“Yes, we’re very close.”
“True friends?”
“Yes, true friends.”
Madalena smiled, continuing to play with her son’s hair, and planting a kiss on his forehead.
The boy laughed gaily and hugged his mother.
The idea of becoming the child’s honorary father surfaced in Estêvão’s mind. He looked at him, called to him, stroked him, and kissed him on exactly the same spot where Madalena’s lips had rested.
Estêvão could play the piano and, at Madalena’s request, he would sometimes play something for her.
In these and other amusements the hours passed; love, however, did not progress one step.
They could have been two volcanoes ready to erupt, but, so far, there was no sign of this.
Estêvão found the situation very awkward, discouraging, and painful, but whenever he considered taking decisive action, this was precisely when he revealed himself at his most craven and cowardly.
It was the first time he had been in love, and he didn’t even know what words to choose.
One day, he resolved to write to her.
“That’s the best way,” he thought. “A letter is eloquent and has the great advantage of keeping a certain distance.”
He went into his study and began a letter.
He spent an hour on this, lingering long over every sentence. He wanted to avoid being classified as either foolish or sensual. He didn’t want the letter to suggest any frivolous or bad feelings; he wanted to show himself as pure as he was.
Ah, but how often events intervene. Estêvão was still rereading and correcting the letter when a good friend of his arrived. His name was Oliveira and he was said to be Rio de Janeiro’s foremost dandy.
He entered, carrying a roll of paper.
Estêvão immediately hid his letter.
“Hello, Estêvão,” said Oliveira. “What were you writing just now? Something libelous or a love letter?”
“Neither,” Estêvão replied tartly.
“I have some news for you.”
“What?”
“I’ve become a writer.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and I have come to read you my first comedy.”
“Oh, please, no!” cried Estêvão, getting up.
“You must hear at least a few scenes, my friend. Are you not going to encourage me in my new career? Come on, just a couple of scenes. That’s not much to ask.”
Estêvão sat down again.
The playwright went on:
“Or perhaps you’d prefer to hear a speech from my tragedy entitled Brutus’s Dagger . . .”
“No, no, I’d rather hear the comedy—much less bloodthirsty. Come on, then, on with it.”
Oliveira unfurled the roll of paper, sorted out the various pages, and began to read what follows in a slow, nasal voice:
Scene I
CÉSAR (entering stage right)
JOÃO (entering stage left)
CÉSAR
Why’s the door closed! Is the mistress up already?
JOÃO
Yes, she is, but she’s not feeling well.
CÉSAR
What’s wrong with her?
JOÃO
She’s . . . she’s not feeling well.
CÉSAR
Oh, I see. (To himself) The usual thing. (To João) So what’s today’s remedy, then?
JOÃO
Today’s remedy? (After a pause) I don’t know.
CÉSAR
Never mind. Off you go.
Scene II
César, Freitas (entering stage right)
CÉSAR
Good day, Mr. Advocate . . .
FREITAS
. . . An advocate in pursuit of lost causes. They’re the only kind that interest me, after all, trying to pursue a cause that isn’t lost would be absurd. How’s my client?
CÉSAR
João tells me she’s feeling unwell.
FREITAS
Too unwell even to see you?
CÉSAR
Yes, even me. But why are you looking at me like that? Are you jealous?
FREITAS
No, it’s not jealousy, it’s admiration. Normally, no one really suits the name they were given, but in your case, Senhor César, you cannot, God bless you, deny that yours is a significant name, and that you are trying to be in the world of love what that other Caesar was on the battlefield.
CÉSAR
Is this how advocates usually speak?
FREITAS
Occasionally. (Going to sit down) Are you surprised?
César (taking out his cigar case)
Yes, I’m surprised . . . Would you care for a cigar?
FREITAS
Thank you, no, I’ll take a pinch of snuff instead. (Takes out his snuff box)
Will you join me?
CÉSAR
No, thank you.
FREITAS (sitting down)
My client’s case is going swimmingly. The other party is calling for a ten-day adjournment, but I’m going to—
CÉSAR
That’s fine, Senhor Freitas, you can spare me the rest, unless you choose not to bore me with legal jargon. In short, she’s going to win?
FREITAS
Of course. If she can prove that—
CÉSAR
She’s winning, that’s what matters.
FREITAS
How could she not, given that I’m involved . . .
CÉSAR
So much the better.
FREITAS
I can’t recall ever having lost a case; that is, I did lose one, but only because, on the very eve of victory, my client said he wanted to lose. No sooner said than done. I proved the opposite of what I’d already proved, and lost . . . or, rather, won, because losing like that is the same as winning.
CÉSAR
You are the doyen of advocates.
Freitas (modestly)
You’re too kind . . .
CÉSAR
What about conscience, though?
FREITAS
Whose conscience?
CÉSAR
Yours, of course!
