Once Soares was feeling calmer, he went into the house and said goodbye to his uncle until the next day, pretending he had some urgent business to attend to.
VI
Adelaide gave Anselmo a detailed account of the events that prevented her from fulfilling the conditions in the posthumous letter entrusted to him. Since she had to refuse, her father’s fortune should revert to Anselmo; she was perfectly content with what she had.
Anselmo would not give up, however, and before he accepted her refusal, he wanted to see what he himself could make of Luís Soares.
When Soares saw Anselmo enter the house, he suspected it had something to do with the marriage. Anselmo was a very keen judge of character and, despite Soares’s downcast look of victimhood, he saw at once that Adelaide was right.
And that was that. Anselmo prepared to leave for Bahia and announced his departure to the major’s family.
However, when they were all gathered together in the parlor on the eve of Anselmo’s departure, he spoke these words:
“You’re getting stronger and fitter by the day, Major. I think you would benefit from a trip to Europe. And this young lady here would like to see Europe too, and despite her age, I believe Senhora Dona Antônia would enjoy it as well. For my part, I’m prepared to give up Bahia and come with you. What do you say?”
“We’ll need to think about it,” said the major.
“Think? If you think about it, you’ll never go. What do you say, Adelaide?”
“I’ll do whatever my uncle says,” answered Adelaide.
“Besides,” said Anselmo, “now that Dona Adelaide is in possession of a large fortune, she’ll want to see the beautiful things other countries have to offer in order to better appreciate the beauty of our own . . .”
“That’s all very well,” said the major, “but when you say a large fortune . . .”
“Three hundred contos.”
“That belongs to you.”
“To me? Do you think me a thief? What do I care for the dying fantasy of a generous friend? The money belongs to this young woman, his legitimate heir, not to me. I have enough already.”
“That’s very generous of you, Anselmo!”
“How could I be otherwise?”
They all agreed on the trip to Europe.
Luís Soares heard all this without saying a word, but was cheered by the idea that he might be able to tag along with his uncle. The following day he suffered a cruel disappointment. The major said that, before he left, he would recommend him to the minister.
Soares still hoped that he might be able to accompany the family. Was this pure greed for his uncle’s fortune, a desire to see new places, or just to have his revenge on his cousin? It was perhaps all those things.
He clung to these hopes until the very last moment. Then the family left without him.
Abandoned, with no future hopes or prospects other than the daily grind of work, not to mention his humiliated, wounded amour propre, Soares resolved to take the sad, cowardly way out.
One night, his servant heard a shot ring out in Soares’s bedroom; when he went in, he found a corpse.
Pires learned of Soares’s death from someone he met in the street and immediately hurried to Vitória’s house, where she was seated at her dressing table.
“Have you heard?” he asked.
“Heard what?”
“Soares has shot himself.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Poor man! Is it serious?”
“It is. Are you going out?”
“I’m going to the Alcazar.”
“Oh, yes, they’re doing Bluebeard tonight, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
And he started humming a tune from Bluebeard.
And that was all Luís Soares received from his closest friends by way of a funeral oration.
THE WOMAN IN BLACK
I
THE FIRST TIME Dr. Estêvão Soares spoke to Deputy Meneses was in the Teatro Lírico at the time of the memorable battle between the lagruístas and the chartonistas, supporters, respectively, of the singers Emilie La Grua and Anne Charton Demeur. A mutual friend introduced them, and they parted at the end of the evening, exchanging visiting cards and saying that if ever they could be of service to each other, etc., etc.
Just two months later, they met again.
Estêvão Soares had to go to the house of a government minister to sort out some paperwork for a provincial relative of his, and there he met Meneses, who was just coming out of a meeting.
They were both genuinely pleased to meet each other again, and Meneses managed to make Estêvão promise to come to his house a few days later.
The minister in question dealt with the young doctor’s request very quickly, but when Estêvão was ready to leave, he was faced by a heavy downpour, with the rain beginning to run in torrents down the street.
He looked to left and right for an empty cab, but in vain; all the carriages that passed were occupied.
There was only one empty carriage, apparently waiting for someone, presumably the deputy.
A few minutes later, that representative of the nation appeared and was surprised to find the doctor still at the door.
“It’s raining so heavily,” said Estêvão, “I can’t really leave and so I’ve been waiting here in case an empty cab came by.”
“You’ll be lucky, but, please, allow me to offer you a seat in my carriage.”
“I hate to put you to any trouble . . .”
“It’s no trouble at all. It’s a pleasure. I’ll drop you at your house. Where do you live?”
“Rua da Misericórdia.”
“Fine, get in.”
Estêvão still hesitated for a moment, but he could hardly refuse without seeming to be spurning the worthy gentleman’s generous offer.
They got into the carriage.
However, instead of telling the driver to take them to Rua da Misericórdia, the deputy shouted:
“Home, João!”
Estêvão looked at him in surprise.
“I know,” said Meneses, “you’re surprised to see me break my promise, but I’d just like you to see where I live, so that you’ll know where to come when you visit me—soon, I hope.”
The carriage set off in the torrential rain.
