Needless to say, I gave up on the idea of consulting him on modern-day dress; I had summoned a ghost, not a “real-life” man, as children say. I limited myself to replying to his questions; he asked me for news about Athens, and I obliged; I said that Athens was finally the capital of a unified Greece; I told him about the long years of Muslim domination, then about independence, Botsaris, and Lord Byron. The great man hung on my every word and, when I expressed surprise that the dead had told him nothing of all this, he explained to me that when one stood at the gates of the other world, one’s interest in this world waned considerably. He had met neither Botsaris nor Lord Byron—firstly, because there is such a vast multitude of spirits that it’s very easy to miss someone, and secondly, because there the dead are grouped not according to nationality or some similar category, but according to their temperament, customs, and profession. Thus he, Alcibiades, forms part of a group of elegant, passionate politicians, alongside the Duke of Buckingham, Almeida Garrett, our very own Maciel Monteiro, etc. Then he asked me about current affairs; I briefly told him what I knew; I spoke of the Hellenic parliament and the rather different way in which his compatriot statesmen, Voulgaris and Koumoundouros, are going about imitating Disraeli and Gladstone in taking turns at government, and, just like them, trading oratorical blows. Alcibiades, a magnificent orator himself, interrupted me:
“Bravo, Athenians!”
I enter into such minutiae only so as to omit nothing that might give you a more precise understanding of the extraordinary events I am describing. I have already mentioned that Alcibiades was listening to me avidly; I should also add that he was clever and shrewd, very quick on the uptake. He was also somewhat sarcastic, or at least that’s how he came across at one or two points in our conversation. But, in general, he showed himself to be simple, attentive, polite, sensitive, and dignified. And quite the dandy, too, as dandyish as in ancient times; he was always glancing sideways at the mirror, just as women and others do in our own century, admiring his buskins, adjusting his cloak, and striking sculptural poses.
“Go on,” he would say to me, whenever I paused.
But I couldn’t. Having entered into the realm of the inextricable and the marvelous, I believed that anything was possible, and just as he had come to meet me in this world, I couldn’t see why I couldn’t go and join him in eternity. I froze at this idea. For a man who has just had his dinner and is waiting for the Cassino to open, death would be a joke in the very worst possible taste.
“If only I could get away . . .” I thought to myself. Then I had an idea: I told him I was going to a ball.
“A ball? What’s a ball?”
I explained.
“Ah! You’re going to dance the Pyrrhic dance!”
“No,” I replied. “The Pyrrhic dance has been and gone. My dear Alcibiades, every century changes its dances just as it changes its ideas. We no longer dance as we did a century ago; probably the twentieth century won’t dance as we do now. The Pyrrhic dance is long gone, like Plutarch’s men and Hesiod’s gods.”
“Even the gods?”
I explained that paganism had come to an end, that the august academies of the last century had still given it shelter, but with little real soul or conviction, and that even Arcadian drunkenness—Evoe! Father Bassareus! Evoe!, etc.—the honest pastime of certain peace-loving district judges, had been eradicated. From time to time, I added, some writer of poetry or prose alluded to the remnants of the pagan theogony, but only for show or amusement, while science had reduced the whole of Olympus to the merely symbolic. Dead, all dead.
“Even Zeus?”
“Even Zeus.”
“Dionysus? Aphrodite?”
“All dead.”
Plutarch’s man stood up and took a few paces, containing his indignation, as if saying to himself, as someone else once did: “Ah! I must be there, too, along with my Athenians!” And from time to time, he would murmur: “Zeus, Dionysus, Aphrodite . . .” I then recalled that he had once been accused of disobeying the gods, and wondered to myself where this posthumous and, therefore, artificial indignation came from. I was forgetting—me, a devotee of Greek!—I was forgetting that he was also a consummate hypocrite, an illustrious fraudster. However, I scarcely had time to think this, because Alcibiades suddenly stopped his pacing and declared that he would go to the ball with me.
“To the ball?” I repeated in astonishment.
“Yes, to the ball. Let’s go to the ball.”
