Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) (7 page)

“But what’s he done to you, old friend?”

“What’s he done to me? What could he do to me, the poor animal? He won’t eat anything, he won’t drink, he cries just like a person, and all he does is go around looking for a way to run off.”

Rubião gave a sigh of relief. She went on talking about her annoyance with the dog. He was anxious, he wanted to see him.

“He’s in the back there, in the large pen. He’s all by himself so the others won’t bother him. But have you come for him? That’s not what they told me. I seemed to hear that he was for me, a present.”

“I’d give you five or six if I could,” Rubião answered. “But I can’t this one. I’m only taking care of him. But let’s drop it, I promise you a son of his, the message was garbled.”

Rubião went with her. The woman, instead of leading him, was walking alongside. There was the dog in the pen, lying down at some distance from a bowl of food. Dogs and birds were leaping about on all sides out there. On one side there was a hen coop, farther on pigs, beyond that a cow, lying down, dreamy, with two hens next to it pecking at its belly and pulling off lice.

“Look at my peacock!” the woman said.

But Rubião only had eyes for Quincas Borba, who was sniffing impatiently and who leaped up on him as soon as a black boy opened the gate of the pen. It was a delirious scene. The dog was repaying Rubião’s pats by barking, leaping, licking his hands.

“Good heavens! What a friendship!”

“You can’t imagine, old friend. Goodbye, I promise you a son of his.”

R
ubião and the dog, when they entered the house, sensed, heard the person and the voice of their departed friend. While the dog sniffed about everywhere, Rubião went to sit in the chair where he’d been when Quincas Borba referred to the
death of his grandmother with scientific explanations. The memory brought back the philosopher’s arguments, albeit confused and frayed. For the first time he gave careful consideration to the allegory of the starving tribes, and he understood the conclusion: “To the victor, the potatoes!” He clearly heard the dead man’s voice expounding the situation of the tribes, the fight, and the reason for the fight, the extermination of one and the victory of the other, and he murmured in a low voice:

“To the victor, the potatoes!”

So simple! So clear! He looked at his worn drill pants and his patched waistcoat, and he noted that up until a short time before he’d been, in a manner of speaking, someone exterminated, a burst bubble, but not now, now he was a victor. There was no doubt about it, the potatoes had been made for the tribe that eliminates the other in order to get over the mountain and reach the potatoes on the other side. His case precisely. He was going to go down from Barbacena to dig up and eat the potatoes in the capital. He had to be hard and implacable, he was powerful and strong. And leaping up, all excited, he raised his arms, exclaiming:

“To the victor, the potatoes!”

He liked the formula, found it ingenious, compendious, and eloquent in addition to being profound and true. He imagined the potatoes in their various shapes; he classified them as to taste, aspect, nutritive power; he stuffed himself in advance at the banquet of life. It was time to have done with the poor, dry roots that only deceived the stomach, the sad meal of so many long years. Now full, solid, perpetual eating until the day he died, and dying on silk cushions, which is better than on rags. And he went back to the affirmation of being hard and implacable and to the formula from the allegory. He got to composing in his head a seal for his use with this motto: TO THE VICTOR, THE POTATOES.

He forgot about the seal, but the formula, lived on in Rubião’s spirit for a few days: “To the victor, the potatoes!” He wouldn’t have understood it before the will. On the contrary, we saw that he’d considered it obscure and in need of an explanation. It’s so true that the landscape depends on the point of view and the best way to appreciate a whip is to have its handle in your hand.

W
e mustn’t forget to mention that Rubião took it upon himself to have a mass sung for the soul of the deceased, even though he knew or sensed that Quincas Borba hadn’t been a Catholic. He didn’t say anything nasty about priests nor did he discredit Catholic doctrine, but he never spoke of the Church or its servants. On the other hand, his worship of Humanitas made his heir suspect that this was the testator’s religion. Nonetheless, he had a mass sung, considering that it wasn’t following the wishes of the dead man, but a prayer for the living. He further considered that it would be scandalous in the town if he, named as heir by the deceased, neglected to give his protector the prayers that are not denied the most miserable and avaricious people in the world.

