The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil

by Machado De Assis

  The idea sent a chill down Mariana’s spine. Sophia’s indiscretion was inevitable. Hadn’t she blabbed all about certain masculine and feminine hats engaged in much more than a simple marital tiff? Mariana had the impulse not to antagonize her friend, and she instantly concealed her impatience and annoyance behind a mask of false docility. She began to smile as cheerfully as Sophia and to make random comments regarding this or that deputy, and, soon enough, the speech had concluded, and with it, the day’s legislative session.

  The clocks struck four. “Time to go home,” said Sophia. Mariana agreed that it was, but without showing signs of impatience, and the two women walked up Ouvidor to take the streetcar together. The walk, and getting onto the car, completed the spiritual exhaustion of Mariana, who started to breathe easier as soon as the vehicle began to roll. Just before Sophia got off, Mariana asked her not to repeat anything she’d told her, and Sophia promised that she wouldn’t.

  Mariana took a deep breath. The dove had escaped from the hawk. Her spirit had been battered and dizzied by so many different sights and sounds, people and things. She needed equilibrium and quiet surroundings. Her house wasn’t far away now. When the neighboring houses and gardens came into view, Mariana’s spirit was restored at last. She got off at her own house, opened the garden gate, and relaxed. She was back in her world, except for a flowerpot that the gardener had moved.

  “João,” she said to him, “put that where it was before.”

  Everything else was in order: the entry hall, the sitting room, the dining room, the bedrooms, everything. Mariana sat down in various rooms to take a good look at her things, so neat and still. After a day of swirling variety, the monotony of her house was a soothing balm, something that she had always enjoyed, but never so much as just then. The truth was that she’d made a mistake …

  She tried to review the events of the morning, and she couldn’t think, so relaxed did she feel in her own house, and so tired. At most, she thought a little (and a little unjustly) about Viçoso, who seemed a ridiculous figure to her now. She went to her room and undressed slowly, lovingly, methodically. Once in her dressing gown, she thought about the fight with her husband, and, on careful reconsideration, decided that the fight was mostly her fault. Her father always wanted to boss her around, and she shouldn’t let him. Why make a big thing over a hat that Conrado had worn for years?

  “I’ll wait and see how he acts when he comes home,” she said to herself.

  It was half past five o’clock; he would be home soon.

  Mariana went into the front room, peered through the glass into the street, listened for the streetcar, and nothing. She sat down by the window and opened Ivanhoe, trying to read, and not reading anything. Her eyes reached the bottom of the page then returned to the beginning because she had understood nothing, because her mind wandered, along with her eyes, to savor the perfection of the curtains or some similar detail of her house. Blessed monotony, thou tookest her to thy eternal bosom.

  At last, a streetcar stopped, her husband climbed down from it, and Mariana heard the squeak of the garden’s iron gate. She went to the window and peered out. Conrado was coming through the gate slowly, looking up and down the street, with his hat on his head—not the little hat that had caused all the trouble, but rather, a different one, just as his wife had requested that morning. Mariana’s spirit received a rude shock, similar to the one caused by the out-of-place flowerpot, something like the shock that a page of Voltaire would cause if encountered in the middle of Moreninha or Ivanhoe.3 It was a dissonant note amid the harmonious sonata of life. No, that hat would never do. What on earth had she been thinking when she told him not to wear the old one that suited him so well? Even if it wasn’t the most appropriate hat, it was the hat her husband had worn for years, the hat that fit his face.

  Conrado opened the door and entered. Mariana greeted him with a hug.

  “So, it’s over?” he asked after a moment, putting his arms around her waist.

  “Get rid of that one,” she whispered with a divine caress: “I like the other one.”

