him immoral and perfidious, and warned him that his adventure was known
to all. Camillo took fright, and, in order to ward off suspicion, began
to make his visits to Villela's house more rare. The latter asked him
the reason for his prolonged absence. Camillo answered that the cause
was a youthful flirtation. Simplicity evolved into cunning. Camillo's
absences became longer and longer, and then his visits ceased entirely.
Into this course there may have entered a little self-respect,--the
idea of diminishing his obligations to the husband in order to make his
own actions appear less treacherous.
It was at this juncture that Rita, uncertain and in fear, ran to the
fortune-teller to consult her upon the real reason for Camillo's
actions. As we have seen, the card reader restored the wife's
confidence and the young man reproved her for having done what she did.
A few weeks passed. Camillo received two or three more anonymous
letters, written with such passionate anger that they could not have
been prompted by mere regard for virtue; surely they came from some
violent rival of his. In this opinion Rita concurred, formulating, in
ill-composed words of her own, this thought: virtue is indolent and
niggardly, wasting neither time nor paper; only self-interest is alert
and prodigal.
But this did not help to ease Camillo; he now feared lest the anonymous
writer should inform Villela, in which case the catastrophe would
follow fast and implacably. Rita agreed that this was possible.
"Very well," she said. "Give me the envelopes in which the letters
came, so that I may compare the handwriting with that of the mail which
comes to him. If any arrives with writing resembling the anonymous
script, I'll keep it and tear it up ..."
But no such letter appeared. A short time after this, however, Villela
commenced to grow grave, speaking very little, as if something weighed
upon his mind. Rita hurried to communicate the change to her lover, and
they discussed the matter earnestly. Her opinion was that Camillo
should renew his visits to their home, and sound her husband; it might
be that Villela would confide to him some business worry. With this
Camillo disagreed; to appear after so many months was to confirm the
suspicions and denunciations of the anonymous letters. It was better to
be very careful, to give each other up for several weeks. They arranged
means for communicating with each other in case of necessity and
separated, in tears.
On the following day Camillo received at his department this letter
from Villela: "Come immediately to our house; I must talk to you
without delay." It was past noon. Camillo left at once; as he reached
the street it occurred to him that it would have been much more natural
for Villela to have called him to his office; why to his house? All
this betokened a very urgent matter; moreover, whether it was reality
or illusion, it seemed to Camillo that the letter was written in a
trembling hand. He sought to establish a connection between all these
things and the news Rita had brought him the night before.
"Come immediately to our house; I must talk to you without delay," he
repeated, his eyes staring at the note.
In his mind's eye he beheld the climax of a drama,--Rita cowed,
weeping; Villela indignant, seizing his pen and dashing off the letter,
certain that he, Camillo, would answer in person, and waiting to kill
him as he entered. Camillo shuddered with terror; then he smiled
weakly; in any event the idea of drawing back was repugnant to him. So
he continued on his way. As he walked it occurred to him to step into
his rooms; he might find there a message from Rita explaining
everything. But he found nothing, nobody. He returned to the street,
and the thought that they had been discovered grew every moment more
convincing; yes, the author of the previous anonymous communications
must have denounced him to the husband; perhaps by now Villela knew
all. The very suspension of his calls without any apparent reason, with
the flimsiest of pretexts, would confirm everything else.
Camillo walked hastily along, agitated, nervous. He did not read the
letter again, but the words hovered persistently before his eyes; or
else,--which was even worse--they seemed to be murmured into his ears
by the voice of Villela himself. "Come immediately to our house; I must
talk to you without delay." Spoken thus by the voice of the other they
seemed pregnant with mystery and menace. Come immediately,--why? It was
now nearly one o'clock. Camillo's agitation waxed greater with each
passing moment. So clearly did he imagine what was about to take place
that he began to believe it a reality, to see it before his very eyes.
Yes, without a doubt, he was afraid. He even considered arming himself,
thinking that if nothing should happen he would lose nothing by this
useful precaution. But at once he rejected the idea, angry with
himself, and hastened his step towards Carioca square, there to take a
tilbury. He arrived, entered and ordered the driver to be off at full
speed.
"The sooner the better," he thought. "I can't stand this uncertainty."