I was terrified and told him that it was impossible, that they wouldn’t let him in wearing that outfit; he would look ridiculous; unless, of course, he wanted to go there to perform one of Aristophanes’s comedies, I added, laughing so as to hide my fear. What I really wanted was to leave him there in the house, and, once I was outside, rather than going to the Cassino, I would come straight to see you. But the wretched man would not budge; while listening to me, he stared down at the floor, as if deep in thought. I stopped talking; I began to think that the nightmare would soon end, that the apparition would disappear, and that I would be left there alone with my trousers, my shoes, and my century.
“I want to go to the ball,” he repeated. “I can’t go back without comparing dances.”
“My dear Alcibiades, I really don’t think it wise. It would certainly be a great honor, and give me enormous pride, to introduce you, the most genteel and charming of Athenians, to the Cassino. But the other men, the young lads and lasses, the older folk . . . Well, it’s just impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you; they will think you’re a lunatic or a comedian, because of your clothes . . .”
“What about them? Clothes change. I’ll go in modern clothes. Don’t you have anything you can lend me?”
I was about to say no, but then it occurred to me that the most urgent thing was to get out of the house and that, once outside, I’d have more chance of escaping, and so I told him that I did.
“Well, then,” he replied as he stood up, “I’ll go in modern clothes. All I ask is that you get dressed first, so that I can learn and then copy you.”
I, too, stood up, and asked him to follow me. He paused in astonishment. I saw that only then had he noticed my white trousers, and was staring at them, eyes bulging, mouth agape; after a long pause, he asked why I was wearing those cloth pipes. I replied that it was for reasons of comfort and convenience, adding that our century, more reserved and practical than artistic, had decided to dress in a manner compatible with our sense of decorum and gravity. Furthermore, not everyone could be Alcibiades. I think this flattered him, for he smiled and shrugged.
“In that case . . .”
We made our way to my dressing room, and I quickly began to change my clothes. Alcibiades reclined lazily on a divan, complimenting me on it, the mirror, the wicker chair, and the paintings. As I say, I got dressed quickly, keen to get out of the house and jump in the first cab that passed.
“Black pipes!” he exclaimed.
These were the black trousers I had just put on. He shrieked and laughed, a sort of giggle mingling surprise with scorn, which greatly offended my modern sensibilities. Because, as I’m sure you will agree, sir, while we may consider our own times worthy of criticism, even execration, we do not like it when one of the ancients comes and makes fun of it to our faces. I did not answer the Athenian; I merely frowned a little and carried on buttoning my suspenders. Then he asked me why on earth I wore such an ugly color.
“Ugly, but serious,” I told him. “And observe the elegance of the cut, see how it falls over the shoe, which is patent leather, albeit black, and very shapely too.”
And, seeing him shaking his head, I added:
“My dear friend,” I said, “you can certainly insist that your Olympian Jupiter is the eternal emblem of majesty: his is the domain of ideal, disinterested art, superior to the passing of the ages and the men who inhabit them. But the art of dressing is another matter. What may appear absurd or ungainly is pe
rfectly rational and beautiful—beautiful in our way, for we no longer wander the streets listening to poets reciting verses, or orators giving speeches, or philosophers explaining their philosophies. You yourself, were you to grow used to seeing us, would end up liking us, because—”
“Stop, you wretch!” he yelled, hurling himself at me.
I felt the blood drain from my face, until I realized the reason for this violent response. It was all down to a misunderstanding. As I looped the tie around my neck and began to tie the knot, Alcibiades assumed, as he told me afterward, that I was about to hang myself. And he did, indeed, turn very pale, trembling and sweating. Now it was my turn to laugh. I chuckled, and explained the use of a necktie to him, noting that it was a white tie, not black, although we did wear black ties on certain occasions. Only after I’d explained all this would he agree to give it back to me. I put it on and then put on my vest.
“For the love of Aphrodite!” he exclaimed. “You are the oddest thing I’ve ever seen, alive or dead. You’re entirely the color of night—a night with only three stars,” he continued, pointing to the buttons on my shirtfront. “The world must be a very melancholy place for you to choose to wear such a sad, dead color. We were a far jollier lot, we lived . . .”
