EXPIATION.
ON the following morning Jorge went for the first time in some days to
the Department, but he did not remain long. In the street the presence
of strangers and of acquaintances was alike irritating to him; he felt
as if every one was acquainted with his shame; in the most innocent
glance he thought he discovered some secret intention, and in the most
friendly hand-clasp a token of sympathy. He returned home in a more
morose mood and more weary of life than ever; on entering the hall he
heard Luiza singing the _Mandolinata_, as in other times. She was
dressing.
“How do you feel?” he asked, putting his cane in a corner.
“Better,--much better; a little weak still.”
Jorge took a few steps up and down the room.
“And you?” she asked.
“So, so,” he answered, in so mournful a tone that she laid down the
comb she was using, and going over to him, with her hair hanging loose
around her, placed her hands caressingly on his shoulders.
“What is the matter?” she said. “There is something the matter with
you. I find you so altered for some days past. You are not the same. At
times you look as if you had committed some crime. What is the matter?
Tell me!” And her glance sought his, which he turned away in confusion.
She embraced him, and urged him again to tell her what was the matter.
She asked him to confide in his _little wife_.
He looked at her fixedly, and suddenly, as if he had just come to a
decision,--
“Very well, then,” he said. “I will tell you. You are well now, and you
can hear it. Luiza, for the past two weeks I have lived in a hell, and
I can endure it no longer! You are well now, is it not so? Well, then,
what is the meaning of this? Tell me the truth.” And he held Bazilio’s
letter before her eyes.
“What--is it?” she articulated, pale as death, taking the letter in her
hand.
She opened the letter, saw Bazilio’s handwriting, and divined
everything at a glance; she looked at Jorge for a moment with the gaze
of madness, extended her arms mutely, then raised her hands to her head
with an uneasy gesture as if she had received a sudden wound, gave a
hoarse cry, staggered and fell, first upon her knees, and then full
length upon the floor.
Jorge uttered a cry, and the two servants came running in. They laid
her on the bed. Jorge told Joanna to run quickly for Sebastião, and
stood stupefied beside the bed, gazing at her, while Marianna loosened
her mistress’s dress.
Sebastião came at once. There was ether in the house, and they made her
inhale it. When she opened her eyes Jorge threw himself down beside
her on the bed.
“Speak, Luiza, hear me!” he cried. “I do not doubt you, no! only speak
to me. What do you feel?”
At the sound of his voice a convulsive shudder ran through her, and she
fainted again. Sebastião went hastily in search of Julião.
Luiza appeared sunk in a stupor, motionless and white as wax, her hands
lying helplessly outside the quilt, while two tears rolled slowly down
her cheeks. Shortly afterwards a carriage stopped at the door, and
Julião entered, out of breath.
“She took ill suddenly, Julião. Come, she is very ill,” cried Jorge,
meeting him at the door.
They made her inhale more ether, and she again came to herself. Julião
spoke to her while he felt her pulse.
“No, I want no one,” she murmured, drawing away her hand; and she
repeated impatiently, “I want no one; go away!”
Her tears continued to flow. They went out of the bedroom, in order not
to irritate her, but they soon heard her call,--
“Jorge!”
He went in again, and kneeling down by the bedside, approached his face
to hers, saying,--
“What ails you? Come, let us say no more about it; it is past. Don’t
get sick. I love you; I swear it to you. Let it be what it will, I
don’t want to know it. I want to know nothing.”
Seeing she was about to speak, he laid his hand upon her mouth: “I
want to hear nothing. I want you to be well--not to suffer. Say you are
better. To-morrow we will go to the country and forget it all. It is
all past now.”
“Jorge, Jorge,” she murmured, in a choking voice.
“Very well, yes; but now you are going to be happy again. Tell me what
you feel?”
“Here!” she answered, raising her hands to her head. “It hurts me!”
Jorge rose to his feet in order to call Julião, but she detained him,
and gazing eagerly at him, with feverish eyes, approached her face to
his. He bent towards her and pressed on her lips a long, long kiss full
of forgiveness.
“Oh, my poor head!” murmured Luiza.
Her temples throbbed violently, and a burning flush suffused her
countenance. As she often suffered from headache, Julião did not regard
her illness as very serious; he advised absolute repose, and ordered
mustard plasters to the feet till he came again. Jorge remained at the
bedside, his mind filled with melancholy presentiments; from time to
time he sighed profoundly.
