmare.”
“Oh, yes, it was a nightmare. Thank heavens for that. What time is it?”
“It’s still dark.”
“Are you awake already?”
“No, I was just about to get into my hammock. Let’s go to sleep. It’s late.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my dream.”
And the next day, when they were only a few yards into their journey, Soares told him about that terrible dream.
“I was standing by a river,” he said, “with a rifle in my hand, watching for capybara. I happened to glance up at a steep hill on the other side and saw a young woman riding a black horse. She was all dressed in black, too, and her black hair hung loose over her shoulders.”
“Nothing but blackness, then,” commented Camilo, interrupting him.
“No, listen. I was really surprised to see her there and on horseback, too, a delicate young woman like her. Who do you think she was?”
“Isabel?”
“Yes, Isabel. I ran along the bank and climbed onto a rock just opposite where she had stopped, and I asked her what she was doing there. She remained silent for a while, then, pointing down into the depths of the river, she said:
“ ‘My hat has fallen in the water.’
“ ‘Ah!’
“ ‘Do you love me?’ she asked moments later.
“ ‘More than life itself.’
“ ‘Will you do as I ask?’
“ ‘Anything.’
“ ‘Well, then, go and fetch my hat.’
“I stared down into a vast chasm in which the muddy, churning water boiled and roared. Instead of being carried downstream to be lost forever, her hat had become caught on an outcrop of rock and seemed to be inviting me to go and fetch it. However, this was quite impossible. I looked all around me to see if I could find a way, but in vain.”
“What a febrile imagination you have!” remarked Camilo.
“I kept searching for the right words to dissuade Isabel from sending me on that terrifying mission, when I felt someone place a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was a man. It was you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You regarded me scornfully, then smiled at her and stared into the abyss. Suddenly, I don’t know how, you were down there, reaching out to grab the fateful hat.”
“Goodness.”
“The waters, however, grew still wilder and threatened to drown you. Uttering an anguished cry, Isabel spurred on her
horse and plunged in too. I shouted, called for help, but it was no use. The swirling water had enveloped you both . . . It was then that you woke me.”
When Leandro Soares concluded this account of his nightmare, he still seemed terrified by what had happened, even though it had all been in his imagination. I should point out that he believed in dreams.
“That’s what happens when you go to sleep on a full stomach!” cried Camilo, once Soares had finished his account. “What tosh! The hat, the river, the horse, and, to top it all, my presence in that fantastical melodrama; it’s simply the creation of someone with a bad case of indigestion. Some theaters in Paris put on nightmares like that, which are far worse because they’re much longer. What is clear to me is that you’re still thinking of that girl even when you’re asleep.”
“Yes, even when I’m asleep.”
Soares spoke these last words almost like a disembodied echo. After finishing his description of his dream, and after listening to what Camilo had to say, he had a series of thoughts that remained hidden from the author of this story. The most I can say is that they were clearly not happy thoughts, because he bowed his head, furrowed his brow, and, fixing his gaze on his horse’s ears, withdrew into an inviolable silence.
From that day on, Camilo found the journey less bearable. Apart from the vague melancholy that had taken hold of his traveling companion, he was beginning to grow bored with riding league after apparently endless league. Eventually, Soares recovered his customary verbosity, but, by then, nothing could dispel the mortal tedium overwhelming poor Camilo.
However, when they spotted the town, near to the farm where Camilo had spent his early youth, he felt his heart beat faster. He grew serious. For a while, at least, Paris and its splendors gave way to the small, honest homeland of the Seabra family.
Chapter III
THE MEETING
It was real day of celebration when the comendador clasped to his breast the son he had dispatched to foreign lands eight years before. The kind old man could not hold back his tears, for they sprang from a heart still brimming with love and overflowing with tenderness. Camilo’s joy was no less intense or sincere. He repeatedly kissed his father’s hands and brow, embraced other relatives and friends from his youth, and, for a few days, albeit not many, he appeared to be completely cured of any desire to return to Europe.
In the town itself and its environs, people spoke of nothing else. The comendador’s son was the sole, exclusive topic of conversation. People never wearied of praising him. They admired his manners and his elegance. Even the rather superior way in which he spoke found sincere enthusiasts. For many days, it was absolutely impossible for the young man to do anything but recount his travels to his adoring compatriots. It was worth the effort, though, because everything he said had for them an indefinable charm. Father Maciel, who had baptized him twenty-seven years before, and who was seeing him now a grown man, was the first to speak of this transformation.
“You must be very proud, sir,” he said to Camilo’s father, “you must be very proud that heaven has given you such a fine son! Now, it may just be my own fondness for the young man, who, only yesterday, was a mere scrap of a boy, but I think Santa Luzia is going to have a first-class doctor. And not just a doctor, either, but a philosopher, because he really does seem to me to be a philosopher too. I sounded him out on the matter yesterday, and I couldn’t fault his reply.”
Uncle Jorge was always asking everyone what they thought of his nephew. Colonel Veiga was constantly thanking Providence for Camilo’s arrival so close to the Feast of the Holy Spirit.
“Without him, the ball would have been incomplete.”
Dr. Matos was the last person to visit the comendador’s son. He was a tall, robust old man, only slightly bowed down by the years.
“Come in, Doctor,” said Camilo’s father as soon as he arrived, “come in and meet my young man.”
