COUSIN BAZILIO.
TWELVE days had passed since Jorge’s departure; and Luiza,
notwithstanding the heat and the dust, resolved to dress herself and
pay a visit to Leopoldina, although she was well aware that Jorge would
be displeased if he should come to know that she had done so. But she
was so weary of her solitude! The time hung so heavy on her hands! In
the morning, indeed, she had her household cares, her work, her toilet
to occupy her,--books to read. But in the evening! At the hour in which
Jorge was accustomed to return from the office, it seemed to her as
if solitude hemmed her in on all sides. His loud ring at the bell,
his step in the hall,--she missed them both. When night closed in she
became sad without knowing why, and yielded herself, an unresisting
prey, to the vague melancholy that oppressed her. When she seated
herself at the piano, sorrowful airs seemed to flow from it at her
touch,--_cavatinas_ full of tears, with which the keys seemed of
their own accord to moan. A thousand foolish fancies would then occur
to her mind. And later in the night, unable to close her eyes, and
suffocating with the heat, she was equally a prey to the terrors and
agitations of her widowed state.
Unaccustomed to solitude, she rebelled against it. She thought for
a moment of inviting her aunt Patrocinio, an aged relative who
lived in Belem, to stay with her; she would thus at least have some
companionship in her loneliness. But she dreaded, on the other hand,
to have always before her the sorrowful and depressed countenance of
the widow, as she sat at her knitting, her large spectacles, framed in
tortoiseshell, resting on her aquiline nose.
This morning the image of Leopoldina had suddenly presented itself to
her mind, and it pleased her to think that she was free to come and
go, to chat with her friend, and to spend in agreeable companionship
the hottest hours of the day. Then her thoughts reverted to Jorge, and
she said to herself that she would write to him to return home at the
earliest possible moment. What a good idea it would be to go herself
to Evora, she thought, to arrive there at about three in the afternoon
when he would have returned from his work, in his blue spectacles,
covered with dust and exhausted by the heat, and give him a joyful
surprise, embracing him before the astonished landlady. And in the
evening to put on a light dress, and go out to see the town, leaning,
somewhat fatigued by her journey, on his arm. Every one would gaze
at her with surprise as she passed through the narrow and solitary
streets. The men would come out of the shops at the sound of her
footsteps. “Who can it be?” they would ask one another. “She is a lady
from Lisbon,” some one would say,--“the wife of the engineer.”
Luiza, absorbed in these fancies, and smiling to herself, was tying
the ribbons of her gown before the looking-glass, when the door opened
softly.
“Who is there?” she asked, turning round.
“Senhora, may I go and see the doctor?” asked Juliana in suffering
accents.
“You may go, but do not stay long,” answered Luiza. And looking at her
gown sidewise in the glass, in order to add a few artistic touches to
its folds, she continued, “Pull down my skirt--a little more--so. What
is the matter with you?”
“Palpitations, Senhora, and an oppression on the chest. I passed a bad
night.”
Her countenance was, in truth, livid; the expression of her eyes was
deathlike, and her body was bent with pain. She was attired in a
well-worn black merino dress.
“Very well, go,” said Luiza; “but first, put everything in order. And
do not stay long, do you hear?” Juliana went back to the kitchen. This
was a spacious apartment, situated at the back of the house, on the
second story, and lighted by two bay-windows. The floor before the
fireplace was paved with brick.
“She says that I may go, Senhora Joanna,” said Juliana to the cook. “I
am going to dress. The senhora is just finishing her toilet to go out.”
The cook, rejoiced at this news, began to sing; then she applied
herself to the task of shaking a well-worn carpet out of the window,
during which operation she did not remove her eyes from a little yellow
house opposite, with a large door. This was the workshop of Uncle João
Galho, in which her sweetheart, Pedro, worked. Poor Joanna was in love
with him. He was a tall, pale young man, of a sickly appearance.
Joanna was a native of Avintes, in Minho, and the daughter of peasants,
and this thin and anæmic type, peculiar to Lisbon, had captivated her
fancy and kindled a devouring flame in her heart. As she could not
go out during the week, she would let him into the house by the back
door, when she was alone; to which end she hung out on the balcony, as
a signal, the old carpet, in whose threadbare texture could still be
distinguished the shape of the stag’s horns that had formed part of its
original pattern.
Joanna was a robust girl, broad of chest and large of hip. Her hair,
soaked in oil of sweet almonds, shone like jet. She was not very
intelligent, but to make up for this she was obstinate, and that to an
extreme degree. Her thick eyebrows made her eyes, that at this moment
glowed with eagerness, appear still blacker than they really were.
“Ah,” said Juliana, looking askance at her, and giving a little dry
cough, “the Senhora Joanna has hung out the signal.”
The cook turned red.
“What harm is there in that?” Juliana went on. “I wish I were in your
place. You are perfectly right.”
Juliana was well aware of the cook’s love-affair; but she had need of
Joanna, for the latter gave her broths to strengthen her in her attacks
of debility, or cooked her a beefsteak unknown to the senhora, if
she chanced to feel herself worse than usual. Juliana had a horrible
dread of becoming debilitated, and required something to strengthen
her at every hour of the day. Her prudery as an old maid made her
disapprove of this love-affair; but seeing that such a course provided
an unlimited supply of dainties for her epicurean appetite, she forced
herself to tolerate it.
