A Chapter of Hats: Selected Stories Page 5

  ‘Truly,’ said the master, ‘it is an extraordinary case, a most beautiful case. Before we get to the main business, let’s examine this other point …’

  The point was to discover if the nerve for thieving was to be found in the palm of the hand, or the tips of the fingers – this problem had been suggested by one of the students. Stroibus was the first to be subjected to the operation. He realised everything as soon as he came into the room; and, as human nature has a streak of baseness, begged them humbly to spare a philosopher’s life. But Herophilus, with an acute dialectical power, said more or less this: ‘Either you are an impostor or the real Stroibus; in the first case, you have here one way of redeeming the crime of deluding an enlightened prince, by subjecting yourself to the scalpel; in the second case, you will not be unaware that the obligation of a philosopher is to serve philosophy, and that the body is nothing compared to the understanding.’

  This said, they began with the experiment on the hands, which produced marvellous results, collected in books, which were lost with the fall of the Ptolemies. Pythias’s hands were also torn open and minutely examined. The wretched pair howled, wept, pleaded; but Herophilus calmly told them that it was the philosopher’s duty to serve philosophy, and that for the aims of science they were worth even more than rats, since it was better to argue from one man to another, and not from a rat to a man. And he went on tearing them membrane by membrane for eight days. On the third day they took their eyes, to disprove in practice a theory about the internal shape of the organ. I won’t go into the extraction of both of their stomachs, because the problems involved were relatively secondary, and in any case had been studied and resolved in five or six individuals dissected before them.

  The Alexandrians said that the rats celebrated this painful, distressing event with dancing and parties, and invited some dogs, doves, peacocks and other animals threatened with the same destiny; and that none of them accepted the invitation, on the advice of a dog, who said, in melancholy tones: ‘The time will come when the same thing will happen to us.’ To which a rat replied: ‘Till then, let’s keep laughing!’

  A Singular Occurrence

  ‘Some really strange things happen. Do you see that lady over there, going into the Holy Cross Church? She’s just stopped in the porch to give a beggar some money.’

  ‘The one in black?’

  ‘That’s right: she’s just going in. She’s gone.’

  ‘Say no more. I can see the lady brings back memories, and recent ones, judging by her figure; she’s a fine-looking young woman.’

  ‘She must be forty-six.’

  ‘Oh! Well-preserved, then. Come on, stop staring at the ground and tell me everything. She’s a widow, of course?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, her husband’s still alive. Old, I suppose?’

  ‘She’s not married.’

  ‘A spinster?’

  ‘Sort of. She must be called Dona Maria something-or-other. In 1860 she was commonly known as Marocas. She wasn’t a seamstress, she didn’t own property, she didn’t run a school for girls; you’ll get there, by process of elimination. She lived in the Rua do Sacramento. In those days too she was slim, and certainly lovelier than she is today; she had quiet manners, and never swore. In the street, modest as she was, with her faded dress buttoned up to the neck, she still had a lot of admirers.’

  ‘You, for instance.’

  ‘No, but a friend of mine, Andrade, twenty-six, part-lawyer, part-politician, born in Alagoas and married in Bahia – he came from there in 1859. His wife was pretty, affectionate, gentle and resigned; when I got to know them their little daughter was two.’

  ‘But in spite of that, Marocas …?’

  ‘That’s right, she swept him off his feet. Look, if you’re not in a hurry, I’ll tell you something interesting.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘The first time he met her was at the door of Paula Brito’s shop in the Rossio. There he was, and he saw a pretty woman in the distance, and waited, his interest already aroused, because he had a real passion for the ladies. Marocas was coming in his direction, stopping and looking, as if searching for something. In front of the shop she stopped for a moment; then, timidly and with shame, she held out a piece of paper to Andrade, and asked him where the number written on it was. Andrade told her it was on the other side of the square, and pointed out more or less where it would be. She curtseyed very prettily; he didn’t know what to make of the question.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  ‘Nothing could be simpler: Marocas couldn’t read. He didn’t even suspect it. He watched her crossing the Rossio, which in those days had no garden in the middle, or the statue it has now, and go to the place she was looking for; even then, she stopped at other houses to ask. That night he went to the Ginásio theatre to see The Lady of the Camellias. Marocas was there, and during the last act she wept like a child. No need to say more; at the end of a fortnight they were madly in love. Marocas got rid of all her other lovers, and it can’t have been easy – some of them were really well off. She lived on her own; everything revolved round Andrade, and she wanted no other attachment, no other way of earning a living.’