  A SINGULAR OCCURRENCE

  In the same year as “Chapter on Hats,” Machado published a much darker story about a woman. “Singular Ocorrência” (1883) is a puzzle, indeed. The unnamed narrator seems as unreliable as they come. We are never sure that we are getting the whole story from him. Is this really an open-and-shut case of casual infidelity, as the narrrator claims, or something much more complicated? Watch that narrator. His involvement in the story goes far beyond what he admits, if you ask me. Other elements here are much more predictable. Everything happens within the standard gender roles of nineteenth-century Brazilian society. The woman nicknamed Marocas is a “courtesan,” a beautiful, high-priced prostitute who becomes the mistress of a married man who can afford to buy her a house. Her lover Andrade is a respectable lawyer/politician whose marriage is mentioned only in passing. The narrator and his interlocutor, who follow Marocas down the street like wolves, embody male attitudes typical of a society where affluent men commonly kept mistresses (whereas poor men merely philandered), affluent women flirted like Sophia or stayed home like Mariana, and less fortunate women like Marocas cooked, sewed, did laundry, or got ahead any way they could.

  “Some occurrences in life are quite singular. See the lady who is entering the church of the Holy Cross? She has stopped outside the door to give money to a beggar …”

  “The one wearing black?”

  “Exactly. She’s about to go in … she’s gone inside.”

  “Say no more. I can tell from the way you look at her that you’ve known her fairly well, and not so long ago, I’d say, judging by her figure. She’s quite something.”

  “She must be forty-six.”

  “Well preserved, then. Come on. Stop looking at the ground and tell me everything. She’s a widow, naturally?”

  “No.”

  “So her husband is still alive. I assume that he’s ancient …”

  “She’s not married.”

  “So, an old maid?”

  “Not exactly. Who knows what she calls herself now. In 1860, everybody knew her simply as Marocas. She didn’t live off interest or rent, wasn’t a seamstress, didn’t run a girls’ school … keep going and you’ll figure it out. She lived on Sacramento Street. She was slender then and, no doubt, prettier than she is now, well mannered and never vulgar. She was modest, not showy or particularly well dressed, and yet when she walked down the street, many gentlemen were inclined to follow.”

  “Gentlemen such as yourself, for example?”

  “No, but I had a twenty-six-year-old friend from the province of Alagoas, Andrade, who practiced law and dabbled in politics. He’d married in Bahia and come to Rio in 1859. His wife was pretty, affectionate, and docile. They had a two-year-old daughter when I met them.”

  “And in spite of all that … Marocas?”

  “Right. She totally captivated him. Listen, if you’re not in a hurry, I’ll tell you an interesting story.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “He first laid eyes on her one day as he was leaving the shop of Brito, the printer and bookseller, by Rocio Square. Andrade saw a pretty woman coming toward him up the street and, given his inclination to chase skirts, he naturally waited for her to come closer. Marocas kept stopping and looking at the buildings, as if trying to find an address. She stopped in front of Brito’s shop and, shamefaced, she timidly showed Andrade a piece of paper and asked him to read her the address that was written on it. Across the square, he told her, and he pointed to more or less where. She took her leave with a charming curtsy, and Andrade wasn’t sure what to think.”

  “I’m not sure, either.”

  “Very simple. Marocas was illiterate. But Andrade couldn’t imagine that. He watched her traverse the square, which didn’t yet have the statue and plantings that it has today. She finally found the house, but not before asking several more times. That night he went to the theater to see the Du
mas play, The Lady of the Camellias.1 Marocas was there, and she cried like a baby during the last act. To make a long story short, two weeks later they were madly in love. Marocas got rid of all the men who had been spending time with her, quite a rich clientele, I believe. She devoted herself to Andrade and never thought of anything, or anyone, else.”

  “Just like the protagonist of the Dumas play.”

  “Exactly. Andrade taught her to read. One day he said to me, ‘I’m a schoolteacher now.’ That’s when he told me how they had met. Marocas learned fast, and understandably so, because she had many motivations: the shame of illiteracy, the desire to read the novels that he talked about, the pleasure of satisfying his desire, of pleasing him. Andrade hid nothing from me. You can’t imagine. He told me everything with happiness shining in his eyes, grateful for the confidence. Both of them confided in me. We frequently dined together, the three of us—and why not be frank?—sometimes there were four of us. Nothing unseemly, of course, lots of high spirits, but all very decent. Marocas spoke the way she dressed, in a rather straitlaced way. Gradually, we became intimate enough for her to ask me all about Andrade’s life, about his personal habits, about his wife and daughter, about whether he really loved her, or whether, to the contrary, he had other women and would likely soon forget her—a shower of questions, signaling her strong affection and her fear of losing him. Once, for the feast of São João, Andrade was going to spend the holiday with his family at Gávea, for a dinner, a dance, and a couple of days outside the city. I went along, too. When Marocas said goodbye to me, she recalled a comedy that she’d seen a few weeks earlier, I Dine with My Mother, saying that, because she had no other company, she intended to have dinner with a portrait, as did the Sophie Arnould character in the play. But, of course, it wouldn’t be a portrait of her mother, because she didn’t have one, but, rather, a portrait of Andrade. Hearing this, he leaned over to kiss her hand, but because of my presence she modestly withdrew it.”

