The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis

by Machado De Assis

  “They’re here!” exclaimed a voice.

  But it was nothing. What they heard seemed to be (and forgive me for marrying this noun to this adjective) a kind of aural mirage.

  At six thirty-eight, the carriages arrived. There was great excitement in the parlor; the ladies ran to the windows. The men eyed each other like conspirators gathering their forces for some major undertaking. The wedding party entered. The houseboys, waiting in the hallway for the bride and groom, took their young mistress completely by surprise by showering her with rose petals. And, as there always are on such occasions, many kisses and words of congratulations were given.

  José Lemos was beside himself with joy, but the news that Lieutenant Porfírio had still not arrived put something of a damper on his high spirits.

  “We must send for him.”

  “At this hour?” murmured Calisto Valadares.

  “Without Porfírio the party won’t be complete,” José Lemos whispered to Dr. Valença.

  “Papa,” said Rodrigo, “I don’t think he’s coming.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “It’s nearly seven o’clock.”

  “And supper is ready,” added Dona Beatriz.

  Dona Beatriz’s words carried considerable weight with José Lemos, which is why he did not insist. They had no choice but to give up on the lieutenant.

  However, the lieutenant was a man accustomed to awkward situations, someone you would want on your side in a tight corner. No sooner had Dona Beatriz finished speaking, with José Lemos mentally agreeing with her, than the voice of Lieutenant Porfírio was heard on the stairs. The master of the house gave a sigh of relief and satisfaction. The long-awaited guest entered the room.

  The lieutenant belonged to that happy class of men who are apparently ageless; some thought he was thirty, others thirty-five, and others forty; some even went as high as forty-five, and they could all have been right, for the lieutenant’s face and brown side-whiskers fitted all these hypotheses. He was thin, of medium height, and dressed rather stylishly; indeed, there was really very little to distinguish him from any other dandy. The one thing that jarred slightly was his way of walking; Lieutenant Porfírio’s feet were so widely splayed that you could almost draw a straight line between right foot and left. However, everything has its compensations, and in his case, these were the flat patent-leather shoes he wore, revealing a fine pair of woolen socks whose surface was smoother than a billiard ball.

  He entered with a grace that was peculiar to him. To greet the bride and groom, he bent his right arm so that the hand holding his hat was behind his back, then bowed very low, and remained in that posture, so that (from a distance) he resembled one of those old-fashioned lampposts.

  Porfírio had been a lieutenant in the army before being discharged, which suited him perfectly, because he had then gone into the furniture business and made quite a sum of money. He was not particularly good-looking, but, despite this, some ladies said he was more dangerous than a can of dynamite. This was clearly not because of the way he spoke, because he had a particularly sibilant s, saying, for example: At your ssservisss, sssenhora . . .

  When Porfírio had finished greeting everyone, José Lemos said to him:

  “We’re expecting great things from you tonight!”

  “Ah,” Porfírio responded with exemplary modesty. “Who would dare to speak in the presence of such erudition?”

  He said these words, meanwhile thrusting four fingers of his left hand into his vest pocket, a gesture he cultivated because he did not know what to do with that awkward arm, which is always such a trial to novice actors.

  “But why are you so late?” asked Dona Beatriz.

  “Reproach me if you must, dear lady, but spare me the embarrassment of having to explain a delay for which there is no excuse in the code of friendship and good manners.”

  José Lemos smiled and glanced around at the others as if the lieutenant’s words bestowed on him some kind of reflected glory. Despite the pastries he had eaten, Justiniano Vilela still felt ineluctably drawn toward the supper table and exclaimed rather vulgarly:

  “Well, at least you arrived in time for supper!”

  “Yes, let’s all go in, shall we?” said José Lemos, offering an arm each to Dona Margarida and to Dona Virgínia, while the other guests followed behind.