Four o’clock struck; a fine rain was falling, a melancholy light filled
the apartment.
“This will be nothing!” Sebastião would murmur.
Luiza tossed about on the bed, pressing her head between her hands,
tortured by the pain that was momentarily increasing, and burning with
thirst.
Marianna went about the room on tiptoe, setting things in order, and
wondering at this house in which nothing was to be seen but sickness
and sorrow. But even her light steps tortured Luiza as if they were
blows of a hammer upon her skull.
Julião did not remain long away. When he entered the bedroom the aspect
of the patient alarmed him. He lighted a match and held it close to her
face; the light made her give a scream as if a cold steel had pierced
her brain. Her dilated eyes shone with a metallic brilliancy. She lay
very still, for the slightest movement caused her horrible pains in the
back of her neck. Only from time to time she smiled at Jorge with an
expression of mute and resigned wretchedness.
Julião placed three pillows, one above the other, under her head,
to keep it elevated. Night was falling without, damp and chill. In
Luiza’s room they went about cautiously and on tiptoe; they stopped
the monotonous ticking of the clock on the wall. The patient began to
moan wearily, and to toss about from side to side with sharp cries of
pain; then she would lie motionless, uttering groans of anguish. They
had applied mustard plasters, but she did not feel them. Towards nine
o’clock she grew delirious; her tongue was dry and of a dirty white
color. Julião applied cloths wet in cold water to her head, but her
delirium continued to increase. At times she would utter a hoarse and
indistinct murmur, in which the names of Leopoldina, Jorge, and Bazilio
followed one another in rapid succession; then she would toss her arms
wildly, and tear her nightgown with her hands; again she would try to
sit up in bed, her eyes rolling in their sockets till only the whites
were visible. Then she would remain quiet for a time, smiling with an
imbecile sweetness; then she would pass her hand caressingly over the
quilt with an expression of childish delight. By and by she would begin
to gasp for breath, she would mutter some words in a terrified voice,
and strive to hide herself among the pillows and bedclothes, as if she
were pursued by some frightful phantom; she would press her hands to
her head, begging them to open it and relieve her of the weight that
tortured her,--to take pity upon her, the tears coursing meanwhile down
her cheeks. They put her feet in a hot mustard-bath whose pungent odor
filled the room. Jorge poured words of consolation and entreaty into
her ear; he supplicated her to be calm, to look at him with recognition
in her eyes. Suddenly she flew into a violent passion, demanded her
letters, heaped maledictions on Juliana, and in the same breath, in
the midst of endearing epithets spoke of sums of money. Jorge feared
that in her delirium she would reveal everything to Julião and to the
servants, and a cold perspiration covered his brow. At times he would
fly like a madman from the room, and throw himself on the sofa in the
parlor, sobbing and writhing in anguish.
“Is she in danger?” Sebastião asked Julião.
“Yes,” he answered. “If she had felt the mustard-plasters--but these
accursed brain-fevers--”
They were silent on seeing Jorge re-enter the bedroom, his face pale
and rigid as that of a corpse. Julião took him by the arm and led him
outside. “Listen, we must cut off her hair,” he said.
Jorge gazed at him stupidly.
“Her hair?” he repeated, catching him by the arm. “No, Julião, no;
anything else you wish,--you ought to know what is best. But not her
hair,--no, no, for the love of Heaven, no! She is not in danger. Why
cut off her hair?”
“The mass of hair interferes with the action of the water.”
“To-morrow, if it must be so, to-morrow. Wait until to-morrow, and I
will eternally be grateful to you, Julião.”
Julião consented, against his will; but he caused wet cloths to be kept
constantly applied to her head. As Marianna’s hand trembled so as to
wet the pillow a great deal, Sebastião seated himself at the head of
the bed, and let the water drop slowly on her head from a wet sponge
all night. So as to have a constant supply of cold water they filled
jugs and set them in the balcony. The delirium abated a little during
the night, but her bloodshot eyes had a wild aspect and the pupils
looked like small black points.
Jorge, seated at the foot of the bed, his head between his hands, kept
his face fixed upon her; he recalled vaguely other nights of vigil when
she was ill with pneumonia, and recovered. She was even paler then,
with a pallor that imparted a softer aspect to her countenance. They
would go to the country when she grew better; he would hire a little
house, and would go out there in the omnibus every day after business,
and watch her waiting for him at the door in the distance as evening
was softly falling. Here a moan fell upon his ear, and he raised
his eyes, startled. She seemed to him changed; he fancied she was
disappearing before his gaze, in the midst of the feverish atmosphere
that filled the alcove, the heavy stillness of the night, and the
pungent odor of the mustard. He sighed, and returned to his former
immobility.
