The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis

by Machado De Assis

  Luís Tinoco almost died of pleasure to be the butt of that ministerial charge. The opposition press had not, until then, treated him with the consideration he wanted. They had, once or twice, discussed arguments he had put forward, but what was lacking was a personal attack, which seemed to him a necessary baptism of fire in that kind of campaign. When the lawyer read this attack, he told the ex-poet that his position was identical to that of William Pitt the Elder, when, in the House of Commons, the minister Robert Walpole had referred to Pitt as a mere boy, and he urged him to respond to that ministerial insult in the same tone. At the time, Luís Tinoco had no idea who Pitt and Walpole were, and yet, intrigued by the comparison, he cleverly and cautiously asked the lawyer if he could lend him the British orator’s speech so that he could “refresh his memory.” The lawyer did not have a copy to hand, but he summarized it thoroughly enough for Luís Tinoco to write a long article describing precisely what a little squirt was and was not.

  Meanwhile, the electoral fight had revealed to him a new talent. Since it was sometimes necessary to speechify, the little squirt did so with great personal pleasure and to general applause. Luís Tinoco asked himself if he should aspire to becoming an orator and answered in the affirmative. This new ambition was more difficult to achieve, as the ex-poet recognized, and so, arming himself with patience, he waited.

  There is here a lacuna in Luís Tinoco’s life. For reasons history does not record, two years after these electoral events our young man was dispatched to the native province of his friend and protector. Let us waste no time in speculating on the reasons for this journey, nor on the reasons that kept him there for longer than he wanted. Let us, instead, go and find him there a few months later, collaborating on a newspaper with the same youthful ardor he had shown while in Rio. With letters of recommendation from the lawyer to political friends and relatives, he soon built up a social circle, and settled into the idea that he would stay there for a while. His godfather had died, and Luís Tinoco was left with no family at all.

  His oratorical ambitions were not assuaged by the pleasures of being a writer; on the contrary, one encouraged the other. The idea of having two weapons and of brandishing them at the same time, and using both to threaten and defeat his adversaries, became a persistent, ever-present, inextinguishable idea. This was not vanity, that is, not childish vanity. Luís Tinoco piously believed that he was part of Providence’s plan, and this sustained and satisfied him. He had lacked all sincerity when he set down his misfortunes in verses to be read out to his friends, but he acquired real sincerity as he became more and more engrossed in politics. If someone doubted his political qualifications, this would wound him just as deeply as it had when people questioned his literary talent, but it did not wound his pride alone, but, more importantly, his deep and unbending belief that his talent was a necessary part of the universal harmony.

  Dr. Lemos was still living in Rio, and Luís Tinoco sent him all his provincial writings, and naïvely told him of his new hopes. One day, he informed him that his election to the provincial assembly was currently under negotiation and that those negotiations looked hopeful. The next letter brought the news that his candidature had become a fact.

  The election took place, and, after much effort and hard work, our candidate had the honor of being included on the list of winners. When he was told that victory was his, his soul sang a solemn, heartfelt “Te Deum Laudamos.” A sigh, the most deeply felt and deep-seated sigh ever uttered by man, consoled his heart for all the doubts and uncertainties of several long, cruel weeks. He had at last been elected! He was about to take his first step to glory.

  He slept badly that night, as he had on the eve of the publication of his first sonnet, and, again, his sleep was interspersed with dreams appropriate to the new situation. Luís Tinoco could already imagine himself thundering out a speech at the provincial assembly amid applause from some and curses from others and the envy of nearly everyone, and afterward reading in the local press warm praise for his fresh and utterly original eloquence. He drafted twenty different introductions to his maiden speech, whose subject would, of course, be worthy of grand flourishes and exalted passages. He was already mentally rehearsing gestures and poses and generally considering the figure he would cut in the provincial Chamber of Deputies.

