The Crime of Father Amaro

by José Maria De Eça de Queirós

  ‘You may say to me,’ said Father Amaro, sitting down again, ‘that she is merely the daughter of the sexton. But she has a soul, she has a soul like ours!’

  ‘Everyone has a right to the grace of God,’ said the Canon gravely and impartially, acknowledging the equality of the classes as long as it was only in respect of Heaven’s comforts and not material goods.

  ‘As far as God is concerned, there are no rich and poor,’ sighed São Joaneira. ‘In fact it’s better to be poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’

  ‘Better to be rich you mean,’ said the Canon, holding out one hand to halt that false interpretation of divine law. ‘For Heaven is also for the rich. You have misunderstood the precept. Beati pauperes, blessed are the poor, means that the poor should be content with their poverty and not covet the property of the rich, nor want more than the mouthful of bread that they have, nor aspire to share the wealth of others, for if they do, they will no longer be blessed. That is why, Senhora, the rabble that preaches that the workers and the lower classes should live better than they do are going against the express will of the Church and of Our Lord and deserve to be horsewhipped like the excommunicants that they are! Uf!’

  And he lay back in his chair, exhausted by this long speech. Father Amaro, meanwhile, said nothing, leaning one elbow on the table and slowly rubbing his head. He was about to launch his idea, as if it were a divine inspiration, and suggest that Amélia should carry out the religious education of the poor paralysed child. But his entirely carnal, concupiscent motive made him pause superstitiously. The sexton’s daughter appeared to him now in exaggerated form, plunged in a dark abyss of agony. He felt the thrill of charity in consoling her, entertaining her, making her days less bitter. Surely that action would redeem many sins, would delight God, if done in the pure spirit of Christian brotherhood. He felt a kind young man’s sentimental compassion for the wretched body pinned to that bed, never seeing the sun or the street. And he sat there, awkward and undecided, scratching his neck, wishing he had never mentioned Totó to the ladies . . .

  But Dona Joaquina Gansoso had an idea:

  ‘What if we sent her that book full of paintings of the lives of the saints, Father? They’re so edifying. I found them terribly touching . . . You’ve got it, haven’t you, Amélia?’

  ‘No, I haven’t got it,’ Amélia said, without glancing up from her sewing.

  Then Amaro looked at her. He had almost forgotten about her. She was on the other side of the table to him, hemming a duster: the slender parting in her hair was almost lost amongst her thick, abundant locks, on which the oil lamp beside her cast a line of lustrous light; her eyelashes seemed longer and blacker against the warm brown skin of her cheek, flushed with rose; her close-fitting dress formed a crease at the shoulder and rose amply over the round shape of her breasts, which he saw rise and fall with her regular breathing . . . That was the part of her beauty he loved most; he imagined her breasts to be round and full and the colour of snow; he had held her in his arms, but she had been clothed, and his urgent hands had met only cold silk. But in the sexton’s house, they would be his, with no obstacles, no clothes, at the entire disposal of his lips. Dear God! And there was nothing to prevent them consoling Totó’s soul at the same time! He hesitated no longer. And raising his voice above the babble of old ladies now discussing the disappearance of The Lives of the Saints.

  ‘No, ladies, it is not books that the girl needs. Do you know what I think? One of us, the one with most time to spare, should take the word of God to her and educate her soul!’ And he added, smiling: ‘And if truth be told, the person with most time on her hands here is Miss Amélia.’

  What a surprise! It seemed like the will of Our Lord himself had come to him in a revelation. The ladies’ eyes lit up with devout excitement at the idea of that charitable mission having its origins right there in Rua da Misericórdia . . . Enraptured, they greedily anticipated the praise of both the precentor and the Cathedral chapter. Each one proffered her advice, eager to take part in the holy work and to share the rewards that Heaven would doubtless shower down upon them. Dona Joaquina Gansoso declared warmly that she envied Amélia and was very shocked when Amélia burst out laughing.

  ‘Do you think I would not do it with the same devotion? You’re already proud that you will be the one carrying out the good work . . . That kind of attitude will do you no good, you know!’

