A Chapter of Hats: Selected Stories Read online

  ‘At last!’

  ‘The terrace was a solitary place, even a bit wild – it was there I said the first word. My plan was to precipitate everything, afraid that after five minutes of conversation my strength would fail me. Even so, you’ve no idea what it cost me; a real battle would have been less effort, and I swear to you I wasn’t born for war. But that thin delicate woman held more sway over me than any other, before or after …’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Quintilia had gathered what I was going to ask her by the strength of feeling evident in my face, and let me speak so she could prepare her reply. Her reply was interrogative and negative. Marry, what for? It was better for us to remain friends. I answered that friendship had been for me, for a long time, the mere sentinel of love; now love could no longer be contained, I’d let it come out in the open. Quintilia smiled at the metaphor, which hurt me, needlessly; seeing the effect she’d had, she became serious again, and set out to persuade me that it was better not to marry. “I’m old,” she said; “nearly thirty-three.” “But I love you just the same,” I replied, and said a whole lot of things I can’t possibly repeat now. Quintilia reflected for a moment; then she insisted again on feelings of friendship; she said that, though I was younger than her, I had the dignity of an older man, and inspired confidence in her as no one else did. I paced around a bit in despair, then sat down again and recounted everything. When she heard about my fight with my friend and fellow student, and the way we had separated, she felt upset or irritated, I’m not sure which is the right word. She blamed us both; we should never have gone so far. “You say that,” I said, “because you don’t feel the same.” “But is it some kind of delirium?” “I think so; what I can swear to you is that still now, if I had to, I’d break with him a hundred times over; and I think I can say he would do the same thing.” Here she looked at me in shock as one might at someone no longer in charge of his faculties; then she shook her head, and repeated that it had been a mistake; it wasn’t worth it. “Let’s stay friends,” she said, holding out her hand. “It’s impossible,” I said, “you’re asking something beyond my power to give, I can never see you as just a friend; I don’t want to impose anything on you; I’ll even say that I’ll insist no longer, because no other reply would satisfy me now.” We exchanged a few more words, and I left … Look at my hand.’

  ‘It’s still shaking …’

  ‘And I’ve still not told you everything. I won’t tell about the distress I underwent, nor the pain and resentment I was left with. I was angry, sorry I’d done what I had – I should have provoked her to it in the early weeks; but hope was to blame – it’s a weed, and it took over the space occupied by other, more useful plants. After five days, I left for Itaboraí to attend to some business connected with my father’s will. When I came back, three weeks later, I found a letter from Quintilia waiting for me at home.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I opened it with my heart in turmoil: it was four days old. It was long; it alluded to recent events, and its tone was tender and serious. Quintilia said she had waited for me every day, not thinking I could be so egotistical as never to go back, and for that reason she was writing to me, to ask me to make my personal, unrequited feelings history; to be a friend, and go and see her as a friend. She ended with these strange words: “Do you want a guarantee? I swear to you that I will never marry.” I realised that a bond of moral sympathy linked us; with the difference that what for me was a physical passion was for her simply an elective affinity. We were two partners, entering the business of life with different capital: I with everything I had; she with barely more than a shilling. That’s how I answered her letter; and I declared that my obedience and my love were such that I gave way, but unwillingly, because after what had happened between us, I would feel humiliated. I crossed out “ridiculous”, which I’d already written, so that I could go and see her without that embarrassment – the other word was enough.’

  ‘I bet you followed soon after the letter? That’s what I’d do, because either I’m much mistaken or that girl was dying to marry you.’

  ‘Forget your usual psychological theories; this is a very individual case.’

  ‘Let me guess the rest; the oath was a sublime stratagem; later, you, the recipient, could release her from it, so long as you got the benefits of your own absolution. But, anyway, you hurried to her house.’