“If I were in your place,” she continued, in order to conciliate
Joanna, “I should give him the best part of the stew. A fine thing to
have scruples of conscience on account of one’s masters! They would see
one die with as little pity as they would a dog.” And with a bitter
smile which disclosed to view her yellow teeth, she added,--
“She told me not to be long at the doctor’s, which is as much as to
say, ‘Get well soon, or go to the devil!’”
She sighed profoundly, and took up a broom from a corner of the kitchen.
“Ah, Senhora Joanna, the lot of the poor is a hard one! They are beasts
of burden,--nothing more!”
She went downstairs and began to sweep the corridor, brushing the dust
noisily towards the landing. She had passed a bad night. In her room
just under the roof she had felt as if she were suffocating; and the
smell of the bricks heated by the sun had given her palpitations of
the heart ever since the beginning of the summer. She drew her breath
with difficulty. Yesterday she had been unable to keep anything on her
stomach during the day 5 and to-day she had risen at six, and had not
had a moment’s rest since then, dusting and putting things in order,
notwithstanding the pain in her side, and a nauseated stomach. She
had opened the door leading from the stairs, and continued to sweep,
grumbling, and striking the broom against the banisters.
“Is the senhora at home?” asked a voice behind her.
She turned around quickly, and saw before her on the landing a
gentleman with a dark complexion, and a mustache curling up at the
ends, his hat pulled slightly over his brows, and a flower in his
buttonhole.
“The senhora is going out,” said Juliana. “If the gentleman wishes to
give me his name--”
“Say I wish to see her on business,” he replied,--“on business relating
to mines.”
One of his hands was concealed in the pocket of his light striped
trousers, and with the other, in which he held a cane, he was absently
striking the plaster of the wall.
Luiza, standing pensively before the glass, with her hat on, was
placing two tea-rose buds between the buttons of her jacket, when
Juliana announced the visitor.
“On business!” she repeated with surprise. “It most be something
concerning Jorge. Let him come up. What kind of a person is he?”
“A well-dressed gentleman.”
Luiza pulled down her veil, slowly drew on her light Suède gloves, gave
a final touch to her lace necktie, and then opened the door of the
parlor. But the moment she did so she drew back in surprise, blushing
deeply. She had recognized the stranger at once; it was her cousin
Bazilio.
They shook hands with dubious cordiality, and without a word. Both
remained silent for a moment, she with her face suffused with blushes,
he taking in every detail of her appearance with a glance of admiration.
But words soon came, and questions followed one another in quick
succession. When did he arrive? Had she recognized him? How did he find
out where she lived?
He had arrived the day before in the steamer from Bordeaux, he said,
and had sought information concerning her at the Ministry. There they
had told him that Jorge was in Alemtejo, and had given him her address.
“Good Heavens! how you have changed!” he added.
“Grown older?”
“No, indeed; grown more beautiful.”
They continued conversing in a natural tone and with animation.
Luiza asked Bazilio what he had been doing in all these years, and
if he intended to remain in Lisbon. Then she opened the blinds to
let more light into the room. They sat down, he on the sofa, in a
languid attitude; she near him, on the edge of an arm-chair, her hands
trembling, her nerves unstrung.
He had abandoned, he said, the forced labor of exile, and had come to
breathe awhile the air of old Europe. He had been in Constantinople, in
the Holy Land, in Rome. The last year he had devoted to Paris. He had
just come from there,--from delightful Paris!
He spoke tranquilly, leaning towards Luiza with a certain air of
familiarity; his feet, encased in patent-leather shoes, were stretched
out comfortably before him on the carpet.
Luiza observed him attentively, and thought him more bronzed than
before, and more manly looking. A few threads of silver shone here
and there among his black locks, but his mustache still preserved its
former proud and intrepid air, his eyes their liquid softness. She
glanced at the pin--a horseshoe set with pearls--in his black silk
cravat, and at the little stars embroidered on his silk stockings.
Decidedly, Brazil had not caused him to deteriorate; he had come back
looking more interesting than ever.
“But you--” he said, smiling and leaning towards her; “tell me of
yourself. Are you happy? You have a little one--”
“I!” answered Luiza, laughing. “No; who has told you that?”
“I was told so. Is your husband to be long away?”
“Three or four weeks.”
“Four weeks! Almost widowhood!”
He asked permission to come and see her often of a morning, to have a
chat with her.
“Why not?” she answered. “You are the only relative I have left in the
world.”
And this was the case. The conversation then took a tinge of sadness,
turning on more familiar themes. They spoke of Luiza’s mother, Aunt
Jójó, as Bazilio used to call her. Luiza told him how she had expired,
tranquilly and without a sigh, in her easy-chair. These recollections
caused her to shed a few tears.
“Where is she buried?” asked Bazilio. “In our vault, I suppose,” he
added gravely, pulling down with a solemn air the cuffs of his colored
shirt.
“Yes,” responded Luiza.
“I must go there--poor Aunt Jójó! But you were going out,” he said,
after a few moments’ silence, half rising from the sofa.
“No,” she answered, “no. I was only going to the house of a friend to
pass away an hour or so.” And she took off her hat. As she did so,
Bazilio noticed the undulating grace of her figure.
“In other times I was the one intrusted with the task of putting on and
taking off your gloves,” he said, caressing the ends of his mustache.
“I think,” he added, “that I should still continue to enjoy the
exclusive privilege of doing so.”
“I think not,” interrupted Luiza, laughing.
“Ah, true; times have changed,” said Bazilio, slowly, with eyes fixed
on the carpet.
