Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) (19 page)

Yes, it could also be a way of bringing back to life the unity he’d lost with the change of milieu and fortune. But this last consideration wasn’t really the product of his spirit or his legs but was caused by something else, which, like a spider, he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. What does a spider know about Mozart? Nothing. But it listens with pleasure to a sonata by the master. The cat, who has never read Kant, could still be a metaphysical animal. Marriage might really be the knot that would tie up his lost unity. Rubião felt scattered. Transitory friends whom he loved so much, who courted him so much, gave life the feeling of a journey to him, a trip where language changed with the cities, Spanish here, Turkish there. Sofia contributed to that state. She could be so diverse herself, now this, now that, that the days went by with no set accord, no lasting disenchantment.

Rubião had nothing to do. In order to get through his long and empty days, he would observe trials, attend sessions of the Chamber of Deputies, watch battalions on parade, take long
walks, pay unnecessary visits at night or go to the theater without any pleasure. His house was still a good place for his spirit to rest in with its glow of luxury and the dreams that floated in the air.

He’d been doing a lot of reading lately. He read novels, but only the historical ones by Dumas
père
or contemporary ones by Feuillet, the latter with difficulty, as he didn’t have a good knowledge of the original language. Those of the former had plenty of translations. He would accept others if he found they had the principal attraction of the first: a noble and royal society. Those scenes of the French court invented by the wonderful Dumas with their adventurous, noble swordsmen, Feuillet’s countesses and dukes in elegant greenhouses, all of them with words that were discreet, haughty, or witty, made time gallop along for him. Almost always he would end up dropping the book, his eyes staring into space, thinking. Perhaps some dead old marquis was telling him anecdotes of a different age.

B
efore thinking about a bride, he thought about marriage. On that day and others he created the matrimonial ceremonies in his head, and the coaches—if there still were such, antique and sumptuous, as he’d seen pictured in books on customs of past times. Oh, big, superb coaches! How he enjoyed going to the gate of the city palace to wait for the Emperor on important holidays and watch the imperial procession, especially His Majesty’s coach with its broad dimensions and strong springs, delicate painted panels, and four or five teams of horses driven by a grave and dignified coachman! Others followed, less in grandeur but yet so grand that they were a delight to one’s eyes.

One of those others, or even a smaller one, might have served him at his wedding if all society hadn’t been brought down to equality by the common coupé. So, in the end, he would ride in
a coupé. He pictured it with magnificent upholstery. What kind? Of some unusual fabric that he himself couldn’t describe right now, but that would give the vehicle a look it didn’t have to start with. A remarkable team. A coachman in a gold uniform. Oh, but of a gold never seen before! Guests of the top rank, generals, diplomats, senators, one or two cabinet ministers, many prominent businessmen. And what about the ladies, the great ladies? Rubião lined them up in his head. He watched them enter as he stood at the top of the palace steps, his eyes lost on the carpet leading down—they were coming through the entrance way, climbing the steps in their small, light satin pumps—only a few at first—then more, and still more. Carriage after carriage . . . There came the Count and Countess of So-and-So, a dashing gentleman and an outstanding lady … “My dear friend, here we are,” the count would say to him at the top of the stairs. And then the countess: “Mr. Rubião, the reception is splendid…”

Suddenly, the Papal Nuncio … Yes, he’d forgotten that they would have to be married by the Nuncio. There he would be in his purple stockings of a monsignor and his large Neapolitan eyes in conversation with the Russian ambassador. The crystal and gold chandeliers lighting up the most beautiful throats in the city, some frock coats upright, others curved, listening to the fans that were opening and closing, epaulets, diadems, the orchestra signalling a waltz. Then the black arms, bent, went off seeking the bare arms with gloves to the elbow as the couples went spinning off across the room. Five, seven, ten, twelve, twenty couples. A splendid banquet. Bohemian crystal, Hungarian china, Sèvres glasses, nimble servants in livery with Rubião’s initials on their collars.

