The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil

by Machado De Assis

“In any case, Father, I certainly hope that you’re not planning to join the ranks of the opposition,” said the barber with a scowl.

  “And how could I do that,” responded the vicar, without responding, “if there isn’t any opposition?”

  The barber smiled, because it was true. Except for the captain of dragoons, the deposed town council, and a few local big shots, everyone acclaimed him. Even the big shots, while not acclaiming him, had not opposed him. Practically the whole town regarded him as a savior, the man who was going to liberate Itaguaí from Simão Bacamarte and his dreadful Casa Verde.

  VIII

  The Apothecary’s Dilemma

  The next morning, the barber, accompanied by two uniformed assistants, strode up the main street of Itaguaí in the direction of Simão Bacamarte’s residence. He knew that it would be more dignified and fitting to summon the alienist to the Palace of Government (as he had renamed the town hall), but he feared that his summons would be ignored, and so he chose to go to the alienist, instead. That way he would avoid embarrassment and also appear magnanimous.

  I will not describe the apothecary’s terrified state of mind when told that the barber was going to Bacamarte’s house. “They’re going to arrest him,” he thought. The apothecary’s anguish during those days of revolution can hardly be imagined. No man ever found himself on the horns of a worse dilemma. Bacamarte’s hour of need called Crispim Soares to his friend’s side, but the triumph of the barber called him to the barber. News of the rebellion had burdened the apothecary’s spirit severely the day before, because he knew that the alienist was universally hated. News of the barber’s triumph a few hours later had been the last straw. Crispim’s wife, a woman of fortitude and a particular friend of Dona Evarista, had told him that his place was at the side of Simão Bacamarte. But his heart had cried out that, no, it was a lost cause, and nobody willingly espouses a lost cause. “Cato did it, true enough,” he had reflected, “when he fell on his own sword.” Father Lopes had often told him the story of Cato’s suicide when Julius Caesar conquered Pompeii. But Crispim reasoned that Cato had no choice, and he did. So, when his wife had insisted that he make his stand with the alienist, Crispim Soares declared that he had a fever and felt ill.

  “There goes Porfírio to Dr. Bacamarte’s house,” said his wife the next morning, standing at his bedside. “He’s got several men with him.”

  “They’re going to arrest him,” thought the apothecary.

  That idea led to another. After arresting the alienist they would come arrest him as an accomplice. And that idea cured his fever instantly. Leaping out of bed, he announced that he felt better, and, despite his consort’s strenuous protests, he dressed and went out. The old chronicles of Itaguaí are unanimous in saying that the apothecary’s wife took great comfort in the noble action of her husband, who she believed was going to join his friend Bacamarte. The chroniclers point out, as well, that nothing could better illustrate the comforting power of mistaken beliefs, because Crispim went not to the alienist’s house, but, rather, to the Palace of Government. Once there, he expressed surprise at not finding the barber, whom he wished to congratulate. He had not done so yesterday on account of illness, and he forced a cough. The officials to whom he spoke considered his declaration significant, because they well knew of his friendship with the alienist. So they received him warmly, saying that His Excellency had gone to the Casa Verde on important business but would return shortly. They offered the apothecary a chair, some refreshment, and their compliments, remarking that the cause of the illustrious protector was the cause of all true patriots. Crispim Soares said yes, yes, of course, that he intended to write to His Majesty in those very terms.

  IX

  Two Textbook Cases

  The alienist did not keep the barber waiting. Having no way to resist the new government, he was ready to obey it. He asked only that he not be forced to be present at the destruction of the Casa Verde.

  “The destruction of the Casa Verde?” replied the barber after a respectful pause. “You are mistaken, sir, totally mistaken in attributing such a malicious intent to my administration. Rightly or wrongly, the people of Itaguaí believe that most of your patients are perfectly sane, but that is a purely scientific issue, and a scientific issue cannot be resolved by political decisions. Moreover, the Casa Verde was entrusted to my hands by the outgoing administration as a public institution, and so it shall remain. Surely there is some compromise solution through which public confidence may be restored.”

