The Crime of Father Amaro

by José Maria De Eça de Queirós

  The church bell next door slowly struck ten o’clock.

  What would she be doing at that hour, he wondered. She would probably be sitting in the dining room sewing; the clerk would be there; they would be playing cards and laughing; in the dark beneath the table, she might perhaps touch his foot with hers! He remembered her foot, the little flash of stocking he had seen when she jumped over the puddles at the farm; and his inflamed curiosity climbed all the way up the curve of her leg to her breasts, past beauties he could but imagine . . . God, how he loved the wretched girl! But he could not have her! And yet any other ugly, stupid fellow could go to Rua da Misericórdia and ask for her hand in marriage, could walk into the Cathedral and say to him: ‘Father, marry us’, and then, protected by Church and State, could kiss those arms and those breasts. But he could not! He was a priest! It was all the fault of that ghastly woman the Marquesa de Alegros!

  He detested the whole secular world for having stripped him for ever of all his privileges, and since the priesthood excluded him from participation in human and social pleasures, he took refuge, instead, in the idea of the spiritual superiority his status gave him over other men. That miserable clerk might be able to marry and possess Amélia, but what was he in comparison with a priest on whom God had conferred the supreme power of deciding who should go to Heaven and who to Hell? And he gloated over this idea, gorging his spirit on priestly pride. However, a troubling thought soon surfaced: his dominion was valid only in the abstract region of souls; he would never be able to put his power into triumphant action in society. He was a God inside the Cathedral, but he had only to go out into the square and he was a mere obscure plebeian. An irreligious world had reduced the sphere of influence of all priestly action to the souls of a few overly devout ladies . . . And that was what he regretted, the social diminution of the Church, the mutilation of ecclesiastical power, which was limited now to the spiritual, with no rights over men’s bodies, lives and wealth. He did not have the authority a priest had in the days when the Church was the nation, and the parish priest was temporal master of his flock. What did it matter to him that he had the right to open or close the doors of Heaven? What he wanted was the ancient right to open or close the doors of dungeons! He wanted clerks and Amélias to tremble at the mere shadow cast by his cassock. He would have liked to have been a priest in the old Church, when he would have enjoyed the advantages brought by the power of denunciation and by the kind of terror that an executioner inspires, and there, in that town, under the jurisdiction of his Cathedral, he would have made all those who aspired to the joys that were forbidden to him tremble at the thought of excruciating punishments, and, thinking of João Eduardo and Amélia, he regretted not being able to bring back the bonfires of the Inquisition! In the grip of a fury provoked by thwarted passion, this inoffensive young man spent hours nursing grandiose ambitions of Catholic tyranny, for there is always a moment when even the most stupid priest is filled by the spirit of the Church in one of its two phases, that of mystical renunciation or that of world domination; every subdeacon at one time or another believes himself capable of being either a saint or a Pope; there is not a single seminarian who has not, albeit for an instant, aspired longingly to that cave in the desert in which St Jerome, looking up at the starry sky, felt Grace flow into his heart like an abundant river of milk; and even the potbellied parish priest who, at close of day, sits on his balcony probing the hole in his tooth with a toothpick or, with a paternal air, slowly sips his cup of coffee, even he carries within him the barely perceptible remnants of a Grand Inquisitor.

  Amaro’s life grew monotonous. March was coming to a damp, chilly end; and after the service in the Cathedral, Amaro would go home, take off his muddy boots and sit in his slippers feeling bored. He ate at three o’clock, and he never lifted the cracked lid of the tureen without remembering, with a feeling of intense nostalgia, the meals he had had in Rua da Misericórdia, when Amélia, wearing the whitest of collars, would pass him his bowl of chick pea soup, smiling and affectionate. Vicência, vast and erect, like a soldier in skirts, stood beside him to serve; she always seemed to be suffering from a heavy cold and would keep turning her head away to blow her nose noisily on her apron. She was not fussy about cleanliness either; all the knife handles were sticky with grease from the dirty washing-up water. Sad and indifferent, Amaro did not complain; he ate badly and in haste; he would ask for a cup of coffee and spend hour upon hour sitting at the table, plunged in silent tedium, now and then tipping the ash from his cigarette into the saucer, feeling his feet and his knees growing cold in the wind that blew in through the cracks of that bleak room.