  ‘I didn’t; I went two days later. In the meantime, she replied to my letter with an affectionate note, which concluded with this argument: “Don’t speak of humiliation, where there were no witnesses.” I went, returned a few times, and we re-established our relationship. Nothing was said; at first, it was a great effort to pretend I was as I had been; then, the accursed hope lodged in my heart again; and, saying nothing, I thought that one day, in the future, she’d marry me. It was that hope that made me able to look myself in the eye, in the situation I found myself in. Rumours of impending marriage got around. They reached our ears; I denied them, formally and with a serious look; she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. That was the most serene period of our life for me, except for a brief incident with a diplomat, Austrian or something of the sort, a strapping fellow, elegant, red-haired, large attractive eyes, and a nobleman to boot. Quintilia was so charming with him that he thought he’d found favour, and tried to take the matter further. I think some quite unconscious gesture of mine, or perhaps a little bit of Heaven-sent intuition, soon brought disillusionment to the Austrian legation. A little later she fell ill; and then our friendship grew. She decided she shouldn’t go out while she was being treated, and those were the doctors’ orders. I spent many hours a day there. Quintilia and her cousin played the piano, or we had a game of cards, or read something; mostly, we just talked. That was when I studied her closely. Listening to her reading, I saw that she found books about love incomprehensible, and if there was violent passion she was bored and put them aside. It wasn’t that she was ignorant; she had vaguely heard about passion, and had witnessed it in other cases.’

  ‘What illness did she have?’

  ‘It was in her spinal column. The doctors said that perhaps it had been there for a while, and it was getting dangerous. It was now 1859. From March of that year on, the illness got much worse; it gave a short respite, but towards the end of the month things were in a desperate state. Never since have I seen anyone react with more energy to an imminent catastrophe; she was so thin she was transparent, almost pellucid; she laughed, or rather smiled, and seeing me hiding my tears she gratefully pressed my hands. One day, when I was alone with the doctor, she asked him for the truth; he tried to lie; she said it was useless – there was no hope. “I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor murmured. “Do you swear?” He hesitated, and she thanked him. Now she was certain she would die, she organised what she’d promised herself.’

  ‘She married you, I’ll wager?’

  ‘Don’t remind me of that unhappy ceremony; or rather, let me remind myself, because it brings me a breath of the past. She wouldn’t accept my refusals or pleas; she married me at the portals of death. It was on the eighteenth of April, 1859. I spent the last days, till the twentieth of April, at my dying bride’s bedside, and embraced her for the first time when she was a corpse.’

  ‘It’s all very strange.’

  ‘I don’t know what your theories would tell you. I’m only a layman in these matters, but I think that girl had a purely physical aversion to marriage. She married when she was half dead, at the edge of the abyss. Call her a monster if you like, but say she was divine too.’

  A Famous Man

  ‘Oh! are you Pestana?’ asked Sinházinha Mota1, holding up her hands in admiration. And then, correcting herself, in a less familiar tone: ‘Excuse my manners, but … are you really he?’

  Embarrassed and annoyed, Pestana answered yes, it was he. He’d just got up from the piano, and was mopping his brow with a handkerchief as he went over to the window, when the girl made him stop. It wasn’t a bal
l; just an intimate soirée, not many people, twenty in all, who’d come to dine with the widow Camargo, on the Rua do Areal – this was on her birthday, 5 November 1875 … What a cheery person she was, the good widow! She enjoyed fun and games, in spite of her sixty years, and it was the last time she enjoyed them, for she died in early 1876. What a cheery person! With what loving care she set up some dancing, right after dinner, asking Pestana to play a quadrille! She didn’t have to finish her request; Pestana bowed graciously, and hastened to the piano. When the quadrille was over, they’d hardly had ten minutes’ rest when the widow rushed over to Pestana again to ask a very particular favour.

  ‘Just say, madam.’

  ‘It’s for you to play that polka of yours, “Don’t Meddle with Me, Young Sir”.’

  Pestana made a face, but soon disguised it, inclined silently, ungraciously, and went unenthusiastically to the piano. As soon as the first measures sounded, a new, different happiness spread through the room, the gentlemen hurried over to the ladies, and they began to shake their hips in time to the latest polka. The latest: it had been published three weeks ago, and there was no corner of the city where it was unknown. It had reached the point where it was being whistled and hummed in the streets at night.

