The Crime of Father Amaro

by José Maria De Eça de Queirós

  But she longed to have the child. She trembled at the idea of her mother suddenly appearing in Ricoça. Her mother had written to her, complaining about the Canon, who would not let her leave Vieira, about the storms they were having, about the increasingly solitary beach. Dona Maria da Assunção had returned to Leiria already, but, fortunately, a providentially chilly night had left her with bronchitis and she would, according to Dr Gouveia, be confined to her bed for weeks. Libaninho had visited Ricoça, but had departed regretting that he had been unable to see Amélia ‘who had a migraine’.

  ‘If this goes on for another two weeks, everyone will find out,’ she would say to Amaro, weeping.

  ‘Be patient, my dear. You can’t force nature.’

  ‘The suffering you’ve put me through,’ she would sigh.

  He would say nothing, resigned; he was very kind to her now, very tender. He came to see her nearly every morning because he did not want to meet Father Ferrão, who came in the afternoons.

  He had reassured her regarding the wetnurse, saying that he had spoken to the woman in Ricoça recommended by Dionísia. Joana Carreira was an excellent choice. She was as strong as an oak tree, with plenty of milk and teeth like ivory.

  ‘It’s a long way for me to come and see the baby later on,’ she sighed.

  For the first time, she was looking forward to motherhood. She was in despair that she would not be able to make the rest of the baby’s clothes herself. She wanted the boy – because it was bound to be a boy – to be called Carlos. She imagined him already a man, an officer in the cavalry. She was touched by the thought of seeing the baby crawling . . .

  ‘Oh, if it wasn’t for the shame of it, I would like to bring him up myself!’

  ‘It’ll be fine where it’s going,’ said Amaro.

  But what tormented her and made her weep every day was the thought of her child being an orphan.

  One day, she went to Father Ferrão with an extraordinary plan ‘inspired by Our Lady herself’: she would marry João Eduardo now, but he would have to sign a document adopting Carlos! She would marry a navvy if it would save her child from being an orphan! And she grasped Father Ferrão’s hands, pleading and pleading with him. He must convince João to give Carlos a Papa! She tried to kneel before Father Ferrão, who was her father and her protector.

  ‘Calm down, my dear, calm down. That is what I want too, and we will arrange it all, but later,’ said the good old man, troubled by her highly emotional state.

  A few days later, she was excited about something else; she had suddenly realised, one morning, that she must not betray Amaro, ‘because he, after all, was Carlos’ real Papa’. And she said this to Father Ferrão, causing the old priest to blush as she chattered blithely on about her wifely duties to Amaro.

  Father Ferrão, who knew nothing of Father Amaro’s morning visits, was astonished.

  ‘What are you saying, my dear? What are you saying? Get a grip on yourself. Have you no shame! I thought you had got over that madness.’

  ‘But he is the father of my child,’ she insisted, looking at him very seriously.

  Then for a whole week, she went on and on at Amaro, with childish sentimentality, reminding him every half hour that he was ‘her little Carlos’ Papa’.

  ‘I know, my dear, I know,’ he would say impatiently. ‘Thank you very much, but it’s hardly something I want to boast about . . .’

  She would sit huddled on the sofa then, weeping, and it would take a whole complicated series of caresses to calm her. She would make him sit on a bench next to her, and she would keep him there like a doll, looking at him, slowly stroking his tonsure; she wanted him to take a photograph of Carlos so that they could both carry it in a medallion around their necks; and if she should die, he was to take Carlos to her grave, have him kneel down, put his two little hands together and make him pray for his Mama. She would hurl herself down on a pillow then, covering her face with her hands.

  ‘Oh, pity me, my dear child, pity me!’

  ‘Be quiet, there are people coming!’ Amaro would say angrily.

  Ah, those mornings at Ricoça! To him they were like an unfair punishment. When he got there, he would have to go and listen to Dona Josefa’s complaints. Then he would spend an hour with Amélia, who lay stretched out on the sofa, as big as a barrel now, her face swollen, her eyes puffy, tormenting him with all kinds of hysterical, sentimental demands.

