The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis

by Machado De Assis

  At the hotel, Dr. Lemos looked for a table away from the other diners, so as not to attract too much attention.

  “Here it is,” said Luís Tinoco, having finally managed to wrest the promised poem from the bundle of papers.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to read that after we’ve eaten?” said the doctor.

  “As you wish,” Luís Tinoco answered. “Yes, you’re quite right. I am actually rather hungry.”

  Luís Tinoco was pure prose at the dining table, and ate like a man unbound.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said now and then, “this is the beast being fed. The soul is not to blame.”

  Over dessert—by which time there were only about five other customers left in the room—Luís Tinoco unfolded the dreaded sheet of paper and read the promised verses in a ridiculously affected, singsong voice. The poem spoke of everything, death and life, flowers and worms, love and hate; there were more than eight “cypresses,” nearly twenty “tears” and more “tombs” than a cemetery.

  The remaining five diners turned to look when Luís Tinoco began to recite, then began to smile and murmur inaudible comments. When the poet finished, one of their neighbors—a rather crude fellow—let out a loud guffaw. Luís Tinoco spun around, furious, but Dr. Lemos restrained him, saying:

  “He wasn’t laughing at us.”

  “Yes, he was, my friend,” Luís said resignedly, “but what can we do? Not everyone understands poetry enough to respect it as they should.”

  “Let us leave,” said Dr. Lemos. “They clearly cannot grasp what it means to be a poet.”

  “Yes, let’s go!”

  Dr. Lemos paid the bill, and Luís Tinoco followed him out, glaring defiantly at the man who had laughed.

  Luís walked with him back to his house. On the way, he recited some verses he knew by heart. When he surrendered himself to the sound of his own poetry—not someone else’s, about which he cared very little—it was as if everything else were erased from his memory; self-contemplation sufficed. Dr. Lemos listened in the resigned silence of one who has to put up with the rain, which he can do nothing to stop.

  Shortly afterward, Gillyflowers and Camellias saw the light of day, and all the newspapers promised to review it at length.

  In his introduction, the poet acknowledged that it was very bold of him “to come and sit at the communion table of poetry, but that anyone who felt stirring within him the j’ai quelque chose là of André Chénier should give to his country what nature had given to him.” He then went on to apologize for his extreme youth and assured readers that he had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He concluded by giving his blessing to the book and calling attention to the list of subscribers at the back.

  This monumental work was greeted with general indifference. Only one minor critic of the day devoted a few lines to it, lines that made everyone laugh; everyone, that is, except the author, who even went to thank the man in person.

  After that, Dr. Lemos lost sight of his poet for some time, or, rather, he lost sight of the man but not his work, because Luís Tinoco’s poems would sporadically appear in some literary journal or other, which Dr. Lemos would inevitably read only to be astonished by Luís Tinoco’s sterile, dogged persistence. There was no occasion, no funeral, no solemn event, that escaped the inspiration of that fecund writer. Since his ideas were very few in number, it could be said that he had only ever written a eulogy, an elegy, an ode, and an encomium. The various examples of each type were merely the same thing said in a slightly different way. In that different way, however, lay the poet’s originality, an originality he did not possess to begin with, but which developed greatly over time.

  Unfortunately, in throwing himself ardently into these literary labors, he forgot all about his legal labors, which provided him with his daily bread. One day, Anastácio spoke of this misfortune to Dr. Lemos, in a letter that concluded thus: “My friend, I really do not know where the boy will end up. I can see only two possibilities: the insane asylum or prison.”

  Dr. Lemos summoned the poet. In order to predispose him to hear what he was about to say, he initially praised his work. The young man opened his heart to him.

  “It’s just as well that I do hear the occasional encouraging word,” he said. “You cannot imagine the envy that surrounds me. But what does that matter? I trust in the future, and posterity will be my revenge.”

  “You’re right, posterity will always have its revenge on contemporary malice.”