He couldn’t finish the sentence; I had just put on my tailcoat, and the Athenian’s consternation surpassed description. His arms drooped by his sides, he struggled for air, unable to utter a word, and stared at me with wide, bulging eyes. Believe me, sir, I was truly afraid now, and made even more haste to leave the house.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“No, there’s still the hat.”
“Oh! Please let it be something that’ll make up for all the rest!” replied Alcibiades in a pleading voice. “Please, please! Has all the elegance we bequeathed to you been whittled away to a pair of closed pipes and another pair of open pipes (as he said this he lifted up my coattails), and all in this boring, depressing color? No, I can’t believe it! Please let there be something that makes up for it. What is it you say that’s missing?”
“My hat.”
“Well, whatever it is, put it on, dear fellow, put it on.”
I obeyed; I went over to the coat stand, took down my hat, and put it on my head. Alcibiades looked at me, swayed, and fell. I rushed to the illustrious Athenian’s side to help him up, but (and it pains me to say this) it was too late; he was dead, dead for the second time. I therefore request, sir, that you see fit to issue the requisite orders for the corpse to be taken to the morgue, and proceed with the corpus delicti. Please excuse my not coming to your house in person at this hour (it being ten o’clock at night), on account of the deep shock I have just experienced, and rest assured that I will do so tomorrow morning, before eight o’clock.
TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITION
“. . . ITEM: IT IS MY FINAL WISH that the coffin in which my body is to be buried shall be made at the workshop of Joaquim Soares, in Rua da Alfândega. I wish him to be informed of this disposition, which shall also be made public. Joaquim Soares does not know me, but he merits this distinction on account of being one of our finest craftsmen, and one of the most highly esteemed men in all of Brazil . . .”
This testamentary disposition was carried out to the letter. Joaquim Soares made the coffin in which the body of poor Nicolau B. de C. was laid; he made it with his own hands, con amore, and, when he had finished, in a gesture of goodwill, he waived all payment. He had, he insisted, already been paid; for the mark of favor shown by the deceased man was, in itself, a worthy prize. He asked only one thing: to be given the original copy of the relevant clause. His wish was granted, and he had it framed and hung from a nail in his workshop. Once they had recovered from their astonishment, the other coffin-makers protested that the clause was utter nonsense. Happily—and this is one of the advantages of the modern social state—happily, everyone else considered that this hand, reaching up from the abyss to bestow its blessings on the work of a humble artisan, had performed an act of rare magnanimity. It was 1855 and the population was more closely knit then; people spoke of nothing else. For many days, Nicolau’s name echoed through the Rio press, from where it then passed to the provincial newspapers. But universal life is so varied, events happen with such bewildering frequency and speed, and, ultimately, man’s memory is such a fragile thing, that a day came when Nicolau’s magnanimous action sank into oblivion.
I have not come here to restore that action. Forgetting is a necessity. Life is a slate that destiny must first wipe clean before it can write anew. It’s a simple matter of pencil and sponge. No, I am not here to restore his action. There are thousands of actions just as noble as his, or even nobler, and they are all equally forgotten. I am here to say that the clause in the will was not an effect without a cause; I am here to reveal to you one of this century’s most curious maladies.
Yes, dear reader, we will be entering the realms of pathology. That little boy you see back there at the end of the last century (when he died in 1855, Nicolau was sixty-eight), that little boy is not a healthy vessel; he is not a perfect organism. On the contrary, from his tenderest years on, he showed through repeated actions that there was in him some inner defect, some flaw of nature. There is no other way to describe the persistence with which he rushed to destroy the other boys’ playthings—and I’m not talking about toys that were inferior or the same as his, but specifically those that were better or more expensive. It is even more difficult to understand why, in cases where the toy was particularly special or unusual, the young Nicolau would then console the victim with a kick, and often two or three. All this is very mysterious. It cannot have been his father’s fault. His father was a respected trader or dealer (as the Marquis of Lavradio used to say, most of those in this city who call themselves “merchants” are nothing more than dealers on commission), who lived in a certain splendor during the last quarter of the century; a harsh, austere man who frequently admonished and, where necessary, punished his son. But neither admonishments nor punishments did any good. Nicolau’s inner impulse was far stronger than all his father’s lashings, and, once or twice a week, the little boy slipped back into his errant ways. The family was appalled. One event in particular—in view of its grave consequences—deserves to be told.
