LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 733
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Brazilian Short
Stories
Monteiro Lobato
With an Introduction by
Isaac Goldberg
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1925,
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BRAZILIAN SHORT STORIES
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 5
Modern Torture 11
The Penitent Wag 27
The Plantation Buyer 43
INTRODUCTION
Monteiro Lobato represents the most recent phase of the Brazilian
reaction against Gallic literary influence. Though not pretending
primarily to be a writer, he yet has inaugurated what amounts not “to”
almost to a new period of the national letters. At the bottom of his
nationalism, however, is the one valid foundation of art: sincerity.
If occasionally he overdoes his protest against the French, he may
well be forgiven because of its sound basis; it is part of his own
personality to see things in the primary colors, to play the national
zealot not in any chauvinistic sense; he is no blind follower of the
administrative powers, no nationalist in the ugly sense of cheap
partisan drum-beating, but in the sense that true nationalism is the
logical development of the fatherland’s potentialities. A personally
independent fellow, then, who would achieve for his nation that same
independence.
The beginning of the World War found Monteiro Lobato established upon
a fazenda, far from the thoughts and centers of literature. It was by
accident that he discovered his gifts as a writer. The story is told
that one day, rendered indignant by the custom of clearing stubble
fields by fire, and thus endangering the bordering inhabitants, he sent
a letter of protest to a large daily in São Paulo. It seems that the
letter was too important, too well-written, too plainly indicative of
natural literary talent, to be relegated to the corner where readers’
jeremiads usually wail, and that, instead, it was “featured” upon the
first page. From that day the die was cast. The episode, in my opinion,
is far more important than it appears. For, whatever form in which
the man’s later writings are published, they are in a more important
degree just what this initial venture was: a protest, a means of civic
betterment, a national contribution.
It was with the collection named “Urupês” (Fungi) that Lobato
definitely established himself. Upon the success of that book he has
built a powerful publishing house, a splendid magazine (“Revista do
Brasil”--The Brazilian Review), a veritable literary movement. He
excels in stinging comment upon current affairs; he writes books
for the primary schools; he is a practical nature bent upon visibly
altering the national course. As a writer, he is “anti-literary,”
scorning the finer graces. Together with a similar group in Buenos
Aires he underestimates the aesthetic element in art, confusing it,
perhaps, with the snobbish, aloof, vapory spirits who have a habit of
infesting all movements with their neurotic lucubrations. Yet such
a view may do him, as it does Manuel Gálvez in Argentina, or Upton
Sinclair in the United States, injustice. His style, his attitude, his
product, are directly conditioned by the ambient in which he works
and the problems he has set out to solve. Less unjust, surely is the
criticism that may be made against him when--as is characteristic of
such natures--his earnestness degenerates into special pleading, when
his intense feeling tapers off into sentimentality, and when what was
meant to be humor falls away to caricature.
Lobato’s work in every phase is first of all an act of nationalism.
To this caustic spirit, the real Brazil--the Brazil that must set to
work stamping its impress upon the arts of the near future--lies in the
interior of the country, away from the cosmopolitanism of the littoral.
Yet his practise largely belies this implied regionalism.
That he is gifted with the rare faculty of self-criticism may be seen
from a letter I received from him some time after I had introduced him
to North American readers in a newspaper article.
“I was born,” he wrote, “on the 18th of April, 1883, in Tabauté, State
of São Paulo, the son of parents who owned a coffee plantation. I
began my studies in the city, proceeding later to São Paulo, where
I matriculated as a law student, being graduated, like everybody
else, as a Bachelor of Laws. Fond of literature, I read a great deal
in my youth: my favorite authors were Kipling, Maupassant, Tolstoi,
Dostoievsky, Balzac, Wells, Dickens, Camillo Castello Branco, Eça de
Queiroz and Machado de Assis ... but I never allowed myself to be
dominated by any one.” (Let me interrupt the letter long enough to
quote Lobato on literary influences. In his stimulating collection of
critiques entitled “Idéas de Jéca Tatu” he has said: “Let us agree that
imitation is, in fact, the greatest of creative forces. He imitates who
assimilates processes. Who copies, does not imitate; he steals. Who
plagiarizes does not imitate; he apes.” And let us recall that Lobato
presents this book as “a war-cry in favor of personality).” To continue
with the letter:
“I like to see with my own eyes, smell with my own nose. All my
work reveals this personal impression, almost always cruel, for, in
my opinion, we are the remnant of a race approaching annihilation.
Brazil will be something in the future, but the man of today, the
Luso-Africano-Indian will pass out of existence, absorbed and
assimilated by other, stronger races ... just as the primitive
aborigine passed. Even as the Portuguese caused the disappearance
of the Indian, so will the new races cause the disappearance of the
hybrid Portuguese, whose rôle in Brazilian civilization is already
fulfilled, having consisted in the vast labor of clearing the land by
the destruction of the forests. The language will remain, gradually
more and modified by the influence of the new milieu, so different from
the Lusitanian milieu.