If some people didn’t appear, in order not to be part of Rubião’s glory, many did come—and not riffraff—who saw the true grief of the former schoolteacher.

A
s soon as the preliminary motions for the liquidation of the inheritance were under way, Rubião made ready to go to Rio de Janeiro, where he would settle as soon as it was all over. There were things to do in both places, but things promised to move along swiftly.

A
t the station in Vassouras, Sofia and her husband, Cristiano de Almeida e Palha, got on the train. He was a healthy young man of thirty–two, and she was between twenty–seven and twenty–eight. They sat down on the two seats opposite Rubião and arranged the baskets and packages of souvenirs they were bringing from Vassouras, where they’d gone to spend a week. They buttoned up their dusters and exchanged a few words in low voices.

After the train started up Palha noticed Rubião, whose face, among so many frowning or bored people, was the only one that was calm and satisfied. Cristiano was the first to start a conversation, telling him that railroad trips were boring, to which Rubião replied that they were. For someone used to muleback, he added, the train was boring and uninteresting. One couldn’t deny, however, that it was progress.

“Of course,” Palha agreed. “Great progress.”

“Are you a farmer?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you live in the town?”

“Vassouras? No. We came to spend a week here. I live in the capital itself. I haven’t got any wish to be a farmer, although I consider it a good and honorable occupation.”

From farming they passed on to cattle, slavery, and politics. Cristiano Palha cursed the government, which had inserted remarks concerning servile property in the Emperor’s annual Speech from the Throne. But, to his great surprise, Rubião didn’t leap to indignation. It was Rubião’s plan to sell the slaves the testator had left him, except for a houseboy. If he lost anything, the rest of the inheritance would cover it. Besides, the Speech from the Throne, which he’d also read, ordered that current property be respected. What did he care about future slaves, since he wasn’t going to buy any? The houseboy would be freed as soon as he came into possession of his goods. Palha dropped it and went on to politics, the chambers of parliament, the war with Paraguay, all general matters to which Rubião paid attention, more or less. Sofia was barely listening. She only moved
her eyes, which she knew were pretty, focusing them now on her husband, now on the one he was speaking to.

“Are you going to stay in the capital, or are you going back to Barbacena?” Palha asked after twenty minutes of conversation.

“My desire is to stay, and I’m going to stay,” Rubião replied. “I’m tired of the provinces. I want to enjoy life. I might even go to Europe, but I’m not sure yet.”

Palha’s eyes lighted up instantly.

“You’re doing the wise thing. I’d do the same if I could. Right now I can’t. You’ve probably been there before, haven’t you?”

“I never have. That’s why I got the idea when I left Barbacena. Not right now. People have got to get the melancholy out of their systems. I still don’t know when it’ll be, but I’m going …”

“You’re right. They say there are a lot of splendid things there. It’s not surprising, they’re older than we are, but we’ll catch up. And there are things in which we’re just as good as they are, even better. Our capital, I’m not saying it can compare with Paris or London, but it’s beautiful, you’ll see …”

“I’ve already seen.”

“Already?”

“Many years ago.”

“You’ll find it better. There’s been a lot of rapid progress. Then, when you go to Europe ...”

“Have you ever been to Europe, ma’am?” Rubião interrupted, addressing Sofia.

“No, sir.”

“I forgot to introduce you to my wife,” Cristiano hastened to say. Rubião bowed respectfully and, turning to the husband, smiling:

“But aren’t you going to introduce yourself to me?”

Palha smiled too, realizing that neither of them knew the other’s name, and he was quick to give his.

“Cristiano de Almeida e Palha.”

“Pedro Rubião de Alvarenga, but Rubião is what everybody calls me.”

The exchange of names relaxed them a little. Sofia didn’t join in the conversation, however. She loosened the reins of her eyes, which she let follow their own desires. Rubião was talking, smiling,
and he was listening attentively to Palha’s words, thankful for the friendship of a young man he’d never seen before. He even got to suggest that maybe they could go to Europe together.

