A Chapter of Hats: Selected Stories

by Machado De Assis

  Machado’s sympathy and capacity for charm can be given free rein when the poor, or not-quite-so-poor, are less pressured, as in the opening of ‘The Diplomat’, with its evocation of a St John’s Night party – this June celebration (midwinter, in the southern hemisphere) had some of the atmosphere of Christmas about it, and we can feel the author’s affection for the world, with its minor characters – Dona Felismina, João Viegas, Joaninha, Queiroz and so on – as well as his sympathy for the central character, Rangel, whose obsession with rank and status harms no one but himself. The black slave in the story’s first sentence – that is what she would almost certainly be, in 1853, though she is only called ‘black’ (‘preta’) – is an incidental, though we can be sure Machado didn’t think so, and put her there quite intentionally. ‘Admiral’s Night’ gives us a glimpse into the world of a lower class yet, the poor who lived in shacks on the edge of Rio, the forerunners of the modern favelas, and sailors, a notoriously maltreated, almost enslaved group; both these stories probably have an element of autobiographical affection in them, though it is almost entirely submerged. As Deolindo makes his way to see Genoveva, he passes the hill where Machado was born, near the ‘Cemetery of the English’, reserved for a small but important minority. Great Britain wielded huge economic power in nineteenth-century Brazil – cultural hegemony was largely reserved for the French.

  It is this narrow band of society, the free whites, mulattos and blacks, that felt most immediately the destructive effects of slavery, as we have seen in the two stories on the topic. Machado enjoys watching the moral choices such people make under pressure, and knows that nothing is ever simple – in this world, divisions between social and individual, tragic and comic can be felt, but they are not the final terms of the stories. In ‘A Schoolboy’s Story’, we see how adult pressures, corruption and betrayal, already impinge on a child’s world – unperceived by the narrator, too, we see how the impoverished schoolmaster, furious at the public events he’s reading about in the papers, takes his frustration out on the young. At least, that is how I see it – the narrator thinks the political passions sometimes prevent him wielding the cane, but the story, I think, allows us to see differently. This ‘transmitted violence’, as we could call it, is a situation Machado returns to more than once; in a more comic vein, it forms the ambience of the wonderful ‘A Pair of Arms’ – Ignacio and Dona Severina are both victims of the authoritarian Borges, but his bark is a good deal worse than his bite, and he, too, has to struggle to make ends meet in an unfriendly world, and – not unnaturally? – takes it out on those around him.

  Such situations as these gave Machado a psychological acuity which, again, can remind one of his Russian contemporaries, whom, with the exception of Gogol, he quite possibly never read. Sometimes, in fact, it takes over the whole story, as in ‘The Hidden Cause’, an exploration of sadism which the BBC was reluctant to broadcast in 1991, so shocking is its central passage, where Machado seems suddenly to enter another realm, as if he himself found a perverse enjoyment in its description of torture. A different case is that of ‘Pylades and Orestes’, a late story from 1903, an account, it seems to me, of a homosexual in a world where homosexuality ‘doesn’t exist’. It seems Machado knew all about that too. In a short novel, The Old House, published in instalments in the same ladies’ magazine as ‘A Chapter of Hats’, he mentions, just in passing, the rape of a twenty-four-year-old bishop by Cesare Borgia, the son of a pope, as recounted by a sixteenth-century Florentine historian.