  The joy of pilgrims reaching Mecca could not have been greater than that of the guests when they saw the long table, groaning with roast meats and desserts and fruit and set with china dishes and glasses. They all sat down in their allotted places. For some minutes, there was a silence such as the silence that precedes a battle, and only when this was broken did general conversation begin.

  “When I introduced young Duarte to the household a year ago, who would have thought that he would one day be the delightful Dona Carlota’s bridegroom?” said Dr. Valença, wiping his lips on his napkin and glancing benevolently across at the bride.

  “Yes, who would have thought it?” said Dona Beatriz.

  “It must have been the hand of Fate,” said Dona Margarida.

  “It was indeed,” replied Dona Beatriz.

  “If it was the hand of Fate,” said the groom, “I thank the heavens for taking such an interest in me.”

  Dona Carlota smiled, and José Lemos thought these words in excellent taste and worthy of a son-in-law.

  “Fate or chance?” asked Lieutenant Porfírio. “I favor the latter, myself.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said Vilela, looking up from his plate for the first time. “What you call chance is, in fact, Fate. Weddings and winding sheets are made in heaven.”

  “Oh, so you believe in proverbs, do you?”

  “They contain the wisdom of the people,” said José Lemos.

  “No, they don’t,” said the lieutenant. “For every proverb stating one thing, there’s another stating the opposite. Proverbs lie. I think it was simply a very happy happenstance, or, rather, the law of the attraction of souls that led Senhor Luís Duarte to be drawn to the charming daughter of our very own Amphitryon.”

  José Lemos had no idea who Amphitryon was, but confident that, if Porfírio mentioned him, he must be all right, he smiled and thanked Porfírio for what seemed to be a compliment, meanwhile helping himself to some jelly, which Justiniano Vilela assured him was excellent.

  The young women were whispering and smiling, the bride and groom were absorbed in an exchange of sweet nothings, while Rodrigo was picking his teeth so loudly that his mother shot him one of those fulminating glances that were her weapon of choice.

  “Some jelly, Senhor Calisto?” asked José Lemos, his spoon in the air.

  “Yes, just a little,” said the man with the sallow face.

  “The jelly is excellent,” Justiniano said for the third time, and his wife was so embarrassed by these words that she could not conceal a grimace of distaste.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Valença, “I propose a toast to the happy couple.”

  “Bravo!” said a voice.

  “Is that it?” asked Rodrigo. “We want a longer toast than that.”

  “Mama, I want some jelly!” said Antonico.

  “I’m not one for making speeches. I am simply raising my glass to the bride and groom.”

  Everyone drank.

  “I want jelly!” insisted Antonico.

  Dona Beatriz felt her inner Medea stirring within her, but respect for her guests prevented any unpleasant scene. The good lady merely said to one of the servants:

  “Give this to the young master, will you?”

  Antonico received the dish and began eating the way children eat when they’re not really hungry: he would raise a spoonful to his mouth and spend an age rolling the contents of the spoon around between tongue and palate, while the spoon, pushed to one side, formed a slight lump in his right cheek. At the same time, he kept kicking his legs, repeatedly hitting first the chair and then the table.

  While this was going o
n—not that anyone took much notice—the conversation continued. Dr. Valença was discussing with one lady the excellence of the sherry, and Eduardo Valadares was reciting a poem to the young woman sitting next to him.

  Suddenly José Lemos stood up.

  “Ssshh!” hissed everyone.

  José Lemos picked up a glass and said to those around the table:

  “I am not prompted to speak by any feeling of pride to be addressing such an illustrious audience. I am responding to the higher duty of courtesy, friendship, and gratitude, that most preeminent, sacred, and immortal of duties.”

  The audience would have been cruel indeed not to applaud these words, and their applause did not ruffle the speaker in the least, for the simple reason that he knew the speech by heart.

  “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I bow before that duty, the holiest and most imperious of all duties. I drink to my friends, to those steadfast adherents of the heart, those vestal virgins, both male and female, devotees of the pure flame of friendship! To my friends! To friendship!”

