A Chapter of Hats: Selected Stories Read online

  ‘And the English financiers?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Are they happy, hopeful?’

  ‘Oh yes; you’ve no idea.’

  I told him a few technical particulars, which he listened to a little half-heartedly – either because my narration was extremely complicated, or for some other reason. When I had finished, he told me how pleased he was to see me giving my energies to the movement for industry; that was what we needed, and on just this subject he did me the kindness of reading the first part of the speech he was going to deliver a few days later.

  ‘It’s still a rough draft,’ he explained; ‘but the central ideas won’t change.’ And he began: ‘In the midst of the growing confusion in men’s minds, the partisan uproar which drowns the voices of legitimate interests, allow someone to bring the nation’s plea to your ears. Gentlemen, it is time for us to give our exclusive attention – I say again, exclusive – to the material improvement of our country. I am not unaware that some will object; you will say that a nation does not just consist of a stomach to digest, but of a head to think and a heart to feel. I reply in my turn that all this will be of little or no value if it has no legs to walk; and here I will repeat what, some years ago, I said to a friend during a journey in the interior: Brazil is a child crawling on all fours; it’ll only begin to walk when it’s criss-crossed by railways.’

  I couldn’t listen to any more, and became immersed in thought. More than that, I was astonished, aghast in the face of the abyss that psychology opened up beneath my feet. ‘This is a sincere man,’ I thought to myself, ‘he is quite convinced of what he’s written.’ And down I went to see if I could find the explanation for the processes that the memory of the coach to Vassouras had passed through. I found (and forgive me if this seems pretentious), there I found one more effect of the law of evolution, as Spencer defined it – Spencer or Benedito, one or the other.

  A Schoolboy’s Story

  The school was in the Rua do Costa, a little two-storey house with wooden railings. The year was 1840. That day – a Monday in May – I lingered for a moment in the Rua da Princesa to see where I might go and play that morning, I hesitated between Diogo hill and the Campo de Sant’ana, which wasn’t yet the polite park it is today, but a more or less infinite rustic space, full of washerwomen, grass and loose donkeys. The hill or the Campo? That was the problem. Suddenly I said to myself that school was the best notion. I made my way towards school. Here’s the reason.

  The previous week I’d played truant twice, and when I was found out got due recompense from my father – a hiding with a quince rod. My father’s hidings hurt for a long time. He was an old employee of the Arsenal, severe and intolerant. He dreamed of an important position in commerce for me, and wanted me to get the elements of bookkeeping, reading, writing and arithmetic, so I could get work as a cashier. He cited names of rich men who’d begun serving behind the counter. So it was the memory of the latest punishment that took me to school that morning. Virtue wasn’t my strong suit.

  I stole up the stairs so the master wouldn’t hear me, and got in in time; he entered the room three or four minutes later. He came in with his usual soft step, his leather slippers, a light canvas jacket, washed and faded, white trousers and a big floppy collar. His name was Policarpo and he was around fifty years of age, or more. He sat down, extracted a snuffbox and a red handkerchief from his jacket and put them in a drawer; then he cast his eyes around the room. The boys, who had stood up as he entered, sat down again. All was in order; work began.

  ‘Hey, Pilar, I want to speak to you,’ the master’s son whispered in my ear.

  This young fellow was called Raimundo, and he was slow, hardworking and not very bright. Raimundo took two hours to learn what took others only thirty or fifty minutes; that was his way of mastering what his brain couldn’t take in straight away. He was a thin, pale child, with a sickly face; he was hardly ever cheerful. He came to the school after his father, and left before him. The master was harsher with him than with us.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Later,’ he replied with a shaky voice.

  The writing lesson began. I’m embarrassed to say I was one of the more advanced pupils; but I was. A scruple that will be easily understood also prevents me from saying I was one of the most intelligent, but that’s my firm conviction. Be it noted that I wasn’t pallid or frail: I had a good complexion and good strong muscles. In the writing lessons, for example, I always finished before the others, but I filled the time drawing noses or carving them on the desk – not a noble or profound occupation I admit, but innocent, none the less. That day was like any other; as soon as I’d finished, I started drawing the master’s nose, giving it five or six different expressions, of which I recall the interrogative, the appreciative, the dubitative, and the meditative. Poor beginner in the art of letters that I was, I didn’t give them these names; but instinctively I gave them these expressions. Slowly, the others finished; the time came for me to finish too, give my work in and go back to my place.