The viceroy, who, at the time, was the Count of Resende, felt a pressing need to construct a new quayside along the shore at Praia de Dom Manuel. Today, this would be a straightforward municipal matter, but at the time, given the city’s more modest proportions, it was a major undertaking. What the viceroy lacked were funds; the public coffers could barely cover normal emergencies. A true statesman, and doubtless a philosopher, he came up with an expedient that was as agreeable to all as it was profitable, namely, handing out, in exchange for pecuniary donations, the ranks of captain, lieutenant, and ensign. When the decision was announced, Nicolau’s father realized that this was an opportunity, without danger to life or limb, to take his place among the military luminaries of the age, while at the same time disproving one of the teachings of the Brahmins. For it is written in the Laws of Manu that from the arms of Brahma were born the warriors, while from his belly came the farmers and merchants. By acquiring his captain’s commission, Nicolau’s father was correcting this point of pagan anatomy. Another merchant, with whom he competed on every score, but who was also a close friend, heard about the appointment and immediately went to add his own rock to the quayside. Unfortunately, his pique at being several days late prompted him to make a request that was in poor taste and, in these particular circumstances, disastrous; he asked the viceroy for a second “quay officer’s” commission (for such was the title given to those decorated under this system) for his seven-year-old son. The viceroy hesitated, but the petitioner doubled his donation and pulled a lot of strings, and the little boy duly came away with the rank of ensign. All this was done in secret; Nicolau’s father only learned what had happened the following Sunday, in the Carmo Church, when he saw both father and so
n together, with the boy dressed up in a diminutive but rather dashing uniform. Nicolau, who was also there, turned deathly pale and, in a flash, hurled himself on the young ensign and, before his parents could intervene, had torn the boy’s uniform to shreds. You can imagine the scandal. The general hubbub, the worshippers’ pious indignation, and the victim’s squeals interrupted the ecclesiastical proceedings for several moments. The fathers exchanged some sharp words outside on the steps, and remained enemies ever after.
“That boy will bring disgrace on us all!” roared Nicolau’s father when they got home.
Nicolau received a sound beating, endured much pain, cried and sobbed, but did not mend his ways. The toys of the other boys were no less prone to attack than before. The same began to happen with their clothes. The wealthier boys in the neighborhood would now venture out only in the humblest of homemade garments, which was the only way of escaping Nicolau’s sharp nails. With the passage of time, his aversion extended to their faces if they were handsome, or considered as such. In the street where he lived there were countless bruised, scratched, and muddied faces. Things reached such an extreme that his father decided to lock him up in the house for three or four months. This was a palliative and, as such, proved excellent. While his confinement lasted, Nicolau was nothing less than angelic; for, aside from that gruesome habit of his, he was gentle, docile, obedient, fond of his family and never missed prayers. After four months, his father released him; it was time to find him a tutor to teach him reading and grammar.
“Leave him with me,” said the master. “With me and with this,” he added, picking up the strap, “it’s highly unlikely that he will entertain any further notions of harming his companions.”
Foolish, foolish tutor! There is no doubt that he succeeded in saving the handsome boys and their fancy clothes by punishing poor Nicolau’s initial onslaughts. But how would this help cure his malady? On the contrary, by being obliged to repress and swallow his impulses, he suffered twice over, and his ever paler complexion took on a greenish tinge. Sometimes, he said, he had to look away or even close his eyes so as not to explode. Although he stopped tormenting the most elegant or best-dressed boys, he did not let up on the more studious ones; he would beat them and hurl their books out the window. Brawls, bloodshed, and loathing; such were the fruits of life for him, on top of the cruel beatings he himself suffered, and yet his family stubbornly refused to understand. If we add that he was unable to apply himself to any continuous study, or only in fits and starts and poorly—much like the haphazard and unmethodical way in which beggars eat—you will have some idea of the painful consequences of his hidden malaise. His father, who had dreamed of sending his son to university and now found even this illusion shattered, was ready to give up on him completely; it was his mother who saved him.
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 54
