Quincas Borba

by Machado De Assis

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to tell you something important, Rubião.”

  CXXVII

  Rubião came to. It was the first time he’d been on board a steamship. He was returning with his spirits all full of the sounds on board, the bustle of the people coming and going, Brazilians, foreigners, the latter of all kinds, French, English, German, Argentine, Italian, a confusion of languages, a hodgepodge of hats, trunks, rigging, couches, binoculars around the neck, men going up and down the gangways inside the ship, women weeping, others curious, others full of laughter, and many who were carrying flowers or fruit from land—all new sights. In the distance the harbor mouth through which the steamship was to sail, the immense sea, the lowering sky, and the solitude. Rubião brought back dreams of an ancient world. He created an Atlantis without knowing anything about the tradition. Not having any notion of geography, he was forming a confused idea of other countries, and his imagination surrounded them with a mysterious mist. Since it didn’t cost him anything to travel that way, he sailed in his mind for some time on that tall, long steamer, without any seasickness, waves, winds, or clouds.

  CXXVIII

  “Tell me?” Rubião asked after a few seconds. “Tell you,” Palha confirmed. “I should have told you before, but this marriage business, the Alagoas committee, and all that got me caught up, and I didn’t have a chance. Now, though, before lunch … You’ll have lunch with me.”

  “Yes, but what is it?”

  “Something important.”

  Saying this he took out a cigarette, opened it up, unraveled the tobacco, rolled up the straw casing again, and struck a match, but the wind put the match out. Then he asked Rubião if he would do him the favor of holding his hat so he’d be able to light another. Rubião obeyed impatiently. It could well be that his partner, by extending the wait, wanted in that way to make him believe it was something earthshaking. Reality would prove it to be something beneficial. After two puffs:

  “I’m planning to liquidate the business. A banking house has invited me to join them, a directorship, and I think I’ll accept.”

  Rubião breathed easy.

  “Of course. Liquidate right now?”

  “No, toward the end of next year.”

  “And is it necessary to liquidate?”

  “It is for me. If the bank business wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be inclined to give up the certain for the dubious. But it’s most sure.”

  “So that at the end of next year we’ll break the ties that bind us …”

  Palha coughed.

  “No, before that. At the end of this year.”

  Rubião didn’t understand, but his partner explained to him that it was more practical to break up the partnership now so he could liquidate the firm by himself. The bank could be organized sooner or later, but why subject the other man to the demands of the occasion. Besides, Dr. Camacho was sure that Rubião would be in the chamber shortly, and the government was certain to fall.

  “Come what may,” he concluded, “it’s still best to break up the partnership in good time. You’re not living off the business, you came in with the necessary capital—you could have given it to someone else or held onto it.”

  “Of course, I don’t doubt it,” Rubião agreed.

  And after a few moments:

  “But tell me one thing, does this proposal carry some hidden reason? Is it a breakup between people, of a friendship? . . . Be frank, tell me everything …”

  “What kind of a wild idea is that?” Palha retorted. “The breakup of a friendship, between people?… You must be crazy. It must be the effect of the rolling of the sea. Because how could I, who’ve worked so hard for you, who’ve made you the friend of my friends, who’ve treated you like a relative, like a brother, break with you for no reason at all? This very marriage of Maria Benedita to Carlos Maria should have been with you. You know quite well that if it hadn’t been for her refusal… People can break one bond without breaking others. Anything else would be absurd. Are all social or family friends business partners? What about the ones who aren’t businessmen?”

  Rubião found the argument excellent and wanted to embrace Palha. The latter shook his hand with great satisfaction. He was going to see himself free of a partner whose growing prodigality could bring him trouble. The business was solid. It was easy to turn over to Rubião the part that belonged to him, except for personal and previous debts. A few of those still remained, as Palha had confessed to his wife that night in Santa Teresa, Chapter L. He’d paid very little back. It was generally Rubião who closed his ears to the matter. One day when Palha tried to force some money on him, he repeated the old proverb: “Pay what you have and see what you’ve got left.” But Rubião, joking, said:

  “Well, don’t pay, and see if you haven’t got even more left.”

  “That’s good!” Palha commented, laughing and putting the money into his pocket.

  CXXIX

  There was no bank, no directorship, no liquidation, but how could Palha have justified the proposal of breaking up by telling the truth? Therefore the invention, all the more handy because Palha had a love for banks and was dying to be part of one. The man’s career was getting more and more prosperous and attractive. The business had been quite lucrative for him. One of the reasons for the separation was precisely to avoid having to share any future profits with someone else. Palha, in addition, owned stocks on all sides, gold-backed bonds from the Itaborai loan, and he’d arranged a couple of deals in war supplies in partnership with an influential man, from which he’d made a tidy profit. He’d already made an oral agreement for an architect to build him a mansion. He was vaguely thinking about the title of baron.

  CXXX

  “Who would have said that the Palhas would treat us like this? We don’t count for anything with them anymore. Stop defending them.”

  “I’m not defending them, I’m explaining. There must have been some mix–up.”