Then they spoke of Collares; his first thought on arriving in
Lisbon had been of going to see the villa. Was the swing under the
chestnut-tree still there? And the white rose-bush beside the plaster
Cupid with the broken wing,--was it still in existence?
Luiza had heard that the place was now owned by a Brazilian, who had
made many improvements in it. He had built an observatory commanding a
view of the road, with a Chinese roof adorned with large glass balls;
and the old family dwelling-house had been torn down, and replaced by a
new one furnished by Garde.
“Our poor billiard-room, with its yellow walls,” said Bazilio, with
a melancholy accent, “and its garlands of roses! Do you remember our
games at billiards?”
“We were a pair of children, then,” responded Luiza, smiling in
confusion, as she twisted her gloves between her fingers.
Bazilio crossed his feet, and with eyes fixed on the flowers of the
carpet appeared to give himself up to remembrances of a happy past.
“Those were my happiest days,” he said at last, in a voice full of
emotion.
Luiza could contemplate, unobserved, the delicate head of Bazilio bent
down by the melancholy weight of these recollections of past happiness,
and his black hair, in which a silver thread shone here and there. She
felt herself possessed by a vague emotion, and rising, she opened the
window, as if she would dispel her agitation by letting in a flood of
light. Then Bazilio spoke of his travels, of Paris, of Constantinople.
Luiza said that she had always longed to travel in the East, with the
caravans, seated on the back of a camel, fearless alike of the desert
and of the wild beasts.
“How courageous you have become!” said Bazilio. “Formerly you were
afraid of everything. Do you remember the wine-cellar in papa’s house
at Almada?”
Luiza colored. She remembered the wine-cellar very well, with its
slippery floor, and its damp coldness that made one shiver; its
oil-lamp hanging from the wall, that illuminated with a red and smoky
light the large dark beams covered with cobwebs, and its row of casks
dimly visible in the shadow. He had often given her a stolen kiss
there under cover of the darkness.
She asked Bazilio how he had spent his time in Jerusalem, and if it
were a pretty place.
“It is worth seeing,” he responded. In the morning, after breakfast,
he would go for a moment to the Holy Sepulchre; then he generally rode
out on horseback. The hotel, too, was not altogether a bad one, and
one met there occasionally charming Englishwomen; he had formed the
acquaintance of several illustrious personages. He spoke of these with
deliberation, swinging his foot to and fro,--his friend the Patriarch
of Jerusalem; his old friend the Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne. But
the time he most enjoyed, he said, was the evening, in the Garden of
Olives, before him the walls of Solomon’s Temple, below the obscure
village of Bethany, where Martha spun at the feet of Jesus, and in the
distance the water, shining motionless under the rays of the setting
sun. He had passed some delightful moments there, seated on a bench,
tranquilly smoking his pipe.
“And were you never in any danger?” Luiza asked him.
“Ah, yes, indeed,” he answered. “I was once in a frightful storm of
sand in the desert of Arabia Petrea. But what a delightful trip,
travelling with the caravans in the daytime, and sleeping in a tent at
night!” And he described his dress, consisting of a cloak of camel’s
hair with red and black stripes, a dagger of Damascus hanging from a
Bagdad belt, and the long lance of the Bedouins.
“That must have been very becoming to you.”
“Very; I have some photographs of myself taken in that dress. I will
give you one. Do you know that I have brought you some presents?” he
ended.
“Indeed!” she said, her eyes brightening.
“The best one first,--a rosary.”
“A rosary?”
“Yes; a relic blessed first by the Patriarch of Jerusalem on the tomb
of Christ, and afterwards by the Pope.” For he had seen the Pope, he
said,--a little old man dressed in white.
“Formerly you were not very devout,” said Luiza.
“No; but I don’t like to show a want of respect for those things,” he
answered, laughing. “Do you remember the chapel in our house at Almada?”
In this chapel they had spent many a delightful hour. In front of it
was a court, full of tall flowering plants, and the poppies, at the
least breath of wind, trembled like red-winged butterflies balancing
themselves on a stem.
“And the branches of the lime-tree, on which I used to practise my
gymnastic exercises, do you remember?”
“Let us not speak of the past,” said Luiza.
“What would you have me speak of, then? The past is my youth, the
happiest time of my life!”
“And in Brazil, what did you do?” she asked, smiling.
“What a country!” he exclaimed. “I made love there to a mulatto girl.”
“And why did you not marry her?”
“You are jesting. Marry a mulatto! Besides,” he continued, in an
accent that was meant to disclose the presence in his soul of painful
memories, “since I did not marry when I ought to have done so, since I
lost the best opportunity I shall ever have, I shall always remain a
bachelor.”
“And what other present have you brought me besides the rosary?” said
Luiza, after a silence during which her cheeks had become suffused with
crimson.
“Ah, Suède gloves for the summer,” he replied, “with eight buttons.
Here they wear short gloves of two buttons, leaving the wrist exposed,
which is horrible! From what I see, the women of Lisbon are the
worst-dressed women in the world. It is something atrocious! Of course
I do not include you among them, for you are dressed with simplicity,
with _chic_, like every other woman of taste; but in general it
is frightful! What fresh and delightful toilets I saw in Paris this
summer! But in Paris everything is better than anywhere else. Since I
have been here, I have been able to eat nothing,--absolutely nothing.
There is no place like Paris for eating.”
Luiza, meantime, kept turning round and round between her fingers a
gold locket attached to her neck by a black velvet ribbon.
So then he had been a whole year in Paris, she said.
“A delightful year,” he answered.