  To be honest, the only person who understood the utter nullity of José Lemos’s speech was Dr. Valença, who was himself no intellectual, which is why he rose to propose a toast to their host’s oratorical talents.

  These two toasts were followed by the customary silence, until Rodrigo turned to Lieutenant Porfírio and asked if he had perhaps left his muse at home.

  “Yes,” said one lady, “we want to hear you. People say you speak really well.”

  “Me, senhora?” replied Porfírio with all the modesty of a man who believes himself to be another golden-mouthed Saint John Chrysostom.

  Once the champagne had been poured and handed around, Lieutenant Porfírio stood up. Vilela, who was some distance away, cupped one hand behind his right ear, while Calisto, fixing his eyes firmly on the tablecloth, appeared to be counting every thread. José Lemos alerted his wife, who, at that moment, was trying to tempt the implacable Antonico with a sweet chestnut; all other eyes were on the speaker.

  “Ladies! Gentlemen!” said Porfírio. “I do not intend to rummage around in the very heart of history, that teacher of life, to find out what marriage was like in the earliest ages of humankind. We all know, ladies and gentlemen, what marriage is. Marriage is the rose, the queen of the garden, unfurling its red petals in order to protect us from the thistles and thorns and barbs of life . . .”

  “Bravo!”

  “Delightful!”

  “If marriage is what I have just revealed to your auricular senses, there is no need to explain the joy, the fervor, the loving impulse, the explosions of sentiment felt by all of us seated here around this altar to celebrate our dear and much-loved friend.”

  José Lemos bowed his head so low that the tip of his nose touched a pear that lay in front of him on the table, and Dona Beatriz turned to Dr. Valença, who was sitting beside her, and said:

  “Doesn’t he speak well! He’s like a walking dictionary!”

  Porfírio went on:

  “I fear, ladies and gentlemen, that I lack the necessary talent to speak on the subject . . .”

  “Nonsense! You speak really well!” cried many of the people surrounding him.

  “You are far too kind, but I still do not feel I have the necessary talent to grapple with a subject of such magnitude.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Please, you’re too kind,” said Porfírio, bowing. “While, as I say, I may lack that particular talent, I have more than enough goodwill, the same goodwill that led the Apostles to plant the religion of Calvary in the world, and thanks to that same feeling, I can sum up in just a few words my toast to the happy couple. Ladies and gentlemen, two flowers were born in two different flower beds, both of them beautiful, both highly scented, both full of divine life. They were born for each other; they were the carnation and the rose; the rose lived only for the carnation, the carnation lived only for the rose: along came a breeze and mingled the perfumes of the two flowers, and they, knowing they were in love, ran to meet each other. The breeze was godfather to that union. The rose and the carnation are united in the embrace of love, and sitting over there is the breeze honoring our gathering here tonight.”

  No one was expecting this breeze; the breeze was Dr. Valença.

  Loud applause greeted this speech combining Calvary with the carnation and the rose. Porfírio sat down with a sense of having done his duty.

  Supper was coming to an end; it was half-past eight; a few musicians were arriving in readiness for the ball. Still to come was a poem by Eduardo Valadares and a few more toasts to all those present and to those few who were absent. Now, with the liqueurs coming to the aid of the muses, battle was engaged between Lieutenant Porfírio and Justiniano Vilela, although the latter had to be urged to enter the arena. Once all subjects for debate had been exhausted, Porfírio proposed a toast to the army and its generals, and Vilela a toast to the union of all the provinces of the empire. When everyone else got up from the table, the two of them remained behind, warmly toasting all the practical and useful ideas of this world and the next.

  The ball that followed was a very lively affair that went on until three in the morning.

  No untoward incident marred the party. At most, there was a rather regrettable remark made by José Lemos when dancing with Dona Margarida, during which he boldly lamented her fate at having a husband who preferred proposing endless toasts to enjoying the priceless good fortune of being by her side. Dona Margarida smiled, and the incident went no further.

