“Go ahead.”
“Do you want me to come and let you know how it all works out?”
“That won’t be necessary. Just tell me, since you’ve been so fed up with your lack of organization for so very long, why is it that you have only thought of founding a church now?”
The Devil gave a triumphant, mocking smile. He was savoring some cruel idea, some stinging remark stored away in the saddlebag of his memory which, in that brief instant of eternity, made him believe he was superior even to God. But he suppressed his laughter and said:
“I have only just concluded a study I began several centuries ago, and I see now that the virtues, those daughters of Heaven, are in many respects comparable to queens whose velvet mantles are edged with cotton fringes. Now, I propose to tug them by those fringes, and bring them all to my church; after them will come the queens dressed in purest silk . . .”
“Pompous old windbag!” murmured the Lord.
“Look here. Many of those bodies who kneel at your feet in churches throughout the world wear the bustles of drawing room and street; their cheeks are rouged with the same powder, their handkerchiefs carry the same scents, and their eyes sparkle with curiosity and devotion, torn between the holy book and the tempting mustache of sin. See the passion—or disdain, at least—with which that gentleman over there makes sure everyone knows about the favors he liberally bestows: clothes, boots, coins, or any of the other necessities of life. But I don’t want to seem to be dwelling on the little things; I am not talking, for example, about the smug serenity of this man here, president of a lay brotherhood, who, when taking part in any religious procession, piously carries pinned to his chest both your love and a medal. I have more important business to deal with . . .”
At this, the seraphim ruffled their wings, heavy with boredom and sleep. The archangels Michael and Gabriel gazed at the Lord imploringly. God interrupted the Devil.
“You talk in clichés, which is the worst thing that could happen to a spirit of your sort,” replied the Lord. “All that you say or may say has been said and resaid by the world’s moralists. It’s been done to death, and if you have neither the ability nor the originality to breathe new life into it, it would be better for you to be quiet and keep your thoughts to yourself. See? The faces of all my legions show clear signs of the tedium you’re inflicting on them. The old man here looks thoroughly fed up, and do you know what he did?”
“I’ve already said that I don’t.”
“After an honest life, he died a truly sublime death. Caught in a shipwreck, he was going to seize hold of a plank and save himself, when he spied a couple of newlyweds, in the flower of youth, already grappling with death. He gave them that plank and plunged into eternity. No one was watching, only the water and the sky above. Where in that do you find your cotton fringe?”
“As you know, Lord, I am the spirit who denies.”
“Do you deny this death?”
“I deny everything. Misanthropy can look like charity, because, to a misanthrope, leaving life to others is actually a way of despising them . . .”
“A windbag, and a crafty one at that!” exclaimed the Lord. “Go on, go and set up your church. Call upon all the virtues, gather together all the fringes, summon all of mankind . . . But go! Go!”
In vain, the Devil tried to say something more, but God had silenced him, and, upon a divine signal, the seraphim filled Heaven with the harmonious sound of their singing. The Devil suddenly found himself in midair; he furled his wings and, like a bolt of lightning, plunged to Earth.
Chapter 3
GOOD NEWS FOR MANKIND
Once on Earth, the Devil did not waste a single minute. He hurriedly donned a Benedictine cowl—as being a habit of good repute—and began to spread a new and extraordinary doctrine with a voice that echoed down through the bowels of the century. He promised his faithful disciples all of Earth’s delights, all its glories, and all its most intimate pleasures. He admitted that he was indeed the Devil, but did so in order to rectify mankind’s view of him and to deny the stories pious old women told about him.
“Yes, I am the Devil,” he said again and again. “Not the Devil of sulfurous nights, of bedtime stories, or childish terrors, but the one and only true Devil, the very genius of nature, who was given that name to drive him from the hearts of men. See how gentle and graceful I am. I am your true father. Come with me: embrace the name that was invented to shame me, make it your trophy and your banner, and I will give you everything, absolutely everything . . .”