  Sometimes, the coadjutor, who had never once visited him in Rua da Misericórdia, would drop in after supper and sit a long way from the table, not saying a word, his umbrella between his knees. Then, in an attempt to please Amaro, he would invariably say:

  ‘You’re much better off here, you know; it’s always best to have your own place.’

  ‘Hm,’ Amaro would grunt.

  At first, to soothe his own hurt and anger, Amaro would speak slightingly of São Joaneira, attempting to provoke the coadjutor, who was a native of Leiria, into retailing the scandals of Rua da Misericórdia. The coadjutor, out of pure servility, would merely smile perfidiously and say nothing.

  ‘There’s something fishy going on there, don’t you think?’ Amaro would begin.

  The coadjutor would shrug, holding his hands up, palms spread, with a mischievous look on his face, but he did not utter a sound, fearing that his words, if repeated, might offend the Canon. So they would sit on glumly, occasionally exchanging the odd, inconsequential remark: a baptism that had taken place; what Canon Campos had said; an altar cloth that needed washing. These conversations bored Amaro; he felt very little like a priest and very remote from the ecclesiastical clique: he was not interested in the canons’ intrigues, the precentor’s much-commented-upon favouritism, the thefts from the poorhouse, the diocesan tribunal’s wranglings with the district government, and he felt indifferent to and ill-informed about the ecclesiastical gossip in which the priests took such feminine pleasure and which was as puerile as a child’s tantrum and as convoluted as a conspiracy.

  ‘Is the wind still blowing from the south?’ he would ask at last, yawning.

  ‘It is,’ the coadjutor would reply.

  Amaro would light the lamp; the coadjutor would get to his feet, shake his umbrella and leave, with a sideways glance at Vicência.

  That was the worst time, at night, when he was left alone. He tried to read, but books bored him; grown unused to reading, he kept losing the thread. He would go over to the window and look out; the night was dark and the streets gleamed dully. When would this life be over? He would light a cigarette and begin pacing up and down, his hands behind his back, from the basin to the window. Sometimes he went to bed without praying, and he had no scruples about it; he felt that having renounced Amélia was enough of a penance in itself, and there was no need for him to wear himself out reading prayers; he had made his ‘sacrifice’ and he felt more or less even with Heaven.

  And so he continued to live alone: Canon Dias never came to see him in Rua das Sousas because, he said, just going into the house made his stomach churn. And Amaro, growing more sullen by the day, did not go back to São Joaneira’s house. He was very shocked that she had not sent him an invitation to the Friday gatherings; he attributed that ‘snub’ to Amélia’s hostility towards him, and in order not to see her, he swapped with Father Silveira, and so instead of saying the midday mass to which she used to come, he said the nine o’clock mass instead, furious at having to make yet another sacrifice.

  Every night, when she heard the door bell ring, Amélia’s heart beat so fast that, for a moment, she could barely breathe. Then she would hear João Eduardo’s boots come creaking up the stairs or would recognise the soft tread of the Gansoso sisters’ galoshes, and she would lean back in her chair, closing her eyes, as if wearied by an oft-repeate
d despair. She was waiting for Father Amaro, and sometimes, around ten o’clock, when she knew he would not come, her melancholy became so painful that her throat would grow tight with repressed sobs, and she would have to set aside her sewing and say:

  ‘I’m going to lie down, I’ve got a really splitting headache!’

  She would he prone on the bed, desperately murmuring over and over:

  ‘Dear Lady of Sorrows, my protectress, why does he not come, why does he not come?’

