“Come on, who’s going to start the ball rolling?” he said. “Dona Felismina, surely. Let’s see if you have a secret admirer.”
Dona Felismina gave a somewhat forced smile. She was well into her forties and had neither money nor looks, and beneath her veil of piety she was constantly on the lookout for a husband. It was a rather cruel joke, but understandable. Dona Felismina was the perfect example of those gentle, forgiving creatures who seem to have been born to be the butt of other people’s jokes. She picked up the dice and threw them with a patient but skeptical air. “Number ten!” cried two voices. Rangel ran his eyes down the page, found the corresponding box, and read: Yes, it was someone she should seek out at church on Sunday, when she went to mass. The whole table congratulated Dona Felismina, who smiled dismissively, but was secretly rather hopeful.
Others took the dice, and Rangel proceeded to read each person’s fortune. He read in a pretentious, affected manner. From time to time, he removed his spectacles and wiped them very slowly with the corner of his cambric handkerchief—either simply because it was rather fine cambric or because it gave off a delicate scent of jasmine. His fondness for such airs and graces had merited him the nickname “Mr. Diplomat.”
“Go on, Mr. Diplomat, do please continue!”
Rangel started; he was so absorbed in perusing the row of young ladies across the table from him that he had forgotten to read out one of the predictions. Was he in love with one of them? Let us take things from the beginning, step by step.
He was a bachelor, by virtue of circumstance rather than vocation. As a young man he had enjoyed several passing flirtations, but, as time passed, the itching for rank and status had set in, and it was this that prolonged his bachelorhood until he was forty-one, the age at which we now see him. He hoped for a bride superior to both him and the circles in which he moved, and he wasted his time in waiting for her. He even attended dances given by a rich and celebrated lawyer for whom he transcribed documents, and who made him his protégé. At these dances, however, he occupied the same subaltern position he held at the office; he would spend the evening wandering the hallways, peering into the ballroom, watching the ladies pass by, devouring with his eyes a multitude of magnificent shoulders and elegant figures. He envied the other men and imitated them. He would leave full of enthusiasm and determination. When there were no dances, he would attend religious processions, where he could feast his eyes on some of the most eligible young ladies in the city. He was also to be found in the courtyard of the imperial palace on gala days, watching the great ladies and gentlemen of the court, together with ministers, generals, diplomats, and high court judges; he recognized everyone and everything, both the individuals themselves and their carriages. He would return from church or palace just as he returned from a ball, feeling impetuous and passionate, ready to grasp the laurels of fortune.
The worst of it is that between hand and branch stood that wall of which the poet spoke, and Rangel was not a man to leap over walls. Everything that he did, from razing cities to carrying off their womenfolk, he did only in his imagination. More than once he imagined himself a minister of state, wallowing in a surfeit of salutations and decrees. One year, on the second of December, as he was returning from the birthday parade on Largo do Paço, he even went so far as to proclaim himself emperor; to this end he envisaged a revolution, in which some blood was spilled, but only a little, followed by a benevolent dictatorship, in which he merely took revenge for a few minor grudges from his days as a court clerk. However, all his daring deeds were but fairy tales. In reality, he was a quiet, discreet fellow.
By the time he reached forty, he had given up on his grandiose ambitions, but his essential nature remained the same, and, notwithstanding his desire to marry, he failed to find a bride. More than one lady would have accepted him willingly, but he lost them all because he was too cautious, too circumspect. One day, he noticed Joaninha, who was nearly nineteen and had a pair of eyes that were both beautiful and meek—undefiled by any masculine conversation. Rangel had known her since she was a child; he had carried her in his arms in the Passeio Público and to see the fireworks at Lapa. How could he speak to her of love? But, on the other hand, his relations with the family were such that a marriage should be easy to arrange; it was either her or nothing at all.