  “I like that gesture.”

  “He liked it, too. So he took her head in his hands and deposited the kiss paternally on her forehead. Then we left for Gávea. During the trip Andrade said adoring things about Marocas and breathlessly related their trivial news. He told me about his plan to buy her a house somewhere on the outskirts of Rio as soon as he could find the money, and he praised her for never asking him for more than was strictly necessary. And what’s more, I said, three weeks ago she pawned some of her jewelry in order to pay her seamstress. That news really affected him. I can’t swear it, but I do believe that he had tears in his eyes. He said that he was definitely going to buy her a house. She deserved some financial security. In Gávea we talked more about Marocas, until finally, the excursion concluded, we returned to Rio. Andrade left his family at their house and went to his office to take care of some urgent business. Just after midday, a certain Leandro appeared to ask him for money. Leandro is a good-for-nothing and a freeloader who was once employed by a lawyer to get signatures and handle paperwork, and afterward he asked for loans from everyone he had met during his brief legal career. Andrade gave him three milréis and, noticing that Leandro seemed exceptionally cheerful, he asked him why. The man closed his eyes and licked his lips, and Andrade, anticipating his favorite sort of story, asked if he’d gotten lucky. The guy hesitated a moment, then confessed that he had.”

  “Look. She’s coming out of the church. That’s her, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is. Let’s move away from the street corner.”

  “Yes, sir, she must have been very, very pretty. She carries herself like a duchess.”

  “She didn’t even glance this way. She always looks straight ahead as she walks, never to the sides. She’s headed up Ouvidor Street …”

  “Yes, sir. I do understand your friend Andrade.”

  “Back to the story: Leandro confessed that the previous day he had enjoyed a rare piece of good fortune—something more than rare, almost unique, something that he never would have expected to happen to him. He didn’t deserve it, he knew, being just a poor devil, but then, even the poor are God’s children. He told how the night before at around ten o’clock he’d encountered a woman in Rocio Square, simply dressed, wrapped in a big shawl that nonetheless revealed her elegant figure. Walking faster than he, the lady had approached from behind, passed very close beside him, looked deeply into his eyes, and then slowed down, as if she were waiting for him. The poor devil imagined that she had mistaken him for someone else. He confessed to Andrade that, despite her plain clothing, he could easily see that she was not a morsel for the likes of him. He kept walking. The woman stopped and stared at him so insistently that he finally dared, just a little … and she dared the rest. What an angel! What a nice apartment! And she wasn’t after money! A delicious morsel, indeed. ‘A perfect arrangement for a gentleman like you,’ he told Andrade, who simply shook his head. He hadn’t figured it out yet. But Leandro insisted: ‘She lived on Sacramento Street, number so-and-so.’ …”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “Imagine the impact on Andrade. For the next few minutes, he had no idea what he was saying or doing, nor what he was thinking or feeling. He finally managed to ask Leandro if the story was true, to which the other replied that he had no reason to make it up. Seeing Andrade’s commotion, though, he asked that the story not be repeated. For his part, he was the soul of discretion. He was about to leave, but Andrade stopped him and offered to pay him twenty milréis to go with him to the woman’s house and identify her in his presence.”

  “Good heavens!”

  “I’m not defending Andrade. It was an ugly thing to do. But in a situation like that even the best of men becomes blinded by passion. Andrade was a decent fellow, generous and sincere. But he loved her so much, and the blow was so heavy, that it drove him to exact revenge.”

  “Did the other man accept?”