T
hose dreams came and went. What mysterious Prospero had transformed a banal island into a sublime masquerade in that way? “Go, Ariel, bring your fellows here for I must bestow upon the eyes of this young couple some variety of mine art.” The words would be the same as those in the play, the island was what was different, the island and the masquerade. The former was our friend’s own head, the latter wasn’t made up of goddesses or poetry but of human beings and salon prose. But it was magnificent. Let us not forget that Shakespeare’s Prospero was a Duke of Milan and there, perhaps, you have why he intruded onto our friend’s island.

If the truth be known, the brides who appeared at Rubião’s side in those nuptial dreams were always titled. The names were the most resonant and natural in our book of peerage. Here is your explanation: a few weeks before, Rubião had picked up a Laemmert almanac, and as he started leafing through it he came upon the chapter on holders of titles. If he knew some of them, he was far from being familiar with all of them. He bought an almanac and read it several times, letting his eyes run down from the marquises to the barons, going back, repeating the beautiful names, learning many by heart. Sometimes he would pick up a pen and a sheet of paper, choose an ancient or modern title, and write it repeatedly, as if he himself were its owner and were signing something:

          Marquis of Barbacena

Marquis of Barbacena

                Marquis of Barbacena

                        Marquis of Barbacena

Marquis of Barbacena

                       Marquis of Barbacena

He went on like that to the bottom of the page, varying his hand, now large, now tiny, tilting backwards, straight up, in all different shapes. When he finished the page, he picked it up and compared the signatures. He put the paper down and was lost in space. From there to the hierarchy of the brides. The worst thing was that they all had Sofia’s face—at the very first they
might resemble some neighbor woman or the girl he’d greeted that afternoon on the street. They could begin very thin or fat—but it didn’t take them long to change their figures, putting on or taking off weight, and above this the face of the beautiful Sofia would gleam with her own restless or quiet eyes. Was there no way to get away from her, even through marriage? Rubião began to think about Palha’s dying. It came to him one day as he left her house after hearing her say some pleasant, vague things. His feeling of contentment was great, but he immediately rejected the idea as a terrible omen. Days later, with a change in feeling, he went firmly back to his plans. More than once it was Palha himself who awakened him from those conjugal dreams.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

“No.”

“Here’s a ticket to the Teatro Lírico, Box 8, first row on the left.”

Rubião would get there early, wait for them, offer Sofia his arm. If she was in a good mood, the night was one of the best in the world. If not, it was a martyrdom, to repeat his own words to the dog one day:

“Yesterday was martyrdom for me, my poor friend.”

“Get married, and then tell me if I’m wrong,” Quincas Borba barked at him.

“Yes, my poor friend,” he answered, picking up the dog’s front paws and placing them on his knees. “You’re right. You’re in need of a good woman friend who can give you the care I can’t or don’t know how to give you. Quincas Borba, do you still remember our Quincas Borba? My good friend, my great friend, I was his friend, too, two great friends. If he were alive he’d be the best man at my wedding, at least he’d give the toast in honor of the happy couple—and it would be with a cup made of gold and diamonds that I would have made especially for him … Great Quincas Borba!”

And Rubião’s spirit hovered over the abyss.

O
ne day, since he’d left home early and didn’t know where to spend the first hour, he walked to the warehouse. He hadn’t been to Flamengo for a week, as Sofia had fallen into one of her periods of indifference. He found Palha in mourning. His wife’s aunt, Dona Maria Augusta, had died on her plantation. The news had arrived two days earlier, in the afternoon.

“The mother of that girl?”

“Precisely.”

Palha spoke of the dead woman with great exaggeration. Then he spoke of the grief of Maria Benedita, who was suffering greatly. He asked him if he wouldn’t go to Flamengo that same evening to help them take her mind off it. Rubião promised to go.

“Go, you’ll be doing us a great favor. The poor little thing deserves everything. You can’t imagine what a good person she is. A fine upbringing, very strict. And as for the social graces, if she didn’t have them as a child, she made up for the lost time amazingly fast. Sofia is her teacher. As the lady of a house? In that respect, my friend, I don’t know if you could find such a perfect example at such an age. She’s staying with us now. She has a sister, Maria Jose, married to a judge in Ceará. She also has a godfather in São João d’El-Rei. The dead woman spoke very highly of him. I don’t think he’ll send for her, but even if he does, I won’t give her up. She belongs to us now. Not even for what her godfather might want to leave her in his will would we let her go. She’s staying here,” he concluded, whisking a speck of dust from Rubião’s collar.