“Brazil is an ailing country.”
Let me interrupt once again, to say that in his pamphlet “Problema
Vital,” Lobato studies this problem, indicating that man will be
victorious over the tropical zone through the new arms of hygiene.
The pamphlet caused a turmoil throughout Brazil, and sides were at
once formed, the one considering Lobato a defamer of the nation, the
other seeing in the work an act of sanative patriotism. As a result,
a national program of sanitation was inaugurated. This realism of
approach, so characteristic of Lobato, made of his figure Jéca Tatu a
symbol that has in many minds replaced the idealized image of Pery,
from Alencar’s “Guarany.” Jéca thus stands for the most recent critical
reaction against national romanticism.
“I recognize now,” continues Lobato in the letter, “that I was cruel,
but it was the only way of stirring opinion in that huge whale of most
rudimentary nervous system which is my poor Brazil. I am not properly
a literary man. I take no pleasure in writing, nor do I attach the
slightest importance to what is called literary glory and similar
follies. I am a particle of extremely sensitive conscience that adopted
the literary form,--fiction, the conte, satire,--as the only means of
being heard and heeded. I achieved my aim and today I devote myself to
the publishing business, where I find a solid means of sustaining the
great idea that, in order to cure an ailing person he must first be
convinced that he is, in fact, a sick man.”
Here, as elsewhere, Lobato’s theory is harsher than his practise. He
is, of course, a literary man, and has achieved a distinctive style;
but he knows, as his letter hints, that his social strength may prove
his literary weakness. The truth would seem to be that Monteiro Lobato
is not so much a teller of stories as he is a critic of men. The
three tales by which he is represented in this booklet come from his
“Urupês”; they exhibit him at his favorite pursuit of caricaturing
his fellow men, of deriding their political foibles, their personal
weakness, their social shortcomings. “Modern Torture” would not have
shamed Mark Twain. It is not so intimately Brazilian that it cannot
apply, with little alteration, to wardheelers in the United States.
“The Penitent Wag” is an experiment in the macabre that also serves as
a piece of social criticism. “The Plantation Buyer” is just as comical
in the United States of America as in the United States of Brazil.
As I write, Lobato’s São Paulo is seething with revolt. Revolution, in
ideas and in action have been the history of that region. It is not the
least of Lobato’s virtues that his intellectual revolt seeks practical
outlet. He means his blue-prints to be, some day, inspiring temples.
And he is one of the finest social architects of contemporary Brazil.[1]
ISAAC GOLDBERG
Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1924.
BRAZILIAN SHORT STORIES
MODERN TORTURE
All the barbarity practiced by the Holy Inquisition to subjugate
heretics, the clever tortures of the medieval rack, Ottoman impalement,
the torture of the thousand pieces, the red-hot molten lead, poured
down the throat through a funnel--all the old science of martyrdom
still exists to this day, cloaked under clever disguises. Humanity is
ever the same cruel destroyer of itself, either in centuries before or
after Christ. The form of things changes; but the substance remains the
same.
As proof I here adduce the avatar of the ancient tortures: the
postman’s job.
This torture is equal to the wheel, the bonfire, strangulation, the
strappado, the bronze bull, impalement, the cat-o’-nine-tails, the
pillory, the hydraulic whipping-post; the difference being that these
machines killed with relative rapidity, while the postman’s job
prolongs the agony of the victim for years.
A man goes into the service of postman in the following manner: the
Government, at the hateful suggestion of some political “boss,”--the
modern substitute of the “servant” of the inquisition,--appoints a
citizen mail-carrier between two neighboring towns not served by a
railroad.
The innocent man sees both honor and business in the case: it is
an honor to become one of the crowded phalanx of budget-devouring
parasites who patiently digest the country; it is a good business to
taste at the end of each month a fixed salary and to have, nicely
prepared for the future, the soft bed of a pension.
Here we see the difference between the ominous medieval times and the
super-excellency of the democracy of the present day.
Absolutism brutally seized the victims and without warning or
“habeas-corpus,” murdered them; democracy works with the cunning
of a hypocrite, sets traps, sticks a slice of orange inside and
treacherously waits for the famished bird to fall into the noose, of
his own free will. It wants chance victims and does not choose. This is
called art, artfully done....
The man having been appointed, at first does not perceive his
misfortune. Only at the end of a month or two he begins to have his
doubts; doubts that gradually become a certainty, a horrible certainty
that he has been impaled on the hard back of the worst plug in the
neighborhood, with five, six, seven leagues of torture before him to
consume per day, with the mail-bag behind him on the horse’s back.
These leagues are the pricks of the instrument of torture. For ordinary
mortals a league is a league; the measure of a distance beginning here
and ending there. The traveler, having covered the distance, arrives
and is satisfied. The leagues of the postman, hardly are they over,
return again “da capo” as in music. Having gone over six (suppose the
route to be one of six leagues), he sees them rise up again in front
of him on his return. He must do them and undo them. Penelope’s web,
rock of Sisyphus, and between the going and coming, the bad digestion
of a warmed-up dinner and a bad night; and thus it continues for a
month, a year, two, three, five, as long as he still has buttocks and
his horse has loins.
