“What was her illness?”
“Something in her spine. The doctors said it had probably been there for quite some time, and was now becoming dangerous. By then it was 1859. From March of that year, her condition grew steadily worse; then there was a brief respite, but by the end of the month the situation was hopeless. I have never seen anyone so energetic in the face of imminent doom; by then she was transparently, almost fluidly thin; she laughed, or rather smiled, and, seeing me hide my tears, she would clasp my hands in gratitude. One day, when we were alone with the doctor, she asked him to tell her the truth; he was on the point of lying, but she told him it was useless, that she knew she was done for. ‘No, not done for,’ murmured the doctor. ‘Do you swear?’ He hesitated, and she thanked him. Now that she was sure she was dying, she finally did what she had promised herself.”
“She married your good self, I’ll wager.”
“Don’t remind me of that unhappy ceremony; or rather, let me remember it for myself, because it brings me a breath of something from the past. She would hear nothing of my pleas or refusals; she wed me when she was at the very threshold of death. That was on April 18, 1859. I spent the final two days, until April 20, at the bedside of my dying bride, and when I embraced her for the first time she was already a corpse.”
“All this is very strange indeed.”
“I don’t know what you and your theories will make of it. Mine, which are those of a mere layman, conclude that the young lady had a purely physical aversion to marriage. She married when she was half dead and at the gates of oblivion. Call her a monster, if you will, but add the word ‘divine.’ ”
THE SECRET CAUSE
GARCIA WAS STANDING up, nervously picking at his fingernails; Fortunato, in the rocking chair, was gazing up at the ceiling; Maria Luísa, by the window, was finishing her needlework. Five minutes had passed without any of them saying a word. They had talked about the weather, which had been excellent, about Catumbi, where Fortunato and his wife lived, and about a private hospital, but more of that later. Since the three people here described are all now dead and buried, the time has come to tell the unvarnished truth.
They had also talked about something else apart from those three subjects, a matter so serious and so distasteful that it left them with little appetite for discussing the weather, the neighborhood, or the hospital. The conversation on this subject had been very awkward indeed. Even now, Maria Luísa’s fingers still seemed to be trembling, while Garcia’s face wore a stern expression, which for him was most unusual. The nature of what had happened was such that in order to understand it we must go back to the very beginning.
Garcia had qualified as a doctor the previous year, 1861. In 1860, while still at medical school, he had met Fortunato for the first time, at the entrance to the Santa Casa Hospital; he was going in as the other was leaving. Something about Fortunato impressed him, but he would have forgotten all about him had it not been for their second meeting a few days later. Garcia lived in Rua Dom Manuel. One of his few amusements was to go to the Teatro de São Januário, which was close by, between his street and the waterfront; he went once or twice a month, and there were never more than forty or so spectators in the audience. Only the most intrepid souls dared venture down to that part of town. One night, he was sitting in the stalls, when Fortunato appeared and sat right next to him.
The play was an old melodrama, stitched together with stabbings and bristling with curses and wails of remorse; but Fortunato watched it with unusual interest. During the most painful scenes, he was doubly attentive; his eyes leapt from one character to another so intently that Garcia suspected that the play stirred some personal reminiscences in his neighbor. The drama was followed by a farce, but Fortunato did not stay to see it; Garcia followed him out. Fortunato headed down Beco do Cotovelo and Rua de São José, as far as Largo da Carioca. He was walking slowly, shoulders hunched, stopping now and then to prod a sleeping dog with his cane; the dog would yelp, and Fortunato would carry on walking. At Largo da Carioca he got into a cab and headed off toward Praça da Constituição. Garcia returned home none the wiser.
Several weeks went by. He was at home one night when, at around nine o’clock, he heard the sound of voices on the stairs; he quickly left his attic lodgings and went down to the first floor, which was occupied by a man who worked at the War Arsenal. The man in question was being carried upstairs, soaked in blood. His black servant hurried to open the door; the man was groaning, the voices around him jumbled, the light dim. Once they’d laid the wounded man on the bed, Garcia said they should call a doctor.
“He’s on his way,” someone replied.
Garcia looked up: it was the same man he’d seen at the hospital and at the theater. He imagined him to be a friend or relative of the wounded man, but immediately rejected this idea when he heard him ask if the man had any family or next-of-kin. The black man said no, and the stranger took control of the situation, asking the others to leave, paying the porters, and giving some initial instructions regarding the patient. On learning that Garcia was a neighbor and a medical student, he asked him to stay and assist the doctor. Then he explained what had happened.
“It was a gang of ruffians. I was coming back from the Moura Barracks where I’d been to visit a cousin, when I heard lot of shouting, and then some sort of scuffle. It seems they also wounded another passerby, who fled down one of the alleyways; but I only saw this gentleman, who was crossing the street when one of the ruffians brushed past him and stabbed him with a knife. He didn’t pass out immediately; he told me where he lived and, since it was only a few yards away, I thought it best to bring him here myself.”
“Had you met him before?” asked Garcia.
“No, never laid eyes on him. Who is he?”