Thus he spoke in order to arouse enthusiasm and awaken the indifferent, in short, to gather the multitudes around him. And they came; and once they were with him, the Devil began to set out his doctrine. The doctrine was what one would expect from the mouth of a spirit of denial, at least in terms of substance. As for its form, it was at times clever and at others cynical and shameless.
He proclaimed that the accepted virtues should be replaced with others, the natural and legitimate ones. Pride, Lust, and Sloth were restored, as was Greed, which he declared was nothing but the mother of Thrift, the sole difference being that the mother was robust and the daughter a scrawny wretch. The best argument in favor of Wrath was the existence of Homer, for without the fury of Achilles, there would have been no Iliad. “Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus.” He said the same of Gluttony, which produced the best bits of Rabelais and many fine verses in Diniz’s Hyssope. It was such a superior virtue that no one now remembers Lucullus’s battles, only his banquets; it was Gluttony that made him immortal. But still, setting aside these literary or historical justifications and focusing only on the intrinsic value of such a virtue, who would deny that it feels much better to fill one’s mouth and belly with good food than to get by on meager morsels, or the saliva of fasting? For his part, the Devil promised to replace the Lord’s vineyard, a merely metaphorical expression, with the Devil’s vineyard in the literal sense, for his followers would never want for the fruit of the finest vines. As for Envy, he preached coolly that it was the greatest virtue of all and the source of infinite prosperity; a precious virtue that would come to supplant all the others, even talent itself.
The crowd chased excitedly after him. With great blasts of eloquence, the Devil instilled in them the new order of things, changing all their notions, making them love the things that were wicked and hate those that were wholesome.
There was nothing more curious, for example, than his definition of fraud. He called it man’s left arm, the right arm being force. His conclusion was simply that many men were left-handed, and that was that. Not that he required everyone to be left-handed, for no one was to be excluded. Some could be left-handed, others right-handed; he’d accept everyone, except those who were neither one thing nor the other. His most profound and rigorous explanation, however, was that of Venality. One casuist of the time even confessed that his explanation was a monument of logic. Venality, said the Devil, was the exercise of a right superior to all others. If you can sell your house, your ox, your shoe, or your hat—things that legally and juridically belong to you but are not part of you—why shouldn’t you be allowed to sell your opinion, your vote, your word, or your faith, things which are more than mere possessions, because they form part of your own consciousness, that is, your very self? To deny this is to lapse into absurdity and contradiction. For are there not women who sell their hair? Can a man not sell some of his blood for transfusion to another who is anemic? And why should blood and hair, mere physical parts, enjoy a privilege that is denied to character, man’s moral portion? Having thus set out the principle behind Venality, the Devil lost no time in expounding its practical and financial benefits. He then indicated that, in light of social prejudice, it would be appropriate to disguise the exercise of such a well-founded right; this would, of course, amount to practicing Venality and Hypocrisy at the same time, and would therefore be doubly deserving.
Up and down he went, examining and rectifying everything.
Naturally he fought against the forgiveness of sins and other such principles of charitable kindness. He didn’t absolutely prohibit the spreading of calumnies without reward, but urged that it should always be done in return for some sort of payment, whether financial or otherwise. However, in cases where the calumny resulted from nothing more than an uncontrollable explosion of impetuous imagination, he forbade any recompense, since that was equivalent to being paid for merely sweating. He condemned all forms of respect as potential elements of social and personal politeness—except, of course, where there was some sort of advantage to be drawn from it. But this exception was itself soon eliminated by the realization that the desire for personal gain converted a display of respect into straightforward flattery, and the relevant intention was therefore the latter and not the former.