  Sinhazinha Mota had been far from surmising that the same Pestana she’d seen at the dining table and later at the piano, in his snuff-coloured frock-coat, with long curly black hair, cautious eyes and shaven chin, was really Pestana the composer; it was a friend who’d told her as she saw him leaving the piano when the polka was done. Hence the admiring question. We’ve seen his answer was embarrassed and annoyed. Even so, the two girls spared him no flatteries; such they were, and so many, that the most modest of vanities would have been pleased to hear them. He greeted them with growing irritation, until, pleading a headache, he asked to be excused. Nobody, neither the girls nor the lady of the house, could detain him. They offered him home remedies, or a little rest; he accepted nothing, insisted on leaving and left.

  In the street he walked fast, fearful they might still call after him; he only slowed down after he’d turned the corner of the Rua Formosa. But even there his famous festive polka lay in wait. From a modest house on the right, a few yards away, came the notes of the latest tune, played on a clarinet. There was dancing. Pestana stopped for a few moments, thought of retracing his steps, but pressed on, quickened his step, crossed the street, and went by on the opposite side from the house with the dancing. Gradually the notes faded away, far off, and our friend went into the Rua do Aterrado, where he lived. When he was getting close to home, he saw two men approaching; one of them, passing right close to Pestana, began to whistle the same polka, vigorously, con brio; the other picked up on the tempo, and off down the street went the two of them, noisy and happy, while the tune’s author, in desperation, ran to take shelter at home.

  At home, he breathed easier. It was an old house, with an old staircase, and an old black servant, who came to ask if he wanted to have dinner.

  ‘I don’t want a thing,’ Pestana shouted; ‘make me some coffee and go to bed.’

  He got undressed, put a nightgown on, and went to the back room. When the servant lit the gas, Pestana smiled and, in his heart, greeted some ten portraits hanging on the wall. Only one was in oils, of a priest who had educated him, taught him Latin and music, and who, according to idle tongues, was Pestana’s father. He certainly had left him the old house, with the old furniture, dating from the time of Pedro I.2 This priest had composed some motets, was mad about music, sacred or profane, and instilled the taste for it in the boy – unless he’d also transmitted it in his blood, that’s if the gossips were right. But this is something my story is not concerned with, as you’ll see.

  The other portraits were of classical composers, Cimarosa, Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Bach, Schumann and some three more. Some were engravings, others lithographs, all of them badly framed and of different sizes, but put there like saints in a church. The piano was the altar; the gospel for the night was open: it was a Beethoven sonata.

  The coffee came; Pestana swallowed the first cup, and sat down at the piano. He looked at Beethoven’s portrait, and began to play the sonata, oblivious to himself, absorbed, as if in a delirium, but with the greatest perfection. He repeated the piece; then stopped for some moments, got up and went to one of the windows. He went back to the piano; it was Mozart’s turn – he picked on a passage and played it in the same way, with his soul in another place. Haydn took him up to midnight and the second cup of coffee.

  Between midnight and one o’clock, Pestana did little more than stand at the window and stare at the stars, then go back into the room and look at the portraits. From time to time he went to the piano, and, without sitting down, played some disconnected notes, as if searching for some idea; but the idea didn’t come and he went back to lean at the window. The stars looked like musical notes fixed in the sky waiting for someone to loosen them; the time would come when the heavens would be empty, but then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores. No image, reverie or reflection had any echo of Sinhazinha Mota, who, however, at this moment was thinking about him as she went to sleep, he, the famous author of so many beloved polkas. Maybe some idea of marriage prevented her sleeping for a little while. What’s so surprising? She was nearly twenty, he nearly thirty, a good age. The girl slept to the sound of the polka, which she knew by heart, while the author of the said polka wasn’t thinking about it or her, but the old classical works, scanning the night and the heavens, begging the angels, in a last resort the devil himself. Why couldn’t he write even one of those immortal pages?