He had a charming apartment that had been occupied by Lord Falmouth, in
the Rue St. Florentin. He had kept three horses--
“In a word,” he continued, bending forward, with his hands in his
pockets, “trying to pass through this vale of tears as comfortably
as possible. Is there any likeness in that locket?” he asked, after a
pause.
“My husband’s.”
“Ah, let me see it”
And he opened the locket. Luiza’s face, as she bent forward to allow
him to do so, was close to Bazilio’s breast, who breathed in the
delicate perfume exhaled by her hair.
“He is a good-looking fellow,” said Bazilio.
There was a moment’s silence.
“How warm it is!” said Luiza. “It is suffocating, is it not?”
She rose and opened the window slightly. The sunlight no longer fell
upon it, and a breath of air agitated the heavy folds of the curtain.
“It is as warm here as it is in Brazil,” said Bazilio. “Do you know
that you have grown taller?” he added, abruptly.
Luiza was standing by the window. Bazilio’s glance, calm and cold,
followed every line of her figure. In more familiar tones, his elbows
resting on his knees, and his face turned towards her, he said,--
“Come, tell me frankly, did you think I would come to see you?”
“What a question! If you had not come I should have been very angry.
Are you not the only relative I have left in the world? I am only sorry
that my husband is not here.”
“It is precisely because I knew he was not here--”
Luiza turned crimson with confusion and emotion. Bazilio, himself
somewhat confused, continued, repressing a smile,--
“I mean--perhaps he may know something of what passed between us.”
“Nonsense!” she interrupted; “we were only children then. All that took
place so long ago.”
“Children! I was twenty-seven years old,” observed Bazilio, smiling and
leaning towards her.
There was a moment of embarrassing silence. Bazilio twisted his
mustache and looked around him.
“You are comfortably situated here,” he said at last.
She acknowledged that it was so. The house, although small, was
commodious, and belonged to them.
“I find it all very comfortable,” said Bazilio. “Who is that lady with
the gold spectacles?” he asked, yawning slightly, and pointing to a
portrait on the wall, opposite the sofa.
“That is my husband’s mother.”
“Ah! Is she still alive?”
“No; she died some time ago.”
“That is the best thing a mother-in-law can do.”
He again yawned discreetly, glanced down at the pointed toes of his
shoes, and with an abrupt movement took up his hat and rose.
“Are you going already?” said Luiza. “Where are you staying?”
“At the Central Hotel. When shall we see each other again?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“Is it permitted to kiss the hand of an old--friend and cousin?” he
asked, smiling, and taking Luiza’s hand in his.
“Why not?”
Bazilio imprinted a long kiss, accompanied by a gentle pressure, on
Luiza’s hand.
“Good-by,” he said.
In the doorway, holding back the portière, he again turned towards her.
“Will you believe that a little while ago, as I came upstairs, I asked
myself how all this was going to turn out?”
“All this? What? Of course we had to meet again; of course! Why, what
did you think?”
“I did not think that you were so good,” he said, after a moment’s
hesitation. “Good-by,” he added, “until to-morrow.”
At the foot of the stairs he lighted a cigar.
“The deuce! how lovely she is!” he thought; “and I--what a fool I was,”
he added, throwing the match on the floor with violence, “to have
almost resolved not to come! She is desirable--the cousin, much more so
than formerly; and alone in the house, face to face with _ennui_,
perhaps. It is well worth while.”
On reaching the Patriarchal he hailed a passing cab, entered it, and,
his legs stretched out before him, his hat between his knees, gave
himself up to reflection, while the hacks trotted on.
“And besides, it would seem that she takes care of her person, which is
a rare thing here. Her hands are well cared for, her feet beautiful. To
the attack, then!” he exclaimed, after some further thought. “To the
attack, like Santiago on the Moors!”
When Luiza had heard the door close behind Bazilio she entered her
room, laid her hat on the table, and went to take a look at herself
in the glass. How fortunate to have been dressed! If he had chanced
to find her in her morning-gown, or with her hair in disorder! She
saw that her face was flushed, powdered it with rice-powder, and went
over to the window, where she stood with folded arms, looking out at
the street below, where the sunshine still fell on the wall opposite.
The clock struck four, and Leopoldina would doubtless be dining. What
should she do till five? Write to Jorge? But she felt lazy, it was so
warm; and besides she had so little to say to him. She began to take
off her gown, yawning, from time to time, with a feeling of pleasant
languor. It was seven years since she had last seen her cousin Bazilio.
He was darker than formerly, more bronzed by the sun; but this was
becoming to him.
After dinner she seated herself in a long, low easy-chair beside the
window, with an open book upon her knees. The wind had ceased; the
atmosphere, still warm, of a deep blue in the more elevated regions of
the sky, was motionless; the birds twittered among the branches of the
wild fig-tree; and the regular and sonorous blows of a hammer could
be heard from a neighboring forge. Little by little the blue of the
heavens faded into a uniform whiteness; behind the roofs of the houses
opposite stretched bands of a pale orange-color, like careless strokes
of a painter’s brush. Then darkness, still, diffused, and warm, covered
everything, one bright little star shining tremulously through it.
Luiza leaned back in her chair, silent, absorbed, forgetting to call
for a light.
“What an interesting life is that of Cousin Bazilio!” she thought.