  Many big names in politics had begun in the provincial parliament. If he was to fulfill Fate’s urgent mandate, then it was likely, even necessary, that he should leave there as soon as possible in order to pass through the wider door of national politics. In his mind, he was already occupying one of the seats in the congress building, and he immersed himself in thoughts of his own person and the brilliant role he would play. He could already see before him the opposition or the minister standing stunned by the five or six verbal blows Luís Tinoco believed he could deliver better than anyone; he could hear the newspapers talking and people asking about him, and his name reverberating throughout the Empire, and could see the ministerial portfolio landing in his lap, along with the post of minister itself.

  The new deputy imagined all this and much more as he lay in bed, his head on the pillow, with his mind setting off about the world, which is the worst thing that can happen to a body as tormented as was his at the time.

  Luís Tinoco immediately wrote to Dr. Lemos to tell him of his hopes and plans, now that Fortune was opening up before him the broad path of public life. The letter lingered on the probable effect of his first speech, and ended thus:

  Whatever position I may rise to, even the highest position in the land, immediately below that of Emperor (and I genuinely think I will go that far), I will never forget the debt I owe to you, sir, for your encouragement and your support. I believe that, up until now, I have not betrayed the confidence of my friends, and I hope I continue to deserve it.

  Finally, work began. Luís Tinoco was so anxious to speak at the very first session that he gave a two-hour speech about a plan to install a fountain and proved categorically that water was necessary to mankind. His first great battle took place in the debate about the provincial budget. Luís Tinoco gave a long speech in which he took on the governor-general, the president, his opponents, the police, and despotism. The gestures he made had never been seen in the entire history of parliamentary gesticulations; no one, at least no one in the province, had ever had the pleasure of seeing the way he had of shaking his head, bending his arm, pointing, raising, and bringing down his right hand.

  His style was unusual too. Never had anyone spoken of revenues and expenditures using such lush imagery and figures of speech. He compared revenues to the dew that collects on the flowers at night, and expenditures to the morning breeze that shakes the flowers and upsets a little of that revivifying moisture. A good government, he said, is that gentle breeze, while the current prime minister was declared to be nothing but hot air. The majority protested gravely at such an insulting description, however poetic. One of the ministers admitted that he had never known a chillier wind to blow in from Rio de Janeiro.

  Unfortunately, his opponents did not rest either. As soon as Luís Tinoco had finished his speech amid scattered applause from his friends, one of his adversaries took the floor and for a long time stood with eyes fixed on the novice speaker. Then, taking from his pocket a bundle of newspapers and a magazine, he cleared his throat and said:

  “Rio de Janeiro sent us the honorable deputy who has just spoken. We were told he was a glittering star destined to impress and surpass our provincial talents. I immediately set about obtaining some of the honorable deputy’s earlier works.

  “And here I have a journal entitled The Literary Arbor, a journal edited by my honorable friend, and a volume entitled Gillyflowers and Camellias. I have more such works at home. Let us look at Gillyflowers and Camellias.”

  Senhor Luís Tinoco: “My honorable friend is out of order.”

  (Cries of support.)

  His adversary: “I will go on, Mr. Speaker. Here we have Gillyflowers and Camellias.
Let us look at one of those gillyflowers.

  TO HER

  Who are you, O my dear tormentor,

  As you torture me with the sweetest of smiles?

  Who are you, as you point me to

  The gates of paradise?

  Are you the very image of heaven itself?

  The daughter of goddesses?

  Or have you come to bind up my freedom

  With your golden tresses?

  “As you see, Mr. Speaker, our honorable friend was, at the time, an enemy of all oppressive laws. You have only to see how he treats the laws of metrics.”

  And so on and so on. A minority of deputies protested, Luís Tinoco turned white, then red, then white again, and the session ended in raucous laughter. The following day, the newspapers that supported Luís Tinoco thanked his adversary for the triumph he had handed to him by showing the province “an earlier, brilliant aspect of the illustrious deputy’s talent.” Those who had so indecorously laughed at the poem were condemned thus: “A few days ago, a deputy on the government’s side described his party as a caravan of good, honest men. He was right about the caravan; yesterday, we saw the camels.”