This time, the wall was not high and the branch within his grasp; he needed only to stretch out his arm with a modicum of effort and pluck it from its stem. Rangel had been engaged in this undertaking for several months. He would not, however, reach out his arm without first checking all around him to see that no one was coming, and if he spied someone, he would hide his intentions and continue on his way. Whenever he did reach out, a gust of wind would set the branch swaying or a little bird would make a rustling noise in the dry leaves, and that was all it needed for him to withdraw his hand. And so time passed and his passions deepened, giving him many hours of anguish, always followed by higher hopes. And so, on this very night, the Feast of Saint John, he is carrying with him his first love letter, ready to deliver. Two or three good opportunities have already presented themselves, but he keeps putting off the moment; the night is still young! Meanwhile, he carries on reading out fortunes with all the solemnity of a high priest.
Around him, everyone is cheerful and jolly. Some are whispering, others are laughing or talking over each other. Uncle Rufino, the joker in the family, is going around the table with a feather, tickling the ears of the young ladies. João Viegas is waiting impatiently for his friend Calisto, who is late. Where on earth has he got to?
“Everyone out! I need the table. Let’s all go through to the drawing room.”
Dona Adelaide had returned and it was time to lay the table for supper. All the guests migrated to the other room, and it was when she walked that the charms of the clerk’s daughter could most truly be appreciated. Rangel followed her, besotted and puppy-eyed. She went to the window for a few moments, while a little parlor game was being set up, and he followed: it was his opportunity to slip her the letter.
In a large house across the street a ball was taking place, and the dancing had started. Joaninha was watching; Rangel watched too. Through the windows they could see the couples passing to and fro, swaying to the music, the ladies in their silks and laces, the gentlemen refined and elegant, some wearing medals. From time to time there was a flash of diamonds, swift and fleeting, amid the swirl of the dance. Couples talking, epaulets gleaming, men bowing, fans beckoning; all this could be glimpsed through the windows, which did not reveal the entire ballroom, but the rest could be imagined. He, at least, knew all of it, and described everything to the clerk’s daughter. The demons of grandeur, which had seemed to be lying dormant, started once again to perform their prancing pantomimes in our friend’s heart, and, lo and behold, began to seduce the young lady’s heart too.
“I know someone who would be entirely at home over there,” murmured Rangel.
“Why, you, of course,” replied Joaninha, without a hint of guile.
Rangel smiled, flattered, and didn’t know what to say. He looked at the footmen and liveried coachmen in the street, huddled in groups or leaning against the sides of the carriages. He began pointing out the various carriages to Joaninha: this one’s the Marquis of Olinda’s, that one belongs to the Viscount of Maranguape, and look, here comes another one, turning into the street from Rua da Lapa. It pulls up opposite: the footman jumps down, opens the carriage door, removes his hat, and stands at attention. From inside the carriage emerges a bald pate, a head, a man, two medals, then a richly dressed lady; they step into the entrance hall and ascend the grand staircase, carpeted and adorned with two large vases at its foot.
“Joaninha, Senhor Rangel . . .”
That blasted game! And just as he was formulating in his head some knowing comment regarding the couple ascending the stairs, from which he would have slipped naturally into giving her the letter . . . Rangel obeyed the summons and sat down opposite the young lad
y. Dona Adelaide, who had taken charge of the game, was collecting names; each person was to be a flower. Of course, Uncle Rufino, ever the jester, chose for himself the pumpkin flower. Rangel, wishing to avoid such trivialities, weighed up the potential of each flower and, when the lady of the house asked him for his, answered slowly and softly:
“Jasmine, senhora.”
“What a shame Calisto isn’t here!” sighed the court clerk.
“Did he actually say he was coming?”
“He did; indeed, he came to the office yesterday for the sole purpose of telling me he would be arriving late, but that he would definitely make it; he had to stop by first at some jolly down in Rua da Carioca.”
“Room for two?” boomed a voice from the hallway.
“Thank goodness for that! Here he is, the man himself!”
João Viegas went to open the door; it was indeed Calisto, accompanied by an unknown young man, whom he presented to the general gathering: “This is Queirós; he works at the Santa Casa Hospital; no relation of mine whatsoever, although he does look awfully like me—people are always mixing us up . . .” Everyone laughed; it was one of Calisto’s little jokes, for he was as ugly as sin, whereas Queirós was a handsome young man of twenty-six or twenty-seven, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a strikingly slender figure. The young ladies drew back a little. Dona Felismina unfurled her sails.