“How much he has seen!” If she too could only pack her trunks and set
out in search of new and unknown sights,--the snow upon the mountains,
foaming waterfalls! How ardently she longed to visit the countries she
had read of in novels,--Scotland with its melancholy lakes; Venice
with its tragic palaces; to cast anchor in bays where a silvery and
luminous sea dies away upon the limpid sands, and from some fisherman’s
hut to behold in the blue distance islands with sonorous names. To go
to Paris,--Paris, above all. But no! she would never travel; they were
poor. Jorge was very domestic, she an obscure Lisboeta.
What did the Patriarch of Jerusalem look like? Was he an old man with
a long white beard, his garments weighed down with gold embroidery,
only to be seen amid clouds of incense that ascended to heaven
mingling with the strains of solemn music? And the Princess de la Tour
d’Auvergne? She was doubtless beautiful, of regal stature, always
attended by pages. Perhaps she was enamoured of Bazilio. The night grew
darker; other stars appeared in the heavens. But what was the good of
travelling, she asked herself,--to have the trouble of packing one’s
trunks, to be forced to pass the night uncomfortably at inns, and to
nod with sleep in the cold dawn, in jolting diligences? Was it not
better to live comfortably in a cosey little house, to permit one’s
self a night at the theatre occasionally, to have a tender husband, and
to enjoy a good breakfast, listening to the canaries singing on sunny
mornings? This was the lot that fate had assigned to her. She was very
happy. Then she thought sadly of Jorge. She longed to embrace him, to
have him here beside her, to see him in his velvet jacket, smoking his
pipe in the study. She had everything she could wish for,--a husband of
whom she was proud, and with whom she was happy, who was handsome, had
magnificent eyes, was loving and faithful. She would not like a husband
who led a sedentary and domestic life, but Jorge’s profession was an
interesting one. It required him to descend into the dark recesses
of mines; it might even call upon him some day to go armed with his
pistols and face a brigade of workmen in insurrection. He was brave; he
had ability. Nevertheless, involuntarily she allowed her thoughts to
revert to Bazilio, with his white burnoose floating on the breeze in
the plains of the Holy Land, or seated in his phaeton in Paris, quietly
controlling the fiery horses. And this suggested to her mind the idea
of a life different from her present one,--more poetic, more adapted to
sentimental episodes.
“Does the senhora desire a light?” asked the tired voice of Juliana at
the door.
“You may bring one,” responded Luiza.
“She is turning something over in her mind,” said Juliana to herself,
as she went away.
Luiza went to the parlor, seated herself at the piano, played over
by ear some fragments of “Lucia,” of “Somnambula,” of the “Fado;”
then, letting her fingers rest on the keys, she began to think of
Bazilio’s visit on the morrow. Should she wear her new dress of brown
foulard? Her eyes began to close with sleep. She went to her bedroom.
Juliana brought the lamp. She came in shuffling her feet along the
floor, a shawl thrown around her shoulders, her countenance drawn and
lugubrious. The sight of her face, with its air of chronic suffering,
irritated Luiza.
“I declare, you remind me of a death’s-head!” she said to her.
Juliana did not answer; she set down the light, and counted out on the
bureau, coin by coin, without once raising her eyes, the change from
the marketing.
“Does the senhora want anything else?” she asked.
“Nothing; you may go.”
Juliana procured her kerosene lamp and went to her bedroom; she slept
in a room under the roof, adjoining that of the cook.
“I remind you of a death’s-head, do I?” she muttered to herself,
furious, as she went.
The room was low and small, with a wooden ceiling and slanting walls;
the sun, falling all day on the tiles overhead, heated it like an oven.
Juliana slept in an iron cot, on a straw mattress. On the rails at the
head of the bed hung several scapularies and the braids of false hair
she wore during the day. At the foot of the bed stood a large wooden
chest painted blue, with a stout lock. On the pine table stood the
little looking-glass belonging to her scanty toilet appurtenances,
a hair-brush almost without hairs, a bone comb, and several little
bottles of medicine. The only adornment of the dirty walls, disfigured
by the traces of the numerous matches that had been lighted upon them,
was a lithograph of Our Lady of Sorrows, and a daguerreotype, in which
could be faintly discerned, amidst the changing lights of the plate,
the badge, and the mustache stiff with pomade, of a sergeant.
“Is the senhora in bed?” asked the cook from the next room.
“Yes, Senhora Joanna, she is in bed,” returned Juliana. “She is in a
bad humor to-day,” she continued with a bitter laugh; “she misses her
husband.”
Joanna, turning over in her bed, made the worm-eaten boards creak under
her weight.
“It is impossible to sleep,” she exclaimed; “it is suffocating.”
“Ah, how comfortable one is here!” cried Juliana, ironically. She
opened the skylight in the roof, cast off her cloth slippers, and went
out to Joanna’s room; but she remained standing in the doorway without
entering: she was the parlor-maid, and avoided familiarities with the
cook. With her long neck, and her head tightly bound with a yellow and
black handkerchief, her face appeared more wrinkled than ever, and her
ears stood out with greater prominence from her head. Her unhealthy
leanness gave her a skeleton-like appearance. She folded her arms and
began to scratch her elbows softly.
“Tell me, Senhora Joanna,” she said in discreet tones, “did you notice
if that individual stayed long to-day?”
“He went away just as you returned,” replied Joanna.
At the foot of the bed a kerosene lamp, placed on a wooden chair,
exhaled its suffocating odor.
“Oh, this is a hell!” exclaimed Juliana, in a tone of exasperation. “I
shall not fall asleep till daylight. Ah, you have a Saint Peter at the
head of your bed,” she added abruptly; “is that for devotion?”