  But Amélia was in the grip of hysteria, leaning back in her chair, struggling to choke back her laughter.

  Dona Joaquina’s eyes flashed.

  ‘It’s indecent,’ she cried, ‘positively indecent!’

  They calmed her down, and Amélia had to swear on the Holy Gospels that she had merely had a silly thought and was generally in a nervous state . . .

  ‘Well,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção, ‘she’s quite right to be proud. It’s an honour for the house. When people find out . . .’

  Amaro said severely:

  ‘But they mustn’t find out, Dona Maria! Of what use, in the eyes of God, are good works that are a cause of boasting and vanity?’

  Dona Maria bowed her shoulders, humbling herself before the reprimand. And Father Amaro went on gravely:

  ‘It must go no further than this room. It is between God and us. We want to save a soul, to console someone who is sick, not to be praised in the newspapers. Isn’t that so, Canon?’

  The Canon sat up slowly:

  ‘You have spoken tonight with the golden tongue of St John Chrysostom. I am greatly edified, and now I could do with some toast.’

  While Ruça was preparing the tea, they decided that, in secret, so that the action would prove more valuable in the eyes of God, Amélia would go once or twice a week, according to the degree of her devotion, to spend an hour at the paralysed girl’s bedside in order to read to her from The Lives of the Saints, to teach her some prayers and to inspire her with virtue.

  ‘One thing is certain,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção, turning to Amélia, ‘you’re a very lucky girl!’

  Ruça came in with the tray, in the midst of the laughter provoked by ‘Dona Maria’s foolishness’ as Amélia put it, Amélia having blushed scarlet. And thus it was that she and Father Amaro were able to see each other freely, to the greater glory of God and the humiliation of the Enemy.

  They met every week, sometimes once, sometimes twice, so that, by the end of the month, their charitable visits to Totó had reached the symbolic number of seven, which should, in the minds of the devout, have corresponded to The Seven Sorrows of Mary. Father Amaro would warn Esguelhas the night before, and Esguelhas would leave the street door ajar, having first swept the whole house and prepared the bedroom for the priest’s work. On those days, Amélia got up early: she always had a white petticoat to starch or a bow to make; her mother was bemused by these affectations and by the quantity of eau-de-cologne with which she drenched herself; but Amélia explained that it was ‘in order to inspire Totó with ideas of cleanliness and freshness’. Once dressed, she would sit and wait for eleven to strike, looking very serious, her face flushed, her eyes fixed on the hands of the clock, responding distractedly to her mother’s remarks; at last, the old contraption would grind out a cavernous eleven o’clock and then, with one last glance in the mirror, she would leave, planting a large kiss on her mother’s cheek.

  She was always apprehensive, afraid that someone might see her. Every morning, she prayed to Our Lady of Safe Journeys to keep her from unfortunate encounters, and if she saw a poor person, she would invariably give them alms, to placate the Good Lord, friend to beggars and vagabonds. The most frightening part was the Cathedral square over which Amparo in the pharmacy kept an incessant vigil as she sat at the window, sewing. Amélia would shrink into her cape then and keep her sunshade low over her face as she went into the Cathedral, always right foot first.

  She found the silence of the church, deserted and drowsing in the wan light, equally terrifying; the taciturn saints and crosses seemed to
be chiding her for her sin; she imagined that the glass eyes of the images and the painted pupils of the pictures were fixed on her with cruel insistence and that they noticed how her breast rose and fell at the thought of the pleasure to come. Sometimes, in the grip of superstition and in order to fend off the disapproval of the saints, she would even promise to devote the whole morning to Totó and to give all her charitable attentions only to her, and not to allow Father Amaro so much as to touch her dress. But if, when she went into the sexton’s house, she did not find Amaro there, she would not even pause at the foot of Totó’s bed, but go straight to the kitchen window, to keep watch on the thick sacristy door, every one of whose black iron studs she now knew individually.