FREITAS
Mine! Oh, that always wins too.
César (getting up)
Really?
Freitas (remaining seated)
Do you have a case you’d like to bring?
CÉSAR
No, no, not at all, but when I have, rest assured I will knock at your door . . .
FREITAS
I am at your disposal, sir.
VIII
Estêvão brought the reading to an abrupt halt, which greatly upset the novice poet. This poor candidate to the muses tried to plead with him, but Estêvão would not be moved, and the only concession he made was a promise to read the play later.
Oliveira had to content himself with this, but would not leave until he had recited from memory a speech by the protagonist of his tragedy, long, complicated verses topped off with a stanza of lyric poetry, in the style of Victor Hugo’s “Les Djinns.”
Then he left.
Meanwhile, time had passed.
Estêvão reread his letter and still wanted to send it, but his poet friend’s interruption had proved useful, for, on rereading the letter yet again, Estêvão found it cold and empty; the language was very passionate, but in no way did it describe the fire in his heart.
“It’s pointless,” he said, tearing the letter into pieces, “the human tongue will always be impotent when it comes to expressing certain feelings of the soul; what I wrote was so cold, and quite different from what I actually feel. I’m condemned to say nothing or to say it badly. When I’m with her, I feel too weak, too feeble . . .”
Estêvão went over to the window just as a former colleague of his was walking past in the street below, arm in arm with a woman, a very pretty woman, whom he had married the month before.
They both looked so happy and content.
Estêvão contemplated the scene sad
ly and adoringly. Marriage was no longer the impossibility he had spoken of when he had only ideas, not feelings. Now it was something that could become a reality.
The couple who had just passed gave him new energy.
“I need to put an end to this,” he said, “I must go to her and tell her that I love her, adore her, and want to be her husband. She will love me, if she doesn’t already, but, yes, she does love me . . .”
And he got dressed, ready to go out.
As he was pulling on his gloves and glancing at the clock, the houseboy brought him a letter.
It was from Madalena.
I do hope, my dear doctor, that you will come and see me today. Yesterday, I waited for you in vain. I need to talk to you.
Estêvão was in such a hurry to leave and wanted so urgently to be with Madalena that he only finished reading this note when he was halfway down the stairs.
What he didn’t want to lose was that glimmer of courage.
He left.
When he reached Madalena’s house, she was standing at the window, watching for him. She welcomed him warmly, as she always did. Estêvão apologized as best he could for failing to appear on the previous evening, adding that it had pained him deeply not to be there.
What better opportunity to throw in the bombshell of a frank and passionate declaration of love? He hesitated for a few seconds longer, then, screwing up all his courage, he was about to go on, when she said to him:
“I wanted to see you in order to tell you something important, something that I could only tell a man of honor like yourself.”
Estêvão turned pale.
“Do you know where I saw you for the first time?”
“At the ball.”
“No, it was before that. At the Teatro Lírico.”
“Ah!”
“You were with your friend Meneses.”
“Yes, we did go there a few times.”
Madalena then launched into a long explanation, to which he listened unblinking, but, at the same time, turning paler still and feeling deeply troubled. Her final words were:
“As you see, sir, such things can only be confided to a great soul. Small souls could not understand them. If I deserve anything, and if this confidence can be repaid with a kind act, then I ask you to do as I request.”
The doctor covered his eyes with his hand and said only:
“But—”
At that moment, Madalena’s little boy came into the room; she got up and led him by the hand to where Estêvão Soares was sitting.
“If not for me, then for the sake of this innocent child!”
The child, all uncomprehending, threw himself into Estêvão’s arms. Estêvão kissed him on the forehead and said to the widow:
“If I hesitated, it was not because I doubted the truth of what you have just told me, but because it is a very difficult mission you entrust me with. I promise, though, that I will carry it out to the best of my ability.”
IX
Estêvão left Madalena’s house with unsteady step and clouded gaze and filled with all kinds of contradictory feelings. His conversation with Madalena had been a long ordeal, and that final promise a decisive, mortal blow. Estêvão left there like a man who has just murdered his own burgeoning hopes; he walked aimlessly, he needed both to breathe fresh air and to be in a darkened room, to be alone and, at the same time, in the midst of a vast crowd.
On the way, he met Oliveira, the novice poet.
He recalled that Oliveira’s reading of his play had prevented him from sending the letter and thereby spared him the saddest of disappointments.
He found himself embracing the poet with all his heart.
Oliveira returned his embrace, and, when he could finally detach himself from the doctor’s arms, said:
“Thank you, my friend. Such a show of enthusiasm is most affecting. I have always thought of you as a great judge of literature, and the proof that you have just given me is both a consolation and an encouragement; it consoles me for what I have already suffered, and encourages me to embark on new ventures. If Torquato Tasso—”
Feeling a speech threatening, and especially given his friend’s misinterpretation of his embrace, Estêvão resolved to continue on his way and to abandon the poet.