  Nowhere, perhaps, does Machado’s subtlety and reach go further than in ‘A Famous Man’, the only story he published in abolition year, 1888 – Henry James, we hope, might have appreciated its dramatisation of creative frustration, and its quiet, sympathetic humour.2 We can recognise this figure, the popular composer who would dearly love to write ‘great’ classical music – Arthur Sullivan, who wrote the score for one comic opera after another with marvellous facility, came to grief in the insufferable Golden Legend and Ivanhoe. But everything is given a subtle Brazilian colour – it seems to tip from tragedy to comedy and back again in the space of a single paragraph or sentence. We are again in the realm of the carioca free poor; we are also in the world of popular music, which of course has a huge importance in Brazil, and has since its beginnings been associated with the black population. Machado almost never refers to race or skin colour in his fiction, nor should that surprise us, given his own entirely probable sensitivity on the subject. So what about Pestana’s ‘long curly black hair, cautious eyes, and shaven chin’, and his doubtful origins, the probable son of the priest who left him his worldly goods – ‘something my story is [naturally …] not concerned with’? The polkas he composes with such ease and brilliance were not in fact, or not exactly, polkas, but an acclimatised version of the dance that had arrived in Brazil in the 1840s; these polkas had an extra swing to them which had African roots, and which explains the sudden animation in the room when they are struck up. Their titles may be as pointless as Pestana’s publisher says, but they too have a swing, and a degree of sexual innuendo, which is part and parcel of the expressiveness of the music itself.

  On the classical side, however, not only do we have poor Pestana’s repeated falls into plagiarism – his frustration leads to a kind of perverse cruelty disguised as love. He marries the tubercular Maria, one suspects, so that she will inspire him to greater heights, perhaps to his own ‘Ave, Maria’ – a subtly deployed comma, that. Machado himself, it should be said, was a fervent lover of classical music, and certainly did not believe, any more than Pestana, that popular music is where it’s all at, much as he felt its power and charm, and had some inkling of the ‘old and intricate things’ in which it has its roots (his words, from a newspaper column written in 1887). Is this a self-portrait, as roundabout as you like, but still a self-portrait, of a man from a provincial backwater, immensely intelligent and cultured, unable to find true expression, ‘delirious, tormented, an eternal shuttlecock between his ambition and his vocation’ or between two cultural worlds? I don’t think so; and Machado hints at this at the very end, when Pestana discovers humour (‘the only joke he’d ever cracked in his life’) on his deathbed. Since ‘In the Ark’ and Epitaph, humour in all its guises had been Machado’s salvation and his trusted weapon. He knew all about his own world, and plenty about others beyond it he never saw, and he was no shuttlecock.

  In the Ark: Three Unpublished Chapters of Genesis

  Chapter A

  1. Then Noah said to his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth: ‘We will leave the ark, according to the will of the Lord, we, and our wives, and all the animals. The ark will come to rest on top of a mountain; there we will disembark.

  2. ‘Because the Lord hath kept his promise, when he said unto me: I have resolved to blot out all living flesh; evil rules the earth, and I wish to make all men perish. Make a wooden ark; enter into it yourself, your wife, and your sons.

  3. ‘And your sons’ wives, and a pair of all the animals.

  4. ‘Now, therefore, the Lord’s promise has been fulfilled, and all men have perished, and the fountains of the heavens have closed; we will disembark on the earth again, to live in peace and harmony.’

  5. Thus said Noah, and Noah’s sons were very happy to hear their father’s words; and Noah left them alone, retiring to one of the rooms in the ark.

  6. Then Japheth lifted up his voice and said: ‘Our life will be full of delight. The fig tree will give us its fruit, the sheep its wool, the cow its milk, the sun its light and the night its awning.

  7. ‘For we will be the only people on earth, and all the earth will be ours, and no one will disturb the peace of a family preserved from the punishment which afflicted all men.

  8. ‘For ever and ever.’ Then Shem, when he heard his brother speak, said: ‘I have an idea.’ To which Japheth and Ham answered: ‘Let us hear your idea, Shem.’

  9. And Shem spoke from his heart, saying: ‘My father has his family; each one of us has his
family; we could live in separate tents. Each one of us will do what seems good: whether that be to plant, hunt, or carve wood, or spin flax.’

  10. And Japheth replied: ‘I think Shem’s idea is good; we can live in separate tents. The ark will come to rest on the top of a mountain; my father and Ham will disembark on the side of the rising sun; Shem and I on the side of the setting sun. Shem will occupy two hundred cubits of land, and I another two hundred.’

  11. But when Shem spoke, saying: ‘I think two hundred cubits is too little,’ Japheth retorted: ‘Then let it be five hundred cubits each. Between my land and your land will be a river to divide us, so that our property will be clearly differentiated. I will stay on the left bank and you on the right bank;

  12. ‘And my land will be called the land of Japheth, and yours will be called the land of Shem; and we will go to each other’s tents, and share the bread of happiness and harmony.’