  On one such morning, Amélia, who was complaining of cramp, wanted to take a walk about the room, leaning on Amaro; as she was dragging herself along, huge in her old dressing gown, they heard on the road down below the sound of horses’ hooves; they went over to the window, but Amaro immediately drew back, leaving Amélia staring out, her face pressed against the glass. On the road, elegantly mounted on a bay mare, was João Eduardo in a white jacket and a tall hat; beside him trotted the Morgado’s two small children, one on a pony, the other strapped onto a donkey; and a short distance behind them, following at a respectful, courtly pace, came a liveried servant, wearing high boots and enormous spurs, a very loose jacket that hung in grotesque folds at his sides and a scarlet rosette on his hat. Amélia stood there, astonished, watching them, until the lackey’s back was lost to view around the corner of the house. She said not a word, but went and sat down on the sofa. Amaro, who was still pacing the room, laughed sarcastically and said:

  ‘What an idiot, with a lackey bringing up the rear!’

  She blushed scarlet and said nothing. And scandalised, Amaro left, slamming the door, and went into Dona Josefa’s room to tell her about the cavalcade and to fulminate against the Morgado.

  ‘An excommunicant with a liveried servant!’ exclaimed the good lady, clutching her head with her hands. ‘How shaming, Father, how shaming for this country’s aristocracy!’

  From that day on, Amélia no longer cried if Father Amaro failed to visit her in the morning. The person she waited impatiently for now was Father Ferrão. She monopolised him, she would have him sit on a chair by the sofa, and then, after circling around like a bird above its prey, she would fall upon the subject that really mattered – had he seen João Eduardo?

  She wanted to know what he had said, if he had spoken about her, if he had seen her at the window. She tormented Father Ferrão with her inquisitive questions about the Morgado’s house, about how the living room was furnished, about how many servants he had and how many horses, whether the liveried servant also served at table.

  And Father Ferrão would patiently respond, glad to see that she had forgotten about Amaro and was interested in João Eduardo; he was convinced now that the marriage would go ahead; she, on the other hand, avoided all mention of Amaro’s name, indeed, once, when Father Ferrão asked her if Amaro had returned to Ricoça, she even said:

  ‘Oh, he comes in the morning to see my godmother. But I don’t see him, I’m not even decently dressed by then.’

  She would spend as long as she could now standing at the window, immaculately dressed from the waist up, which is all that could be seen from the road, and all grubby petticoats from the waist down. She was waiting for João Eduardo, the Morgado’s children and the lackey; and every now and then she had the pleasure of seeing them go trotting past, as they were borne along by the easy pace of their expensive mounts; and, as it passed the house, João Eduardo’s bay mare would always perform a sidestep, with João Eduardo holding his whip out in front and using his legs according to the Marqués de Marialva’s rules for riding, exactly as the Morgado had taught him. But it was the liveried lackey she found most enchanting, and, with her nose pressed against the window pane, she would watch him greedily until, at the turn in the road, she would see the poor old man disappear, with his bent back, his shaky legs, and the collar of his uniform turned up.

  And what a delight they were to João Eduardo those rides on the bay mare with the little Morgados. He always made a point of going into town; the sound of the horseshoes on the flagstones made his heart beat faster; he would ride
past the pharmacist’s wife, Amparo, past the office where Nunes had his desk by the window, past the arcade, past the administrator, who would be there on the balcony with his binoculars still trained on Teles’ house, and his one disappointment was that he could not ride with the mare, the Morgado’s children and the lackey past Dr Godinho’s office, which was, alas, at the rear of the house.