  “He hesitated—from fear, I suspect, because he had no dignity—but twenty milréis for someone like that … imagine. His one condition was that he didn’t want trouble. Marocas was in the living room when they arrived. Andrade opened the door, and Marocas went to embrace him, but he warned her with his hand that he had someone with him. Then, watching her intently, he had Leandro enter. Marocas turned white as a sheet. ‘Is this the lady?’ he asked. ‘Yes, sir,’ murmured Leandro in a small voice, recognizing that this act was more ignoble even than he. Andrade opened his wallet with a theatrical gesture, pulled out twenty milréis, gave it to Leandro, and, as if speaking lines on stage, ordered him to leave. Leandro went out. The ensuing scene was brief but melodramatic. I didn’t get all the details because my information came entirely from Andrade, and he was naturally so upset that some things escaped his attention. She confessed nothing, but she was clearly beside herself, and when, after saying the most hurtful things in the world, he turned toward the door, she threw herself at his feet and grabbed his hands, tearful and desperate, threatening to kill herself. He left her lying at the top of the stairs and ran down them into the street.”

  “Really, a poor devil picked up in the street … so she was in the habit of things like that?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Here’s the rest. That night, at about eight o’clock, Andrade went to my house and waited until I arrived. He had already been there looking for me three times that day. His story left me astounded, stupefied, but how could one doubt that he had incontrovertible proof? I won’t tell you everything I heard, the cries and swearing, the dreadful names, the plans for revenge—the normal style and repertory of such crises. I recommended that he leave her and devote himself to his daughter and wife, such a good and tender woman … and he agreed, but the furor returned. And he went from furor to all sorts of imaginings, such as that Marocas had staged it all to put him to the test, that she had paid Leandro to say what he’d said, and the proof was that Leandro had told him the house and the apartment number although he had never asked. He seized on this unlikely
detail to try to escape reality, but reality was inescapable: the way that Marocas had turned so white, Leandro’s sincere and undeniable contentment … everything told him that the misadventure had really happened. I think Andrade may even have been sorry that he’d been so drastic. As for me, I meditated on the affair without ever finding an explanation. She was so modest, and even prim …”

  “There’s a quotation from the theater that explains her behavior. It’s from Emile Auguier, I think. She had a certain ‘nostalgia for the gutter,’ right? They always return to their old ways.”

  “I don’t think so, keep listening. At ten o’clock a servant of Marocas, a freed slave who was a great friend of her mistress, appeared at my house to tell Andrade that after crying a long time locked in her room, Marocas had gone out in the morning and not come back. Andrade’s first impulse was to go look for her immediately, but I restrained him. The woman pleaded with us to find her mistress. ‘She’s not in the habit of going out?’ asked Andrade sarcastically, but the freedwoman said that she wasn’t. ‘Did you hear?’ he bellowed in my direction, as hope once again seized his heart, poor devil. ‘Did your mistress go out last night?’ I asked her, and the woman said, yes, she had. But I didn’t ask her anything more because I felt sorry for Andrade, whose affliction kept growing with each new piece of evidence added to the proof of his dishonor. We went out to look for Marocas, everywhere in Rio that we thought she might be found, including the police station, but the night passed without results. The next morning we went back to the police. One of those in charge there, I don’t remember whom, was Andrade’s friend, who totally accepted his story, the relationship between Andrade and Marocas being common knowledge among their friends. The police got busy and found that no disasters had occurred during the night, no passenger had been seen falling off the ferryboats that crossed Guanabara Bay between Rio and Niteroi, the shops selling knives and guns had sold none recently, and no apothecary in town had dispensed a lethal poison. In short, the police tried everything and found nothing. I won’t tell you about Andrade’s state of affliction during these long hours, because he spent the entire day in useless investigations. He suffered not only the pain of losing Marocas, but also—at least potentially, in light of her disappearance—remorse about his responsibility for her fate. He asked me over and over whether it wasn’t perfectly natural to do what he’d done, being out of his head with indignation, and whether I wouldn’t have done the same. But then he’d go back to affirming her misdeeds, just as ardently as he had affirmed, a moment before, that she was innocent. He wanted to adjust reality to his fluctuating feelings.”