  Not even this could console Luís Tinoco. His letters to Dr. Lemos grew less frequent, and finally stopped altogether. Three years slipped silently by, at the end of which Dr. Lemos was nominated for some post or other in that same province. As soon as he had settled into his new post, he set about looking for the ex-poet, which took him no time at all, for he immediately received an invitation from Luís Tinoco to visit the country retreat where he was now living.

  “You’ll call me an ungrateful wretch, I’m sure,” said Luís Tinoco, as soon as Dr. Lemos arrived. “But I am not; I was hoping to see you in a year or so, and the reason I didn’t write was . . . But, Doctor, what’s wrong? You look shocked.”

  Dr. Lemos was indeed taken aback to see this new Luís Tinoco. Was this the author of Gillyflowers and Camellias, the eloquent deputy, the fiery orator? What he saw before him was an ordinary, honest laborer, with simple, rustic manners, and not a trace of the poet’s melancholy poses or the orator’s dramatic gestures—he had been completely transformed into a very different and far better creature.

  They both laughed, the doctor at the great change that had taken place, the ex-poet at the doctor’s amazement, and Dr. Lemos asked if Luís Tinoco really had abandoned politics or if he was merely taking a refreshing break from that world.

  “I’ll explain everything, Doctor, but only once you’ve seen my house and my land, and met my wife and my children—”

  “You’re married?”

  “Yes, for over a year and a half now.”

  “And you never told me!”

  “I was planning to come to Rio this year and was hoping to surprise you. My little ones are so delightful, as lovely as two angels. They take after their mother, who is the rose of the province. I just hope they take after her housewifely ways too; she’s always so busy and so careful with money!”

  Once the introductions had been made, once the children had been duly kissed, and house and land inspected, Luís Tinoco told Dr. Lemos that he had, indeed, definitively abandoned politics.

  “Forever?”

  “Forever.”

  “But why? Some upset, I suppose.”

  “No, I realized that I simply wasn’t destined for great things. One day, someone read out a poem of mine in the Chamber. I saw how crude it was, and, later on, I came to view my political work with equal shame and regret, and so I cast off my career and left public life. It was a very easy decision to make, the work of a single night.”

  “You wanted something else?”

  “I did, my friend, I wanted to tread on solid ground rather than skating over the surface of those youthful illusions. I was a ridiculous poet and possibly an even more ridiculous orator. This is my vocation. In a few years’ time, I’ll be a wealthy man. Now let’s go and drink our coffee and keep our mouths firmly shut, for, as we know, a closed mouth catches no flies.”

  THE GOLD WATCH

  I WILL NOW TELL YOU the story of the gold watch. It was a large chronometer, brand-new, and attached to an elegant chain. Luís Negreiros was quite right to be astonished when he saw the watch in his house, a watch that didn’t belong to him, and couldn’t possibly be his wife’s, either. An optical illusion? No. There it lay on the bedside table, looking at him, perhaps as amazed as he was by the place and the situation.

  Clarinha was not in the bedroom when Luís Negreiros entered. She was still in the parlor, leafing through a novel, and she barely responded to the kiss with which he greeted her when he arrived. Clarinha was a pretty young woman, although somewhat pale, or perhaps she was pretty precisely because she was pale. She lounged languidly on the sofa, her book open, her eyes on the book, but only her eyes, because I’m not sure her thoughts were also on the book, but, rather, elsewhere. In any case, she seemed equally indifferent to her husband and the watch.

  Luís Negreiros picked up the watch with a look on his face I do not even dare to describe. Neither the watch nor the chain were his, nor did they belong to anyone he knew. It was a riddle. Luís Negreiros liked riddles and was thought to be an intrepid solver of riddles; but he liked the kind you find in almanacs or in newspapers. He didn’t like physical or chronometrical riddles, especially not ones without any clues.