But the very sound of the horse's clattering hoofs increased his
agitation. Time was flying, and he would be face to face with danger
soon enough. When they had come almost to the end of Guarda-Velha
street the tilbury had to come to a stop; the thoroughfare was blocked
by a coach that had broken down. Camillo surveyed the obstruction and
decided to wait. After five minutes had gone by, he noticed that there
at his left, at the very foot of the tilbury, was the fortune teller's
house,--the very same as Rita had once consulted. Never, as at this
moment, had he so desired to believe in card-reading. He looked closer,
saw that the windows were closed, while all the others on the street
were opened, filled with folks curious to see what was the matter. It
looked for all the world like the dwelling of indifferent Fate.
Camillo leaned back in his seat so as to shut all this from view. His
excitement was intense, extraordinary, and from the deep, hidden
recesses of his mind there began to emerge spectres of early childhood,
old beliefs, banished superstitions. The coachman proposed another
route; he shook his head and said that he would wait. He leaned forward
to get a better look at the card-reader's house ... Then he made a
gesture of self-ridicule: it had entered his mind to consult the
fortune-teller, who seemed to be hovering over him, far, far above,
with vast, ash-colored wings; she disappeared, reappeared, and then her
image was lost; then, in a few moments, the ash-colored wings stirred
again, nearer, flying about him in narrowing circles ... In the street
men were shouting, dragging away the coach.
"There! Now! Push! That's it! Now!"
In a short while the obstruction was removed. Camillo closed his eyes,
trying to think of other things; but the voice of Rita's husband
whispered into his ears the words of the letter: "Come immediately ..."
And he could behold the anguish of the drama. He trembled. The house
seemed to look right at him. His feet instinctively moved as if to
leave the carriage and go in ... Camillo found himself before a long,
opaque veil ... he thought rapidly of the inexplicability of so many
things. The voice of his mother was repeating to him a host of
extraordinary happenings; and the very sentence of the Prince of
Denmark kept echoing within him:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."
What could he lose by it, if...?
He jumped out to the pavement, just before the fortune-teller's door;
he told the driver to wait for him, and hastened into the entry,
ascending the stairs. There was little light, the stairs were worn away
from the many feet that had sought them, the banister was smooth and
sticky; but he saw and felt nothing. He stumbled up the stairs and
knocked. Nobody appearing, he was about to go down; but it was too late
now,--curiosity was whipping his blood and his heart beat with violent
throbs; he turned back to the door, and knocked once, twice, three
times. He beheld a woman; it was the card-reader. Camillo said that he
had come to consult her, and she bade him enter. Thence they climbed to
the attic by a staircase even worse than the first and buried in deeper
gloom. At the top there was a garret, ill lighted by a small window.
Old furniture, somber walls, and an air of poverty augmented, rather
than destroyed, the prestige of the occupant.
The fortune-teller told him to be seated before the table, and she sat
down on the opposite side with her back to the window, so that whatever
little light came from without fell full upon Camillo's face. She
opened a drawer and took out a pack of worn, filthy cards. While she
rapidly shuffled them she peered at him closely, not so much with a
direct gaze as from under her eyes. She was a woman of forty, Italian,
thin and swarthy, with large, sharp, cunning eyes. She placed three
cards upon the table, and said:
"Let us first see what has brought you here. The gentleman has just
received a severe shock and is in great fear ..."
Camillo, astonished, nodded affirmatively.
"And he wishes to know," she continued, "whether anything will happen
to him or not ..."
"To me and to her," he explained, excitedly.
The fortune-teller did not smile; she simply told him to wait. She took
the cards hastily once more and shuffled them with her long tapering
fingers whose nails were so long and unclean from neglect; she shuffled
them well, once, twice, thrice; then she began to lay them out.
Camillo's eyes were riveted upon her in anxious curiosity.
"The cards tell me ..."
Camillo leaned forward to drink in her words one by one. Then she told
him to fear nothing. Nothing would happen to him or to the other. He,
the third, was aware of nought. Nevertheless, great caution was
indispensable; envy and rivalry were at work. She spoke to him of the
love that bound them, of Rita's beauty ... Camillo was bewildered. The
fortune-teller stopped talking, gathered the cards and locked them in
the drawer.
"The lady has restored peace to my spirit," he said, offering her his
hand across the table and pressing that of the card-reader.
She arose, laughing.