  The alienist could hardly conceal his astonishment. He confessed that he had expected something quite different—the demolition of the asylum, his own arrest or banishment, anything but—

  “You would not be so surprised, sir,” interrupted the barber gravely, “if you considered the responsibility that rests upon my shoulders. The blind, uncomprehending indignation of the common people leads them to demand a certain kind of measure from their government, but the government must exercise superior judgment, moderating that blind impulse and taking only such measures as may be appropriate. That is the situation in which I find myself today. Yesterday, enflamed by their justified wrath at the corruption of their former rulers, the People called for the abolition of the Casa Verde—but can government abolish madness? No. Can government diagnose it or determine the correct therapy for it? No, a thousand times, no! Government cannot usurp the role proper to Science. Therefore, the new administration cannot do without your services, sir, nor does it wish to. Let us stand together, and the people will obey us. We need only to preserve appearances and placate the rabble. For example, we might release from the Casa Verde a few harmless lunatics, a few who are almost cured, etcetera, etcetera. In that way we would demonstrate tolerance and benevolence with little risk to public safety.”

  “How many were killed or wounded yesterday?” asked Simão Bacamarte after about three minutes.

  The barber was shocked by the question, but he answered quickly: eleven dead and twenty-five wounded.

  “Eleven dead and twenty-five wounded!” repeated the alienist.

  He then said that he would decide how to proceed within a few days, and he asked several more questions about the event of the day before—the confrontation with the dragoons and their switching sides, the confrontation with the council, and so on—to which the barber replied in detail, with frequent reference to corruption in high places. The barber confessed that several leading families had not yet endorsed his rule, but the alienist would be able to help greatly in that regard. In sum, the new administration would be proud, indeed, to boast the collaboration of the town’s most distinguished native son.

  The alienist listened in silence, his noble countenance unaltered, displaying neither vanity nor modesty, as emotionless as a stone idol.

  “Eleven dead and twenty-five wounded,” he repeated, after seeing the barber to the door. “Here are two textbook cases of cerebral insufficiency: the barber’s pathological duplicity and the idiocy of his followers.”

  “Long live the illustrious Porfírio!” cheered thirty-or-so people who had been waiting to acclaim the barber when he emerged from the alienist’s house.

  The alienist looked out the window and heard a bit of the barber’s address to the thirty-or-so people.

  “ … because the People’s will is my command. You may rest assured of that! All I ask of you is order and obedience, the most fundamental prerequisite of good government.”

  “Long live the illustrious Porfírio!” cheered the People, waving their hats.

  “Two textbook cases … ,” muttered the alienist.

  X

  The Restoration

  Within five days, he had committed fifty people to the Casa Verde for acclaiming the new government. The entire town expressed indignation. The government was stunned, unable to react. João Pina, another barber, began to say openly in the street that Porfírio “had sold his soul to Simão Bacamarte,” a phrase that rallied the most resolute men in town around João P
ina. Porfírio, seeing his former professional rival at the head of an insurrection, understood that all was lost unless he struck a forceful blow, and he issued two decrees, one abolishing the Casa Verde and another banishing the alienist. João Pina demonstrated clearly, with excellent turns of phrase, that Porfírio’s actions were simply for show, a deceptive diversion that no one should take seriously. Two hours later, Porfírio had fallen ignominiously from power, and João Pina was assuming the thorny responsibilities of governance. Finding copies of Porfírio’s proclamation, his report to the viceroy, and various documents used to inaugurate the outgoing government, Pina had them copied and reissued. It goes without saying that he substituted his name for Porfírio’s, and where the other barber had spoken of a “privileged town council grown negligent and corrupt,” this one spoke of “an upstart intruder infected by the worst doctrines of the French Revolution….”