“It is the patron saint of my sweetheart,” said the other, turning
her large black eyes towards the picture. Then she sat up in bed.
She could not endure the heat, she said, and all the evening she had
been suffering frightfully from thirst. She got out of bed, and with
footsteps that made the floor tremble, went over to a jug of water, and
putting it to her lips took a long draught.
“I have been to see the doctor,” said Juliana. “Ah,” she continued with
a sigh, “God alone knows what is the matter with me!”
But if that were so, her companion asked, why did she not make up her
mind to go see the _mulher de virtude_, as she had advised her?
There was not a doubt but she could cure her. She lived near the Poço
dos Negros; she had prayers and ointments for every kind of sickness,
and she sold them for a trifling sum.
“What is wrong with you is the humors--yes, it is the humors,” she
ended.
Juliana had advanced a couple of steps into the room. When the question
was one of sickness or of medicines, she grew more familiar.
“Yes, I have thought it might be well to go see that woman,” she
answered; “but it would cost me half a pound, which is the sum I have
set aside for a pair of boots.”
Boots were her vice; they kept her always poor. She had cloth boots
with varnished toes, leather boots with laces, kid boots stitched in
colors. She kept them locked up in her trunk, carefully wrapped in
tissue-paper, and wore them only on Sundays.
“Ah,” Joanna would say to her in tones of disapproval, “I would rather
take care of my stomach than be thinking of adornments.”
Joanna, too, now began to utter complaints. She had asked a month’s
wages in advance from her mistress, she said. She had only two gowns
left, and those were in ribbons.
“But what could I do?” she ended; “my sweetheart needed money.”
“You allow yourself to be eaten up by that man,” said Juliana, in
accents of mingled disdain and reproach.
Joanna looked at her, and bringing down her hand with violence on the
straw mattress, exclaimed,--
“Even if I had to gnaw my own bones, my last crust of bread should
still be for him.”
“He is well worth it,” said Juliana, slowly, with a cold smile. But one
could see that she was jealous of this sentiment of the cook’s, and of
the pleasure it gave her.
“Yes, he is worth it!” Joanna repeated, with some violence.
“A handsome young man,--the one who came to-day to see the mistress,”
said Juliana. “Better looking than the husband! And you say he stayed
here more than two hours?”
“He went away, as I already told you, just as you came in.”
At this moment the light of the kerosene lamp went out, diffusing
through the room a disagreeable odor and a blackish smoke.
“Good-night, Senhora Joanna; I am going to say my prayers,” said
Juliana.
The cook lay down with so hasty a movement that all the joints of her
bed creaked.
“Good-night, Senhora Juliana; I am going to say the rosary. Oh, Senhora
Juliana,” she added, “if you would say three _aves_ for the health
of my sweetheart, who has been sick, I would say as many for you that
you might get better of your ailments.”
“Agreed, Senhora Joanna!” said Juliana. But after a moment’s reflection
she added, “My chest is better now, but I have severe pains in the
head. Pray to Saint Engracia that I may get rid of the pains in the
head.”
“As you wish, Senhora Juliana.”
“Yes; do me that favor. Good-night.”
Juliana returned to her room, said her prayers, and put out the light.
An insupportable heat descended from the roof. She opened the windows
again, but the hot air from the tiles made vain the hope of being able
to draw an easy breath. And thus it was every night. Besides, the old
wood was full of vermin. Never in any house where she had served before
had she had a worse room.
The cook began to snore on the other side of the wall, and to Juliana,
who felt herself alone in this misery, life seemed a bitter thing.
Juliana was a native of Lisbon. Her full name was Juliana Conceiro
Tavira. Her mother had been a laundress, and had died a short time
after she herself first went out to service. She had now been in
service twenty years. As she herself said, she changed her masters, but
not her lot. For twenty years she had been sleeping in filthy cots,
rising with the dawn, eating the remnants that others left, wearing
shabby clothes, bearing the rude answers and the hard words of her
masters, going to the hospital when she was sick, enduring the pangs of
hunger when she got well again.
This was too much. There were days now in which only to see the
darning-needle or the smoothing-iron gave her nausea. She could never
become accustomed to live out at service. From a child her ambition
had been to keep a little shop, to order, to rule, to be mistress; but
notwithstanding the strictest economy, the crudest privations, the
utmost she had been able to save was a few coins at the end of every
year. Her horror of the hospital was so great that when she had any
slight illness she went to stay with a relative, so that the money so
painfully saved was soon spent. She had never completely recovered from
an illness she had had, and had now lost all hope of ever doing so. She
must live at service till she was an old woman, and pass her life going
from the house of one mistress to that of another. This certainty made
her continually unhappy. Her disposition began to grow sour.
And then, she had no tact; she did not know how to take advantage of
circumstances; she saw her fellow-servants amuse themselves, visit one
another, stand at the windows, go out well-dressed on Sundays for a
walk, rise with the sun singing, and when the master and mistress went
to the theatre, open the door to their sweethearts, and enjoy the rest
and the freedom from restraint. She could not do this; she had always
been of a serious disposition. She performed her tasks, ate her dinner,
and went to bed. On Sundays, when the streets were deserted, she would
stand at the window, with an old towel thrown over the iron railing
so as not to soil her sleeves, and there she would remain motionless,
watching the infrequent passers-by. Others of her fellow-servants were
liked by their mistresses, towards whom they conducted themselves with
humility, whom they flattered, to whom they carried the gossip of the
neighborhood, notes, and confidential messages to be delivered in
secret. She could not reconcile herself to these meannesses.
