The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

by Machado De Assis

  CXXX

  To Be Inserted in Chapter CXXIX

  The first time I was able to speak to Virgília after the presidency was at a ball in 1855. She was wearing a superb gown of blue grosgrain and was displaying the same pair of shoulders as in previous times. It wasn’t the freshness of her early years, quite the contrary, but she was still beautiful, with an autumnal beauty enhanced by the night. I remember that we talked a lot without referring to anything out of the past. Everything was understood. A remote, vague comment or a look, perhaps, and nothing else. A short while later she left. I went to watch her go down the steps and I don’t know by what means of cerebral ventriloquism (I beg the forgiveness of philologists for this barbarous expression) I murmured to myself the profoundly retrospective word:

  “Magnificent!”

  This chapter should be inserted between the first and second sentences of Chapter CXXIX.

  CXXXI

  Concerning a Calumny

  Just after I had said that to myself through the ventriloquo-cerebral process—or what was simple opinion and not remorse—I felt someone put his hand on my shoulder. I turned. It was an old friend, a naval officer, jovial, impudent in his manners. He smiled maliciously and said to me:

  “You old devil! Memories of the past, eh?”

  “Hurray for the past!”

  “You’ve got your old job back, naturally.”

  “Easy, you rogue!” I told him, wagging my finger at him.

  I must confess that the dialogue was an indiscretion—principally my last response. And I confess it with so much greater pleasure because women are the ones who have the fame of being indiscreet and I don’t wish to end the book without setting that notion of the human spirit straight. In matters of amorous adventures I have found men who smiled or had trouble denying it, in a cold way, with monosyllables, and so forth, while their female equivalents wouldn’t admit it and would swear by the Holy Gospels that it was all calumny. The reason for this difference is that women (excepting the hypothesis in Chapter CI and other hypotheses) surrender out of love, whether it be either Stendhal’s love-passion, or the purely physical love of certain Roman ladies, for example, or Polynesian, Laplander, Kaffir, and possibly those of other civilized races. But men—I speak of men belonging to an elegant and cultured society—men couple their vanity to the other sentiment. In addition to that (and I’m still referring to forbidden cases) women, when they love another man, think they’re betraying a duty and therefore must conceal it with the greatest skill, must refine the perfidy, while men, enjoying their being the cause of the infraction and the victory over the other man as well, are legitimately proud and immediately pass on to that other less harsh and less secret sentiment—that fine fatuousness that is the luminous sweat of merit.

  But whether my explanation is true or not, it’s sufficient for me to leave written on this page for the use of the ages that the indiscretion of women is a trick invented by men. In love, at least, they’re as silent as the tomb. They’ve been ruined many times by being clumsy, restless, unable to stand up in the face of looks and gestures, and that’s why a great lady and delicate spirit, the Queen of Navarre, somewhere employed a metaphor to say that all amorous adventures will of necessity be discovered sooner or later: “There is no puppy so well trained that we do not hear its bark in the end.”

  CXXXII

  Which Isn’t Serious

  By quoting the Queen of Navarre’s remark, it occurs to me that among our people when a person sees another irritated, it’s customary to ask him: “Say, who killed your puppies?” as if to say, “Who exposed your love affair, your secret adventure, etc.” But this chapter isn’t serious.

  CXXXIII

  Helvetius’s Principle

  We were at the point where the naval officer got the confession of my affair with Virgília out of me and here I will improve on Helvetius’ principle—or if not, I’ll explain it. It was in my interest to keep quiet. To confirm the suspicions of an old thing was to arouse some forgotten hate, give rise to a scandal, at most to acquire the reputation of an indiscreet person. It was in my interest and if I understand Helvetius’ principle in a superficial way, that’s what I should have done. But I’ve already given the reasons for masculine indiscretion: before that interest in security there was another, that of pride, which is more intimate, more immediate. The first was reflexive, with the supposition of a previous syllogism. The second was spontaneous, instinctive, it came from the subject’s insides. Finally, the first had a remote effect, the second a close one. Conclusion: Helvetius’ principle is true in my case. The difference is that it wasn’t a case of apparent interests but the hidden ones.