"Go," she said. "Go, _ragazzo innamorato_ ..."[4]
[4] Italian for "love-sick boy," "young lover," etc.
And arising, she touched his head with her index finger. Camillo
shuddered, as if it were the hand of one of the original sybils, and
he, too, arose. The fortune-teller went to the bureau, upon which lay a
plate of raisins, took a cluster of them and commenced to eat them,
showing two rows of teeth that were as white as her nails were black.
Even in this common action the woman possessed an air all her own.
Camillo, anxious to leave, was at a loss how much to pay; he did not
know her fee.
"Raisins cost money," he said, at length, taking out his pocket-book.
"How much do you want to send for?"
"Ask your heart," she replied.
Camillo took out a note for ten milreis'[5] and gave it to her. The
eyes of the card-reader sparkled. Her usual fee was two milreis.
[5] In United States money ten Brazilian milreis are equivalent
to about $5.50.
"I can see easily that the gentleman loves his lady very much ... And
well he may. For she loves the gentleman very deeply, too. Go, go in
peace, with your mind at ease. And take care as you descend the
staircase,--it's dark. Don't forget your hat ..."
The fortune-teller had already placed the note in her pocket, and
accompanied him down the stairs, chatting rather gaily. At the bottom
of the first flight Camillo bid her good-bye and ran down the stairs
that led to the street, while the card-reader, rejoicing in her large
fee, turned back to the garret, humming a barcarolle. Camillo found the
tilbury waiting for him; the street was now clear. He entered and the
driver whipped his horse into a fast trot.
To Camillo everything had now changed for the better and his affairs
assumed a brighter aspect; the sky was clear and the faces of the
people he passed were all so merry. He even began to laugh at his
fears, which he now saw were puerile; he recalled the language of
Villela's letter and perceived at once that it was most friendly and
familiar. How in the world had he ever been able to read any threat of
danger into those words! He suddenly realized that they were urgent,
however, and that he had done ill to delay so long; it might be some
very serious business affair.
"Faster, faster!" he cried to the driver.
And he began to think of a plausible explanation of his delay; he even
contemplated taking advantage of this incident to re-establish his
former intimacy in Villela's household ... Together with his plans
there kept echoing in his soul the words of the fortune-teller. In
truth, she had guessed the object of his visit, his own state of mind,
and the existence of a third; why, then, wasn't it reasonable to
suppose that she had guessed the rest correctly, too? For, the unknown
present is the same as the future. And thus, slowly and persistently
the young man's childhood superstitions attained the upper hand and
mystery clutched him in its iron claws. At times he was ready to burst
into laughter, and with a certain vexation he did laugh at himself. But
the woman, the cards, her dry, reassuring words, and her good-bye--"Go,
go, _ragazzo innamorato_," and finally, that farewell barcarolle, so
lively and gracious,--such were the new elements which, together with
the old, formed within him a new and abiding faith.
The truth is that his heart was happy and impatient, recalling the
happy hours of the past and anticipating those yet to come. As he
passed through Gloria street Camillo gazed across the sea, far across
where the waters and the heaven meet in endless embrace, and the sight
gave him a sensation of the future,--long, long and infinite.
From here it was but a moment's drive to Villela's home. He stepped
out, thrust the iron garden gate open and entered. The house was
silent. He ran up the six stone steps and scarcely had he had time to
knock when the door opened and Villela loomed before him.
"Pardon my delay. It was impossible to come sooner. What is the
matter?"
Villela made no reply. His features were distorted; he beckoned Camillo
to step within. As he entered, Camillo could not repress a cry of
horror:--there upon the sofa lay Rita, dead in a pool of blood. Villela
seized the lover by the throat and, with two bullets, stretched him
dead upon the floor.
LIFE
By Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
End of time. Ahasverus, seated upon a rock, gazes for a long while
upon the horizon, athwart which wing two eagles, crossing each
other in their path. He meditates, then falls into a doze. The day
wanes.
AHASVERUS. I have come to the end of time; this is the threshold of
eternity. The earth is deserted; no other man breathes the air of life.