  13. And when Shem had approved the division, he asked Japheth: ‘But the river? who will the water of the river, its current, belong to?

  14. ‘For we possess the banks, and have established nothing concerning the current.’ And Japheth replied, that each could fish from either side; but his brother disagreed, and proposed that they should divide the river in two, putting a post in the middle. Japheth, however, said that the current would carry the post away.

  15. And Japheth having replied thus, his brother answered: ‘Since the post is not good in your eyes, I’ll have the river, and its two banks; and so that there shall be no conflict, you can build a wall, ten or twelve cubits away from your old bank.

  16. ‘And if you lose something by this, the difference is not great, and it is right, after all, so that harmony between us shall never be disturbed, according to the Lord’s will.’

  17. Japheth however replied: ‘Get knotted! What right have you to take the bank, which is mine, and rob a piece of my land? Are you better than me,

  18. ‘Or more handsome or more beloved of my father? What right have you so monstrously to violate another’s property?

  19. ‘Now I say unto you that the river will stay on my side, and if you dare to enter my land, I will slay you as Cain slew his brother.’

  20. Hearing this, Ham was very afraid, and began to calm his two brothers,

  21. Who had eyes the size of figs and the colour of hot coals, and looked at each other full of anger and contempt.

  22. The ark, however, floated on the waters of the abyss.

  Chapter B

  1. Now Japheth, afflicted by anger, began to foam at the mouth, and Ham spoke soothing words to him,

  2. Saying: ‘Let us find a way of reconciling everything; I will call your wife and Shem’s wife.’

  3. Each of them, however, refused, saying that it was a question of rights, and persuasion was of no avail.

  4. And Shem proposed to Japheth that he should make up for the ten lost cubits, measuring out an equal quantity at the other side of his land. But Japheth answered:

  5. ‘Why not send me once and for all to the ends of the earth? Now you’re no longer contented with five hundred cubits; you want five hundred and ten, and I shall be left with four hundred and ninety.

  6. ‘Have you no moral feelings? Don’t you know what justice is? Can’t you see this is barefaced robbery? Don’t you know I’ll defend what’s mine, even at the risk of my own life?

  7. ‘And that, if blood must flow, blood will flow, now, this minute,

  8. ‘To punish your pride and wash away your iniquity?’

  9. Then Shem advanced on Japheth; but Ham put himself between them, putting a hand on the breast of each one;

  10. While the wolf and the lamb, who during the days of the deluge had lived in the sweetest of harmony, hearing the noise of voices, came to watch the fight between the two brothers, and began to keep a close eye on each other.

  11. And Ham said: ‘Look, I have a marvellous idea, which will settle everything,

  12. ‘And which is inspired by the love I have for my brothers. I will sacrifice the land which is due to me, next to that of my father, and will take the river and its two banks, and you will give me some twenty cubits each.’

  13. And Shem and Japheth laughed with contempt and sarcasm, saying: ‘Go and stuff dates! Keep your idea for the days of your old age.’ And they pulled Ham’s nose and ears; and Japheth, putting two fingers in his mouth, imitated the hiss of the serpent, taunting him.

  14. Then Ham, ashamed and irritated, stretched out his hands, saying: ‘Leave it be!’ and went to see his father and the wives of the two brothers.

  15. Japheth however said to Shem: ‘Now that we are alone, let’s decide this serious matter, whether it be with tongue or fists. Either you give me both banks, or I’ll break one of your ribs.’

  16. Saying this, Japheth threatened Shem with clenched fists, while Shem, arching his body, said in an angry voice: ‘I’ll give you nothing, you thief!’

  17. To which Japheth replied angrily: ‘It’s you that’s the thief!’

  18. This said, they advanced on one another and grappled. Japheth had a forceful, skilful arm; Shem was strong in resistance. Then Japheth, holding his brother by the waist, squeezed him tightly, crying: ‘Whose river is it?’

