Mr. Joaquim Borba dos Santos has died after enduring his illness philosophically. He was a man of great learning, and he wore himself out doing battle against that yellow, withered pessimism that will yet reach us here one day. It is the mal du siècle. His last words were that pain was an illusion and that Pangloss was not as dotty as Voltaire indicated... He was already delirious. He leaves many possessions. His will is in Barbacena.
XII
“His suffering is over,” Rubião sighed. Immediately after, taking another look at the news item he saw that it spoke of a man of merit, appreciation, to whom a philosophical controversy was attributed. No mention of dementia. On the contrary, at the end it said he was delirious during his final moments, the effect of his illness. So much the better! Rubião read the letter again and the hypothesis of a jape seemed likely once again. He knew that he had a sense of humor. He was surely poking fun at him. He went to Saint Augustine in the same way as he might have gone to Saint Ambrose or Saint Hillary, and he wrote an enigmatic letter in order to confuse him until he could return and have a good laugh over his success. Poor friend! He was sane—sane and dead. Yes, now he no longer suffered. Seeing the dog, he sighed:
“Poor Quincas Borba! If you only knew that your master was dead…”
Then he said to himself, “Now that my obligation is over, I’m going to turn him over to my friend Angélica.”
XII I
The news spread through the town; the vicar, the druggist, the doctor all sent to find out if it was true. The postman, who’d read about it in the papers, came in person to bring Rubião a letter that had come for him in the pouch. It could have been from the deceased although the handwriting of the sender was different.
“So the man finally gave up the ghost, eh?” he said as Rubião opened the letter and ran his eyes down to the signature, where he read Bras Cubas. It was just a note:
“My poor friend Quincas Borba died yesterday in my home, where he had appeared a while back, filthy and in tatters, the effects of his illness. Before dying he asked me to write you and give you this news personally along with many thanks. The rest will be done according to legal procedures.”
The thanks made the teacher turn pale, but the legal procedures brought his blood back. Rubião folded the letter without saying anything. The postman spoke of different things and then left. Rubião ordered a slave to take the dog to his dear friend Angélica, telling her that since she liked animals, here was another one, that she should treat him well because he was used to good treatment, and, finally, that the dog’s name was the same as that of his master, dead now, Quincas Borba.
XIV
When the will was read, Rubião almost keeled over. You can guess why. He was named sole heir of the testator. Not five, not ten, not twenty cantos, but everything, his whole estate, with the possessions specified: houses in the capital, one in Barbacena, slaves, bonds, stocks in the Bank of Brazil and other institutions, jewelry, coins, books—everything, in short, passed into Rubião’s hands directly, without any legacies to other people, without any charitable donation, without any debts. There was only one condition in the will, that the heir was to keep with him his poor dog, Quincas Borba, a name he had given it out of the great affection he felt for it. It demanded that the said Rubião treat the dog as if it were the testator himself, without skimping in any way for its needs, protecting it from annoyances, flight, robbery, or death that people might wish upon it out of evil. In short, to treat it as if it were not a dog but a human being. Item, the condition is imposed that when the dog dies it is to be given decent burial in its own plot, which will be covered with flowers and sweet–smelling plants, and, furthermore, he was to disinter the bones of said dog after the suitable period and gather them together in a casket of fine wood, to be placed in the most honored place in the house.
XV
Such was the clause. Rubião found it natural enough since he’d only had thoughts for the inheritance. He’d imagined just a legacy, and out of the will all of the possessions had come his way. He had trouble believing it. He had to have his hand shaken many times, strongly—the strength of congratulations—in order not to imagine that it was a lie.
“Yes, sir, you scored a goal,” the owner of the pharmacy that had supplied Quincas Borba’s medicines said to him.
Heir was a lot, but sole … That word puffed up the cheeks of the inheritance. Heir to everything, not a teaspoon left out. And how much would it all amount to? he was thinking. Houses, bonds, stocks, slaves, clothing, chinaware, a few paintings that he had in the capital, because he was a man of good taste, he had a fine knowledge of artistic things. And books? He must have had a lot of books because he was always quoting from them. But what could the figure for all of it be? A hundred cantos} Maybe two hundred. It was possible that three hundred wouldn’t be a surprise. Three hundred cantos! Three hundred! And Rubião had an urge to dance in the street. Then he calmed down. If it was two hundred or even a hundred it was a dream that the Good Lord was giving him, but it was a long dream, one that would never end.
The remembrance of the dog managed to take hold in the whirlwind of the thoughts that were going through our man’s head. Rubião found the clause natural enough but unnecessary because he and the dog were two friends, and nothing was more certain than that they should stay together to remember the third friend, the deceased, the author of the happiness of both. There were, of course, a few strange items in the clause, the bit about the casket, and he didn’t know what else, but they would all be fulfilled unless the sky fell in ... No, with God’s help, he added. Good dog! Fine dog!
Rubião was not forgetting the many times he’d tried to get rich in enterprises that had died in bloom. He considered himself at that time a poor unfortunate, an unlucky person, when the truth was that a person with God’s help caught more worms than the early bird. So it wasn’t impossible to become rich, since he was now rich.