  At times, it seemed as if the dawn of an idea was going to arise from the depths of his unconscious; he ran to the piano to try it out entire, to translate it into sounds, but in vain; the idea vanished. At other moments, sitting at the piano, he let his fingers run over the keys, at random, to see if fantasias sprung from them, as they did from Mozart’s; but nothing, nothing, inspiration didn’t come and his imagination still lay sleeping. If by chance an idea appeared, well-defined and beautiful, it was just the echo of someone else’s music, repeated from memory, and that he’d thought he was inventing. Then, irritated, he got up, swore he would give up art and go and plant coffee or push a cart round the streets; but ten minutes later, there he was, with his eyes on Mozart and imitating him at the piano.

  Two, three, four o’clock. After four he went to bed; he was tired, despondent, dead with fatigue; he had to give lessons the next day. He didn’t sleep much; at seven he was awake. He got up and had breakfast.

  ‘Master, do you want your stick or your umbrella?’ asked the servant, following orders, for his master was frequently distrait.

  ‘The stick.’

  ‘But it seems it’s going to rain today.’

  ‘Rain,’ Pestana repeated mechanically.

  ‘It seems so, sir, the sky’s getting darker.’

  Pestana stared vacantly at the servant, his mind preoccupied. Suddenly:

  ‘Wait there.’

  He ran to the room with the portraits, opened the piano, sat down and spread his hands over the keyboard. He began to play something of his own, with real, immediate inspiration, a polka, a spirited polka as the advertisements say. There was no reluctance on the part of the composer; his fingers drew the notes out, linking them, shaking them about; you’d have said that the muse was composing and dancing at the same time. Pestana had forgotten his pupils, he’d forgotten the servant, who was waiting there with his stick and umbrella; he’d even forgotten the portraits, hanging there on the wall with their serious faces. He was simply composing, at the keyboard or on paper, without yesterday’s vain struggle, without the frustration, asking nothing of the heavens, no longer scrutinising Mozart’s eyes. No ennui – life, charm and novelty flowed out of his soul as if from a perennial fountain.

  In a short time the polka was written. He corrected a few notes when he came back for supper; but he was already humm
ing it as he walked along, out in the street. He liked it; the blood of his paternity and his vocation flowed freely in this recent, unpublished work. Two days later, he went to take it to the publisher of other polkas of his; there must have been about thirty already. The publisher thought it was lovely.

  ‘It’ll be a hit.’

  The question of the title arose. Pestana, when he’d composed his first polka, in 1871, wanted to give it a poetic title, and chose this: ‘Sun-Drops’. The publisher shook his head, and said that the titles ought themselves to appeal to the popular mind, either by alluding to some event of the day – or by the charm of the words themselves. He suggested two: ‘The Law of 28 September’3 or ‘You’ll Not Get Your Way with Me.’

  ‘But what’s the point of “You’ll Not Get Your Way with Me”?’

  ‘There isn’t one, but it’ll spread like wildfire.’

  Pestana, a still-unpublished youth, refused either of the titles and kept his polka; but it was no time till he’d composed another, and the itch for publicity made him print the two with whatever titles the publisher thought attractive or appropriate. And that was how he kept on doing things over the years.

  Now, when Pestana handed over his new polka and they came to the title, the publisher said that for the last few days he’d had one in his head for the first work that came along, a really terrific title, long and with a swing to it. Here it was: ‘Hey Lady, Hang on to That Basket.’

  ‘And for the next time,’ he added, ‘I’ve got another in mind.’

  The first edition sold out as soon as it was put on display. The composer’s fame was enough to make people buy; but the work itself was in keeping with the genre, original, made you want to dance and could be quickly committed to memory. In a week, it was famous. For the first few days, Pestana was truly in love with the composition, liked to hum it under his breath, stopped in the street to hear it being played in some house or other, and got annoyed when it was badly executed. From the start, the orchestras played it in the theatres, and he went to one to hear it. He got some pleasure from hearing it whistled, one night, by a figure going down the Rua do Aterrado.