  “A few days ago, some rag somewhere described me as a stringer-together of mere bagatelles. I saw what lay behind this, though. They were accusing me of not embarking on a longer, more ambitious work. I’m going to prove that scribbler wrong, and I’m now writing an epic poem!”

  “Oh, no!” thought Dr. Lemos, sensing that he was about to have a poem forced upon him.

  “I could show you a fragment,” Luís Tinoco went on, “but I would prefer you to read the poem when it’s at a more advanced stage.”

  “An excellent idea.”

  “There are ten cantos and about ten thousand lines, but shall I tell you my problem?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m in love.”

  “Well, that’s certainly unfortunate for a man in your position.”

  “What has my position got to do with it?”

  “I understand that things at work are not going well. It’s said that you’ve been somewhat neglecting your duties at the courts and that they’re about to dismiss you.”

  “I was dismissed yesterday.”

  “Already?”

  “Yes, it’s true. And you should have heard the speech I addressed to the notary, in front of the whole department too! Oh, yes, I had my revenge, all right!”

  “But what will you live on now? I doubt very much that your godfather can support you.”

  “God will help me. After all, do I not have a pen in my hand? Did I not receive at birth a certain talent that has already reaped reward? Up until now, I haven’t attempted to earn anything from my work, but then I was a mere amateur. From now on, things will be different. If I need to earn a living, then I will.”

  The conviction with which Luís Tinoco said these words saddened Dr. Lemos. For a few seconds—perhaps with just a touch of envy—he contemplated this incorrigible dreamer, so detached from the realities of life, convinced not only that a great future awaited him, but also that he really could use his pen as a hoe.

  “Don’t worry,” said Luís Tinoco. “I’m going to prove to you and my godfather that I’m not as useless as I seem. I don’t lack for courage, Doctor, and if I ever do, there’s a certain star . . .”

  Luís Tinoco paused, twiddled his mustache, and gazed up at the sky in a melancholy fashion. Dr. Lemos looked, too, but without a hint of melancholy, indeed he laughed and asked:

  “A star at midday? That would be unusual . . .”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about those stars,” broke in Luís Tinoco, “but that is where she should be, up there in blue space among her older and less beautiful sisters . . .”

  “Ah, a young woman!”

  “Say, rather, the loveliest creature upon whom the sun ever shone, a sylph, my Beatrice, my Juliet, my Laura . . .”

  “She must be very beautiful to have captured the heart of a poet.”

  “You are a good man, my friend. Laura is an angel, and I adore her . . .”

  “And what about her?”

  “She may not even know that I am consumed with love for her.”

  “That’s not good!”

  “What do you expect?” said Luís Tinoco, wiping away an imaginary tear with his handkerchief. “It is the fate of all poets to burn and yearn for things they cannot have. That is the substance of a poem I wrote a week ago. I published it in The Literary Arbor.”

  “What the devil is that?”

  “It’s my personal magazine, which I myself have printed every two weeks. I thought you said you read my work!”

  “
I do, but I can’t always remember the titles. But let’s get down to what really matters. No one denies you have talent and a fertile imagination, but you’re deluding yourself if you think you can live off poetry and literary articles. You’ve already discovered that your poetry and your articles are far above the understanding of ordinary people, which is why they find so few readers . . .”

  These discouraging words delivered along with that large bouquet of roses had a salutary effect on Luís Tinoco, who could not suppress a smile of smug satisfaction. Dr. Lemos concluded his speech by offering to find him a position as a clerk in a lawyer’s office. Luís Tinoco looked at him for a while without saying a word. Then, in the most melancholy, resigned tone imaginable, he said:

  “You mean go back to the courts and once more besmirch my inspiration with bills of indictment and shyster lawyers talking all kinds of legal mumbo-jumbo! In exchange for what? A few mil-réis, which I don’t have and which I need in order to live. Is that what society is, Doctor?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” said Dr. Lemos gently, “but, while it may not be the best of societies, we have no other, and unless you’re prepared to change it, you have no alternative but to put up with it and live.”