  At two o’clock, Dr. Valença left with his family, and, despite the generally familiar tone of the party, he had not lost one iota of his habitual gravity all evening. Calisto Valadares escaped when Dona Beatriz’s younger daughter got up to sing at the piano, and the other guests gradually drifted away.

  When the party finally drew to a close, the last two tribal leaders of the dining table were still toasting all and sundry. Vilela’s final toast was to the world’s progress via coffee and cotton, while Porfírio raised his glass to universal peace.

  However, the real toast of that memorable feast was the little baby born in January of the following year, who, if he survives his teething pains, will live to continue the Lemos dynasty.

  ERNESTO WHAT’S-HIS-NAME

  Chapter I

  THAT YOUNG MAN standing over there on the corner of Rua Nova do Conde and Campo da Aclamação at ten o’clock at night is not a thief, he’s not even a philosopher. True, he does have a somewhat mysterious air about him; now and then, he presses one hand to his breast or slaps his thigh or throws down a barely smoked cigar. No, he’s clearly not a philosopher, nor, for that matter, a petty thief, because if someone happens to walk by on the same side of the street, he withdraws into the shadows as if afraid of being recognized.

  Every ten minutes or so, he walks up the street to where it meets Rua do Areal, only to walk back down again ten minutes later, up and down, down and up, and all he achieves is a five percent increase in the angry murmur in his heart.

  Anyone seeing him going back and forth, slapping his thigh, lighting then immediately stubbing out cigars, would assume—quite reasonably, if he had no other explanation—that the man was mad or nearly mad. But no, Ernesto (I’m not authorized to give his whole name) happens to be in love with a young woman who lives on that street; and he is angry because he has not yet received an answer to the letter he sent her this morning.

  We should explain that two days ago, they had a bit of a lover’s tiff, and, breaking his vow never to write to her again, Ernesto had, that very morning, sent her an epistle that filled four incendiary pages, replete with exclamation marks and other punctuational outrages. The letter was dispatched, but no answer came.

  Each time our young lover walked up and down the street, he stopped in front of a two-story house, inside which people could be seen dancing to the sound of a piano. This was where the lady of his thoughts lived, but he paused there in vain, for she did not appear at the window, and no
letter reached his hands.

  Ernesto bit his lip so as not to utter a cry of despair and went off to the next corner to vent his fury.

  “What possible explanation can there be?” he said to himself. “Why does she not throw me a note from the window? No, she’s obviously too busy dancing, possibly with her new inamorato, and she’s completely forgotten that I’m out here in the street when I could be inside . . .”

  At this point, he fell silent, and instead of the gesture of despair he should have made, he merely let out a long, sorrowful sigh. The explanation for this sigh, so unlikely in a man seething with rage, is almost too delicate a matter to be set down in writing, but, on the principle that one should either say nothing at all or reveal everything, here goes.

  Ernesto was standing outside the house of Senhor Vieira, Rosina’s uncle, Rosina being the name of Ernesto’s beloved. He was a frequent visitor to the house, and it was there that he had quarreled with her two days before this particular Saturday in October 1850, when the events I’m describing took place. Now, why is Ernesto not one of those gentlemen dancing and drinking tea? The previous afternoon, Senhor Vieira had chanced to meet Ernesto in the street and told him that, the following day, they would be holding a small party to celebrate some family occasion, I can’t quite remember which.

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” he said, “and I’ve only invited a few people, but I’m hoping that it will, nonetheless, be a brilliant affair. In fact, I was about to send you a formal invitation, but you hardly need one, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” Ernesto answered, rubbing his hands contentedly.

  “Be sure to come!”

  “I will, sir!”

  “Oh, there’s just one thing,” said Vieira as he was turning to go. “The subdelegate will be coming, too, as well as the comendador, and I’d like all my guests to wear tails. You can put up with that for one evening, can’t you?”

  “With pleasure,” said Ernesto, turning as pale as a ghost.