  ‘Just like the Lady of the Camellias.’

  ‘Right. Andrade taught her to read. I’ve turned into a schoolmaster, he said to me one day, and that was when he told me the story of their meeting in the Rossio. Marocas was a fast learner. It’s understandable: the shame of ignorance, the desire to read the novels he told her about, and finally her pleasure in obeying his desire, of being agreeable to him … He hid nothing from me; he told me everything with such a grateful, happy look in his eyes, you can’t imagine. I was a confidant to both of them. Sometimes the three of us dined together, and … I don’t see why I should deny it – sometimes the four of us. Don’t imagine we were disreputable – these were happy, but respectable suppers. Marocas liked her language buttoned up, like her dresses. Little by little, we became close friends; she asked me about Andrade, his wife, his daughter, his habits, if he really loved her, or was it just a caprice, if he’d had others, if he might forget her – she showered me with questions; she had a fear of losing him which showed the strength and the sincerity of her affection … One day, for St John’s Night, Andrade went out of town with his family, to Gávea, where they were invited to a dinner and a dance; two days away. I went with them. Marocas, as she said goodbye, reminded us of a comedy she’d seen some weeks before at the Ginásio – Dining with Mother1 – and told me that, since she had no family to spend St John’s with, she’d do what Sophie Arnoult in the play does, have dinner with a portrait; but it wouldn’t be her mother’s, because she had no mother, but Andrade’s. What she’d said would have got her a kiss; and Andrade actually leaned towards her, but seeing I was there, she delicately pushed him away with her hand.’

  ‘I like that gesture.’

  ‘He liked it just as much. He held her face in both hands, and gave her a fatherly kiss on the forehead. We went off to Gávea. On the way, he told me about the wonders of Marocas, about their latest whims, told me about his project to buy her a house in some suburb as soon as he could get the money; he was full of praise for her modesty – she didn’t want anything from him beyond what was strictly necessary. There’s more, I said, and told him something I’d found out, that is, that about three weeks before, Marocas had pawned some jewels to pay a seamstress’s bill. This upset him a great deal; I can’t swear, but I think there were tears in his eyes. Anyway, after thinking for a while, he told me he would definitely get her a house and release her from the threat of poverty. In Gávea, we spoke about Marocas some more, until the party ended and we came back. Andrade left his family at home and went to the office to deal with some urgent business. A little after noon, one Leandro, a former agent of another lawyer, came, as was his custom, to beg a couple of mil-reis. He was a lazy, vulgar fellow, who lived by leeching off his ex-boss’s friends. Andrade gave him three mil-reis, and seeing he w
as exceptionally cheery, asked him why he had a twinkle in his eye. Leandro winked and licked his lips: and Andrade, who had an appetite for spicy stories, asked him if it was some love affair. He chewed it over a moment, and confessed it was.’

  ‘Look, she’s coming out; that’s the one, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s her. Let’s get away from the corner.’

  ‘Yes, she must have been really pretty. She looks like a duchess.’

  ‘She didn’t look in our direction. She always looks straight ahead. She’ll go up the Rua do Ouvidor …’

  ‘Yes, sir. I can understand Andrade.’