“We’re playing a parlor game and you two gentlemen are very welcome to join us,” said the lady of the house. “Will you play, Senhor Queirós?”
Queirós said he would be delighted and looked around at the other guests. He knew some of them, and exchanged a few words of greetings. He told João Viegas that he had been wanting to meet him for quite some time, on account of a favor his father owed him from many years before, concerning a legal matter. João Viegas had forgotten all about it, even when Queirós told him what the favor had been, but he enjoyed hearing such things said in public, and basked for a few minutes in quiet, smug contentment.
Queirós threw himself into the game. Within half an hour he had made himself one of the family. He was a lively fellow, who talked easily, and his manners were natural and spontaneous. He charmed the whole gathering with his vast repertoire of penalties, and indeed there was no one better than him at leading the game, rushing from one side to the other with such vivacity and animation, putting groups together, moving chairs, chatting with the young ladies as if they had all been playmates since childhood.
“Dona Joaninha sits here, on this chair; Dona Cesária stands over on that side, and Senhor Camilo comes in through this door . . . No, not that way. Look: like this, and then . . .”
Sitting stiffly on his chair, Rangel was speechless. Where had this hurricane blown in from? And the hurricane continued to blow, lifting the men’s hats and tousling the ladies’ hair, and all of them laughing merrily: Queirós here, Queirós there, Queirós everywhere. Rangel went from stupefaction to mortification. Slowly, the scepter was falling from his grasp. He didn’t look at the other man, didn’t laugh at anything he said, and answered him only curtly. Inside, he was seething with rage and cursing the man, one of those happy fools who knows how to amuse people and make them laugh, because that’s what happens at parties. But not even telling himself these and even worse things restored his peace of mind. In the innermost depths of his self-esteem, he was really suffering. Worse still, the other man saw this, and, worst of all, knew he was the cause of it.
Just as he dreamt of future glories, Rangel also dreamt of revenge. In his head, he pounded Queirós to a pulp. Then he imagined some sort of disaster befalling his rival; a sudden pain would do, something serious enough to get rid of the interloper entirely. But no pain appeared, nothing at all; the wretch seemed to grow merrier by the minute, and the whole room fell under his spell. Even Joaninha, normally so timid, quivered with excitement in Queirós’s hands, as did the other young ladies; all the guests, men and women, seemed to be at his beck and call. When he mentioned dancing, all the young ladies rushed over to Uncle Rufino and asked him to play a quadrille on his flute, just one, promising not to ask for any more.
“I can’t, I’ve got a callus on my finger.”
“The flute?” exclaimed Calisto. “Ask Queirós to play something and then you’ll see what a flute can really do. Go and get your flute, Rufino. Come on, everyone, listen to Queirós. You can’t imagine how hauntingly he plays!”
Queirós played “Casta Diva.” “Utterly ridiculous,” Rangel muttered to himself, “even the kids in the street are whistling that tune.” He shot Queirós a sideways glance, trying to determine whether any serious man would ever stand with his arms like that, and concluded that the flute was indeed a grotesque instrument. He also looked at Joaninha and saw that, like everyone else, her eyes were on Queirós, enraptured, carried away by the sounds of the aria. He shuddered, although without quite knowing why. Joaninha’s expression was no different from everyone else’s, and yet he felt something which added a further complication to his dislike of the interloper. When Queirós finished playing, Joaninha clapped less loudly than the others, and Rangel was unsure whether to attribute this to her usual shyness or to some other emotion. He urgently needed to give her that letter.
Supper was served. The guests entered the dining room in no particular order and, happily for Rangel, he found himself opposite Joaninha, whose eyes were more beautiful than ever and so bright they scarcely seemed the same eyes at all. Rangel savored them in silence, and carefully pieced back together the dream that wretch Queirós had so abruptly shattered with a snap of his fingers. Once again he saw himself by her side, in the house he would rent for them, their little love nest, adorned with all the golden ornaments of his imagination. He would even win a prize in the lottery and spend it all on silks and jewels for his dear wife, the lovely Joaninha, Joaninha Rangel, Dona Joaninha Rangel, Dona Joana Viegas Rangel, or even Dona Joana Cândida Viegas Rangel—he couldn’t leave out the Cândida.