  For this and other obvious reasons, the reader will understand why Clarinha’s husband flung himself down in a chair, angrily tore at his hair, stamped his foot, and threw the watch and chain down on the table. Once this first outburst of rage was over, he again picked up the fateful object and examined it once more. He folded his arms and thought about the matter, scrutinized all his memories, and, at last, concluded that, without some explanation from Clarinha, any action he took would be either useless or precipitate.

  He went to find her.

  Clarinha was just turning a page in her book with the calm, indifferent air of someone who is not puzzling over any chronometrical riddles. Luís Negreiros stared at her, his eyes like two shining daggers.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked in what everyone agreed was her usual soft, gentle voice.

  Luís Negreiros did not answer, but continued to stare at her; then he walked twice around the room, running his fingers through his hair, and again she asked:

  “What’s wrong?”

  Luís stopped in front of her.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, taking the fateful watch from his pocket and dangling it before her. “What’s this?” he repeated in a voice like thunder.

  Clarinha bit her lip and said nothing. Luís Negreiros stood for some time with the watch in his hand and his eyes fixed on his wife, who, in turn, had her eyes fixed on her book. There was a deep silence. Luís Negreiros was the first to break that silence, angrily hurling the watch to the floor and saying to his wife:

  “Come on, tell me whose it is.”

  Clarinha slowly raised her eyes to him, only to lower them again, murmuring:

  “I don’t know.”

  Luís Negreiros made a gesture as if he wanted to strangle her, but held back. She got to her feet, picked up the watch, and placed it on a small table. Unable to contain himself any longer, he walked over to her and grabbed her wrists, saying:

  “So, wretch, you won’t answer me, you won’t explain this enigma.”

  Clarinha winced, and Luís Negreiros immediately released his grip on her wrists. In different circumstances, he would probably have fallen at her feet and begged forgiveness for having hurt her. Just then, this didn’t even occur to him; he abandoned her in the middle of the parlor and recommenced his frantic pacing, stopping now and then as if he were pondering some possible tragic denouement.

  Clarinha left the room.

  Shortly afterward, a slave came in to announce that supper was on the table.

  “Where’s the mistress?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Luís Negreiros went looking for his
wife and found her in a room set aside for sewing; she was sitting on a low chair, sobbing, her head in her hands. When she heard the sound of the door closing, she looked up, and he saw that her cheeks were wet with tears. This was an even worse situation for him than the one in the parlor. He could not bear to see a woman cry, still less his own wife. He was about to kiss away her tears, but stopped himself, went over to her, pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite her.

  “As you can see, I’m quite calm now,” he said, “just answer my question with your usual frankness. I’m not accusing you or suspecting you of anything. I simply want to know where that watch came from. Did your father leave it here?”

  “No.”

  “So where did it come from?”

  “Oh, don’t ask me!” cried Clarinha. “I don’t know how that watch ended up there. I don’t know whose it is . . . Leave me alone.”

  “This is too much!” roared Luís Negreiros, springing to his feet and sending the chair crashing to the floor.

  Clarinha shuddered and stayed where she was. The situation was becoming more and more serious; Luís Negreiros was again pacing up and down, growing increasingly agitated and wild-eyed, apparently ready to hurl himself on his poor wife. She was sitting with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, staring at the wall. Almost a quarter of an hour passed. Luís Negreiros was about to ask the same question when he heard his father-in-law’s booming voice coming up the steps:

  “Senhor Luís, where the devil have you got to?”

  “It’s your father!” said Luís Negreiros. “I’ll speak to you later.”

  He left the sewing room and went to welcome his father-in-law, who was already installed in the parlor, repeatedly tossing his hat up in the air, at great risk to sundry vases and to the candelabra.

  “Were the two of you asleep?” asked Senhor Meireles, throwing down his hat and mopping his brow with a large red handkerchief.