  “Celebrating her birthday, marrying off a cousin, and not a single, solitary invitation to the major, to the great major, to the inestimable major, to their old friend the major. Those were the names they called me. I was inestimable, an old friend, great, other names. Now, nothing, not even a sad little invitation, a message by word of mouth by a slave boy at least. ‘Missy’s having a birthday,’ or ‘Her cousin’s getting married, she says that the house is open to you and for you to come in formal dress.’ We wouldn’t have gone, formal dress isn’t for us. But it would have been something, it would have been a message, a messenger, to the inestimable major …”

  “Papa!”

  Rubião, seeing Dona Tonica’s intervention, was brought to defend the Palha family at length. He was in the major’s house, no longer on the Rua Dois de Dezembro but on the Rua dos Borbonos, a modest little townhouse. Rubião was passing by, the major was in the window, and he called to him. Dona Tonica didn’t have time to leave the parlor and take a look at her eyes in the mirror at least. She was scarcely able to run her hand over her hair, fix the bow in the ribbon around her neck, and pull her dress down to cover her shoes, which weren’t new.

  “I tell you there must have been a mix-up,” Rubião repeated. “Everything over there is in great confusion because of the Alagoas committee.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Major Siqueira interrupted, “why didn’t they put my daughter on the Alagoas committee? Ha! I’ve been noticing this for a long time. In the old days they wouldn’t have a party without us. We were at the heart of everything. Beginning at a certain time the change began. They started to greet us coolly, and the husband, if he could, would slip away to avoid saying hello to me. That started quite a while ago, but, before that, nothing went on without us. Are you talking about a mix-up? Well, the day before her birthday, already suspicious that they wouldn’t invite us, I went to see him at the warehouse. A few words. He was covering up. Finally, I said this to him: ‘At home last night Tonica and I were arguing about the date of Dona Sofia’s birthday. I said it
had gone by, but she said it hadn’t, that it was today or tomorrow.’ He didn’t answer me, he pretended that he was involved with some figures, he called the bookkeeper and asked for an explanation. I understood the sly fellow, and I repeated the story. He did the same thing. I left. Come now, Palha, a nobody! I’m ashamed of him. In the old days: major, a toast. I made lots of toasts, there was a certain ease. We played cards together. Now he’s on his high horse, going around with fine people. Oh, the vanities of this world! Why, just the other day, didn’t I see his wife in a coupé with another woman? Sofia in a coupé? She pretended not to see me, but she set her eyes in such a way that I saw that she was looking to see if I saw her, if I admired her. The vanities of this life! Someone who’s never had anything delicate to eat, when she gets it, smears it all over.”

  “I’m sorry, but the committee work calls for a lot of show.”

  “Yes,” Siqueira put in, “and that’s why my daughter wasn’t on the committee, so she wouldn’t ruin the fine carriages ...”

  “Besides, the coupé could have belonged to the other lady who was with her.”

  The major took two steps with his hands behind his back and stopped in front of Rubião.

  “The other lady... or Father Mendes. How is the priest? Living it up, naturally.”

  “But, Papa, there probably wasn’t anything to it,” Dona Tonica interrupted. “She’s always been nice to me, and when I was ill last month, she asked about me twice through a slave boy...”

  “Through a slave boy!” her father roared. “Through a slave boy! A great favor! ‘Boy, go over to that retired officer’s house and see if his daughter is any better. I can’t go because I’m polishing my nails!’ A great favor! You don’t polish your nails! You work! You’re a proper daughter of mine! Poor, but honest!”

  Here the major wept, but he suddenly suppressed his tears. The daughter, touched, also sat down, upset. The house certainly bespoke the poverty of the family, not many chairs, an old round table, a worn sofa, two lithographs on the wall framed in pine painted black, one a portrait of the major in 1857, the other showing Veronese in Venice, purchased on the Rua do Senhor dos Passos. But the daughter’s work showed through everywhere: the furniture glowed with polish, the table had a cloth and a mat of her making, the sofa a pillow. And it wasn’t true that Dona Tonica didn’t polish her nails. She might not have had the powder or the chamois, but she took care of them with a piece of cloth every morning.

  CXXXI

  Rubião treated them with kindness. He stopped defending the Palhas so as not to make the major lose heart. A short time later he took his leave, promising, without an invitation, that he’d be back to dine “one of these days.”

  “Poor folks’ dinner,” the major put in. “If you can let us know, do so.”

  “I don’t want any banquet. I’ll come when I get the notion.” He said goodbye. Dona Tonica, after going to the landing, not following to the front because of her shoes, went to the window to watch him leave.

  CXXXII

  As soon as Rubião turned the corner of the Rua das Mangueiras, Dona Tonica came in and went to her father, who’d lain down on the sofa to reread the old Saint–Clair of the Islands, or The Outlaws of Barra.* It was the first novel he’d known. The copy was over twenty years old. It was the father and daughter’s whole library. Siqueira opened the first volume and let his eyes rest on the beginning of Chapter II, which he already knew by heart. He found there now a particular pleasure because of his recent displeasures: “Fill your cups well,’ exclaimed Saint–Clair, ‘and let us drink right now. Here is the toast I give you. To the health of the good and the valiant in their oppression and to the punishment of the oppressors.’ They all went along with Saint-Clair, and the toast made its rounds.”