“He’s a good man, works at the War Arsenal. His name is Gouvêa.”
“Never heard of him.”
The doctor and deputy superintendent arrived shortly afterward; bandages were applied and statements taken. The stranger gave his name as Fortunato Gomes da Silveira, a bachelor of independent means residing in Catumbi. The wound was deemed serious. While it was being dressed with Garcia’s assistance, Fortunato played the role of servant, holding the basin, the candle, and the bandages, not in the least disturbed, looking coldly down at the wounded man, who groaned constantly. Afterward, he spoke privately with the doctor, accompanied him as far as the landing, and again assured the deputy superintendent that he stood ready to help the police with their inquiries. The doctor and deputy superintendent left; Fortunato and the student remained in the bedroom.
Garcia was astonished. He looked at the other man and watched him calmly sit down, stretch his legs, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and fix his gaze on the wounded man. His eyes were pale gray, the color of lead; they moved slowly and had a hard, cold, dry expression. His face was thin and pale, framed by a wispy, ginger chinstrap beard. He was probably around forty. From time to time, he would turn to the student and ask something about the wounded man, then turn back to look at the patient while Garcia answered. The young man’s feeling was one of revulsion mixed with curiosity; he couldn’t deny that he was witnessing an act of rare dedication, and if it was as selfless as it seemed, then he had to accept that the human heart was indeed a well of mysteries.
Fortunato left shortly before one o’clock; he returned during the days that followed, but the wound healed quickly, and, before it was completely healed, he disappeared without telling the object of his charity where he lived. It was Garcia who passed on Fortunato’s name, street, and house number.
“I’ll go and thank him for his kindness just as soon as I’m able to leave the house,” said the convalescent.
And six days later, he hurried over to Catumbi. Fortunato received him with some embarrassment, listened impatiently to his words of thanks, replied somewhat irritably, and ended up playing with the tassels on his dressing gown. Sitting silently in front of him, Gouvêa fiddled with his hat and looke
d up from time to time, unable to think of anything else to say. After ten minutes he took his leave.
“Watch out for those ruffians!” his host said, laughing.
The unfortunate fellow left the house feeling humiliated and mortified, resentful of the disdainful way in which he had been received. He struggled to forget, to explain or pardon, so that only the memory of the kind deed would remain in his heart, but all in vain. Resentment, a new, exclusive lodger, entered his heart and kicked out the kind deed, which, poor thing, had no alternative but to clamber up into his brain and seek refuge there as a mere idea. Thus it was that the benefactor instilled in the beneficiary a feeling of rank ingratitude.
All this astonished Garcia. The young man had a nascent ability to decipher men and deconstruct characters; he loved analysis and possessed the gift, which he prized above all others, of being able to penetrate numerous emotional and spiritual layers until he grasped the inner secret of a human organism. His curiosity pricked, he considered going to see the man from Catumbi, but realized that he had received no formal invitation to call on him. At the very least he needed a pretext, and he could think of none.
Some time later, when he was a qualified doctor and living on Rua de Matacavalos, near Rua do Conde, he met Fortunato in a streetcar. He subsequently bumped into him on several more occasions, and the frequency of those encounters led to a certain degree of familiarity. One day, Fortunato invited him to come and visit him nearby, in Catumbi.
“You do know that I’m married?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I got married four months ago, although it seems like four days. Come and dine with us on Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
“Now, don’t start making excuses. I won’t hear of it. Come on Sunday.”
Garcia duly went on Sunday. Fortunato gave him a good dinner, good cigars, and good conversation, in the company of his wife, who was an interesting woman. Fortunato’s face had not changed; his eyes were the same sheets of cold, hard tin, and his other features were no more attractive, either. While his obliging manners did not entirely make up for his gruff nature, they were at least some compensation. Maria Luísa, on the other hand, was charming both in person and in manners. She was slim and elegant, with soft, submissive eyes; she was twenty-five years old, but looked not a day over nineteen. On his second visit, Garcia noticed that there was between the couple a certain disparity of character, little or no emotional affinity, and the wife’s attitude toward her husband went beyond respect, bordering almost on subjection and fear. One day, when the three of them were together, Garcia asked Maria Luísa if she had heard about the circumstances in which he had met her husband.
“No,” replied the young lady.
“Then you’re going to hear the tale of a very handsome deed.”
“There’s really no need,” said Fortunato, interrupting.
“I shall let you be the judge of that, senhora,” Garcia insisted.
He described the events on Rua Dom Manuel. The young lady listened in astonishment, unconsciously reaching out her hand to grasp her husband’s wrist, smiling in gratitude, as if she had just discovered that he did actually have a heart. Fortunato shrugged, but was clearly not unmoved. Afterward, he himself described the wounded man’s visit, describing the look on his face, his gestures, his garbled words and awkward silences—a complete idiot, in fact. He laughed and laughed as he spoke. There was no guile in that laughter; guile is evasive and oblique; his laughter was jovial and frank.
“What a peculiar man!” thought Garcia.