“What’s impossible?” he exclaimed aloud. “It’s impossible for God to sin. God doesn’t hold out on someone he’s made a promise to.”
He went along like that, up and down the streets of the town, without heading home, without any plan, with his blood pounding in his head. Suddenly this grave problem arose: whether he should go live in Rio de Janeiro or stay in Barbacena. He felt the urge to stay, to shine where he’d been in the shadows, to get one up on the people who’d paid scant attention to him before, mostly the ones who’d laughed at his friendship with Quincas Borba. But immediately after came the image of Rio de Janeiro, which he knew, with its enchantment, movement, theaters everywhere, pretty girls dressed in the latest French fashions. He decided it was better. He would come back up to his hometown many, many times.
XVI
“Quineas Borba! Quincas Borba! Hey!” he shouted as he went into the house.
No dog to be seen. Only then did he remember having sent him to Angélica. He ran to the woman’s house, which was quite distant. Along the way all kinds of ugly ideas came to him, some extraordinary. One ugly idea was that the dog had run away. Another extraordinary one was that some enemy, aware of the clause and the gift, had gone to deal with the woman, stolen the dog, and hidden or killed it. In that case the inheritance . . . A cloud passed over his eyes. Then he began to see more clearly.
I’m not familiar with legal matters,” he thought, “but it seems to me that I’m not involved. The clause supposes the dog to be alive or at home. But if he runs away or dies there’s no reason to invent a dog. Therefore the original intent… But my enemies are capable of chicanery. If the clause isn’t fulfilled …”
Here our friend’s brow and the palms of his hands became damp. Another cloud came over his eyes. And his heart was beating rapidly, rapidly. The clause was beginning to seem outlandish to him. Rubião grasped at his saints, promised masses, ten masses … But there was the woman’s house. Rubião picked up his pace. He saw someone, was it she? It was, it was she, leaning against the door and laughing.
“Wh
at kind of a figure is that you’re cutting, old friend? Have you gone crazy, waving your arms around?”
XVII
“Where’s the dog, friend?” Rubião asked, apparently in different but very pale.
“Come in and have a seat,” she answered. “What dog?”
“What dog?” Rubião replied, getting paler and paler. “The one I sent you. Don’t you remember that I sent you a dog to keep for a few days, for some rest, to see if. . . In short, a dearly–loved animal. It’s not mine. I came here to ... But don’t you remember?”
“Ah! Don’t talk to me about that creature!” she answered, pouring out the words.
She was small, she would tremble over anything, and when she was excited the veins on her neck stood out. She repeated that he shouldn’t talk to her about the creature.
“But what’s he done to you, old friend?”
“What’s he done to me? What could he do to me, the poor animal? He won’t eat anything, he won’t drink, he cries just like a person, and all he does is go around looking for a way to run off.”
Rubião gave a sigh of relief. She went on talking about her annoyance with the dog. He was anxious, he wanted to see him.
“He’s in the back there, in the large pen. He’s all by himself so the others won’t bother him. But have you come for him? That’s not what they told me. I seemed to hear that he was for me, a present.”
“I’d give you five or six if I could,” Rubião answered. “But I can’t this one. I’m only taking care of him. But let’s drop it, I promise you a son of his, the message was garbled.”
Rubião went with her. The woman, instead of leading him, was walking alongside. There was the dog in the pen, lying down at some distance from a bowl of food. Dogs and birds were leaping about on all sides out there. On one side there was a hen coop, farther on pigs, beyond that a cow, lying down, dreamy, with two hens next to it pecking at its belly and pulling off lice.
“Look at my peacock!” the woman said.
But Rubião only had eyes for Quincas Borba, who was sniffing impatiently and who leaped up on him as soon as a black boy opened the gate of the pen. It was a delirious scene. The dog was repaying Rubião’s pats by barking, leaping, licking his hands.
“Good heavens! What a friendship!”
“You can’t imagine, old friend. Goodbye, I promise you a son of his.”
XVIII
Rubião and the dog, when they entered the house, sensed, heard the person and the voice of their departed friend. While the dog sniffed about everywhere, Rubião went to sit in the chair where he’d been when Quincas Borba referred to the death of his grandmother with scientific explanations. The memory brought back the philosopher’s arguments, albeit confused and frayed. For the first time he gave careful consideration to the allegory of the starving tribes, and he understood the conclusion: “To the victor, the potatoes!” He clearly heard the dead man’s voice expounding the situation of the tribes, the fight, and the reason for the fight, the extermination of one and the victory of the other, and he murmured in a low voice:
“To the victor, the potatoes!”
So simple! So clear! He looked at his worn drill pants and his patched waistcoat, and he noted that up until a short time before he’d been, in a manner of speaking, someone exterminated, a burst bubble, but not now, now he was a victor. There was no doubt about it, the potatoes had been made for the tribe that eliminates the other in order to get over the mountain and reach the potatoes on the other side. His case precisely. He was going to go down from Barbacena to dig up and eat the potatoes in the capital. He had to be hard and implacable, he was powerful and strong. And leaping up, all excited, he raised his arms, exclaiming:
“To the victor, the potatoes!”