Ever since she had lived at service, no sooner did she enter a house
than she experienced a feeling of hostility, a dislike to her master
and mistress; her mistresses seldom addressed her, and then with
asperity; her fellow-servants conceived an antipathy towards her; while
they were chatting and jesting, the severe and unbending countenance of
Juliana annoyed them; they called her nicknames,--“the bean-pod,” “the
witch,” and other unflattering names, imitating the nervous twitching
of her nose; they made mocking verses about her. The only persons
from whom she occasionally met with some sympathy were the taciturn
Gallician servants,--exiles from beautiful Gallicia,--who cherished
sad recollections of their native land, and who performed the humblest
offices in the houses of their masters. Gradually she became suspicious
and aggressive. She had continual disputes with her fellow-servants;
she was not going to let any one tread on her neck, she said.
To the antipathy that met her on all sides she responded by isolating
herself more completely, and her disposition grew constantly more sour
and aggressive. She was unable to keep a place for any length of time.
In a single year she had been in three houses. She had left each,
causing a scandal in the neighborhood, bringing the people to their
doors by her cries, and leaving her mistress pale and nervous. Her old
friend Aunt Victoria, the _inculcadeira_, had said to her,--
“You will end by not having a roof to shelter you or a crust of bread
to eat.”
“Bread!” This word, which is the terror, the hope, and the problem of
the poor, frightened her. She endeavored to control herself. She began
to play the part of an inoffensive creature, to perform her tasks with
affected zeal, to put on an air of patient suffering, casting her eyes
up to heaven; but her spirit writhed in secret within her. By the
nervous restlessness of the muscles of her face, and the _tic_ of
her nose, it could be divined that this meekness was only superficial
The necessity for controlling herself induced in her a habit of hatred;
hatred, above all, towards her mistresses,--a hatred irrational and
puerile. She had had mistresses,--rich, with luxuriously furnished
houses, poor, the wives of clerks, old and young, ill-tempered and
amiable; she hated all alike, without difference or distinction.
It was the mistress, and that was enough. She hated them for their
simplest words, for their most trivial acts; if she saw them sitting
down, “Yes, rest,” she would say in her own mind; “let the slave do the
work!” If she saw them go out, “Go, go; let the slave stay behind to do
what you ought to be doing!” Every action of theirs was an offence to
her sadness and her sufferings; every new gown an affront to her gown
of dyed merino.
She detested the gayety of children, and the prosperity of the houses
in which she served filled her with bitterness. The day on which her
master or mistress had any annoyance or showed a sad countenance she
would sing from morning till night, in a _falsetto_ voice, the
_Carta adorada_. With what pleasure did she bring the bill the
day on which the impatient creditor returned with it, divining that it
would cause embarrassment in the household!
“Here is this paper,” she would cry with a harsh voice; “he says he
will not go away this time without an answer.” Every occasion for
putting on mourning delighted her; and under the black shawl provided
for her she had palpitations of the heart through joy. She had seen
young children die in some of the houses in which she had been, and
not even the grief of the mother had moved her; she would shrug her
shoulders, in its presence, with derisive bitterness.
As years passed, these sentiments became stronger. She began to grow
old, and with age her conduct grew more odious. That her master and
mistress should give a _soirée_ or go to the theatre exasperated
her. When some party of pleasure had been arranged, if it began to rain
unexpectedly, what happiness for her! The sight of the ladies dressed
and with their hats on, gazing through the windows with tedium depicted
on their countenances, made her eloquent.
“Ah, Senhora,” she would say, “this is a flood let loose; it is pouring
in torrents; it will not stop raining all day! See! see!”
In addition to all this she was very inquisitive; it was nothing
unusual to surprise her leaning against a closed door, with attentive
ear and eager glance. Every letter that came was minutely examined.
She peeped slyly into open drawers; she read over the papers thrown
into the trash-basket. She walked with catlike Step, and had a trick
of appearing before one when least expected. She scrutinized every
visitor. She was always on the watch for a secret, a good secret, which
she could use to her advantage.
She was very fond of good eating. She cherished a desire--thus far
ungratified--to dine well, with tarts and _entrées_. In the houses
where she waited at table her reddened eyes followed eagerly each plate
as it was handed round; and to serve any one twice from a favorite dish
exasperated her, as if it were a diminution of her share. Her health
had suffered from eating only what was left from her master’s table,
and of that not always enough. She liked wine, and on certain days
would buy a bottle at eighty _reis_,[4] which she would drink
alone, lying in bed, and enjoying it drop by drop.
She had never had a lover. She had been always ugly, and had never
attracted a glance of admiration from any one. The only man who had
ever looked at her with anything resembling admiration was a servant
in the Casino, of a filthy and villainous aspect. Her thinness, her
air of being always dressed in her Sunday finery, had attracted him.
He looked at her with the expression of a bull-dog. He inspired her
with horror, but at the same time his admiration flattered her vanity.
And the only man for whom she herself had ever felt any tender feeling
was a servant, perfumed and handsome, who had laughed at her, calling
her _isca secca_. Her interest in the other sex had never gone
any farther than this, owing to a sentiment of pique and a lack of
self-confidence. An outlet to human feeling was denied her, and from
the want of this supreme consolation, both morally and physically
considered, had sprung the misery of her life.
She had once entertained for a time strong hopes of bettering her
condition. She had entered the service of Donna Virginia Lemos, a rich
widow, and an aunt of Jorge, who was very ill with a catarrhal trouble.