  CXXXIV

  Fifty years Old

  I still haven’t told you—but I’ll say it now—that when Virgília was going down the steps and the naval officer touched me on the shoulder, I was fifty years old. It was, therefore, my life that was going downstairs—or the best part of it at least, a part full of pleasures, agitations, frights—disguised with dissimulation and duplicity—but, all in all, the best if we must speak in the usual terms. If, however, we employ other, more sublime ones, the best part was what remained, as I shall have the honor of telling you in the few pages left in this book.

  Fifty! It wasn’t necessary to confess it. You’re already getting the feeling that my style isn’t as nimble as it was during the early days. On that occasion, when the conversation with the naval officer came to an end and he put on his cape and left, I must confess that I was left a bit sad. I went back to the main room. I felt like dancing a polka, being intoxicated by the lights, the flowers, the chandeliers, the pretty eyes, and the quiet and sprightly bubble of individual conversations. And I’m not sorry. I was rejuvenated. But a half hour later, when I left the ball at four in the morning, what did I find inside the coach? My fifty years. There they were, insistent, not numb from the cold, not rheumatic—but dozing off from fatigue, a little longing for bed and rest. Then—and just look to what point the imagination of a sleepy man can reach—then I seemed to hear from a bat who was climbing up the roof of the vehicle: Mr. Brás Cubas, the rejuvenation was in the room, the chandeliers, the lights, the silk—in short, in other people.

  CXXXV

  Oblivion

  And now I have the feeling that if some lady has followed along these pages she closes the book and doesn’t read the rest. For her, the interest in my love, which was love, has died out. Fifty years old! It isn’t invalidism yet, but it’s no longer sprightliness. With ten more years I’ll understand what an Englishman once said, I’ll understand that “it’s a matter of not finding anyone who remembers my parents and the way in which I must face my own OBLIVION.”

  Put that name in small caps. OBLIVION! It’s only proper that all honor be paid to a personage so despised and so worthy, a last-minute guest at the party, but a sure one. The lady who dazzled at the dawn of the present reign knows it and, even more painfully, the one who displayed her charms in bloom during the Paraná ministry, because the latter is closer to triumph and she is already beginning to feel that others have taken her carriage. So if she’s true to herself she won’t persist in a dead or expiring memory. She won’t seek in the looks of today the same greeting as in yesterday’s looks, when it was others who took part in the march of life with a merry heart and a swift foot. Tempora mutantur. She understands that this whirlwind is like that, it carries off the leaves of the forest and the rags of the road without exception or mercy. And if she has a touch of philosophy she won’t envy but will feel sorry for the ones who have taken her carriage because they, too, will be helped down by the footman OBLIVION. A spectacle whose purpose is to amuse the planet Saturn, which is quite bored with it.

  CXXXVI

  Uselessness

  But, I’m either mistaken or I’ve just written a useless chapter.

  CXXXVII

  The Shako

  Not really. It sums up the reflections I made to Quincas Borba the following day, a
dding that I felt downhearted and a thousand other sad things. But that philosopher, with the elevated good sense he had at his disposal, shouted at me that I was sliding down the fatal slope of melancholy.

  “My dear Brás Cubas, don’t let yourself be overcome by those vapors. Good Lord! You’ve got to be a man! Be strong! Fight! Conquer! Dominate! Fifty is the age of science and government. Courage, Brás Cubas. Don’t turn fool on me. What have you got to do with that succession from ruin to ruin, from flower to flower? Try to savor life. And be aware that the worst philosophy is that of the weeper who lies down on the riverbank to mourn the incessant flow of the waters. Their duty is never to stop. Make an adjustment to the law and try to take advantage of it.”