Maria Luísa was saddened by her husband’s mocking account, but Garcia restored her previous contentment by returning to the subject of Fortunato’s dedication and rare qualities as a nurse: “So good a nurse,” he concluded, “that if someday I were to set up my own private hospital, I would invite him to join me.”
“Are you serious?” asked Fortunato.
“About what?”
“About setting up a hospital together?”
“No, not at all; I was joking.”
“Well, we could give it a go, and for you, just starting out, it might not be a bad idea. I own a house that is about to become vacant, and that would be just the ticket.”
Garcia refused then, and refused again the following day, but the idea had lodged itself in the other man’s head and there was no going back. It would indeed make a good start to Garcia’s career, and it could well become a profitable venture for them both. He finally accepted a few days later, much to Maria Luísa’s disappointment. A nervous, fragile creature, she shuddered at the mere thought of her husband living in contact with human diseases, but she didn’t dare oppose him, and so bowed her head. Plans were quickly laid and carried out. In fact, Fortunato paid little attention to anything else, either then or later. When the hospital opened, he himself became the administrator and chief nurse: he inspected everything and organized everything, from soups to storerooms, medicines to ledgers.
Garcia could see then that the dedication he had shown toward the wounded man on Rua Dom Manuel had not been an isolated event, but was grounded in the man’s very nature. He watched him serve more willingly than any of the servants. He did not recoil from anything; no disease distressed or repelled him and he was always ready for anything, at any hour of the day or night. Everyone admired and applauded him. Fortunato read books, attended all the surgical operations, and it was he alone who applied the caustic lotions. “I have a lot of faith in caustic lotions,” he used to say.
Their common interests strengthened their bonds of friendship. Garcia was a frequent visitor to the house; he dined there almost every day, observing Maria Luísa and her ever more apparent emotional isolation, an isolation that merely doubled her charms, he thought. Garcia began to feel a certain agitation whenever she appeared, when she talked, when she would sit silently sewing by the window, or play sad songs on the piano. Softly, gently, love slipped into his heart. When he realized this, he tried to drive it out, so that there would be no bond but his friendship with Fortunato, but he could not. He could only lock it away; Maria Luísa understood both his affection and his silence, but said nothing.
At the beginning of October, something happened that revealed to Garcia yet more of the young lady’s plight. Fortunato had taken up the study of anatomy and physiology, and spent his free time dissecting and poisoning cats and dogs. Since the animals’ squeals disturbed the patients, he moved his laboratory to the house, forcing his wife, with her nervous temperament, to endure their cries. One day, however, unable to bear it any longer, she went to see Garcia and begged him to ask her husband, on her behalf, to put an end to these experiments.
“But couldn’t you yourself . . .”
Maria Luísa answered with a smile:
“He would no doubt think it very childish of me. What I would like is for you, as a doctor, to tell him that it’s doing me harm; for, believe me, it most certainly is.”
Garcia promptly persuaded Fortunato to end his live experiments. No one knew if he continued them elsewhere, but he may well have done. Maria Luísa thanked Garcia, for her own sake and that of the animals, for she could not bear to see them suffer. She coughed from time to time; Garcia asked if anything was the matter; she said there wasn’t.
“Let me feel your pulse.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
She wouldn’t let him feel her pulse, and left the room. Garcia became apprehensive. He thought there might indeed be something wrong with her, and that he would need to keep a close eye on her and warn her husband in good time.
Two days later—the very day on which we see them now—Garcia went to dinner with them. When he arrived, he was told that Fortunato was in his study and so he immediately made his way there. He had just reached the door when Maria Luísa rushed out in a state of terrible distress.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“The mouse! The mouse!” exclaimed the young lady, gasping for air and rushi
ng away.
Garcia remembered that the evening before he had heard Fortunato complaining that a mouse had chewed up an important document. He did not, however, expect to see what now appeared before him. Fortunato was sitting at the table in the middle of the study, and on the table sat a dish of alcohol. The liquid was alight. Between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he held a piece of string, from which the mouse dangled by its tail. In his right hand was a pair of scissors. At the precise moment Garcia entered the room, Fortunato snipped off one of the mouse’s legs; then he slowly lowered the poor creature into the flame, only briefly, so as not to kill it, and then prepared to snip the third leg, for he had already cut off the first before Garcia arrived. Garcia froze in horror.
“Kill it now!” he said.
“Just a moment.”
And with a most peculiar smile, something that hinted at an inner satisfaction, the slow savoring of sublime sensations, Fortunato cut off the mouse’s third leg, and for the third time lowered the mouse into the flame. The miserable creature writhed and squealed in agony, bloodied and scorched, but still did not die. Garcia turned away, then looked back and reached out his hand to stop the torture. But he did nothing, because this devil of a man, his face radiant and serene, filled him with fear. Only the last leg remained; Fortunato cut it very slowly, his eyes fixed on the scissors; the leg fell, and he continued to stare at the half-dead mouse. When he lowered it into the flame for the fourth time, he did so even more briefly than before, so as to salvage, if he could, whatever shred of life remained.
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 79