Joanna was praying upstairs. The candles that had burned with a dull
flame were going out. At last a faint light threw the shadows of the
leaden setting of the window-panes on the white curtains. Day was
dawning. Jorge stood up, and going over to the window looked out. The
rain had ceased, and the pavements were beginning to dry; the light
was gray and misty. Silence reigned over everything. A forgotten towel
moved slowly in the cold wind on the balcony of the Azevedos.
Jorge went into the alcove. Luiza was muttering in a gasping voice. She
was vaguely conscious of the mustard plasters, but the pain in her head
had not abated. She began to toss about in bed, and shortly afterwards
the delirium returned. Julião ordered her hair to be cut off at once.
Sebastião went to the Rua da Escola for a hair-cutter, who came at
once, the collar of his coat turned up about his ears, and looking
half frozen. With fingers greasy with pomade he took slowly out from a
little leathern bag the razors and the scissors.
Jorge went into the parlor; he felt as if, with those beautiful locks
that were falling one by one under the sharp steel, the edifice of his
happiness were falling to the ground stone by stone. With his head
clasped between his hands he recalled to mind certain fashions in which
she had worn her hair, certain shades it was wont to take in the light.
He went back, irresistibly drawn to the alcove; he listened to the
metallic sound of the scissors, and his glance fell on a little cup
on the table filled with soap-suds, and in which rested a well-worn
shaving-brush. He called to Sebastião in a low voice,--
“Tell him to be quick; I am burning at a slow fire; tell him to be
quick!”
He went to the dining-room; he wandered restlessly through the house.
As the light grew stronger the cold increased; the wind rose, whirling
along clouds of gray dust. When he returned to the bedroom the barber
was putting away his instruments as slowly as he had taken them out.
When this was accomplished he took up his shabby hat and went out on
tiptoe, murmuring in lugubrious accents,--
“I shall rejoice to hear of the lady’s recovery. God grant that this
may be nothing.”
The delirium passed away at the end of an hour, and Luiza fell into a
doze, giving utterance to faint moans that broke from her lips like an
inward lament for her ruined life.
Jorge told Sebastião that he would like to call in Dr. Caminha. He was
an old physician who had attended Jorge’s mother, and he had brought
Luiza safely through an attack of pneumonia in the second year after
their marriage. Jorge had retained a grateful admiration for that
celebrity of by-gone days, and all his hopes were now fixed on him, as
if he were some saint who was to perform the miracle of restoring Luiza
to health. Julião deigned his consent, for he regarded the old doctor
with esteem, and Sebastião hurriedly went for him to his house.
Luiza, roused for an instant from her lethargy, heard them speaking in
low tones, and called to Jorge in a faint voice.
“They have cut off my hair,” she said sorrowfully.
“It is for your good,” said Jorge, looking almost as deathlike as
herself. “It will soon grow again and be finer than ever.”
She did not answer; two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.
This must have been her last sensation. The prostration of coma had
begun to paralyze her faculties; from time to time her head moved
gently on the pillow; she moaned continually, in a gasping voice; her
face grew gradually paler, and the noises in the street failed to
produce any impression on her senses. At noon Donna Felicidade made her
appearance; she was struck dumb at seeing Luiza so ill, when she had
come with the intention of carrying her off to the Encarnação, and even
to the shops. She took off her hat and installed herself in the house.
She caused the alcove to be put in order, had the mustard plasters and
the various articles used during Luiza’s illness put away, and arranged
the bed, for there was nothing worse for a sick person, she said, than
an untidy bedroom; and she bravely strove to inspire Jorge with courage.
A carriage stopped at the door; it was Dr. Caminha at last. He came in,
his throat enveloped in a green-and-black check muffler, complaining
of the cold, and slowly drawing off his gloves, which he placed
methodically inside his hat. He advanced to the alcove with measured
step, smoothing down with his hand the few gray hairs brushed flat
against his head. Julião remained alone with him in the alcove, while
the others waited outside in silence with Jorge, who was pale as wax,
with eyes like lighted coals.
“We are going to put a blister on the back of her neck,” said Julião,
coming out of the room.
