Poor Machado sighed as he recounted this. His affection for his mother had always been his strongest emotion. They had always lived together and on her account he had never wanted to marry. Now all this loss seemed to take away from his life everything that had made it dear.
‘God cannot want such a disaster,’ murmured Alves, greatly upset.
Machado shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and soon afterwards went to return to the side of the poor sufferer.
Now, three or four times every day, Alves went to Machado’s home to get news. The poor lady was getting worse. Happily, she did not feel any pain—and her last days were comforted by the love with which her son surrounded her, not stirring from her bedside for a moment, subduing his grief, hiding his paleness, cheering her up, talking of plans and trips into the country, and even joking, as in happier times.
Then, one evening, Alves stopped by for news. The maid answered, with her apron to her eyes: the mistress had died an hour earlier, like a little bird. He went in. And Machado threw himself into his arms, overwhelmed with grief.
Alves did not leave him, but spent the night there. He looked after the funeral arrangements, the invitations, the purchase of a grave on St John’s Hill. And on the following day, in the solemnity of condolence calls, friends of the family shook hands with him as warmly, silently, as they did with Machado himself, recognising in him more than a friend, almost a brother.
The funeral was well attended; there were more than twenty carriages. Alves carried the key of the casket and took charge of the arrangements at the cemetery, invited the closest friends to be pall bearers, talked with the priests, did not spare himself; and when the coffin was lowered into the grave, his tears went with it.
Next day, Machado went away to Vila Franca, to the home of an aunt, and Alves took him to the station, looked after his baggage and again wept as he embraced him.
A fortnight later, Machado returned. Again he occupied his desk in the office with the green repp. But he did not seem the same. He was calmer, but so sad in his mourning that Alves, always a romantic, wondered to himself whether those lips would ever smile again.
Later, seeing that he was staying at his desk and reluctant to go home to the now empty house, to the now solitary dinner, he had one of his sudden kindly impulses: he forgot it all, opened his arms to Machado:
‘Well, what will be, will be. Come and have dinner with us!’
And he did not let him hold back; he put on his coat, almost pushed him down the steps, called a cab, thrust him into it, and took him triumphantly to São Bento Street.
During the journey, Machado said nothing, fearing the encounter, already growing pale, searching for something normal to say to Ludovina.
On the staircase, they heard at once the sound of the piano and a few moments later, putting his head round the drawing-room curtain, Alves, beaming, exclaimed:
‘Ludovina, I have brought you a guest!’
She rose and suddenly found herself face to face with Machado, who bowed deeply, hiding his confusion in that act of elaborate courtesy.
She blushed, but her voice was clear and firm as she held out her hand to him, saying:
‘How do you do, Senhor Machado? Have things been going well with you?’
He stammered a few words and remained standing, slowly rubbing his hands, while Ludovina tried to dispel his embarrassment with a torrent of words, telling Godofredo about a visit she had had from the Medonças, talking about Senhor Medonça and the Medonça boy, vivaciously, nervously, her ears burning. Then she hurried out of the room to give instructions.
When they were left alone, Alves made this profound remark:
‘So, when one is well brought up, everything turns out right.’
Shortly afterwards, she came back, more at ease, having no doubt put a touch of powder on her face. Machado was sitting on the famous yellow sofa and made to get up, to offer her his seat. But she did not accept it, sat down alongside him in an armchair, and as though she wanted to make amends for something she had overlooked, hastened to say, with a sigh:
‘Senhor Machado, I felt your loss very much. . .’
He bowed, murmuring a few words, and Alves intervened, saying:
‘Let us not talk about that now! One must accept God’s decisions: it is past!’
But a shadow had come over Machado’s sensitive face and a mournful air of depression hung heavily on the room. Yet it was this very sadness which suddenly put them at their ease. It was as though Machado, in his deep mourning, thinking about his mother, the still fresh grave, was not the man who had drunk glasses of port with his arm around her, there on the yellow sofa. It was another Machado, a serious young man hurt by suffering, who needed to be consoled, who had grown older and for ever averse to amorous adventures.
She found him changed, and as she looked at him, could scarcely remember what he had been like before. He, too, found her so different that it might have been his first visit to the house.
The husband had forgiven. They too would forgive. And they ended by looking each other in the face, speaking naturally, without embarrassment, she saying ‘Senhor Machado’, he replying formally, both of them cool, having ceased for ever to tremble before each other, like two burnt-out cinders.