  It was on one of these triumphal outings, at about two o’clock, on his way back from Barrosa, just as they were reaching Poço das Bentas and setting off along the cart track, that he suddenly saw Father Amaro come riding towards him mounted on a cob. João Eduardo immediately made his own horse wheel about. The track was so narrow, that even though they both kept close to the hedges, their knees almost brushed, and from the height of his expensive mare, João Eduardo was able then to wield his whip in a threatening manner and stare scornfully down at Father Amaro, who shrank back, looking pale, unshaven and sallow-cheeked, furiously spurring on his sluggish mount. At the top of the road, João Eduardo stopped and turned round in his saddle and saw the priest dismounting at the door of a small isolated house where, only moments before, as they passed, the children had laughed at ‘the dwarf.’

  ‘Who lives there?’João Eduardo asked the lackey.

  ‘A woman called Carlota. Bad people, Senhor João Eduardo.’

  When they passed Ricoça, João Eduardo, as usual, reined the horse in to a trot. But behind the panes he did not see the usual pale face beneath the scarlet scarf. The shutters were half-closed and, at the door, stood Dr Gouveia’s cabriolet with the horses unhitched and the shafts dragging on the ground.

  The day had at last arrived! That morning, a boy from the farm had arrived from Ricoça bearing an almost unintelligible note from Amélia – Dionísia quick, it’s come! It also contained instructions to send for Dr Gouveia. Amaro himself went to tell Dionísia.

  Days before, he had told her that Dona Josefa, Dona Josefa herself, had recommended a wetnurse to him, and that he had been to see her, a big woman, strong as a tree. And now they made rapid arrangements for Amaro to be posted at the orchard door that night, and for Dionísia to come and give him the baby well wrapped up.

  ‘At nine o’clock tonight, Dionísia. And don’t keep us waiting!’ Amaro said, seeing Dionísia go rushing off, all flustered.

  Then he went back home and shut himself in his room, face to face with the problem which seemed to him like a living creature that fixed him with its gaze and asked: What shall we do with the child? He still had time to go to Poiais and arrange things with the other wetnurse, the good wetnurse whom Dionísia knew; or else he could get on his horse and go to Barrosa and talk to Carlota . . . And there he was, before those two roads, in an agony of doubt. He wanted to look at things coolly, to discuss the matter as if it were a point of theology, weighing up the pros and cons, but what hung dangerously before him were not two arguments but two images: the child growing up and living in Poiais, and the child suffocated by Carlota in a house on the Barrosa road. And as he was pacing up and down in his room, sweating with anxiety, he heard the unexpected voice of Libaninho call out to him from the landing:

  ‘Open up, Father, I know you’re there!’

  He had to open the door to Libaninho, shake his hand and offer him a chair. Fortunately, Libaninho could not stay long. He had just happened to be passing and had come up to see if his friend had any news of the good ladies at Ricoça.

  ‘They’re fine, fine,’ said Amaro, forcing himself to smile and be pleasant.

  ‘I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been able to get over there myself! I’m on duty at the barracks. Now, don’t laugh, Father, because I’m doing excellent work there. I get together with the soldiers and I tell them all about Christ’s wounds and . . .’

  ‘So you’re converting the whole regiment,’ said Amaro, shuffling papers on his desk, then striding about, as restless as a caged animal.

  ‘I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to! But, look, I’m just taking these scapulars to a sergeant there. They’ve been blessed by Father Saldanha and are positively oozing with healing powers. I gave some exactly like this yesterday to a lance-corporal, a lovely lad, so sweet . . . I put them on him myself underneath his vest. A lovely lad!’

  ‘You should let the colonel take care of the regiment,’ said Amaro, opening the window, doing his best to hide his impatience.

  ‘That infidel? He’d have the whole regiment un-baptised if they’d let him. Anyway, I’ll be off now, Father. You know, you don’t look well, my dear. What you need is a good purgative.’

  As he was about to leave, he paused at the door:

  ‘By the way, Father, have you heard the latest news?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘It was Father Saldanha who told me. According to him, the precentor said (and these are Saldanha’s very words) that he has evidence of some scandal in the town involving a priest. But he didn’t say who or what . . . Saldanha tried to probe further, but the precentor said that the information he had been given was very vague, no names . . . I’ve been thinking about it. Who could it possibly be?’