  19. And Shem replied: ‘It’s mine!’ Japheth made a move to fling him to the ground, but Shem, who was strong, shook his body and threw his brother some distance off; Japheth, however, foaming with rage, gripped his brother again, and the two fought hand to hand,

  20. Sweating and snorting like bulls.

  21. In the struggle, they fell and rolled over, punching one another; blood flowed out of their nostrils, their lips, their cheeks; first Japheth had the upper hand,

  22. Then Shem; for anger spurred them on equally, and they fought with their hands, their feet, their teeth and nails; and the ark trembled as if the fountains of heaven had opened up again.

  23. Then the cries and shouts reached the ears of Noah, at the same time as his son Ham, who came to him crying: ‘My father, my father, if Cain will be avenged seven times, and Lamech seventy times seven, what will happen to Shem and Japheth?’

  24. And when Noah asked him to explain what he had said, Ham told him of the brothers’ disagreement, and the anger that spurred them, and said: ‘Run to quieten them.’ Noah said: ‘Let us go.’

  25. The ark, however, floated on the waters of the abyss.

  Chapter C

  1. And lo, Noah came to the place where his two sons were fighting,

  2. And found them still grappling with one another, and Shem under the knee of Japheth, who with his clenched fist was punching his brother’s face, which was purple and bloodied.

  3. Then, Shem, lifting his hands, managed to grip his brother by the throat, and Japheth began to shout: ‘Let me go, let me go!’

  4. Hearing the shouts, Shem and Japheth’s wives also came to the place where the struggle was, and seeing them thus, began to sob and say: ‘What is to become of us? A curse has befallen us and our husbands.’

  5. Noah, however, said to them: ‘Be still, O wives of my sons, and I will see what the matter is, and order whatever is just.’ And going towards the two combatants,

  6. He cried: ‘Stop the fight. I, Noah, your father, command and order it.’ And the two brothers, hearing their father, came to a sudden halt, and were silent and stopped in their tracks; neither of them got up from the ground.

  7. Noah went on: ‘Rise up, O men unworthy of salvation and deserving of the punishment which befell all other men.’

  8. Shem and Japheth got up. Both had wounds on their cheeks, their necks and hands, and their clothes were spattered with blood, for they had fought with nails and teeth, spurred on by mortal hatred.

  9. The floor too was awash with blood, and each man’s sandals, and his hair,

  10. As if their sin had marked them with the seal of iniquity.

  11. Their two wives, however, came up to them, weeping and caressing them, and the pain in their hearts c
ould be seen. Shem and Japheth paid no attention to anything, and their eyes were fixed on the ground, fearful of looking their father in the eye.

  12. And their father said: ‘Well then, I want to know what the cause of the fight is.’

  13. These words kindled hatred in the heart of each. Japheth, however, was the first to speak and said:

  14. ‘Shem invaded my land, the land I had chosen to pitch my tent, when the waters have disappeared and the ark will descend, according to the Lord’s promise;

  15. ‘And since no one can usurp my inheritance, I said to my brother: ‘Are you not happy with five hundred cubits, that you want ten more?’

  16. Noah, hearing his son, had his eyes on Shem; and when Japheth had finished, he asked his brother: ‘What answer have you?’

  17. And Shem said: ‘Japheth lies, for I only took the ten cubits of land after he refused to divide the river in two parts; and when I proposed that I should take both banks, I also consented that he should measure ten more cubits at the back of his lands,

  18. To make up for what he was losing; but the iniquity of Cain spoke in him, and he wounded my head, face and hands.’

  19. And Japheth interrupted him, saying: ‘And did you not wound me too, perchance? Am I not bloodied like you? Look at my face and neck; look at my cheeks, which you have ripped with your nails like the tiger’s.’

  20. As Noah began to speak, he saw that his two sons seemed to defy each other with their eyes. Then he said: ‘Hear me!’ But the two sons, blind with rage, grappled with each other again, shouting: ‘Whose is the river?’ – ‘The river’s mine.’

  21. And only with great difficulty could Noah, Ham and the wives of Shem and Japheth hold back the two combatants, whose blood began to flow in great abundance.