  ‘Let’s go on with the story. Leandro confessed he’d had a real piece of luck the previous day – unique, in fact, something he’d never expected. He didn’t even deserve it, because he knew he was a good-for-nothing. But even poor people were God’s children. Anyway, the day before in the Rossio, around ten at night, he’d come across a lady simply dressed, really good-looking, closely wrapped in a large shawl. The lady went after him, walking quicker; as she brushed past him she looked right in his eyes, and went on slowly, as if waiting for him. The fellow imagined she’d got the wrong person; he confessed to Andrade that, in spite of the simple dress, he saw straight away she wasn’t for the likes of him. He went on; the woman stopped, and looked at him again, but so insistently that he got a bit daring; she did the rest … Oh! What an angel! What a house, what a lovely room! Really chic. And she wasn’t after money … “Look here,” he added, “how about yourself, it’d be a good deal for you too.” Andrade shook his head; he’d not sniffed out his rival. But Leandro insisted; it was in the Rua do Sacramento, number such-and-such …’

  ‘Good God! You don’t say!’

  ‘You can imagine what a state Andrade got into. He himself didn’t know what he was saying or doing for the first few minutes, or what he felt or thought. Finally he pulled himself together enough to ask if what he was saying was true; but Leandro reminded him he’d no need to invent it; however, seeing that Andrade was upset, he asked him to keep it secret, telling him that he, for his part, was always discreet. It seems he was about to go; Andrade held him back and made a proposition: would he like to earn twenty mil-reis? – “Fine!” – “I’ll give you twenty mil-reis if you’ll go to the girl’s house with me and tell me in her presence that it’s really her.” ’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I’m not defending Andrade; it wasn’t a nice thing to do; but in situations like that passion blinds the best of us. Andrade was a worthy, generous, sincere man, but it was such a terrible blow, and he loved her so much that he didn’t flinch from that kind of revenge.’

  ‘Did the man accept?’

  ‘He hesitated a bit – out of fear more than dignity, I reckon. But twenty mil-reis … He laid down one condition: he wasn’t to be involved in any trouble … Marocas was in the room when Andrade entered. She came to the door to embrace him; but Andrade, with a gesture, warned her there was someone with him. Then, looking hard at her, he made Leandro come in; Marocas went pale – “Is this the lady?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” mumbled Leandro faintly, for there are actions even viler than the man who commits them. Andrade opened his wallet with a dramatic gesture, took out the note and gave it to him; and with the same affected air, ordered him to go. Leandro left. The following scene was short, but dramatic. I didn’t hear all the details, because it was Andrade who told me everything, and naturally he was so stunned that he forgot things. She admitted to nothing, but she was completely beside herself, and when, after saying some very harsh things, he rushed for the door, she flung herself at his feet, grabbed him by the hands, weeping, desperate, threatening to kill herself. She lay there at the threshold as he rushed downstairs in a daze, and left.’

  ‘A vulgar person, in fact, picked up in the street; maybe she made a habit of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Listen to the rest of the story. It must have been eight at night when Andrade came to my house, and waited for me. He’d already come to look for me three times. I was flabbergasted; but how could I doubt him, when he’d taken the proof itself to the scene of the crime? I’ll not tell you all he said, his plans for revenge, the names he called her: all this in keeping with the style and repertoire of these moments of crisis. I advised him to leave her, and live for his daughter and his wife – so good and gentle … He agreed, but then flew into a rage again. Then anger turned to doubt; he even imagined that Marocas, to test him, had invented the whole thing and sent Leandro to come and tell him the story; the proof being that when he had shown no curiosity about the lady, Leandro had insisted on telling him the street and the number. Holding on for dear life to this unlikely theory, he tried to flee from reality, but reality came after him – Marocas’s pallor, Leandro’s genuine happiness, everything told him the thing had happened. I even think he was sorry he’d gone so far. For my part, I was thinking the business over, but I couldn’t come up with an explanation. So modest! So shy in her manner!’