Aunt Victoria, the _inculcadeira_, had cautioned her beforehand.
“Treat the old woman with kindness,” she had said; “be a patient nurse
to her. She is rich, and not miserly; it is not impossible that she may
leave you a good round sum when she dies.”
For a whole year Juliana, devoured by ambition, served the old woman as
her nurse. What zeal in her service! What attentions she bestowed upon
her!
Donna Virginia had a strong love of life; the thought of dying made her
furious. But when she scolded Juliana, in her harsh and guttural voice,
the latter only grew more attentive, more affectionate than before.
The old woman was at last touched by her devotion. She called her her
_providence_; and when visitors came she praised her without
stint. She had spoken very highly of her to Jorge.
“There is not another woman like her!” she exclaimed; “not another!”
“Ah, you have made your fortune,” Aunt Victoria would say to her. “At
the very least she will leave you three _contos de reis_.”
A _conto de reis_! At night, when the old woman lay groaning on
her antique bedstead of lignum-vitæ, Juliana would behold in fancy
a _conto de reis_ lying in refulgent brightness before her, in
heaps of gold prodigious and inexhaustible. What should she do with
the money? And seated at the bedside of the invalid, a shawl wrapped
around her shoulders, her eyes fixed and dilated, she would spend
the hours forming plans,--she would open a millinery shop; and then
she would dream of other joys, hitherto unthought of; a _conto de
reis_ was a dowry; she might marry and have a husband of her own.
All her misery would be at an end. She would eat well, and only of what
she liked,--of her own provisions. She would order; she would have
a servant, _her_ servant She was seized with nervous twitching
in the stomach, from joy. She would be a good mistress; but let the
servants take care to conduct themselves properly; she would tolerate
no answering back, no angry glances. And dominated by these fancies she
would walk softly up and down the room, shuffling her feet and talking
to herself. No, she would countenance nothing that was not perfectly
right and proper; she would be a model mistress.
Here perhaps the old woman would exhale a sigh.
“This one is going to die,” Juliana would say to herself; “she will
certainly die to-day.”
And with eagerness in her eyes she would go presently to the drawers of
the bureau where the money and the papers were kept. Then perhaps the
old woman would want a drink, and Juliana would return to her bedside.
“How do you feel?” she would ask in lachrymose accents.
“Better, Juliana, better.”
“She always thinks herself better,” she would say to herself. “But
the senhora has been restless,” she would say aloud, vexed at the
improvement.
“No,” the patient would sigh; “I have slept well.”
“That is not sleeping; I heard you groaning; you have been moaning all
night.”
She wished to persuade herself that the patient was worse,--that the
improvement in her condition was only temporary, and that the old woman
would soon die. Every morning she followed Dr. Pinto to the door, with
her arms folded, and a long face.
“Is there no hope, Doctor?”
“It is a matter of days.”
She wanted to know how many days,--two days? five days?
“We cannot say, Juliana,” the old man would answer, settling his
spectacles on his nose; “a few days,--seven or eight.”
Eight days! And as her good fortune drew near, she already began to fix
her eyes on three pairs of boots in the window of Manoel Lourenço.
The old woman died at last: Juliana was not mentioned in her will!
Jorge, grateful for the care she had taken of his Aunt Virginia,
paid the rent of a room for her, where she might remain for a few
months, promising to take her at the end of that time into his house
as chambermaid, as he was soon to be married. She fell ill shortly
afterwards, and Jorge paid a bed for her in the hospital; when she
left it for Jorge’s house she had already begun to complain of her
heart. She had lost all her illusions; at times she wished to die.
Luiza thought her, from the beginning, of sinister aspect. She would
have dismissed her at the end of the fortnight, but Jorge would not
consent to it; he did not regard her as Luiza did. Luiza respected
his opinions, but she could not disguise her antipathy, and as a
consequence Juliana soon began to detest her.
Soon afterwards Luiza began the arrangement of her house. The
upholsterers came and renovated the furniture of the parlor. Aunt
Virginia had left Jorge three _contos de reis_, and she, who for
a year had been her nurse, treated by her with as much contempt as if
she were a dog, and bound to her as if she were her shadow, enduring
every species of discomfort, and deprived, night after night, of sleep,
had been repaid with such ingratitude! She began to hate the house. For
this she had many reasons, as she herself said: she slept in a noisome
garret; at her dinner she had neither wine nor dessert; the ironing
was heavy; both Jorge and Luiza took a bath every day, and it was a
toilsome labor to fill and empty the bath-tub. She had served under
twenty mistresses, and she had never before met with such folly. “The
only advantage the place has,” she would say to Aunt Victoria, “is that
there are no children.” She had a horror of children. Besides this, she
found that quarter of the city healthy; and as she had the cook on her
side, the latter gave her from time to time a bowl of broth or some
dainty. Therefore she remained; if it were not for her--
Meantime she performed her duties, and no one had any fault to find
with her. And as she had lost the hope of becoming independent, she no
longer subjected herself to the restraints of saving. She thus took
care of herself, indulging in some culinary fancy from time to time.
She bought elegant boots, gratifying in this manner her puerile vanity.
“I go out to walk,” she would say, “with feet such as few can show.”
Her delight was to go on Sundays to the Passeio Publico, and sit there
on a bench in the most frequented situation, with the edge of her gown
slightly raised, in order to display to the passers-by with secret
pleasure the point of her pretty little foot.