To complete his work, the Devil realized that he needed to sever all bonds of human solidarity—the idea of loving one’s neighbor was a major obstacle to his new institution. He therefore demonstrated that this rule was a mere invention of parasites and insolvent tradesmen; one should show nothing but indifference toward one’s fellow man, and, in some cases, hatred and contempt. He even demonstrated that the notion of “neighbor” was erroneous, and cited the refined and learned Neapolitan priest Ferdinando Galiani, who wrote to a certain marquise de l’ancien régime: “Neighbor be damned! There’s no such thing as neighbor!” The only situation in which the Devil permitted loving one’s neighbor was when it concerned loving other men’s wives, because that kind of love has the peculiarity of being nothing more than the individual’s love for himself. And since some disciples may have found that such a metaphysical explanation would escape the understanding of the masses, the Devil resorted to an illustration: one hundred people take shares in a retail bank, but, in reality, none of the shareholders looks after the business, only their own dividends: this is what happens to adulterers. This illustration was included in the book of wisdom.
Chapter 4
FRINGES AND FRINGES
The Devil’s prediction came true. As soon as someone tugged the fringe of those virtues whose velvet cloak was fringed with cotton, they duly threw their cloaks into the nettles and joined the new church. The others duly followed and the institution grew over time. The church had been founded and its doctrine was being propagated; there was not one region of the globe that did not know of it, not one language into which it had not been translated, and not one race that did not love it. The Devil gave a triumphant cheer.
However, one day, many years later, the Devil noticed that many of his faithful followers were secretly practicing the old virtues again. They didn’t practice all of them, or practice them in their entirety, but they did practice some of them, partially, and, as I say, in secret. Certain gluttons were retreating to eat frugally three or four times a year, on days of Catholic obligation; many misers were giving alms under cover of darkness or on sparsely populated streets; various embezzlers of the public purse were reimbursing small amounts; now and then fraudsters spoke the honest truth, although with their usual sly expression just so that people would think they were still being tricked.
This discovery shocked the Devil. He investigated the evil more closely, and saw that it was spreading rapidly. Some cases were simply incomprehensible, like that of a Levantine apothecary who had slowly poisoned a whole generation and then, with the profits of his nefarious trade, had come to the aid of his victims’ children. In Cairo, the Devil found an otherwise impeccable camel thief covering his face so that he could attend the mosque. The Devil confronted him at the entrance to the mosque and berated him for such outrageous behavior, but the man denied everything, saying he was only going there so as to steal a dragoman’s camel; indeed, he did steal it, in full view of the Devil, but then gave it as a present to a muezzin, who prayed to Allah on the thief’s behalf. The Benedictine manuscript cites many other extraordinary discoveries, including the following one that completely confounded the Devil. One of his best apostles was a Calabrian gentleman, fifty years old and an eminent forger of documents, who owned a fine house in the Roman Campagna filled with paintings, statues, a library, etc. He was fraud personified; he would even take to his bed so as not to admit that he was in good health. However, this man not only failed to cheat at cards, he even gave bonuses to his servants. Having attracted the friendship of a canon, he went to make his confession to him every week in a deserted side chapel, and although he did not reveal to him any of his secret activities, he crossed himself twice, once upon kneeling and again when he stood up. The Devil could scarcely believe such treachery, but there was no doubting what had happened.
He did not stop for an instant. The shock gave him no time to reflect, to draw comparisons, or to infer from the present situation something analogous in the past. Once again he flew straight up to Heaven, trembling with rage, anxious to discover the hidden cause of such a peculiar occurrence. God listened to him with infinite benevolence, not interrupting or criticizing him, or even gloating over his satanic agony. He looked the Devil straight in the eye and said:
“Well, what do you expect, my poor Devil? The cotton cloaks now have silk fringes, just as the velvet cloaks had cotton ones. What do you expect? It’s the eternal human contradiction.”
THE LAPSE
Then all the captains . . . and all the people,
from the least even unto the greatest, came near.
And said unto Jeremiah the prophet: Let, we beseech thee,
our supplication be accepted before thee.