  ‘There’s a phrase from the theatre that might explain this adventure, from Augier I think it is: “nostalgia for the gutter”.’2

  ‘I don’t think so. Listen to the rest. At ten Marocas’s maid, a freed slave, very close to her mistress, appeared. She was searching desperately for Andrade, because Marocas had cried a lot, locked herself in her room, then gone out without food, and she’d not come back. I stopped Andrade, whose first impulse was to go out straight away. The servant begged us to go and find her mistress. “Isn’t she in the habit of going out?” asked Andrade, sarcastically. But she said no, she wasn’t. “Hear that?” he shouted. Hope had filled the poor fellow’s heart again. “What about yesterday?” I said. The maid replied that yesterday she had gone out; but I asked no more questions. I felt sorry for Andrade, who was getting more and more frantic – his sense of honour was giving way to fear for her safety. We left to look for Marocas; we went to all the houses where she might have been, and finally to the police. The chief or one of the constables, I can’t remember, was a friend of Andrade’s, and he related the parts of the story he decently could – in any case, all his friends knew about the affair. They went into everything: there’d been no accidents during the night; no one had been seen falling off the ferries to Niterói; the gun shops had sold no guns; the chemists no poisons. The police used all their resources, but to no effect. I can’t tell you what Andrade went through for hours and hours; the whole day went by in useless searching. It wasn’t just the pain of losing her; it was remorse, and the doubts in his conscience, to say the least, at the thought of some disaster having happened, which could only argue for her innocence. He asked me all the time if it hadn’t been natural to do what he’d done, and if I’d been as angry as that, wouldn’t I have done the same thing? Then he went back to saying it was all true, proving to me insistently that it was, just as the previous day he’d tried to argue that it was false – he was trying to adjust reality to his feelings of the moment.’

  ‘But they did find Marocas in the end?’

  ‘We were eating something in a hotel; it was nearly eight at night, when we got news of a clue: a coachman who’d taken a lady to the Botanical Gardens, where she’d gone into a lodging-house and stayed. We didn’t even finish dinner, and went in the same coachman’s carriage to the gardens. The owner confirmed the story, adding that the lady had stayed in her room since she’d come the previous day, without eating anything; she’d just asked for a cup of coffee; she seemed profoundly depressed. We went to the room; the inn owner knocked on the door; she replied in a weak voice, and opened up. Andrade didn’t give me time to say anything; he pushed past me, and they fell into each other’s arms. Marocas was weeping copiously, and fainted.’

  ‘Was everything explained?’

  ‘Not a bit of it. Neither of them ever referred to the topic; they’d escaped from a shipwreck, and didn’t want to hear about the storm that nearly sent them to the bottom. The reconciliation was quic
kly done. Months later, Andrade bought her a little house in Catumbi; Marocas had a little boy by him, who died when he was two. When he went to the North, on a Government mission, their affection for each other was the same as ever, though it had lost some of its earlier intensity. Still, she wanted to go with him: it was I that made her stay behind. Andrade intended to return in a short time, but as I’ve said, he died up there in the provinces. Marocas was very upset by his death, put on mourning, and thought of herself as a widow; I know that for the first three years, she always had a Mass said on his birthday. I lost sight of her ten years ago. Well, what do you think of it all?’

  ‘Well, really, there are some singular occurrences; that’s if you’ve not played on my youthful naïveté and made up a story …’

  ‘I’ve invented nothing; it’s the unvarnished truth.’

  ‘Then it is curious. In the middle of such a burning, sincere passion … I’m still of the same opinion. I think it was nostalgia for the gutter.’

  ‘No, Marocas had never descended to the likes of Leandro.’

  ‘Then why did she do it that night?’

  ‘He was a man she thought was separated by an abyss from anyone they knew, that’s why she dared do it. But accident, God and the devil rolled into one … Well, who knows?’

  A Chapter of Hats

  GÉRONTE Dans quel chapitre, s’il vous plaît?

  SGANARELLE Dans le chapitre des chapeaux.

  (Molière)

  Muse, sing of the vexation of Mariana, the wife of the lawyer Conrado Seabra, that morning in April 1879. What can be the cause of so much commotion? It’s a mere hat, lightweight, not lacking in elegance, and flat. Conrado, a solicitor, with an office on the Rua da Quitanda, used to wear it to town every day, and to all his court appearances; he only wore something different to receptions, the opera, funerals and formal visits. For everything else it was a permanent feature, and had been for five or six years, the length of his marriage. Well, on this particular April morning, when breakfast was over, Conrado was just rolling a cigarette, and Mariana announced with a smile that she was going to ask him something.