Rubião thanked him. Then, as they were in the rear of the office, he looked through the blinds and saw some men in uniform coming into the warehouse. He asked what they were bringing.

“It’s some English calico.”

“English calico,” Rubião repeated indifferently.

“By the way, did you know that the house of Morals & Cunha is paying all of its creditors in full?”

Rubião didn’t know anything about it or if the firm existed or
if they were its creditors. He listened to the news, answered that he was very glad for them, and made ready to leave. But his partner held him back for a few moments. He was jolly now, as if no one close to him had died. He talked about Maria Benedita again. He intended to get her a good marriage. She wasn’t a girl to give in to the gabble of fancy paupers or let herself be carried away by foolish fantasies. She was a discreet girl and deserved a good husband, a serious person.

“Yes, sir,” Rubião was saying.

“Look,” his partner said softly all of a sudden, “don’t be surprised at what I’m going to say to you. I think you’re the one who should marry her.”

“Me?” Rubião responded, startled. “No, sir.” And immediately, in order to soften the effect of his refusal, “I don’t deny that she’s a fine, perfect girl, but… right now. .. I’m not thinking about marriage …”

“Nobody’s telling you it has to be tomorrow or the next day. Marriage isn’t something to be improvised. What I’m saying is that I’ve got a feeling here. It’s just a notion, a feeling. Didn’t Sofia ever tell you about my feeling?”

“Never.”

“That’s strange. She told me she’d mentioned it to you once or twice, I don’t remember exactly when.”

“It could be. I’m quite absentminded. So the two of you want me to marry the girl?”

“No, I only have a feeling. But let’s drop it, let’s give time some time.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye. Come early.”

W
ell, then, did Sofia want him to get married? Rubião was thinking as he left. It was, of course, the most expeditious way to get rid of him. Get him married, make him her cousin. Rubião tramped along several streets before reaching this other hypothesis: maybe Sofia hadn’t forgotten but was purposely lying to her husband in order not to speed the plan along. In that case her feelings would be different. That explanation seemed logical to him. His spirits returned to their former calm.

B
ut there’s no moral calm that can trim the sails of time a single inch when the person has no way of making them smaller. On the contrary, his anxiousness to go to Flamengo that evening made the hours drag along all the more. It was too early, too early for anything, to go to the Rua do Ouvidor, to go back to Botafogo. Dr. Camacho was in Vassouras defending a prisoner in court. There was no public diversion of any kind, neither festivity nor sermon. Nothing. Rubião, deeply annoyed, trudged along aimlessly, reading signs or stopping to observe a simple incident like the collision of two carts. He’d never been so bored in Minas, why? He couldn’t find an answer to the enigma, given the fact that there was so much more to do in Rio de Janeiro, and things he really enjoyed. But there were hours of deadly tedium here.

Happily, there is a god who looks after people in a bad mood. Rubião suddenly remembered that Freitas—the always jolly Freitas—was gravely ill. Rubião hailed a cab and went to visit him in Praia Formosa, where he lived. He spent close to two hours there chatting with the sick man. The latter dozed off, and Rubião
took leave of his mother—an old, old woman—and at the door, before leaving:

“You must have had some tight moments as far as money is concerned,” Rubião said and, seeing her bite her lip and lower her eyes, “Don’t be ashamed. Need is an affliction, and there’s no need to be ashamed of it. What I would like is for you to accept something I’m going to leave you to help with expenses. You may pay it back someday if you can …”

He opened his wallet, took out six twenty
mil–réis
notes, rolled them into a lump, and put them in her hand. He opened the door and went out. The old woman, taken by surprise, didn’t make a move to thank him. Only when the cab rolled away did she run to the window, but she could no longer see her benefactor.