  The value of the authority of a great philosopher is found in the smallest things. Quincas Borba’s words had the special virtue of shaking me out of the moral and mental torpor I was caught up in. Let’s get to it. Let’s get into the government, it’s time. Up till then I hadn’t participated in the great debates. I was courting a minister’s portfolio by means of flattery, teas, commissions, and votes. And the portfolio never came. It was urgent that I make a speech.

  I began slowly. Three days later during the discussion of the budget for the ministry of justice, I took advantage of an opening to ask the minister modestly if it wouldn’t be useful to reduce the size of the National Guard’s shakos. The object of the question wasn’t far-reaching, but even so I demonstrated how it wasn’t unworthy of the cogitations of a statesman and I cited Philopaemen, who ordered the replacement of his troops’ shields, which were small, by other larger ones, and also their spears, which were too light, a fact that history didn’t find out of line with the gravity of its pages. The size of our shakos called for a profound cut, not only to make them more stylish, but also to make them more hygienic. On parade in the sun the excessive heat they produce could be fatal. Since it was a well-known fact that it was a precept of Hippocrates that a person should keep his head cool, it seemed cruel to oblige a citizen, from the simple consideration of being in uniform, to risk his health and his life and, consequently, the future of his family. The chamber and the government should keep in mind that the National Guard is the rampart of freedom and independence, and that a citizen called up for service freely given, frequent, and arduous, had the right to have the onus of it lessened by a decree calling for a light and easy-fitting uniform. I added that the shako, because of its weight, lowered a citizen’s head, and the nation needed citizens whose brow could be raised, proud and serene, in the face of power. And I concluded with this idea: the weeping willow, which bends its branches toward the earth, is a graveyard tree. The palm tree, erect and firm, is a tree of the wilderness, public squares, and gardens.

  The impressions made by the speech were varied. As regards the form, the quick eloquence, the literary and philosophical part, the opinion was unanimous. Everyone told me it was perfect and that no one had ever been able to extract so many ideas from a shako. But the political part was considered deplorable by many. Some thought my speech was a parliamentary disaster. Lastly, they told me that others now considered me in the opposition, among them oppositionists in the chamber who went so far as to hint that it was a convenient moment for a vote of no confidence. I energetically rejected such an interpretation, which was not only erroneous but libelous in view of my prominent support of the cabinet. I added that the need to reduce the size of the shako was not so great that it couldn’t wait a few years and, in any case, I was ready to compromise in the extent of the cut, being content with three-quarters of an inch or less. In the end, even though my idea wasn’t adopted, it sufficed for me to have it introduced in parliament.

  Quincas Borba, however, made no restrictions. I’m not a political man, he told me at dinner, I don’t know whether you did the right thing or not. I do know that you made an excellent speech. And then he noted the most outstanding parts, the strong arguments with that modesty of praise that’s so fitting in a great philosopher. Then he took the subject into account and attacked the shako with such strength, such great lucidity that he ended up by effectively convincing me of its danger.

  CXXXVIII

  To a Critic

  My dear critic,

  A few pages back when I said I was fifty, I added: “You’re already getting the feeling that my style isn’t as nimble as it was during the early days.” Maybe you find that phrase incomprehensible, knowing my present state, but I call your attention to the subtlety of that thought. I don’t mean I’m older now than when I began the book. Death doesn’t age one. I do mean that in each phase of the narration of my life I experience the corresponding sensation. Good Lord! Do I have to explain everything?