  Frankly, I was sorry I’d come. Now I was a prisoner, I was dying to be outside, and thought back to the hill and the Campo, and the other idle kids, Chico Telha, Américo, Carlos das Escadinhas, the cream of the neighbourhood and of the human race. Just to complete my despair, through the school windows, in the clear blue sky, above Livramento hill, I saw a paper kite, a big one high up in the sky, attached to an endless string, billowing in the wind, a wonderful sight. And there I was in the school, sitting with my legs together, and my reading book and grammar on my knees.

  ‘What an idiot I was to come,’ I said to Raimundo.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he whispered.

  I looked at him; he’d gone paler. Then I remembered another time he’d wanted to ask me something, and I asked him what it was. Raimundo shivered again, and quickly asked me to wait a little; it was a very particular thing.

  ‘Pilar …’ he whispered some minutes later.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You …’

  ‘You what?’

  He looked towards his father, and then at some of the other boys. One of them, Curvelo, looked suspiciously at him, and Raimundo, noticing this, asked me to wait for a few more minutes. I confess I was beginning to burn with curiosity. I glanced at Curvelo – it looked as if he was watching. It might be simple vague curiosity, a natural lack of discretion; but there might be something between them. This Curvelo was a mischievous rascal. He was eleven, older than us.

  What might Raimundo want of me? I was still uneasy, fidgeting in my seat, asking insistently, in a low voice, for him to tell me – nobody was looking at him or me. Or later on, in the afternoon …

  ‘Not this afternoon,’ he interrupted; ‘it can’t be this afternoon.’

  ‘Now, then …’

  ‘Papa’s looking.’

  It was true, the master was looking at us. As he was stricter with his son, he often sought him out with his eyes, to keep him on a short leash. But we were cunning too; we stuck our noses in our books, and went on reading. Finally he gave up, and picked up the daily papers, three or four of them, which he read slowly, chewing over his ideas and his emotions. Don’t forget we were at the end of Regency, and public excitement was running high.1 Policarpo certainly supported some party or other, but I could never find out which. The worst thing he could threaten us with was the palmatória, a piece of wood with holes drilled in its flat, round end. And there it was, hanging from the window frame, looking at us with its five deadly eyes. All he had to do was lift his hand, take it down and wield it with his usual vigour, which was considerable. Then again, maybe his political emotions sometimes took over to the point of sparing us some punishment or other. That day, at any rate, it seemed he was reading the papers with interest; he lifted his eyes from time to time, took a pinch of snuff, and went back to the papers, devouring them with a passion.

  After some time – ten or twelve minutes – Raimundo put his hand int
o his trouser pocket and looked at me.

  ‘D’you know what I’ve got here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A silver coin Mama gave me.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘No, the other day, when it was my birthday …’

  ‘Real silver?’

  ‘Real.’

  Slowly he took it out, and showed it to me from a distance. It was a coin from thirty years back, when the Portuguese kinglived in Rio,2 a dozen vinténs ortwo tostões, I can’tremember; but it was a coin, a real coin, and it made my heart beat faster. Raimundo rolled his pale gaze in my direction; then he asked me if I wanted it for myself. I said he was joking, but he swore he wasn’t.

  ‘But would you give it up?’

  ‘Mama’ll get me another. She has a lot that Granny left her, in a little box; some are gold. Do you want this one?’

  In reply, I surreptitiously stretched out my hand, after a look at the master’s desk. Raimundo withdrew his hand and gave an unconvincing twist to his mouth, an attempt at a smile. Then he proposed a deal, an exchange of services; he’d give me the coin, and I would explain a passage in the syntax lesson. He couldn’t remember a thing from the book, and he was afraid of his father. He concluded the proposal by rubbing the little silver coin on his knees …

  I felt a strange sensation. It wasn’t that I had an idea of virtue more appropriate to a grown man; nor was I averse to telling a few childish lies. Both of us knew how to trick the master. The novelty was in the terms of the proposal, the exchange of lesson and money, an overt, explicit deal – you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; that was the cause of the sensation. I stared at him aimlessly, unable to say a word.