  At that point a military force sent by the viceroy marched into Itaguaí and restored order. The alienist naturally demanded that they turn over to him the barber Porfírio, which they did, along with fifty-or-so individuals whose cerebral insufficiency destined them for the Casa Verde. Furthermore, the restored government promised to turn over nineteen others who had yet to recover fully from wounds received during the Pork Chop Revolution.

  The influence of Simão Bacamarte had now reached its zenith. He had only to ask, and he got anything and everything that he wanted. We can take the measure of his influence in the promptness with which the restored town council agreed to let councilman Sebastião Freitas be taken to the Casa Verde. Aware of the extraordinary inconsistency of the councilman’s opinions, the alienist pronounced his case pathological and asked that he be committed. The same thing happened with the apothecary. When the alienist heard about Crispim’s momentary embrace of the Pork Chop Revolution, he compared that to the approval he had always gotten from the apothecary, even the day before, and had him brought in. Crispim Soares did not deny the facts, but he attempted to explain them by claiming he was terrified and had done nothing else to support the revolution because he had been in bed, sick. Simão Bacamarte did not contradict him. He simply remarked to the others present that the case of Crispim Soares provided a remarkable illustration of how terror can, and often does, precipitate madness.

  The best measure of Bacamarte’s influence, however, was the docility with which the remaining councilmen turned over their own president. That worthy magistrate had declared during a council meeting that he wanted thirty buckets of blood to wash away the affront that the Pork Chop Revolution had done to his honor, words repeated to the alienist—enthusiastically and in terms of admiration—by the council secretary. Simão Bacamarte first took the secretary to the Casa Verde, then went straight to the town hall and announced to the council that its president had a dangerous form of lunacy that must be studied. The council hesitated at first but gave in, after some discussion, for the benefit of mankind.

  From then on, the process only accelerated. A man could not tell the simplest sort of lie without being sent instantly to the Casa Verde. Everything was madness, it seemed. Gossips, gamblers, people who exaggerated or prevaricated, those who were habitually stuck up or who merely sucked up—no one escaped the emissaries of the alienist. He left girls in love alone but would not tolerate flirts, saying that love was a natural impulse and flirtation, a vice. Misers and spendthrifts disappeared into the Casa Verde with equal frequency, giving rise to the protest that workable guidelines for sanity no longer existed.

  Some of the old chroniclers question Bacamarte’s integrity and cite as evidence the story of the silver ring. According to their accusation (which I cannot vouch for) he asked the town council to pass a law authorizing the use of a silver thumb ring on the left hand of any person who, without proof of any kind, claimed to descend from Portuguese nobility. These chroniclers suggest that Bacamarte’s aim was to enrich a certain silversmith, his dear friend. The silversmith clearly benefitted, but the Casa Verde did, as well, making the true motivation of the illustrious physician less than crystal clear. As for the reason why all wearers of the silver ring were taken to the Casa Verde, this is one of the murkiest issues in the entire history of Itaguaí. According to the likeliest hypothesis, they were committed for waving their hands excessively in the street, in church, even at home. Everybody knows that crazy people wave their hands excessively. However, this is merely a hypothesis. Bacamarte made no statement on the matter.

  “Where will it end?” asked the town big shots. “If only we had supported the Pork Chop Revolution!”

  And one fine morning, the morning of a day of a big dance at the town hall, Itaguaí awoke to the news that the alienist’s own wife was in the Casa Verde. No one could believe it. Surely it was a joke. But no, it was God’s own truth. Dona Evarista had been taken there at two o’clock in the morning. Father Lopes ran to the alienist’s house and inquired discreetly about what had happened.