“And he is indeed a man,” answered Dr. Matos, looking at Camilo. “He’s more of a man than I imagined. But then, it has been eight years. Let me embrace you, sir.”
Camilo opened his arms to the old man. Then, as he did with all those who came to visit him, he told him a little of his travels and his studies. Needless to say, our hero omitted anything that might tarnish his image. If he was to be believed, he had more or less lived the life of a hermit, and no one dared think otherwise.
Joy was unbounded in the town and its environs, and, flattered by this unexpectedly warm reception, Camilo rarely thought about Paris. But time passes, and our feelings alter. After two weeks, the novelty of those first impressions had worn off; the farm began to change in appearance: the fields seemed monotonous, the trees monotonous, the rivers monotonous, the town monotonous, he himself seemed monotonous. He was filled then by what we might call the nostalgia of exile.
“No,” he said to himself, “I cannot possibly stay here for another three months. It’s either Paris or the graveyard, that’s the choice I’m faced with. In three months’ time, I’ll either be dead or en route to Europe.”
Camilo’s boredom did not escape his father, who spent almost all his time gazing at his son.
“He’s right,” thought the comendador. “No one who has lived in those beautiful, lively places could ever be very happy here. He needs something to occupy him—politics, for example.”
“Politics!” cried Camilo, when his father mentioned this as a possibility. “Where would politics get me, Father?”
“A long way. You could become the province’s first deputy, then join the Chamber of Deputies in Rio de Janeiro. One day, you could challenge the government, and if it fell, you might then get a seat in the cabinet. Have you never wanted to be a minister?”
“Never.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s good to be a minister.”
“What, and try to govern other men?” said Camilo, laughing. “The male sex is entirely ungovernable, Father. Personally, I prefer the fairer sex.”
Seabra laughed, too, but still did not lose hope of one day convincing his son and heir.
Camilo had been in his father’s house for nearly three weeks when he recalled what Soares had told him and the dream he’d had. The first time he went into town and met Soares, he asked:
“Tell me, how’s your Isabel? I haven’t so much as caught a glimpse of her yet.”
Soares gave him a louring look, shrugged, and muttered:
“I don’t know.”
Camilo did not insist, thinking: “His illness is obviously still at the acute stage.”
He was curious, though, to see the lovely Isabel, who had brought that garrulous electioneer so low. He had already spoken to every other girl for ten leagues around. Isabel was the only one who had so far eluded him. No, “eluded” is the wrong word. Camilo had visited Dr. Matos’s farm once, but his daughter had been ill. Or so he was told.
“Don’t worry,” said a neighbor to whom he had expressed his impatience to meet Leandro Soares’s beloved, “you’ll see her at Colonel Veiga’s ball, or at the Holy Spirit festivities, or on some other occasion.”
Various things could not help but prick Camilo’s curiosity: the young woman’s beauty—even though he could not believe it could possibly be superior or even equal to that of Prince Alexis’s widow—together with Soares’s own unquenchable passion, and the mysterious tone in which people spoke of Isabel.
The following Sunday, eight days before the Festival of the Holy Spirit, Camilo left the farm to attend mass at the church in town, as he had on the previous Sundays. His horse trotted slowly along, and his thoughts kept the same indolent pace, spreading out over the countryside in eager search of some lost sensation it yearned to have again.
A thousand remarkable ideas passed through Camilo’s mind. One moment he was wishing he could fly through the air, horse and all, and land slap-bang in front of the Palais Royal, or any other spot in the world’s capital city. The next he was imag
ining some great deluge that would sweep him off to have lunch in Café Tortoni just two minutes after kneeling at Father Maciel’s altar.
Suddenly, in the distance, as he rounded a bend in the road, he saw two ladies on horseback, accompanied by a page. Spurring his horse, he soon caught up with them. One of the ladies turned, smiled, and stopped. Camilo doffed his hat and held out his hand, which she shook.
This lady was the wife of Colonel Veiga. She was probably about forty-five, but certainly did not look her age. The other lady, aware that her companion had stopped, also stopped and turned around. Camilo had not yet looked at her, however, for he was listening to Dona Gertrudes, who was giving him news of the colonel.
“He thinks of nothing but the festivities now,” she was saying. “He’s probably at church already. Are you going to mass?”
“I am.”
“Let’s go together, then.”
After this rapid exchange, Camilo finally looked at the other rider. She, however, was already some way ahead. He drew his horse up alongside Dona Gertrudes, and the procession set off again. They had been chatting for about ten minutes, when the horse of the lady in front came to an abrupt halt.
“What is it, Isabel?” asked Dona Gertrudes.
“Isabel?” cried Camilo, oblivious to the incident that had provoked Dona Gertrudes’s question.
The young woman turned and shrugged, saying only:
“I don’t know.”
The horse had heard a noise coming from the thick bamboo grove to the left of the road, but before Camilo’s page could discover the cause of the horse’s reluctance to proceed, the young woman had made a supreme effort and, vigorously whipping her horse, had managed to persuade it to overcome its fear and gallop on ahead.
“Isabel?” Camilo said again. “Is that young woman Dr. Matos’s daughter?”
“Yes, didn’t you recognize her?”
“I haven’t seen her for eight years. She’s a real beauty! I’m not surprised that people here talk so much about her. I was told she’d been ill . . .”
“She has, but her illnesses are minor things. It’s her nerves, apparently; at least that, I believe, is what people say when they don’t know what’s wrong with someone.”
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 24