Meneses was the first to break the brief silence, saying to his young friend:
“I hope the novel of our friendship will not end at the first chapter.”
Although already conscious of the deputy’s solicitous manner, Estêvão was completely taken aback to hear him speak of the novel of their friendship. The reason for this was simple. The friend who had introduced them at the theater had said to him the following day:
“Meneses is a real misanthrope, a skeptic; he believes in nothing and respects no one. In politics as in society, he plays a purely negative role.”
Despite his real liking for the deputy, it was with these words in mind that Estêvão spoke to him for the second time, and he was astonished by everything about him, by Meneses’s manner and by his words and the affectionate nature these seemed to reveal.
He replied to the deputy with equal frankness.
“Why should we end at the first chapter?” he asked. “A friend is never something to be scorned, but welcomed like a gift from the gods.”
“From the gods!” said Meneses, laughing. “I see you are a pagan.”
“Somewhat, yes, but in the good sense of the word,” answered Estêvão, also laughing. “My life is a little like Odysseus’s life.”
“I hope you at least have an Ithaca, your homeland, and a Penelope, your wife.”
“Neither one nor the other.”
“Then we will get along famously.”
And with that, the deputy turned away to watch the rain streaming down the carriage window.
A few minutes passed, during which Estêvão was at liberty to study his
traveling companion.
Meneses turned around then and began another topic of conversation.
When the carriage entered Rua do Lavradio, Meneses said to the doctor:
“This is where I live. My house is just here. Promise you’ll come and visit me occasionally.”
“I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Good. And how is your medical practice going?”
“Oh, I’m only just starting,” said Estêvão, “and I don’t have much work as yet, but I hope to make something of it eventually.”
“The colleague who introduced us told me that you’re a young man of great merit.”
“Well, I certainly hope to make a contribution to society.”
Ten minutes later, the carriage stopped outside a house in Rua do Lavradio.
They both got out and went inside.
Meneses showed Estêvão his study, which was furnished with two long bookshelves.
“This is my family,” said the deputy, showing him the books. “History, philosophy, poetry, and a few books on politics. This is where I work and study. Whenever you come here, this is where I’ll receive you.”
Promising to return the following day, Estêvão went downstairs to the carriage, which was waiting to take him to Rua da Misericórdia.
When he arrived home, Estêvão was saying to himself:
“In what way is this man a misanthrope? A misanthrope would be gruff and rude, unless, of course, he has proved more fortunate than Diogenes and found in me the honest man he’s been looking for.”
II
Estêvão was a serious fellow. He had talent, ambition, and a desire for knowledge, all powerful weapons in the hands of a man aware of his own potential. His life had been one of deep, constant, uninterrupted study since he was sixteen years old. When Estêvão enrolled in medical school, he did so rather reluctantly, not wishing to disobey his father. His true vocation was for mathematics. What does it matter? he thought when he learned of his father’s intentions for him: I will study medicine and mathematics. And he did indeed find time for both, and even found time to study literature, so that the principal works of antiquity and those of contemporary writers were as familiar to him as treatises on surgical operations and hygiene.
All this studying brought with it a certain diminution in his health. At twenty-four, Estêvão was thinner than he had been at sixteen; he was very pale and his head jutted forward slightly from his long habit of reading. However, these vestiges of intellectual dedication had not affected the regularity and harmony of his features, nor had his eyes lost any of their brightness and expressiveness despite long hours bent over books. He possessed, besides, a natural elegance; not that he was a dandy; his elegance lay in his manner, his attitude, his smile, his clothes, all of which were combined with a certain rigor, which was the cornerstone of his character. While he may often have broken the rules of fashion, no one could ever have accused him of breaking the code of the gentleman.
He had lost his parents when he was only twenty, but had enough common sense to continue alone on his journey into the world. Studying became his refuge and his support. He knew nothing of love. He had been so focused on filling his mind that he had forgotten he had a heart. Do not, however, infer from this that Estêvão was a positivist. On the contrary, his soul still had the two wings nature had given him in all their grace and strength. He would often break out of the prison of the flesh to fly up into the heavens, in search of some obscure, uncertain, ill-defined ideal. When he returned from these ecstasies, he would recover from them by burying himself in books, in search of some scientific truth. Newton was his antidote to Goethe.
Apart from this, Estêvão did have some rather unusual ideas. His friend, a priest of about thirty, was a keen disciple of François Fénelon and admirer of his Adventures of Telemachus. Now, this priest would often tell Estêvão that he lacked only one thing in order to be complete, and that was to marry. He would say:
“When you have a beloved and loving wife by your side, you will be a complete and happy man. You will then divide your time between the two loftiest things given to us by nature, our intelligence and our heart. On that day, I want to be the one to bind you together in matrimony . . .”
“In that case, Father Luís,” Estêvão would say, “bring me both wife and blessing.”
The priest would smile at this answer, and since that smile seemed to Estêvão to beg another question, he would go on:
“If I ever find a woman as complete as I would like, I promise that I will marry. However, as you yourself would say: all human works are imperfect, and I certainly wouldn’t argue with you there, Father Luís; allow me, therefore, to walk alone with my own imperfections.”