  He would arrive at last. It was the beginning of March; the swallows had returned; they could be heard twittering in the melancholy silence as they flew amongst the buttresses of the Cathedral. Here and there, plants that favour dank places clothed the corners in dark green. Amaro would sometimes gallantly pick her a flower, but Amélia would grow impatient and tap on the window. He would hurry then, and they would stand for a moment at the door, hands clasped, their shining eyes devouring each other; and then they would go in and see Totó and give her the cakes that Amaro always brought for her in the pocket of his cassock.

  Totó’s bed was in the small bedroom next to the kitchen. Her scrawny body was barely visible on the sagging mattress, beneath filthy blankets the edges of which she spent her time unpicking. On those days, she had taken to wearing a white dressing gown, and her hair gleamed with oil, for lately, since Father Amaro’s visits, ‘she had got it into her head that she wanted to look proper’ as a delighted Esguelhas put it, to the point that she would not be parted from the mirror and comb that she hid under her pillow, and she had instructed her father to stow under the bed, amongst the dirty bedclothes, the dolls which now she scorned.

  Amélia would sit down for a moment at the foot of the bed and ask Totó if she had studied her ABC, making her pronounce the occasional letter. Then she would ask her to repeat correctly the prayer she had been teaching her, while the priest waited on the threshold, his hands in his pockets, bored and embarrassed by the paralysed girl’s shining eyes, which never left him for a moment, penetrating him, exploring his body with ardour and astonishment, eyes that seemed even larger and more brilliant in her dark face, so gaunt that her cheekbones were clearly visible beneath the skin. He felt neither compassion nor charity for Totó; he hated that delay; he found the girl coarse and irritating. These moments dragged for Amélia too, when she resigned herself to talking to the girl, in order not to scandalise Our Lord too much. Totó seemed to hate her and either responded irritably or else lay in rancorous silence, her face turned to the wall; one day, she even tore up the alphabet, and she would shrink away angrily if Amélia tried to rearrange the shawl around her shoulders or smooth the bedclothes.

  Finally, Amaro would grow impatient and make a sign to Amélia, and she would set before Totó the picture book of The Lives of the Saints.

  ‘There you are, now you look at the pictures. There’s St Matthew, and that’s St Virginia. Bye-bye now. I’m going upstairs with Father Amaro to pray to God to give you good health and to help you to walk . . . No, don’t spoil the book, that’s naughty.’

  And when they went upstairs, Totó would crane her neck after them, eyes flashing then filling with angry tears as she listened to the stairs creaking. The room above was very low with no ceiling, just the black beams on which the tiles rested. Beside the bed hung a small oil lamp that left a stain on the wall like a black plume of smoke. And Amaro always used to laugh at the preparations Esguelhas had made – the table in one corner with a copy of the New Testament on it, and a jug of water and two chairs on either side.

  ‘It’s for our class, so that I can teach you the duties of a nun,’ he said, laughing.

  ‘Teach me, then!’ she would murmur, as she stood before Amaro, a warm smile on her lips revealing her white teeth, and her arms flung wide, offering herself up to him.

  He would shower voracious kisses on her neck and hair; sometimes he would bite her ear and she would utter a little yelp, after which they would both stand for a moment utterly still, listening, afraid of the paralysed girl downstairs. Then Amaro would close the shutters and the door, which was so stiff he had to press hard against it with his knee. Amélia would slowly get undressed and would remain for a moment immobile, her petticoats fallen around her feet, a white shape in the darkness of the room. Amaro, nearby, would be breathing hard. Then she would hurriedly make the sign of the cross and give a sad little sigh as she climbed onto the bed.

  Amélia could only stay until midday, which is why Amaro hung his watch on the nail holding the oil lamp in place. But even when they did not hear the chimes of the clock, Amélia could tell the time from the crowing of a neighbouring cockerel.

  ‘I must go now, my love,’ she would say wearily.

  ‘Stay. You’re always in such a hurry.’

  They would lie in silence for a while longer, cuddled up close to each other, in sweet lassitude. Through the spaces between the roof beams they could see cracks of light; sometimes they heard a cat padding across, occasionally catching a loose tile as it passed; or a bird would alight, singing, and they would hear the rustle of its wings.

  ‘It’s time I went,’ Amélia would say.

  Amaro wanted to make her stay longer and would keep kissing her ear.