“Oh, I won’t be able to go during these first years,” Palha replied.

“I’m not saying right away either. I won’t be going so soon. The desire I had when I left Barbacena was just a desire, with no time in mind. I’ll go, no doubt about that, but later on, God willing.”

“Ah! I, too, when I say a few years from now also add God willing, because He might decide something else. Who knows, maybe a few months from now? Divine Providence decides what is best.”

The expression that accompanied those words was one of conviction and piety, but neither did Sofia see it (she was looking at her feet), nor did Rubião himself hear those last words. Our friend was dying to tell the reasons for his coming to the capital. He had a mouth full of secrets, ready to release them into the ear of his traveling companion—and only because of a trace of scruples, flimsy now, did he still hold them back. But why hold them back if it wasn’t a crime and would be a public matter?

“First I’ve got take care of the inventory of a will,” he finally murmured.

“Your father’s?”

“No, a friend’s. A great friend who remembered to make me his sole heir.”

“Ah!”

“Sole heir. You might believe that there are friends in this world, but few like that one. He was made of gold. And what a mind! Such intelligence! Such learning! He was ill during his last days, and an occasional impertinence came out of that, a few whims. You understand, don’t you? Rich and sick, no family, he naturally had demands … But pure gold, fourteen–carat–gold, the kind that when it’s assayed is immediately recognized. We were friends, and he didn’t say anything to me. The day came when he died, his will was opened, and I found myself with everything. That’s the truth. Sole heir! You see, there isn’t a single legacy in the will for anyone else. He didn’t have any
relatives either. The only relative he would have had would have been me if he’d got to marry a sister of mine who died, poor thing! I was just a friend, but he knew how to be a friend, don’t you think?”

“Most certainly,” Palha agreed.

The latter’s eyes were no longer gleaming, they were reflecting deeply. Rubião had entered a thick wood where all the birds of fortune were singing to him. He was expansive, talking about the inheritance. He confessed that he still didn’t know the full amount, but he could estimate from a distance …

“It’s best not to estimate at all,” Cristiano put in. “Could it be less than a hundred
cantos!”

“Hah!”

“Since it’s above that, it’s best to wait in silence. And, something else …”

“I don’t think it can be less than three hundred …”

“Something else. Don’t repeat your situation to strangers. I thank you for the trust you’ve shown in me, but don’t expose yourself to the first person you meet. Discretion and accommodating faces don’t always go together.”

W
hen they reached the station in the capital, they took leave of one another in an almost familiar way. Palha offered him their house in Santa Teresa. The ex–teacher was going to the União Inn and they promised to visit each other.

T
he next day Rubião was anxious to be with his newfound friend from the train, and he decided to go to Santa Teresa that afternoon. But it was Palha himself who looked him up first that morning. He was coming by to pay his respects, to see if Rubião was all right there or would prefer his house, which was up on the heights. Rubião didn’t accept the offer of the house, but he did accept that of a lawyer, a relative of Palha’s by marriage whom the latter considered one of the best in spite of his being rather young.

“You better take advantage of him before he gets to where he charges for his fame.”

Rubião took Palha to lunch and went with him to the lawyer’s office in spite of the protests of the dog, who wanted to go, too. Everything was arranged.

“Come dine with me tonight in Santa Teresa,” Palha said on leaving. “There’s no reason to hesitate. I’ll expect you there,” he concluded as he went on his way.

R
ubião was perplexed because of Sofia. He didn’t know how to behave with ladies. Luckily he remembered the promise he’d made to himself to be strong and implacable. He went to dinner. A blessed decision! Where would he have found hours like those? Sofia was much better at home than on the train. There she’d been wearing a cape, even though she had her eyes uncovered; here she had her eyes and her body in plain view, elegantly clad in a cambric dress, showing her hands, which were pretty, and the beginning of an arm. In addition, here she was the lady of the house, she spoke more, outdid herself in kindnesses. Rubião went back down half in a daze.