  During the first few days, immediately after his departure, the whole house had seemed deserted and gloomy. When she had gone into his bedroom and seen the hooks empty of his clothes and the sideboard empty of his books, she had burst into tears. She went over and kissed the pillow on which he had slept, and clutched wildly to her breast the last towel on which he had dried his hands! His face was always there before her, he appeared in all her dreams. With separation, her love only burned more strongly, like a solitary bonfire, the flames growing ever higher.

  One afternoon, she had gone to see a cousin of hers who worked as a nurse in the hospital, and when she reached the bridge, she saw a lot of people standing gawping at a young woman wearing a short, scarlet jacket and with her obviously false hair all dishevelled; she was shaking her fist and hoarsely cursing a soldier, a big country lad with a round, coarse, still beardless face; he had his back turned to her, and was shrugging his shoulders, his hands in his pockets, muttering:

  ‘I didn’t do anything to her, honest . . .’

  Senhor Vasques, who ran a clothier’s in the main square, had stopped to look, disapproving of such a ‘lack of public order’.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Amélia asked him.

  ‘Oh, hello, Miss Amélia! It’s just some soldier’s prank. He threw a dead rat in her face, and the woman is kicking up a terrible fuss. Slut!’

  Then the woman in the red jacket turned round, and Amélia was horrified to see Joaninha Gomes, her friend from school, who had gone on to become Father Abílio’s mistress. The priest had been suspended and had abandoned her; she had left for Pombal, then for Oporto, sinking ever lower, until she finally returned to Leiria, where she lived in an alley near the barracks, growing thinner and thinner, used by a whole regiment. Dear God, what an example!

  And she too loved a priest! Just as Joaninha once had, she too wept over her sewing when Father Amaro did not arrive.

  Where was that passion leading her? To Joaninha’s fate? To being the parish priest’s mistress? And she could already imagine herself being pointed at in the street, in the square, then later abandoned by him, with his child inside her, without so much as a crust of bread to eat! And like a gust of wind that instantly clears the sky of clouds, the sharp horror of that encounter with Joaninha swept from her mind the morbid, amorous mists in which she was losing her way. She decided to take advantage of their separation and to forget about Amaro; she even considered hastening her marriage to João Eduardo in order to take refuge in a more pressing duty; for some days, she tried hard to feel interested in him; she even began embroidering a pair of slippers for him . . .

  But gradually the ‘bad idea’ which, when attacked, had shrunk away and played dead, began slowly to uncoil, to rise up and invade her again. Day and night, whether she was sewing or praying, the idea of Father Amaro, his eyes and his voice, would appear to her like stubborn, ever more alluring temptations. What was he doing? Why did he not come to see her? Did he like someone else? She suffered from vague, fierce, searing jealousies. And that passion wrapped about her like an atmosphere from which she could not escape, which followed her if she attempted to flee, and which gave her life! In the fire running through her, all her honest resolutions shrivelled and died like feeble flowers. Whenever the memory of Joaninha resurfaced, she would push it irritably away and would hastily go over all the nonsensical reasons she could think of for loving Father Amaro. She had only one idea now: to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him, oh, yes, kiss him! And then, if necessary, die.

  She began to grow impatient with João Eduardo’s love. She found it ‘stupid’.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she would think when she heard his step on the stairs at night.

  She could not stand him with his eyes always fixed on her, she could not stand his black jacket, his boring conversations about the district government.

  And she idealised Amaro. Her nights were shaken by lewd dreams and, during the day, she lived in a state of jealous agitation and suffered from fits of black melancholy which, as her mother said, ‘made you feel like shaking her’.

  She grew sullen.

  ‘Good heavens, girl, whatever’s wrong with you?’ her mother would exclaim.

  ‘I don’t feel well. I think I might be sickening for something.’

  She did, in fact, look very pale and had lost her appetite. And one morning, she was confined to bed with a fever. Her frightened mother called in Dr Gouveia. After seeing Amélia, the old practitioner came back into the dining room, contentedly taking a pinch of snuff.

  ‘What do you think, Doctor?’ São Joaneira asked.