Jorge devoured Dr. Caminha with his eyes as the latter, putting on his
gloves, said,--
“We shall see the result of the blister. She is very ill now, and she
may be worse. I will return, my friend; I will return.”
The blister was useless; she did not feel it; she lay pallid and
motionless, with drawn features, and the nerves of the face twitching
convulsively.
“There is no hope,” said Julião to Sebastião, in a low voice.
Donna Felicidade was seized with terror, and began to talk of the
“rites of the church.”
“What for?” growled Julião, impatiently.
Donna Felicidade declared that she had scruples of conscience, that it
was a mortal sin; and calling Jorge over to the window, she said to him
in a trembling voice, “Don’t be frightened, Jorge; but it would be well
to think of the rites of the church.”
“The rites of the church!” repeated Jorge in terror.
Julião interposed abruptly, in an accent of irritation:
“Let us have no nonsense! What is the use of sacraments, if she neither
hears, nor understands, nor feels? It is necessary to put on another
caustic, perhaps to cup her. These are the only sort of sacraments that
are of any avail here.”
But Donna Felicidade was shocked, and began to cry.
“You forget God, and there is no hope for her but in him,” she said,
blowing her nose noisily.
“And what does God do for me?” exclaimed Jorge, roused from his stupor
and throwing out his hands as if in protest against an injustice. “What
have I ever done that this should happen to me? What have I ever done?”
Julião ordered another blister. Confusion reigned in the house. Joanna
came into the room, when no one looked for her, with some broth that
no one had asked for, her eyes red with weeping. Marianna sobbed in
corners. Donna Felicidade came and went, shut herself up in the parlor
to pray, made vows to the saints, and considered whether it might not
be well to call in Dr. Barbosa or Dr. Barral.
Luiza meantime remained motionless; the livid hue of her features
imparted to them a rigid and swollen appearance.
Julião, faint with hunger, asked for a glass of wine and a piece of
bread. Then they remembered that they had not eaten anything since
the previous day, and they went to the dining-room. Joanna, her eyes
swimming in tears, placed some soup and eggs on the table, but she
gave them neither plates nor spoons; she alternately murmured a prayer
and asked them to excuse her. Jorge, meantime, his swollen eyes fixed
on the edge of the table, with contracted features, nervously twisted
his napkin in his hands. After a little he left the table and went
downstairs to the bedroom. Marianna was seated at the foot of the bed.
Jorge sent her upstairs, telling her to go wait on the table; and as
soon as she was gone, falling upon his knees by the bedside, he took
one of Luiza’s hands in his and began to speak to her, first in a low
voice and then more loudly,--
“Listen, hear me, for the love of God. Do not remain thus; try to get
better. Don’t leave me alone in this world, for I believe in no other.
Forgive me, tell me that you forgive me; give me some sign that you do.
She does not hear me, my God!”
And he looked at her with an expression of anguish on his countenance.
Then raising his arms wildly,--
“Thou knowest that I believe in thee, my God,” he cried. “Save her!
save her!” And lifting up his soul to Heaven, he continued: “Hear me,
my God! Listen to me. Be merciful!”
He gazed and gazed, waiting for a movement, a voice, a miracle. But
everything seemed to him more still than before. The livid countenance
began to sink in. He placed his hand with cowardly vacillation upon
her head, from which the wet cloth had partly fallen; it was cold. He
smothered a cry, ran out of the room, and stumbled against Dr. Caminha,
who was entering, taking off his gloves with deliberation.
“Doctor, she is dead! She does not speak; she is cold!” he cried.
“Let us see, let us see,” responded the doctor. “Softly, softly!”
He took Luiza’s hand, and felt her pulse escaping under his fingers
like the expiring vibration of a chord.
Julião arrived shortly afterwards, and he agreed with Dr. Caminha that
the cupping was useless.
“She would not feel it,” added the doctor, shaking the snuff from his
fingers.
“What if we were to give her a little brandy?” said Julião suddenly.
And he added, on seeing the look of astonishment on the doctor’s
face, “At times these symptoms of coma do not signify that the brain
is disorganized; it may be inaction of the nervous force. If death
is inevitable nothing is lost; and if it is only a depression of the
nervous system, she may be saved.”
Dr. Caminha shook his head incredulously.
“Theories,” he murmured.
“In the English hospitals--” began Julião.
Caminha shrugged his shoulders with contempt.
“If the doctor would only read--” Julião insisted.