And the dinner was peaceful, calm, intimate, almost jolly.
So life went on unfolding, uneventful and smooth, as it really is. Machado’s period of mourning ended. He began again to go to theatres, had other Spanish girls, courted other ladies. Then Neto died suddenly of apoplexy, in an omnibus, and Teresa came to live with her sister.
After two years, Machado married a girl named Cantanhede, for whom he had conceived an absurd, wild infatuation that would not wait and which led him to complete his courtship, betrothal and marriage, all within the space of a month. There was a ball, Ludovina appeared in a beautiful gown, but she did not dance.
Then at the end of a year, poor Cantanhede died in childbirth and again, overwhelmed with grief, Machado wept in Alves’s arms. Again Alves took the key of the casket, and gave long silent handshakes during the visits of condolence. But this time, Ludovina helped him, weeping too, because she and Cantanhede had been close friends, accustomed to spend their days together, never apart; and her grief was almost as great as the unhappy Machado’s. Again life went on, smooth and uneventful, as is its wont. And at the end of two years, Machado fell in love with an actress from the Ginasio. At this time, there was an upheaval in the Alves household, the marriage of Teresa—against the wishes of her sister and brother-in-law—to a clerk from the Customs, an insignificant nitwit, without a penny, who had bewitched the girl because he was fair, as blond as an ear of corn. They had to be married, because Teresa was wasting away, threatening to throw herself from a window—and there were other suspicions.
The months went by and then the years. The business of Alves & Co. expanded, became more prosperous. The office, now more spacious, more luxurious, with six clerks, was at the corner of Silver Street. Alves was balder, Ludovina had grown stouter. They kept a carriage, and in summer went to Sintra.
Then Machado got married again, to a widow—an inexplicable marriage, for the widow was neither handsome nor wealthy; but she did have remarkable eyes, very dark, with long eyelashes, very tremulous, ready to die with languor.
It was a quiet wedding and the newly-weds set off for Paris. They returned, came to live quite near to the Alveses, who had now moved to a villa at Buenos Aires. And another close friendship developed between Ludovina and the lady with the languorous eyes. Very soon, Ludovina became the slave of this strange creature, who also enslaved Machado, had a strong influence over Alves, and dominated all around her—servants, relatives, tradesmen— effortlessly, with her air of superiority, her chubby figure, and her languorous eyes with long eyelashes.
Now, the two families live next door to each other and are growing old side by side. On Ludovina’s birthday, there is always a grand ball and always, inseparable from this day, ther
e comes back to Alves the memory of that other anniversary, when he came home and saw on the yellow sofa. . . But what an age since that happened!
And now the memory merely makes him smile. But it also makes him think; for that incident remains the outstanding event of his life, and from it he draws his general philosophy and his normal reflections. As he often says to Machado, what a wise thing is prudence!
If, on the day of the yellow sofa, he had given way to his rage, or if he had persisted later in thoughts of rancour and revenge, what would his life have been like? He would even now be parted from his wife, his close business association with his partner would have been broken off, his firm would not have prospered, nor his fortune increased; and his private life might have been that of a sour bachelor, dependent on maidservants, perhaps besmirched by licentiousness.
In the long years that had gone by, how many fine things he would have lost, how many domestic pleasures, how many comforts, how many pleasant family evenings, how many of the satisfactions of friendship, how many long days of peace and honour! By this time, he would be old, irritable, his life ruined, his health destroyed, with that shame from the past for ever burning him up.
And how differently it had turned out!
He had held out his arms in compassion to a guilty wife, to a disloyal friend; and with that simple embrace, he had made his wife for ever an ideal partner and his friend the soul of loyalty.
And now there they were, all together side by side, respected, serene, happy, growing old in comradeship, in the midst of prosperity and peace.
Sometimes, as he thought about it all, Alves could not help smiling with satisfaction. Then he would slap his friend on the back, remind him of the past, say to him with a smile:
‘And we were on the point of fighting each other! Young people are always rash—and all because of a joke, Machado, my friend!’
And the other one, smiling too, would slap him on the back and reply:
‘All on account of a big joke, Alves, my friend!’
Copyright © 1996 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
English translation copyright © 1993 by John Vetch
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
The Yellow Sofa is published by arrangement with Carcanet Press, Ltd., Manchester.
Manufactured in the United States of America
eISBN: 978-0-8112-2584-7
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
The Yellow Sofa Page 9