He liked the formula, found it ingenious, compendious, and eloquent in addition to being profound and true. He imagined the potatoes in their various shapes; he classified them as to taste, aspect, nutritive power; he stuffed himself in advance at the banquet of life. It was time to have done with the poor, dry roots that only deceived the stomach, the sad meal of so many long years. Now full, solid, perpetual eating until the day he died, and dying on silk cushions, which is better than on rags. And he went back to the affirmation of being hard and implacable and to the formula from the allegory. He got to composing in his head a seal for his use with this motto: TO THE VICTOR, THE POTATOES.
He forgot about the seal, but the formula, lived on in Rubião’s spirit for a few days: “To the victor, the potatoes!” He wouldn’t have understood it before the will. On the contrary, we saw that he’d considered it obscure and in need of an explanation. It’s so true that the landscape depends on the point of view and the best way to appreciate a whip is to have its handle in your hand.
XIX
We mustn’t forget to mention that Rubião took it upon himself to have a mass sung for the soul of the deceased, even though he knew or sensed that Quincas Borba hadn’t been a Catholic. He didn’t say anything nasty about priests nor did he discredit Catholic doctrine, but he never spoke of the Church or its servants. On the other hand, his worship of Humanitas made his heir suspect that this was the testator’s religion. Nonetheless, he had a mass sung, considering that it wasn’t following the wishes of the dead man, but a prayer for the living. He further considered that it would be scandalous in the town if he, named as heir by the deceased, neglected to give his protector the prayers that are not denied the most miserable and avaricious people in the world.
If some people didn’t appear, in order not to be part of Rubião’s glory, many did come—and not riffraff—who saw the true grief of the former schoolteacher.
XX
As soon as the preliminary motions for the liquidation of the inheritance were under way, Rubião made ready to go to Rio de Janeiro, where he would settle as soon as it was all over. There were things to do in both places, but things promised to move along swiftly.
XXI
At the station in Vassouras, Sofia and her husband, Cristiano de Almeida e Palha, got on the train. He was a healthy young man of thirty–two, and she was between twenty–seven and twenty–eight. They sat down on the two seats opposite Rubião and arranged the baskets and packages of souvenirs they were bringing from Vassouras, where they’d gone to spend a week. They buttoned up their dusters and exchanged a few words in low voices.
After the train started up Palha noticed Rubião, whose face, among so many frowning or bored people, was the only one that was calm and satisfied. Cristiano was the first to start a conversation, telling him that railroad trips were boring, to which Rubião replied that they were. For someone used to muleback, he added, the train was boring and uninteresting. One couldn’t deny, however, that it was progress.
“Of course,” Palha agreed. “Great progress.”
“Are you a farmer?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you live in the town?”
“Vassouras? No. We came to spend a week here. I live in the capital itself. I haven’t got any wish to be a farmer, although I consider it a good and honorable occupation.”
From farming they passed on to cattle, slavery, and politics. Cristiano Palha cursed the government, which had inserted remarks concerning servile property in the Emperor’s annual Speech from the Throne. But, to his great surprise, Rubião didn’t leap to indignation. It was Rubião’s plan to sell the slaves the testator had left him, except for a houseboy. If he lost anything, the rest of the inheritance would cover it. Besides, the Speech from the Throne, which he’d also read, ordered that current property be respected. What did he care about future slaves, since he wasn’t going to buy any? The houseboy would be freed as soon as he came into possession of his goods. Palha dropped it and went on to politics, the chambers of parliament, the war with Paraguay, all general matters to which Rubião paid attention, more or less. Sofia was barely listening. She only moved her eyes, which she knew were pretty, focusing them now on her husband, now on the one he was spe
aking to.
“Are you going to stay in the capital, or are you going back to Barbacena?” Palha asked after twenty minutes of conversation.
“My desire is to stay, and I’m going to stay,” Rubião replied. “I’m tired of the provinces. I want to enjoy life. I might even go to Europe, but I’m not sure yet.”
Palha’s eyes lighted up instantly.
“You’re doing the wise thing. I’d do the same if I could. Right now I can’t. You’ve probably been there before, haven’t you?”
“I never have. That’s why I got the idea when I left Barbacena. Not right now. People have got to get the melancholy out of their systems. I still don’t know when it’ll be, but I’m going …”
“You’re right. They say there are a lot of splendid things there. It’s not surprising, they’re older than we are, but we’ll catch up. And there are things in which we’re just as good as they are, even better. Our capital, I’m not saying it can compare with Paris or London, but it’s beautiful, you’ll see …”
“I’ve already seen.”
“Already?”
“Many years ago.”
“You’ll find it better. There’s been a lot of rapid progress. Then, when you go to Europe ...”
“Have you ever been to Europe, ma’am?” Rubião interrupted, addressing Sofia.
“No, sir.”
“I forgot to introduce you to my wife,” Cristiano hastened to say. Rubião bowed respectfully and, turning to the husband, smiling:
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