“Come on, a toast, Mr. Diplomat. Give us one of your famous toasts!”
Rangel awoke from his reverie; the whole table joined in Uncle Rufino’s request; Joaninha herself was begging him to propose a toast, just like last year’s. Rangel promised to oblige, just as soon as he had polished off his chicken wing. There were general stirrings and murmurings of praise; when one of the young ladies confided that she had never heard Rangel speak, Dona Adelaide replied in astonishment:
“Really? Goodness gracious, you can’t imagine how well he speaks: so very clearly, and with such well-chosen words, and such refinement!”
As he ate, he rehearsed a few thoughts and fragments of ideas that would form the basis of his fine phrases and metaphors. When he was ready, he stood up with an air of self-satisfaction. At last, they were coming knocking at his door. The merry-go-round of anecdotes and mindless jokes was over and they had come to him for something dignified and serious. He looked around and saw all eyes fixed expectantly on him. Not quite all; Joaninha’s were turned toward Queirós, whose eyes met hers halfway, along with a cavalcade of promises. Rangel blanched. The words died in his throat, but speak he must; everyone was eagerly, silently waiting for him.
His efforts failed to impress. He merely toasted their host and his daughter. The latter he called “a divine inspiration, transported from immortality to reality,” a phrase he had used three years earlier, but that should by now have faded from memory. He spoke also of the sanctuary of family, the altar of friendship, and of gratitude being the flowering of pure hearts. What it lacked in meaning, it made up for in empty grandiloquence. All in all, it was a speech that should have stretched to a good ten minutes, but which he dispatched in five, then sat down.
That wasn’t the end of it. Queirós stood up two or three minutes later for another toast, and this time the silence was even more immediate and complete. Joaninha stared into her lap, embarrassed at what he might say. Rangel shuddered.
“Senhor Rangel, the illustrious friend of this house,” sa
id Queirós, “drank to the two people who share the name of the saint we commemorate today; I drink to the person who is a saint every day of the year, Dona Adelaide.”
Loud applause greeted this worthy sentiment, and Dona Adelaide, greatly flattered, was congratulated by each and every guest. Her daughter did not stop at congratulations. “Mama! Dearest Mama!” she exclaimed, getting up from her seat and going over to hug and kiss her mother three or four times—a sort of letter, as it were, to be read by two people.
Rangel’s anger turned to despondency and, as soon as supper was finished, he decided it was time to leave. But hope, that green-eyed demon, begged him to stay, and he stayed. Who knows? It might blow over, a St. John’s Eve flirtation; he was, after all, a good friend of the family, held in high esteem, and the young lady’s hand was his for the asking. Furthermore, that Queirós fellow might well not have the means to marry. What was that job of his at the hospital? Something menial, perhaps? He glanced at Queirós’s clothes, running his eyes over the seams, scrutinizing the embroidery on his shirt, examining the knees of his trousers to see if they were worn from use, also his shoes, and he concluded that Queirós was a capricious young man who probably spent all his money on himself, whereas marriage was a serious business. Also, he might well have a widowed mother, unmarried sisters. Rangel had only himself to provide for.
“Play a quadrille, Uncle Rufino.”
“I can’t. After a meal, playing the flute always gives me indigestion. Let’s play lotto.”
Rangel declared he could not play lotto on account of a headache, but Joaninha came over to him and asked him to be her partner. “Half the winnings for you, half for me,” she said, smiling; he smiled, too, and accepted. They sat down side by side. Joaninha talked, laughed, looked up at him with her beautiful eyes, and glanced restlessly around at her at the other guests. Rangel felt a little better, and in no time at all felt entirely better. He marked off the numbers randomly, missing some of them, which she pointed out with her finger—a nymph’s finger, he said to himself, and his mistakes became deliberate, just so he could see her finger and hear her scold him: “You’re not paying attention, Senhor Rangel; do watch out or we’ll lose all our money!”
The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis Page 83