  “I had suspected it for some time,” said her husband. “She always lived quite modestly until her trip to Rio de Janeiro, and then that sudden fever for silks, velvet, lace, and jewels … the contrast was just too stark. So I began to observe her behavior. She could converse about nothing else. If I mentioned the history of the royal court at Lisbon, she would ask about the cut of the ladies’ dresses. If a woman paid her a visit during my absence, she would describe the visitor’s clothing item by item, approving of some and censuring others, before she mentioned the purpose of the visit. One day, I believe you will recall, Father, she promised to make a new dress every year for the image of Our Lady on the principal altar. All these symptoms were serious enough … but then, last night, she went over the edge. Her dress for this evening’s gala was all ready except for the choice of a necklace, whether one of sapphires or one of garnets. Day before yesterday she asked me which she should wear, and I told her that she looked beautiful in both. Yesterday at lunch she repeated the question and afterward I noticed that she was unusually quiet and pensive. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘I wanted to wear the garnet necklace,’ she said, ‘but the sapphires are so pretty!’ I said, ‘Fine, wear the sapphire necklace,’ but she objected: ‘What about the garnets?’ The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. We had dinner and went to sleep at the usual hour. I woke up in the middle of the night—it was about half past one, I believe—and she wasn’t in bed. So I got up, and there she was in her dressing room, sitting in front of the mirror, trying on the two necklaces one after the other: garnets, sapphires, garnets, sapphires. I had her committed immediately.”

  Father Lopes said nothing, but the answer did not completely satisfy him. Perceiving the attitude of the priest, the alienist explained that Dona Evarista had a mild case of “sumptuary mania,” nothing incurable, but worthy of study.

  “I expect to have her cured in six weeks,” he concluded.

  The selfless action of the illustrious physician greatly impressed the town as a whole. The mistrust and speculation that had surrounded him abruptly ceased once the alienist had his own wife—whom he loved more than life itself—committed to the Casa Verde. Who now could oppose him, or even suggest that he had considerations other than scientific ones?

  He was a hero, austere and sublime, a cross between Hippocrates and Cato.

  XI

  The Amazement of Itaguaí

  And now, prepare yourself, dear Reader, to be as amazed as the town of Itaguaí when it learned that all the lunatics in the Casa Verde were to be released.

  “All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  “That’s impossible. Some of them, maybe … but all?”

  “All. So he says, anyway, in the report that he sent today to the town council …”

  In fact, the alienist had sent a formal communication to the town council with the following six points:

  (1) By his calculations, four fifths of the population of

  Itaguaí was now resident in the Casa Verde.

 
(2) Therefore, he had reevaluated his definition of “sanity” as consisting in the perfect equilibrium of all the mental faculties.

  (3) Judging by the statistics of Itaguaí, he now believed the reverse to be true; i.e., that a disequilibrium of the mental faculties is normal, a perfect equilibrium, abnormal—and hypothetically pathological.

  (4) Consequently, he intended to release all the current residents of the Casa Verde immediately, in order to make beds available for new patients who would be chosen in accord with his revised hypothesis.

  (5) He would spare no effort in the continued pursuit of scientific truth and appreciated the same dedication on the part of the town council.

  (6) He intended to reimburse the council and the patients’ families for unspent monies paid on behalf of those mistakenly presumed to be insane, and he invited the council to inspect the financial accounts of the Casa Verde.

  The amazement of Itaguaí was great, indeed, and the joy of the friends and families of the released patients, equally great. Dinners, concerts and dances, public illuminations, and celebrations of all kinds marked the happy occasion. A detailed description of them is beside the point. Suffice it to say that they were splendid, touching, and protracted. Amid the rejoicing, few paid any attention to the last part of point four.

  XII

  The Last Part of Point Four

  The public illuminations were finally extinguished, the families of Itaguaí, finally reunited, and everything that had been out of kilter seemed to function, once again, the way it should. Order reigned anew, and the town council governed without outside interference. Its president and Councilman Freitas were back, too. As for Porfírio, the ex-protector, he had learned his lesson and decided that the obscure glories of razor and scissors were preferable to the brilliant calamities of public life. He had to go to court, of course, but the townspeople implored His Majesty for clemency and managed to secure a pardon for him. The other barber, João Pina, was absolved of the charge of rebellion because he had overthrown an illegal government.