  You’ll understand that it was a difficult passage, and that Raimundo, who’d failed to learn it, was resorting to this way of escaping his father’s punishment. If he’d asked me as a favour, he’d have got what he wanted just the same, as he had at other times; but it seems that the memory of these other times, the fear of finding me weak-willed or tired of being asked, and not getting the lesson right – and it may be that the odd time I’d given him the wrong answer – it seems that was the cause of the proposal. The poor devil was counting on my doing him the favour – but he wanted to make sure of its efficacy, and so resorted to the coin his mother had given him, which he kept like a relic or a toy; he took it and rubbed it on his knees, so I could see, to tempt me … and, truly, it was pretty, thin, white, very white; imagine the effect on a lad who only ever carried copper in his pocket, when I carried anything at all – thick, ugly, tarnished copper coins …

  I didn’t want to take it, and it was hard to refuse. I looked at the master, who was still reading, so involved that the snuff was dropping out of his nose. ‘Come on, take it,’ said his son, in a low voice. And the coin glinted between his fingers, like a diamond … Really, as long as the master saw nothing, what harm was done? And he could see nothing; he was gripping the newspapers, reading with fury and indignation …

  ‘Take it, take it.’

  I cast a quick glance round the room, and saw that Curvelo was looking at us; I told Raimundo to wait. It seemed to me he was observing us, so I acted as if nothing was happening; but a little later, I looked over at him again, and – see how desire leads to self-deceit! – he looked no different from usual. I got my courage back.

  ‘Give it here …’

  Raimundo slyly gave me the little coin; I put it in my trouser pocket, with a thrill I’m unable to define. There it was, mine, right next to my leg. All that was left was to provide the service, tell him the answer, and I took no time doing it, nor did I give the wrong answer, at least consciously; I passed the explanation over on a scrap of paper which he took carefully, paying close attention. You could feel him taking five or six times the effort to learn something trifling; but so long as he escaped punishment, everything would be all right.

  Suddenly, I looked at Curvelo and shuddered; his eyes were on us, with what looked like malicious mockery. I dissembled; but a little later, turning round to him again, I found he had the same look, the same air about him, and he was beginning to fidget impatiently on his seat. I smiled at him and he didn’t smile; on the contrary, he frowned, which gave him a menacing aspect. My heart started beating fast.

  ‘We’ve got to be very careful,’ I said to Raimundo.

  ‘Just tell me this,’ he murmured.

  I signalled to him to be quiet; but he insisted, and the coin, right there in my pocket, reminded me of the contract I’d made. I gave him the answer as surreptitiously as I could; then I looked at Curvelo again, who seemed even more restless, and his mockery, which before looked malicious, now looked worse. There’s no need to say that I was on hot coals, desperate for the lesson to finish; but the clock didn’t move as it usually did, nor was the master paying any attention to the class; he was reading the papers, article by article, punctuating them with exclamations, shrugs of the shoulders, one or two taps on the table. And there outside, above the hill, the same eternal kite, swinging from side to side as ever, calling me to go and play with it. I imagined myself there, with my books and my slate, under the mango tree, with the silver coin in my trouser pocket; I’d not give it to anyone, for all the tea in China; I’d keep it at home, telling Mama I’d found it in the street. So it couldn’t escape, I kept touching it, running my fingers over the marks, almost reading the inscription by touch, and hugely tempted to take a look at it.

  ‘Oi! Pilar!’ shouted the master with a voice like thunder.

  I shook as if awaking from a dream, and got up in a hurry. I found the master looking at me with a scowl, his newspapers scattered, and next to the desk stood Curvelo. I sensed everything.

  ‘Come here!’ the master shouted.

  I went and stood before him. He burrowed a pair of pointed eyes right into my conscience; then he called his son. The whole class had stopped; no one was reading any longer, nobody made the least movement. Though I couldn’t take my eyes off the master, I felt everyone’s curiosity and fear.