—JEREMIAH 42:1–2
DON’T ASK ME about Dr. Jeremias Halma’s family, nor what brought him to Rio de Janeiro in that year of 1768, during the viceroyalty of the Count of Azambuja, who people initially said had been the one to send for the doctor, a version of events that proved short-lived. He came, he stayed, and he died with the century. What I can, however, confirm is that he was Dutch, and a physician. He had traveled widely, knew everything there was to know about chemistry, and spoke five or six living languages fluently, as well as two dead ones. He was such an inventive and universal fellow that he endowed Malay poetry with a new meter and conceived a theory on the formation of diamonds, not to mention the many therapeutic advances he made, as well as innumerable other admirable things. And all this without being in the least pigheaded or arrogant. On the contrary, his life and person were like the house that a fellow Dutchman procured for him on Rua do Piolho, a very humble house indeed, where he died sometime around Christmas 1799. Yes, Dr. Halma was unpretentious, sincere, and modest, indeed so modest that . . . But no, that would upset the order of the story. Let’s start at the beginning.
At the end of Rua do Ouvidor, which had not yet become the Via Dolorosa of long-suffering husbands that it is today, near what used to be Rua dos Latoeiros, there lived at that time a certain Tomé Gonçalves, a wealthy man and, according to some accounts, a member of the city council. Councillor or not, this Tomé Gonçalves had not only money, he also had debts, which were neither few nor recent. These arrears could easily be explained by carelessness or, indeed, knavery; but anyone who favors one or other of these interpretations clearly has no business reading a serious piece of writing like this. After all, there is no point in someone going to all the effort of scribbling page after page just to say that at the end of the last century there lived a man who, for reasons of crookery or carelessness, failed to pay his creditors. Accounts confirm that this fellow countryman of ours was precise in everything he did, punctilious in the most mundane duties, strict, and even meticulous. The truth is that he was a “redeemed brother” of many lay orders and confraternities and had been since the days when he was still in the habit of paying his debts; and those that had the good fortune to count him as one of their members did not need to wrangle out of him tokens of his devotion and esteem; and, if he was indeed a councillor, as all the evidence suggests, one can be sure that he served to the satisfaction of the whole city.
So? I’m coming to that now,
for the subject matter of this piece is precisely this curious phenomenon, the cause of which is known only because Dr. Halma discovered it. On the afternoon of a religious procession, Tomé Gonçalves, wearing the habit of a lay order and helping to carry one of the floats bearing holy images, was walking along with the serene look of a man who does ill to no man. Looking on from windows and sidewalks were many of his creditors, and two of them, standing at the corner of Beco das Cancelas (the procession was making its way down Rua do Hospício), after duly kneeling, praying, crossing themselves, and standing up again, asked one another whether now was perhaps the time to resort to law.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” said one of them. “If he quarrels with me, all the better; he’ll get nothing more from me without paying for it first. Without a quarrel, I can hardly refuse to give him what he asks, and so I’ll just keep on selling him more and more stuff on credit in the hope that he does finally pay me what he already owes. No, sir; it can’t go on like this.”
“As for me,” said the other, “the only reason I haven’t done anything before is because of my wife, who’s scared, and thinks I shouldn’t quarrel with important people like him. But other people’s importance won’t put food or drink on the table. And what about my wigs?”
The latter was a wigmaker on Rua da Vala, opposite the cathedral, who had sold Tomé Gonçalves ten wigs in five years, without seeing so much as a penny from him. The other was a tailor, and an even bigger creditor than the wigmaker. By now the procession had passed by, but they remained on that same street corner, agreeing that they should send in the bailiffs. The wigmaker commented that there were many other creditors ready and waiting to swoop on the delinquent debtor, and the tailor thought it would be a good idea to include Mata the shoemaker in their scheme, since his situation was now desperate. Tomé Gonçalves owed him more than eighty mil-réis. They were discussing this when they heard a voice behind them asking, in a foreign accent, why they were plotting against a sick man. They turned around and, coming face-to-face with Dr. Halma, the two creditors removed their caps; with the greatest of respect, they then pointed out that the debtor was very far from being sick, for there he was taking part in the procession, hale and hearty, helping to shoulder one of the floats.
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 56