  ‘It’s just Saldanha showing off.’

  ‘Well, I hope it is. It’s precisely the kind of thing that unbelievers pounce on. Anyway, next time you’re in Ricoça give my regards to the good ladies.’

  And he skipped down the stairs to bear ‘virtue’ to the battalion.

  Amaro was terrified. Obviously secret allegations had brought word of him and his affair with Amélia to the vicar general. And now there would be the child, which would be brought up only half a league from Leiria, as living proof! It seemed to him extraordinary, almost supernatural, that Libaninho, who, in two years, had hardly ever visited him at home, should have come to him with that terrible news precisely at the moment when he was battling with his conscience. It was as if Providence, in the grotesque form of Libaninho, had come to warn him, whispering: ‘Don’t allow the very person who can bring you scandal to live! People already have their suspicions!’

  It was clearly God taking pity on the child, not wanting one more wretched orphan on the earth, it was clearly God demanding his angel!

  Amaro did not hesitate: he went to the Cruz inn and then rode to Carlota’s house.

  He remained there until four o’clock.

  When he got back home, he threw his hat down on the bed and felt a great sense of relief flood through his whole being. It was over. He had spoken to Carlota and the dwarf; he had paid her for a whole year in advance; now he just had to wait for night to come.

  But alone in his room, he was assailed by all kinds of morbid imaginings; he saw Carlota suffocating the tiny, red-skinned child; he saw the police disinterring the corpse later, and Domingos in the municipal council offices filling out the declaration of corpus delicti which he rested on his knee, while he, Amaro, still in his cassock, was dragged off to prison in irons, along with the dwarf. He was tempted to ride back to Barrosa and cancel the arrangement. But inertia stopped him. After all, there was no reason why he had to deliver the child to Carlota. He could carry it, instead, well wrapped up, to Joana Carreira, the good wetnurse in Poiais.

  To escape from these ideas raging above his head like a storm, he went to see Natário, who was out of bed now, and who called to him from the depths of his armchair:

  ‘Did you see him, Amaro? Did you see that idiot, with a lackey bringing up the rear?’

  João Eduardo had passed by in the street below on his bay mare, with the Morgado’s children; and Natário had ever since then been roaring with impatience at being stuck in that chair and unable to resume his campaign and get him expelled by cooking up some intrigue at the Morgado’s house that would strip him of both mare and lackey.

  ‘But I’ll get him, as soon as God gives me back the use of my legs . . .’

  ‘Oh, forget it, Natário,’ said Amaro.

  ‘Forget it?’

  Forget it? When he had a brilliant idea to provide the Morgado with documentary proof th
at João Eduardo was, in fact, a devout Catholic! What did his friend Amaro think of that?

  It was, of course, an amusing idea. The man doubtless deserved it just for the way he looked down on decent people from atop his mare . . . And Amaro flushed red, still angry at their encounter that morning on the Barrosa road.

  ‘Of course he deserves it!’ exclaimed Natário. ‘Why else are we priests of Christ? In order to exalt the humble and destroy the proud.’

  From there Amaro went to see Dona Maria da Assunção, who was also now out of bed and who regaled him with the story of her bronchitis and listed her latest sins, the worst of which was this: in order to distract herself a little during her convalescence, she had been sitting by the window, and a carpenter who lived opposite had ogled her; under the influence of the Evil One, she had lacked the willpower to withdraw, and bad thoughts had come to her . . .

  ‘You’re not listening, Father.’

  ‘Of course I am, Senhora!’

  And he hastened to pacify her scruples, because the salvation of that idiotic old soul gave him a much better living than the parish did.

  It was getting dark when he got home. Escolástica complained that the food had got burned because he was late. Amaro took only a glass of wine and a forkful of rice, which he ate standing up at the window, watching, horrified, the impassive fall of night.

  He was just going into his room to see if the oil lamps were already lit, when the coadjutor arrived. He had come to discuss the baptism of Guedes’ son, which was due to take place the following day at nine o’clock.