  ‘Greedy thing!’ she would murmur. ‘Stop it!’

  Then she would get dressed quickly in the dark, open the window, once more embrace Amaro, who lay stretched out on the bed, and, finally, she would move the table and the chairs, so that the paralysed girl downstairs would hear and know that their class was over.

  Amaro would not stop kissing her, and so, to draw things to a close, she would run away from him and fling open the door; Amaro would go down the stairs, stride through the kitchen without so much as a glance at Totó and walk across to the sacristy.

  Amélia, on the other hand, would go and see Totó to find out if she had liked the pictures. Sometimes she would find her hiding with her head under the blankets, which she held down with her hands; at other times, sitting up in bed, Totó would scrutinise Amélia with eyes that flickered with lewd curiosity; she would put her face up close to Amélia’s, her nostrils dilated as if to sniff her; troubled, Amélia drew back, blushing; it was getting late, she would say, then pick up her Lives of the Saints and leave, cursing that creature and her malicious silence.

  When she crossed the square at that hour, she always saw Amparo at her window. She had even thought it prudent to tell her in confidence of her charitable visits to Totó. As soon as Amparo saw her, she would call down and, leaning over the balcony, ask:

  ‘So how is Totó?

  ‘Oh, she’s coming along.’

  ‘Can she read yet?’

  ‘She can spell.’

  ‘And what about the prayer to Our Lady?’

  ‘Oh, she can say that already.’

  ‘Such devotion, my dear!’

  Amélia would modestly lower her eyes. And Carlos, who was also in on the secret, would leave the counter to come to the door and admire Amélia.

  ‘Back from your great mission of mercy, eh?’ he would say with wide, admiring eyes, as he swayed back and forth on the toes of his slippered feet.

  ‘Oh, I just spend a bit of time with her, to distract her . . .’

  ‘Marvellous!’ murmured Carlos. ‘The work of a true apostle! Off you go, my saintly girl, and give my regards to your mother.’

  Then he would go back inside and say to his assistant:

  ‘Do you see that, Senhor Augusto? Instead of wasting her time on love affairs like other girls, she makes herself a guardian angel. She spends the flower of her youth with a cripple! Do you think philosophy, materialism and all that other rubbish could inspire such actions? No, only religion could, my dear sir. I wish all the Renans of this world and that whol
e band of philosophers could see this! Don’t get me wrong, sir, I admire philosophy when it goes hand in hand with religion . . . I’m a man of science and I admire Newton and Guizot, but, mark my words, in ten years’ time, Senhor Augusto, philosophy will be dead and buried!’

  And he continued pacing about the pharmacy, hands behind his back, pondering the death of philosophy.

  XVII

  This was the happiest period of Amaro’s life.

  ‘I am in God’s grace,’ he would sometimes think at night as he got undressed, when, out of ecclesiastical habit, he examined his days and found that they followed easily, comfortably and pleasurably one upon the other. In the last two months, there had been no frictions or difficulties in his service of the parish; everyone, as Father Saldanha put it, was in a positively saintly mood. Dona Josefa Dias had found him a cheap and excellent cook called Escolástica. He had a devoted and admiring court in Rua da Misericórdia; once or twice each week came that delicious, heavenly hour in Esguelhas’ house; and to complete this picture of harmony, the weather was so warm that the roses were already starting to bloom in Morenal.

  But what enchanted him most was that no one – not the old ladies, not the other priests, nor anyone in the sacristy – knew anything about his regular rendezvous with Amélia. The visits to Totó had become part of the household customs; they referred to them as ‘Miss Amélia’s devotions’, and they did not ask her for details on the devout principle that such devotions are a secret to be shared only with Our Lord. Very occasionally one of the ladies would ask Amélia how the patient was getting on, and Amélia would assure her that Totó was much changed and that she was beginning to open her eyes to God’s law; then, very discreetly, they would change the subject. There was merely a vague plan one day, later on, once Totó knew her catechism by heart and had been cured by the efficacy of prayer, to make a pilgrimage to admire Amélia’s holy work and the shaming of the Enemy.