  “Do you know something, Papa? Tomorrow you buy some canned peas, fish, and the rest, and we’ll store them away. On the day he comes to dinner we’ll put them on the stove, and all we’ll have to do is warm them up and we’ll have a fine little dinner.”

  * The Portuguese translation of this 1803 novel by Elizabeth Helme was one of the most widely read books in nineteenth–century Brazil. Machado refers to it frequently. [Ed.]

  But I’ve only got enough money for your dress.”

  “My dress? Buy it next month, or the one after I can wait.”

  “But what if we can’t find one at the same price?”

  “There’ll be one. I’ll wait, Papa.”

  CXXXIII

  Ihaven’t mentioned it yet—because the chapters scurry along under my pen—but here’s one that tells how at that time

  Rubião’s relationships had increased in number. Camacho had put him in touch with many political men, the Alagoas committee with several ladies, the banks and companies with people in business and the exchange, the theater with its frequenters, and the Rua do Ouvidor with everybody. His name was already on everyone’s lips. The figure of the man was well known. When he put in an appearance with his beard and long mustache, a well-fitting frock coat, his broad chest, a horn–handled walking stick, and a firm and lordly step, people said right off that it was Rubião—a moneybags from Minas.

  They’d made a legend of him. They said he was the disciple of a great philosopher who’d left him an immense fortune—one, three, five thousand cantos. Some people were surprised that he never talked philosophy, but the legend explained that silence in the philosophical method of his master itself, which consisted in instructing only men of good will. Where were those disciples? They went to his house every day—some of them twice, in the morning and in the afternoon. And that was how the guests at his table were defined. They may not have been disciples, but they were men of good will. They nibbled at their hunger waiting, and they listened to their host’s discourse silently and smiling. Between the old and the new there was a touch of rivalry, which the first accentuated by displaying a greater intimacy, giving orders to servants, asking for cigars, going into the interior of the house, whistling, and so forth. But custom made them tolerate one another, and they all ended up in the sweet and common confession of the fine qualities of the master of the house. After a time the new ones also owed him money, either in cash, or in charge accounts with tailors, or in the endorsement of notes that he would pay secretly so as not to upset the debtors.

  Quincas Borba was all over their laps. They would clap their hands to see him leap. Some went so far as to kiss him on the head. One of them, more ingenious, found a way to have him at the table at lunch or dinner, on his legs so he could feed him pieces of bread.

  “Oh, none of that!” Rubião protested the first time.

  “What’s wrong?” his guest replied. “There aren’t any strangers here.”

  Rubião reflected for a moment.

  “The truth is that there’s a great man inside him,” he said.

  “The philosopher, the other Quincas Borba,” the guest went on, looking around at the newer ones to show the intimacy of his relationship with Rubião. But he couldn’t keep the advantage to himself because the other friends from the same period repeated in a chorus:

  “That’s right, the philosopher.”

  And Rubião would explain to the newcomers the reference to the philosopher and the reason for the dog’s name, which they had all attributed to him. Quincas Borba (the deceased) was described and spoken of as one of the greatest men of his time—superior to his fellow countrymen. A great philosopher, a great soul, a great friend. And at the end, after a moment of silence, rapping with his fingers on the edge of the table, Rubião exclaimed:

  “I would have made him a minister of state!”

  One of the guests, without conviction, out of duty, exclaimed:

  “Oh, no doubt about it!”

  None of those men, however, knew the sacrifice that Rubião was making for them. He turned down dinner invitations, rides, he interrupted pleasant conversations just so he could hurry home to dine with them. One day he found a way of adjusting everything. If he wasn’t home
by six o’clock on the dot, the servants were to serve dinner for his friends. There were protests: no, sir, they would wait until seven or eight o’clock. Dinner without him was dull.

  “But it’s possible I might not be able to come,” Rubião explained.

  That was the way it was done. The guests set their watches by the clocks in the house in Botafogo. When six o’clock struck, everyone was at table. On the first two days there was a bit of hesitation, but the servants had strict orders. Sometimes Rubião would arrive a little after. Then there was laughter, remarks, jollity. One of them wanted to wait, but the others … The others resisted the effort. On the contrary, he was the one who’d pulled the rest of them along, such was his hunger—to the point that if there was anything left, it was only the plates. And Rubião laughed with them all.

  CXXXIV

  To write a chapter to say only that in the beginning the guests, with Rubião absent, smoked their own cigars after dinner may seem frivolous, but thoughtful people will say that there was some interest in that seemingly minimal circumstance.

  It so happened that one night one of the oldest friends thought to go into Rubião’s study. He’d been there a few times, where the cigar boxes were kept, not four or five, but twenty or thirty of different makes and sizes, all open. A servant (the Spaniard) lighted the gas. The other guests followed the first, picked out cigars, and those who weren’t familiar with the study admired the well-made and well-arranged furniture. The writing desk received general admiration. It was made of ebony, a masterpiece of wood carving, a solid, strong piece. Something new awaited them: two marble busts on it, the two Napoleons, the first and the third.