“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye and thank you!”
Estêvão reached his own house and flung himself down on the bed. No one ever knew this—and only the walls of his room were witnesses—but the truth is that Estêvão wept bitter tears.
So what was it that Madalena had told him and asked of him?
The widow was not a widow; she was Meneses’s wife. She had traveled down from the North a few months before her husband, who only came to Rio to carry out his duties as a deputy. Meneses, who loved her madly and whose love was requited with equal fervor, had accused her of being unfaithful, citing a letter and a portrait as evidence. She had denied this, but explained herself very badly. Her husband left and sent her off to the capital.
Madalena accepted the situation with resignation and courage; she neither complained nor begged; she did as her husband ordered.
And yet Madalena was not guilty of the crime, which was only a crime in appearance; she was condemned because she had behaved honorably. The letter and the portrait did not belong to her; they had, imprudently and fatally, been left in her safekeeping. Madalena could have told her husband everything, but that would have meant breaking a promise, and she did not want that. She preferred the domestic storm to fall only on her.
Now, however, the need to keep the secret had passed. Madalena had received word from the North, in which her friend, on her deathbed, asked her to destroy both the letter and the portrait or to return them to the man who had given them to her. This was enough to justify Madalena’s confession.
Madalena could have sent the letter to her husband, or asked to meet him, but she was afraid. She knew it would be useless, because Meneses could be very rigid.
She had seen Estêvão one night at the theater in company with her husband; she had made inquiries and learned that they were friends; she was asking him, then, to mediate between them, to save her and restore a family’s happiness.
It was not, therefore, only Estêvão’s love that was wounded, it was his amour propre too. He realized at once that he had been invited to that house for one reason alone. It’s true that the letter had only arrived the day before, but this had merely hastened the resolution of the situation. Madalena would doubtless have asked him to perform some similar service even if she hadn’t received the letter.
Had it been any other man, Estêvão would have refused to help the “widow,” but it was his friend, a man to whom he owed both esteem and the duties of friendship.
And so he accepted that cruel mission.
“So be it,” he said, “I have to drive the woman I love into the arms of another, and, even worse, far from taking pleasure in being able to restore domestic harmony, I find myself in the dreadful position of being in love with my friend’s wife, and for that there is only one solution—to go far away . . .”
Estêvão stayed at home for the rest of that day.
He considered writing to the deputy and telling him everything, then thought it would be better to talk to him face-to-face. This would be more difficult, but more effective if he was to keep his promise.
However, he put this off until the following day, or, rather, the same day, since the night did not interrupt the flow of time, given that he did not sleep a wink.
X
The poor lover left his bed as the sun was rising.
He wanted to read the newspapers and asked for them to be brought to him.
He was just setting them aside, having read all he wanted, when he suddenly saw his own name in the Jornal do Commercio.
It was a commissioned article, a puff, entitled A Masterpiece.
This is what the article said:
It is with pleasure that we a
nnounce to the nation the imminent appearance of an excellent new comedy written by a young writer from Rio de Janeiro called Antônio Carlos de Oliveira.
This robust talent, long unrecognized, is finally about to enter the sea of public life, and to this end he wanted to try his hand at writing a substantial work.
We understand that only days ago, the author, at the request of his many friends, read the play in the house of Dr. Estêvão Soares, before an illustrious audience, who applauded loudly and proclaimed Senhor Oliveira as a future Shakespeare.
Dr. Estêvão Soares was kind enough to ask to read the play again, and yesterday, when he met Senhor Oliveira in the street, he embraced him warmly, to the general amazement of numerous passersby.
Coming from such a fine judge of literature, this embrace speaks volumes about Senhor Oliveira’s talent.
We are ourselves keen to read Senhor Oliveira’s play and are sure that it will make the fortune of any theater that puts it on.
A Lover of Literature
Despite all the other emotions churning inside him, this article enraged Estêvão. There could be no doubt that the author of the article must also be the author of the play. His embrace had been misinterpreted, and the so-called poet had used it to his advantage. If he had at least omitted Estêvão’s name, that might have excused the writer’s foolish vanity, but his name was there as an accomplice to the play.
Setting aside the newspaper, Estêvão decided to write a letter of protest and was just about to do so, when he received a note from Oliveira.
This is what the note said:
Dear Estêvão,
A friend of mine decided to write something about my play. I told him I had read the play to you, and explained that, despite your keen desire to hear the whole thing, you had to rush off to tend to a patient. Despite this, the aforementioned friend decided to reveal all in today’s Jornal do Commercio, very slightly tampering with the truth. Forgive him: he meant well.
Yesterday, I arrived home, feeling so proud of your embrace that I wrote an ode, my lyric vein rising to the surface after the comic and the tragic. Here it is—in draft form. If it’s no good, simply tear it up.
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 10