  ‘So you receive money to do others’ lessons for them?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Give me the coin your schoolmate gave you!’ he exclaimed.

  I didn’t obey straight away, but I could deny nothing. I was still trembling a great deal. Policarpo shouted again for me to give him the coin, and I resisted no longer, I put my hand in my pocket slowly, took it out and gave it to him. He examined it on both sides, snorting with rage; then he stretched his arm out and flung it into the street. He said all kinds of harsh things, that both I and his son had just committed a base, unworthy, vile act, a villainy, and we were to be punished as an example and a lesson.

  ‘Forgive me, master …’ I sobbed.

  ‘There’s no forgiveness! Hold out your hand! Hold it out! Come on! You shameless scoundrel! Hold out your hand!’

  ‘But, master …’

  ‘It’ll be worse if you don’t!’

  I held my right hand out, then the left, and took the blows one on top of the other, twelve in all, leaving me with my palms red and swollen. Then it was the son’s turn, and the same thing happened; he spared him nothing, two, four, eight, twelve blows. When he’d finished, he preached us another sermon. He called us shameless, insolent, and swore that if we did the same thing again, we’d be punished so we’d remember it for ever more. And again he exclaimed: Swine! crooks! cowards!

  For my part, I was staring at the floor. I dared not look at anyone, and felt as if everyone’s eyes were on me. I went back to my bench, sobbing, crushed by the teacher’s insults. In the classroom, terror reigned; no one would do anything like that again that day. I think even Curvelo had blenched with fear. I didn’t look at him straight away, but in my mind I swore I’d smash his face in in the street as soon as we got out, as sure as two and three are five.

  A little later I looked at him; he was looking at me too, but he turned his face away, and I think he went pale. He pulled himself together and began to read out loud; h
e was afraid. He began to change his posture, fidgeting for no reason, scratching his knees or his nose. Maybe he was sorry he’d informed on us; and, in fact, why had he done it? What harm were we doing him?

  ‘You’ll pay for this! You’ll get it in the neck!’ I said under my breath.

  The class came to an end, and we went out; he went ahead, in a hurry, and I didn’t want to fight him right there, in the Rua do Costa, near the school; I’d catch him in the Rua Larga de São Joaquim. However, when I got to the corner, I couldn’t see him any more; probably he’d hidden in some shop or entrance-way; I went into a chemist’s, peeped into other houses, asked a few people if they’d seen him, but no one could tell me anything. In the afternoon, he didn’t come to school.

  At home I said nothing, of course; but to explain my swollen hands I lied to my mother, and said I’d not learned the lesson properly. I slept that night wishing both boys, the informer and the tempter, to the devil. And I dreamed of the coin; I dreamed that, when I came back to the school the next day, I’d come across it in the street and picked it up, without fear or scruple …

  In the morning I woke early. The idea of going to look for the coin made me dress in a hurry. It was a splendid May day, with magnificent sunshine, soft air, not counting the new trousers my mother had given me – yellow, they were. All this, and the silver coin … I left the house as if I was stepping up to a throne. I hastened so no one would get to school before me; even so, I took care not to crumple my trousers. They were far too handsome! I kept looking at them, taking care not to bump into people or touch the rubbish in the street …

  In the street I met a company of fusiliers, with a drum beating at their head. I couldn’t resist it. The soldiers were marching rapidly, in step, left, right, to the drum’s rhythm; they came, passed by me and went on their way. I felt an itch in my feet, and an urge to go after them. I’ve already said it was a beautiful day, and the beating of that drum … I looked to one side and another; in the end, I don’t know how it was, I started marching to the beat too; I think I was humming something: Rato na casaca …3 I didn’t go to school, I went along with the fusiliers, then off to Saúde, and ended the morning on Gamboa beach. I got back home with my trousers dirtied, no silver coin in my pocket or resentment in my soul. Still, the coin was pretty, and it was they, Raimundo and Curvelo, who gave me my first taste of corruption in one case, of betrayal in the other; but the beat of that drum …