“I read nothing,” said Caminha, raising his voice. “My books are my
patients.” And he added with an ironical bow, “Nevertheless, if my
intelligent colleague wishes to make the trial--”
“A glass of brandy or whiskey!” called out Julião from the door of the
bedroom.
Caminha seated himself tranquilly, to enjoy the discomfiture of his
“intelligent colleague.”
They raised Luiza’s head, and Julião made her swallow a little of the
brandy. When they laid her back again in bed, she remained in the
same condition of comatose immobility as before. Dr. Caminha took out
his watch, looked at it, and waited. An anxious silence reigned. At
last the doctor rose, felt the pulse of the patient, and noted the
increasing coldness of the extremities; then he took his hat, without
speaking, and began to draw on his gloves.
Jorge went out with him, and catching him forcibly by the arm, said,--
“Well, Doctor?”
“Everything is being done that can be done,” said the old man,
shrugging his shoulders.
Jorge remained at the head of the stairs, stupefied, watching the
doctor go down; his slow footsteps, as he went down step by step,
resounded dolorously in Jorge’s heart. He leaned over the banister and
called to him softly. The doctor paused and looked up. Jorge followed
him.
“Then--there is no hope?” he said in a voice of mingled humbleness and
entreaty.
The doctor made a vague gesture and pointed toward heaven.
Jorge returned to the alcove, supporting himself along the wall. He
knelt down at the foot of the bed, and remained there, his head buried
in his arms, sobbing quietly.
Luiza was dying. Her beautiful arms, that she had so often caressed
before the looking-glass, were already paralyzed; her eyes, that had
flamed with passion or shone humid with pleasure, were sunken in their
sockets. Donna Felicidade and Marianna had placed a lighted lamp before
an engraving of the Virgin of Sorrows, and were praying on their knees.
Twilight was falling sadly, and seemed to bring with it a funereal
silence. The bell rang discreetly, and a few moments afterwards the
countenance of the Counsellor Accacio appeared at the bedroom, door.
Donna Felicidade rose to her feet, and on seeing her tears the
counsellor said,--
“I come to perform a duty,--to accompany you on this sad occasion.”
He said he had met the good Dr. Caminha by chance, and that he had
informed him of the dreadful event. But he had no wish to enter the
alcove. He sat down in a chair, rested his elbow sorrowfully on
his knee, and his head in his hand, saying in a low voice to Donna
Felicidade,--
“Go on with your prayers. The designs of God are inscrutable!”
In the alcove Julião felt Luiza’s pulse and glanced at Sebastião,
making a gesture with his hand as of something about to vanish.
They approached Jorge, who was motionless on his knees, his face buried
in the bedclothes.
“Jorge,” whispered Sebastião to him, almost inaudibly.
He raised his face, that looked haggard and aged; his hair hung in
disorder over his forehead, and dark rings were about his eyes.
“Come away,” said Julião. And he added, seeing the terror depicted on
Jorge’s countenance, “No, she is not dead; she is still in the same
lethargic condition. Come.”
Jorge rose, and answered with gentleness,--
“Yes; I am going. There is nothing the matter with me--thanks.” And he
left the alcove.
The counsellor rose, and embraced him with solemnity, saying,--
“I am here, dear Jorge.”
“Thanks, Counsellor, thanks.”
He took a few steps up and down the room; from time to time he glanced
uneasily at a package that was on the table; he took it up, opened it
slightly, and saw Luiza’s hair; he looked at it, passing it from one
hand to the other, and said, kissing it tenderly, “She took such pride
in it, my darling!”
He returned to the alcove, but Julião took him by the hand and sought
to draw him away. He resisted gently, and pointing to a candle that was
on the little table by the bed, said,--
“Perhaps the light troubles her.”
“She can no longer see it, Jorge,” said Julião, deeply moved.
Jorge drew his hand from Julião’s clasp and threw himself on Luiza’s
body; he caught her head between his hands, gazed at it a moment with
exquisite tenderness, then kissed her cold lips twice, murmuring,
“Good-by, good-by!”
He rose to his feet, extended his arms, and fell to the floor,
senseless. They hastened to him, lifted him up, and laid him on the
sofa. And while Donna Felicidade, drowned in tears, closed Luiza’s
eyes, the counsellor, his hat still in his hand, folded his arms, and
shaking his respectable bald head, said to Sebastião,--
“What a terrible misfortune for our Jorge!”