I am the last; I can die. Die! Precious thought! For centuries of
centuries I have lived, wearied, mortified, wandering ever, but now the
centuries are coming to an end, and I shall die with them. Ancient
nature, farewell! Azure sky, clouds ever reborn, roses of a day and of
every day, perennial waters, hostile earth that never would devour my
bones, farewell! The eternal wanderer will wander no longer. God may
pardon me if He wishes, but death will console me. That mountain is as
unyielding as my grief; those eagles that fly yonder must be as
famished as my despair. Shall you, too, die, divine eagles?
PROMETHEUS. Of a surety the race of man is perished; the earth is bare
of them.
AHASVERUS. I hear a voice.... The voice of a human being? Implacable
heavens, am I not then the last? He approaches.... Who are you? There
shines in your large eyes something like the mysterious light of the
archangels of Israel; you are not a human being?...
PROMETHEUS. No.
AHASVERUS. Of a race divine, then?
PROMETHEUS. You have said it.
AHASVERUS. I do not know you; but what matters it that I do not? You
are not a human being; then I may die; for I am the last and I close
the gate of life.
PROMETHEUS. Life, like ancient Thebes, has a hundred gates. You close
one, and others will open. You are the last of your species? Then
another better species will come, made not of clay, but of the light
itself. Yes, last of men, all the common spirits will perish forever;
the flower of them it is which will return to earth and rule. The ages
will be rectified. Evil will end; the winds will thenceforth scatter
neither the germs of death nor the clamor of the oppressed, but only
the song of love everlasting and the benediction of universal
justice....
AHASVERUS. What can all this posthumous joy matter to the species that
dies with me? Believe me, you who are immortal, to the bones that rot
in the earth the purples of Sidonia are worthless. What you tell me is
even better than what Campanella dreamed. In that man's ideal city
there were delights and ills; yours excludes all mortal and physical
ailments. May the Lord hear you! But let me go and die.
PROMETHEUS. Go, go. But why this haste to end your days?
AHASVERUS. The haste of a man who has lived for thousands of years.
Yes, thousands of years. Men who existed scarcely scores of them
invented a feeling of ennui, _tedium vitae_, which they could never
know, at least in all its implacable and vast reality, because it is
necessary to have journeyed through all the generations and all the
cataclysms to feel that profound surfeit of existence.
PROMETHEUS. Thousands of years?
AHASVERUS. My name Is Ahasverus; I dwelt in Jerusalem at the time they
were about to crucify Christ. When he passed my door he weakened under
the burden of the beam that he carried on his shoulders, and I thrust
him onward, admonishing him not to stop, not to rest, to continue on
his way to the hill where he was to be crucified.... Then there came a
voice from heaven, telling me that I, too, should have to journey
forever, continuously, until the end of time. Such was my crime; I felt
no pity for him who was going to his death. I do not know myself how it
came about. The Pharisees said that the son of Mary had come to destroy
the law, and that he must be slain; I, ignorant wretch, wished to
display my zeal and hence my action of that day. How many times have I
seen the same thing since, traveling unceasingly through cities and
ages! Whenever zealotry penetrated into a submissive soul, it became
cruel or ridiculous. My crime was unpardonable.
PROMETHEUS. A grave crime, in truth, but the punishment was lenient.
The other men read but a chapter of life; you have read the whole book.
What does one chapter know of the other chapter? Nothing. But he who
has read them all, connects them and concludes. Are there melancholy
pages? There are merry and happy ones, too. Tragic convulsion precedes
that of laughter; life burgeons from death; swans and swallows change
climate, without ever abandoning it entirely; and thus all is
harmonized and begun anew. You have beheld this, not ten times, not a
thousand times, but ever; you have beheld the magnificence of the earth
curing the affliction of the soul, and the joy of the soul compensating
for the desolation of things; the alternating dance of Nature, who
gives her left hand to Job and her right to Sardanapalus.
AHASVERUS. What do you know of my life? Nothing; you are ignorant of
human existence.
PROMETHEUS. I, ignorant of human life? How laughable! Come, perpetual
man, explain yourself. Tell me everything; you left Jerusalem ...