  The poet walked back and forth in the room for a couple of minutes, then he held out his hand to his friend.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I accept. I see that you have my interests at heart, even though you know that what you’re offering me is exile.”

  “Exile and a wage,” retorted Dr. Lemos.

  A few days later, the poet was copying out notices of embargos and appeals, complaining and cursing his fate, unaware that from that job would spring a radical change in his aspirations. Dr. Lemos did not speak to him again for five months. One day, though, he met him in the street and asked about the epic poem.

  “It’s rather come to a standstill,” replied Luís Tinoco.

  “Are you abandoning it, then?”

  “No, I’ll finish it when I have time.”

  “And your magazine?”

  “Oh, I stopped producing that ages ago. I’m surprised you didn’t notice, since I haven’t sent you a copy for a long time now.”

  “That’s true, but I thought perhaps you had simply forgotten. That is big news, though! So no more of The Literary Arbor.”

  “I let it die when it was at its height, with eighty paying subscribers . . .”

  “You’re abandoning literature entirely, then?”

  “No, but . . . look, I must go. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  This all seemed simple enough, but, having won that first battle by finding him a job, Dr. Lemos left it to the poet himself to explain the cause of his literary slumbers. Could it be because he was in love with Laura?

  I should point out that Laura was not Laura, but Inocência; the poet called her Laura in his poems because the name seemed more mellifluous, which it was. To what extent did this love actually exist, and how far was his love reciprocated by her? History provides little information in this regard. What we do know is that, one day, a rival appeared on the horizon, and he was about as much of a poet as Luís Tinoco’s godfather, and, therefore, far better marriage material than the editor of The Literary Arbor; with one blow, he destroyed all the poet’s hopes.

  I need hardly tell you that this event enriched literature with a long and tearful elegy, in which Luís Tinoco set down in verse all the possible complaints that any spurned lover can make about a woman. This work took as its epigraph Dante’s words: Nessun maggior dolore. When it was finished and corrected, he read it out loud to himself, pacing up and down in his bedroom, putting a final touch to one or two lines, admiring the harmony of many others, and wholeheartedly confessing to himself that it was his best work yet. The Literary Arbor still existed then, and Luís Tinoco rushed his poem to the press, having first shared it with his collaborators, who were all of the same opinion as him. Despite what must have been his all-consuming grief, the poet read the proofs carefully and scrupulously, was present when the first copies were printed, and, for many days afterward, he read and reread those lines, barely giving a thought to the betrayal that had inspired them.

  This, however, was not the reason for Luís Tinoco’s literary slumbers. That was purely political. The lawyer for whom he worked had been a deputy and contributed to a political gazette. His office was a meeting place for a lot of men in public life, who met there for long conversations about political parties and the government. At first Luís Tinoco listened to these conversations with the indifference of a god wrapped in the cloak of his immortality. Gradually, though, he began to acquire a taste for what he heard. He started reading parliamentary speeches and opinion pieces. This initial interest quickly became enthusiasm, because in Luís Tinoco everything was extreme—be it enthusiasm or indifference. One day, he woke with the conviction that he was destined to be a politician.

  “My literary career is over,” he told Dr. Lemos when they spoke about it. “Now a different world is calling to me.”

  “Politics? So you think that is where your vocation lies?”

  “Yes, I think I might be able to make a contribution.”

  “You’re very modest, I see, and I’m sure that some inner voice is urging you to burn your poet’s wings. Take care, though! You have doubtless read Macbeth. Well, beware the voices of the witches, my friend. You are a man of great feeling, great sensibility, and I don’t think that—”

  “I am ready to answer the call of destiny,” Luís Tinoco said impetuously, interrupting him. “Politics is calling me, and I cannot, must not, and do not wish to close my ears to that call. No, the oppressive forces of power, the bayonets of corrupt, immoral governments, cannot divert a great belief from its chosen path. I feel I am being called by the voice of truth, and who can deny that voice? Only cowards and incompetents, and I am neither.”