A heated debate would then ensue, which would grow livelier and livelier until the point when Estêvão would conclude thus:
“Father Luís, a girl who leaves aside her dolls in order to learn by heart a few ill-chosen books; who interrupts a lesson in order to hear a description of a love scene; who, as regards art, knows only Paris fashion figurines; who cannot wait to go to a ball, and who, before she falls in love with a man, first makes sure his tie is correct and his boots a perfect fit; Father Luís, this girl could easily become a splendid ornament to a salon or even a fecund mother, but she could never be a wife.”
This statement had the defect of all absolute rules, which is why Father Luís would always say:
“You’re quite right, but I’m not telling you to marry the rule; look for the exception to that rule and take her to the altar, where I will be waiting to perform the marriage ceremony.”
Such were Estêvão’s views on love and women, and these feelings came to him in part from nature, but also from books. He demanded the intellectual and moral perfection of an Héloïse, taking the exception to prove the rule. He was intolerant of any venial sins, not even recognizing them as such. There are no venial sins, he would say, when it comes to manners and love.
Estêvão’s own family had contributed to this rigidity of spirit. Until his twentieth year, he had seen the sanctity of love sustained by domestic virtue. His mother, who had died when she was thirty-eight, had loved her husband to the last, and survived him by only a few months. Estêvão knew that his parents’ love for each other had been ardent and keen when they were engaged and during the early years of their marriage too; but in the later years of their marriage, which he had witnessed, he had seen a calm, solicitous, trusting love, full of devotion and respect, practiced almost as a religion, free from recriminations or resentments, and as deep as it had been on the very first day. Estêvão’s parents died beloved and happy in the tranquil serenity of marital duty.
To Estêvão’s mind, the love that founds a family should be just that and nothing else. This was only right and proper, but Estêvão’s intolerant views began with his conviction that the last family had died with his own family, and with it the last tradition of love. What would it take to bring down that system, even momentarily? The tiniest of things: a smile and two eyes.
However, when those two eyes did not appear, Estêvão devoted most of his time to his scientific studies, filling any free moments with distractions that required little concentration.
He lived alone; he had a slave, who was the same age as him and had been brought up in his father’s house, and who was more brother than slave as regards devotion and affection. He had a few friends and, now and then, they would visit him and he, them. Among these was the young Father Luís, whom Estêvão called the Plato of the cassock.
Naturally kind and affectionate, generous and chivalrous, devoid of any rancorous or hateful feelings, an enthusiast for all things good and true, this was Dr. Estêvão Soares at the age of twenty-four.
We have already said something about his physical appearance; we need only add that he had a handsome head, thick brown hair, bright, observant brown eyes, and a naturally curly mustache that stood out in marked contrast to his pale face. He was also tall and had an admirable pair o
f hands.
III
Estêvão Soares visited Meneses the following day.
The deputy was expecting him and received him as if he were an old friend. Estêvão had unwittingly arranged to visit at a time that prevented Meneses from attending the Chamber, not that he minded; he simply didn’t go. However, he was delicate enough not to mention this to Estêvão.
Meneses was in his study when the houseboy announced the doctor’s arrival. He went to greet him at the door.
“As punctual as a king,” he said gaily.
“Of course. I wouldn’t want you to think I’d forgotten.”
“I’m grateful to you.”
They both sat down.
“I’m grateful because I was afraid you might have misunderstood me and that my feelings of friendship for you might not merit any consideration on your part . . .”
Estêvão was about to protest.
“Forgive me,” Meneses went on, “I see that I was wrong, and that’s why I’m so grateful. At forty-seven, I’m no longer a boy, and for someone of your age, friendship with a man like me is no longer of any value.”
“Old age, when it’s respectable, should be respected, and loved when it’s lovable. Besides, you’re not old. True, your hair is turning gray, but it’s more as if you were embarking on a second youth.”
“Is that how I seem to you?”
“You not only seem so, you are.”
“Whatever the truth of the matter,” said Meneses, “the fact is that we can be friends. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Goodness, young enough to be my son. Are your parents still alive?”
“They both died four years ago.”
“And I seem to recall you telling me you were single . . .”
“Yes, I am.”
“So you’re free to concentrate solely on science?”
“Science is my wife.”
“Yes, your intellectual wife, but that can’t be enough for a man like you. There’s plenty of time for that, though; you’re still young.”
As they spoke, Estêvão was studying and observing Meneses, whose face was lit by the light coming in through one of the windows. There was something austere about his head, with its mane of graying, elegantly disheveled hair. His eyes were dark and rather dull, but one could sense they had once been lively and passionate. His grizzled side-whiskers were like those worn by Lord Palmerston, at least according to the engravings. His face was unlined, apart from a single crease between his eyebrows, a sign of concentration rather than a trace left by time. He had a high forehead, and his chin and cheekbones were slightly prominent. You could tell that in his first youth he must have been handsome, and that in old age he would look imposing and august. He smiled occasionally, and that smile, even though his face was not that of an old man, made a very strange impression; it was like a shaft of moonlight falling on an ancient ruin. His smile was pleasant, but devoid of joy.
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 8