  ‘Marry the girl off, São Joaneira, marry her off now. I’ve told you so before.’

  ‘But, Doctor . . .’

  ‘Get her married off now, São Joaneira, now!’ he kept saying as he went down the stairs, slightly dragging his rheumaticky right leg.

  Amélia eventually got better, to the great joy of João Eduardo, who was in torment as long as she was ill, regretting not being able to nurse her himself and occasionally shedding a sad tear on the documents drawn up by his dour employer, Nunes Ferral.

  The following Sunday, at the nine o’clock mass, as Amaro went up to the altar, he noticed Amélia amongst the distant congregation; she was sitting next to her mother and wearing her black silk dress with all the ruffles. He closed his eyes for a moment, barely able to hold the chalice steady in his trembling hands.

  When, after mumbling his way through the Gospel, Amaro made the sign of the cross over the missal, then crossed himself and turned back to the congregation saying Dominus vobiscum, the wife of Carlos the pharmacist said to Amélia ‘the priest looks so pale you’d think he was in pain’. Amélia did not reply, bent over her prayer book, her face scarlet. And during mass, sitting back on her heels, absorbed in thought, her face passionate and ecstatic, she drank in his presence, his thin hands holding up the host, his handsome head bowed in ritual adoration; her skin prickled with sweet excitement whenever he uttered some rapid Latin phrase out loud; and when Amaro, his left hand on his breast and his right hand outstretched, pronounced to the congregation the Benedicat vos, she, her eyes wide open, projected her whole soul towards the altar, as if he were the God beneath whose blessing heads bowed along the whole length of the Cathedral, right to the very back where the villagers with their heavy walking sticks stood gazing in astonishment at the golden monstrance.

  As they were leaving, it started to rain, and Amélia and her mother were standing at the door with the other ladies, waiting for the rain to let up.

  ‘Hello! Fancy seeing you here!’ Amaro cried, coming over to them, his face stark white.

  ‘We’re waiting for the rain to stop, Father,’ said São Joaneira, turning round, and adding reproachfully: ‘And why have you not been to see us, Father? Was it something we did? It’s enough to make people talk . . .’

  ‘I-I’ve been very busy,’ stammered Amaro.

  ‘But you could have come over for a while in the evening. You know, it’s quite upset me. And everyone has noticed. It’s most ungrateful of you, Father!’

  Blushing, Amaro said:

  ‘Well, enough is enough. I’ll come round tonight and may all be forgiven . . .’

  Amélia, who was equally red-faced, was trying to conceal her agitation by gazing up at the heavy sky, as if frightened by the storm.

  Amaro then offered them his umbrella. And while São Joaneira was opening it, carefully gathering up her silk dress, Amélia said to Amaro:

&n
bsp; ‘Until tonight, then.’ And in a quieter voice, looking fearfully around her: ‘Please come. I’ve been so miserable! I’ve been quite mad. Please come, for my sake!’

  On his way home, Amaro had to keep himself from running along the streets in his cassock. He went into his room, sat down at the foot of the bed, and stayed there saturated with happiness, like a plump sparrow in a warm shaft of sunlight: he remembered Amélia’s face, the curve of her shoulders, the sweetness of their meetings, the words she had spoken: ‘I’ve been quite mad.’ The certainty that the girl loved him blew through his soul like a powerful gust of wind and whispered in every corner of his being with the melodious murmur of unconfined joy. And he strode about the room, arms outstretched, wanting to possess her body that very instant; he felt prodigiously proud; he stood in front of the mirror puffing out his chest, as if the world were a pedestal built for him alone. He could scarcely eat. How he longed for the night. The weather cleared up in the evening, and he kept checking his silver fob watch and looking irritably out of the window at the bright day still lingering on the horizon. He polished his shoes himself and pomaded his hair. And before leaving, he carefully said his prayers because, in the presence of that newly acquired love, he was suddenly superstitiously afraid that God or the scandalised saints might spoil it for him, and he did not want to give them reason for complaint by neglecting his devotions.