AHASVERUS. I left Jerusalem. I began my wandering through the ages. I
journeyed everywhere, whatever the race, the creed, the tongue; suns
and snows, barbarous and civilized peoples, islands, continents;
wherever a man breathed, there breathed I. I never labored. Labor is a
refuge, and that refuge was denied me. Every morning I found upon me
the necessary money for the day ... See; this is the last
apportionment. Go, for I need you no longer. (_He draws forth the money
and throws it away._) I did not work; I just journeyed, ever and ever,
one day after another, year after year unendingly, century after
century. Eternal justice knew what it was doing: it added idleness to
eternity. One generation bequeathed me to the other. The languages, as
they died, preserved my name like a fossil. With the passing of time
all was forgotten; the heroes faded into myths, into shadow, and
history crumbled to fragments, only two or three vague, remote
characteristics remaining to it. And I saw them in changing aspect. You
spoke of a chapter? Happy are those who read only one chapter of life.
Those who depart at the birth of empires bear with them the impression
of their perpetuity; those who die at their fall, are buried in the
hope of their restoration; but do you not realize what it is to see the
same things unceasingly,--the same alternation of prosperity and
desolation, desolation and prosperity, eternal obsequies and eternal
halleluiahs, dawn upon dawn, sunset upon sunset?
PROMETHEUS. But you did not suffer, I believe. It is something not to
suffer.
AHASVERUS. Yes, but I saw other men suffer, and in the end the
spectacle of joy gave me the same sensations as the discourses of an
idiot. Fatalities of flesh and blood, unending strife,--I saw all pass
before my eyes, until night caused me to lose my taste for day, and now
I cannot distinguish flowers from thistles. Everything is confused in
my wearied retina.
PROMETHEUS. But nothing pained you personally; and what about me, from
time immemorial suffering the wrath of the gods?
AHASVERUS. You?
PROMETHEUS. My name is Prometheus.
AHASVERUS. You! Prometheus!
PROMETHEUS. And what was my crime? Out of clay and water I made the
first men, and afterwards, seized with compassion, I stole for them
fire from the sky. Such was my crime. Jupiter, who then reigned over
Olympus, condemned me to the most cruel of tortures. Come, climb this
rock with me.
AHASVERUS. You are telling me a tale. I know that Hellenic myth.
PROMETHEUS. Incredulous old fellow! Come see the very chains that
fettered me; it was an excessive penalty for no crime whatever; but
divine pride is terrible ... See; there they are ...
AHASVERUS. And time, which gnaws all things, does not desire them,
then?
PROMETHEUS. They were wrought by a divine hand. Vulcan forged them. Two
emissaries from heaven came to secure me to the rock, and an eagle,
like that which now is flying across the horizon, kept gnawing at my
liver without ever consuming it. This lasted for time beyond my
reckoning. No, no, you cannot imagine this torture ...
AHASVERUS. Are you not deceiving me? You, Prometheus? Was that not,
then, a figment of the ancient imagination?
PROMETHEUS. Look well at me; touch these hands. See whether I really
exist.
AHASVERUS. Then Moses lied to me. You are Prometheus, creator of the
first men?
PROMETHEUS. That was my crime.
AHASVERUS. Yes, it was your crime,--an artifice of hell; your crime was
inexpiable. You should have remained forever, bound and devoured,--you,
the origin of the ills that afflict me. I lacked compassion, it is
true; but you, who gave me life, perverse divinity, were the cause of
all.
PROMETHEUS. Approaching death confuses your reason.
AHASVERUS. Yes, it is you; you have the Olympic forehead, strong and
beautiful Titan; it is you indeed ... Are these your chains? I see upon
them no trace of your tears.
PROMETHEUS. I wept them for your humankind.
AHASVERUS. And humanity wept far more because of your crime.
PROMETHEUS. Hear me, last of men, last of ingrates!
AHASVERUS. What need have I of your words? I desire your groans,
perverse divinity. Here are the chains. See how I raise them; listen to
the clank of the iron ... Who unbound you just now?
PROMETHEUS. Hercules.
AHASVERUS. Hercules ... See whether he will repeat his service now that
you are to be bound anew.
PROMETHEUS. You are raving.
AHASVERUS. The sky gave you your first punishment, now earth will give
you the second and the last. Not even Hercules will ever be able to
break these fetters. See how I brandish them in the air, like feathers!
for I represent the power of millennial despairs. All humanity is
concentrated within me. Before I sink into the abyss, I will write upon
this stone the epitaph of a world. I will summon the eagle, and it will
come; I will tell it that the last man, on departing from life, leaves
him a god as a gift.