  This was the oratorical debut with which he regaled Dr. Lemos on a thankfully empty street corner.

  “I ask only one thing,” said the ex-poet.

  “What’s that?”

  “Speak to the lawyer about me. Tell him I want to work with him, to be his protégé. That is my wish.”

  Dr. Lemos granted Luís Tinoco’s wish. He went to see the lawyer and recommended the clerk to him, with little zeal, it’s true, but not coldly, either. Fortunately, the lawyer was a kind of Saint Francis Xavier of the party, eager to increase his army; he happily accepted the recommendation, and, the following day, addressed a few kind words to the clerk, who listened, tremulous with emotion.

  “Write something,” said the lawyer, “and bring it to me, so that we can see if you have the necessary talent.”

  Luís Tinoco did not need to be asked twice. Two days later, he brought his boss a long, rambling article, which was, nonetheless, full of verve and commitment. The lawyer thought it not without its defects, and pointed out certain excesses and imprecisions, the weakness of certain arguments, more ornament than substance, but promised to publish it anyway. Whether it was because he made these remarks tactfully and gently, or because Luís Tinoco had lost some of his former prickliness, or because the promise of having the article published sweetened the bitter taste of criticism, or for all those reasons put together, the fact is that he listened to his protector’s words with exemplary modesty and joy.

  The lawyer showed the article to his friends, saying: “He’ll improve with time.”

  The article was published, and Luís Tinoco received a few congratulatory handshakes. He again experienced the sweet, ineffable joy he had felt when his first poems were published in the Correio Mercantil, but it was a more complex joy, tempered by a virtuous decision: from that day forth, Luís Tinoco genuinely believed he had a mission, that nature and destiny had sent him into the world to right political wrongs.

  Few people will have forgotten the final passage from the political debut of that former editor of The Literary Arbor. It read thus:

  Hypocritical, vengeful powe
r notwithstanding, I declare most humbly that I fear neither scorn nor martyrdom. Moses led the Hebrews into the Promised Land, but was not fortunate enough to enter it himself: that is the symbol of the writer who carries men toward moral and political regeneration, without actually passing through the golden gates himself. What is there to fear? Prometheus chained to the Caucasus, Socrates drinking hemlock, Christ dying on the cross, Savonarola on the rack, John Brown hanging from the scaffold, they are all the great apostles of light, an example and comfort to those who love the truth and work to gain the penitence of tyrants and the thunderous overthrow of despotism.

  Luís Tinoco did not stop after that first success. The same fecundity that had marked his literary phase was repeated in this his political phase; his protector, meanwhile, told him that he should write less, and less flamboyantly too. The ex-poet accepted this criticism and even learned from it, producing a few articles rather less unkempt in style and content. Since Luís Tinoco knew nothing about politics, his protector lent a few books to a grateful Luís. However, readers of this story will have gathered by now that the author of Gillyflowers and Camellias was not a man to ponder long and hard over a page of writing; he was drawn to high-flown phrases—especially high-sounding ones—and would linger over them, repeat and consider them with genuine delight. He found reflection, observation, and analysis arid, and often avoided them entirely.

  Some time later, a primary election was called. Luís Tinoco felt that he had it in him to be a candidate, and said as much to the lawyer in no uncertain terms. His wish was received quite positively, and things were so arranged that he enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his name on an electoral slate and the surprise of being beaten. The government might beat him, but not defeat him. The ex-poet, still hot from battle, translated into long, flowery sentences the scorn he felt for his adversaries’ victory. Friends of the government responded with another article, which ended thus: “What does ex-deputy Z.’s little squirt of an assistant hope to achieve with such immoderate language?”