  CXXXIX

  How I Didn’t Get to Be

  a Minister of State

  CXL

  Which Explains the Previous One

  There are things that are better said in silence. Such is the material of the previous chapter. Unsuccessful ambitious people will understand it. If the passion for power is the strongest of all, as some say, imagine the despair, the pain, the depression on the day I lost my seat in the Chamber of Deputies. All my hopes left: me, my political career was over. And take note that Quincas Borba, through philosophical inductions he made, found that my ambition wasn’t a true passion for power, but a whim, a desire to have some fun. In his opinion that feeling, no less profound than the other one, is much more vexing because it matches the love women have for lace and coiffures. A Cromwell or a Bonaparte, he added, for the very reason that they were burning with the passion for power, got there by sheer strength, either by the stairs on the right or the ones on the left. My feelings weren’t like that. Not having that same strength in themselves, they didn’t have certainty in the results and that was why there was greater affliction, greater disappointment, greater sadness. My feelings, according to Humanitism …

  “Go to the devil with your Humanitism,” I interrupted him. “I’m sick and tired of philosophies that don’t get me anything.”

  The harshness of the interruption in the case of a philosopher of his standing was the equivalent of an insult. But he forgave the irritation with which I spoke to him. They brought us coffee. It was one o’clock in the afternoon, we were in my study, a lovely room that looked out on the backyard, good books, objets d’art, a Voltaire among them, a bronze Voltaire who on that occasion seemed to be accentuating the sarcastic little smile with which he was looking at me, the scoundrel, excellent chairs. Outside the sun, a big sun, which Quincas Borba, I don’t remember whether as a jest or as poetry, called one of nature’s ministers. A cool breeze was blowing, the sky was blue. In each window—there were three—hung a cage with birds, who were trilling their rustic operas. Everything had the appearance of a conspiracy of things against man: and even though I was in my room, looking at my yard, sitting in my chair, listening to my birds, next to my books, lighted by my sun, it wasn’t enough to cure me of the longing for that other chair that wasn’t mine.

  CXLI

  Dogs

  “So what do you plan to do now?” Quincas Borba asked me, going over to put his empty coffee cup on one of the window sills. “I don’t know. I’m going to hide out in Tijuca, get away from people. I’m disgraced, disgusted. So many dreams, my dear Borba, so many dreams, and I’m nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Quincas Borba interrupted me with a look of indignation.

  In order to take my mind off it he suggested we go out. We went in the direction of Engenho Velho, on foot, philosophizing about things. I’ll never forget how beneficial that walk was. The words of that great man were the stimulating brandy of wisdom. He told me that I couldn’t run away from the fight. If the oratorical rostrum was closed to me, I should start a newspaper. He came to use less elevated speech, showing that philosophical language can, now and then, fortify itself with the slang of the people. Start a newspaper, he told me, and “bring down that whole stinking mess.”

  “A great idea! I’m going to
start a newspaper. I’m going to shatter them into a thousand pieces. I’m going to …”

  “Fight. You can shatter them or not, the essential thing is for you to fight. Life is a fight. A life without fight is a dead sea in the center of the universal organism.”

  A short while later we came upon a dogfight. Sometimes that would be of no consequence in the eyes of an ordinary man. Quincas Borba made me stop and watch the dogs. There were two of them. I notice that there was a bone under their feet, the motive for their war, and I couldn’t help having my attention called to the fact that there was no meat on the bone. Just a naked bone. The dogs were biting each other, growling, with fury in their eyes … Quincas Borba put his cane under his arm and seemed ecstatic.

  “Isn’t that beautiful?” he said from time to time.

  I wanted to get away from there but I couldn’t. He was rooted to the ground and he only started walking again when the fight was completely over and one of the dogs, bitten and defeated, took his hunger off someplace else. I noticed that Quincas had been truly happy, even though he held his happiness in as befits a great philosopher. He made me observe the beauty of the spectacle, recalled the object of contention, concluded that the dogs were hungry. But deprivation of food was nothing for the general effects of philosophy. Nor did he forget to remember that in some parts of the world the spectacle is on a grander scale: human beings are the ones who fight with dogs over bones and other less appetizing tidbits. A fight that becomes quite complicated because entering into action is man’s intelligence along with the whole accumulation of sagacity that the centuries have given him, etc.