When he meets a traveler on his way he becomes green with envy: that
one will soon “arrive,” whereas, for the postman, this verb is an
ironical derision. He dismounts with difficulty, worn out, his flesh
on fire at the end of the thirty-six thousand metres of the weary way.
He eats a plate of badly cooked beans, and takes a wretched little
nap. The dawn of the next day stretches out before him and by way of
good-morning, the same accursed thirty-six thousand meters of the
evening before, now lengthened out the other way....
Soon the sore animal weakens and gives out. Now the rider must climb
the hills on foot. He has no means with which to buy another nag. His
salary is spent for corn and a closely cropped pasture for the horse,
and brine for the baths and other remedies for the bruises of both
rider and ridden. There is nothing left for clothes.
The State awards--the same State that maintains fat bureaucratic
caterpillars at a _conto_ and Congressional parrots at a hundred _mil
réis_ per day,--awards him, this generous and wealthy State ...
one hundred _mil réis_ per month. That is, one _real_ for
every nine yards of torment. Twenty _réis_ they pay him for
three hundred and thirty meters of torture. That is, one kilometer of
martyrdom for sixty _réis_. Cheaper pain would be impossible....
The post-made-man begins to shrink from fatigue and hunger. He gets
thin, his cheeks sink in, his legs become brackets within which dwells
the belly of the wretched horse.
Besides the physiological, economical and social calamities, he is also
showered with meteorological woes. The inclement weather does not spare
him. In summer the sun roasts him pitilessly, as nuts are roasted in an
oven; if it rains, he misses not a drop; by the end of May, when the
cold weather begins, benumbed like a subject of the Czar in Siberia,
he devours the infernal leagues. On Saint Bartholomew’s day,[2] as he
hangs like grim death to the mane of the lean mare, it is a miracle
that the devilish wind does not tumble them both over a precipice.
His patrons, the Government, take it for granted that he is made
of iron and his buttocks of chromate of steel; that the roads are
asphalted streets lined with plush; that the weather is a permanent
blue sky with balmy breezes bent upon blowing the sweet perfume of
flowering balsam over the travelers.
It still takes it for granted that the hundred _mil réis_[3] of
salary is a regal remuneration, to make one smack one’s lips. And, in
these angelical suppositions, when financial crises come and economy
must be considered, it cuts down five or ten _mil réis_ from
his meagre salary so that there may be some margin by which some
brother-in-law, graduated in medicine, can go to Europe on a commission
to study the “zygomatic influence of the solar perihelion on the
Zarathustrian system of Latin democracies.”
And thus the army of postmen, more and more emaciated every day, head
over heels in debt, covered with bruises, at the mercy of the December
sun or the benumbing June drizzles, trots, trots, unceasingly, up
hill and down dale, through mud-holes and sand-banks, whirlpools and
slippery slopes, shaken up by the miserable mount that from so much
suffering, poor thing, has lost all semblance of a horse. Its loins are
but an open wound; the ribs a lathwork. This sorry caricature of the
noble _Equus_, finally one day falls exhausted and famished in the
midst of the journey.
The postman throws the harness and the mail-bag over his shoulders
and finishes the journey on foot. However, as on that day he arrives
late, the post-office agent reports to headquarters regarding his
“non-compliance with the rules.” Headquarters get moving; a paper
circulates about several rooms, where, comfortably sprawled out in
expensive armchairs, the stout bureaucracy converses about German
spies. After a long voyage the documents reach an office where a
well filled-out fellow, with good color, is seated at a mahogany desk
smoking a confiscated cigar.
This one earns eight hundred _mil réis_ per month, is son of
someone, brother-in-law, father-in-law or son-in-law of someone
else, begins work at eleven in the morning and leaves at three with
an interval in between to take a cup of chocolate at the café on the
corner. The fatted pig glances over the paper with lazy, listless eyes
and grunts:
“These postmen! What vagabonds they are!”
And signs the dismissal of the culprit for the good of the public
service.
The poor tortured man, turned out, without health, without a horse,
without flesh, full of debts, his insides dislocated by the shaking up
on horseback, finds himself surrounded by creditors, hungry as vultures
around a slaughterhouse. As he is completely cleaned out, he is unable
to pay any of them and, therefore, becomes known as a swindler.
“He seemed an honest man and nevertheless robbed me of five measures
of corn,” says the grocer, a fat man from Calabria, who became rich
circulating bogus money.
“He borrowed one hundred _mil réis_ from me for a horse, at a
small friendly interest (three per cent per month) five years ago, and
all he could pay me was the little premium and the harness as part
payment. What a thief!” said the money-lender, partner of the other in
the circulation of bogus money.
The dry-goods shop lamented the loss of a pair of cotton trousers sold
on credit to the postman some time ago. The drug store bewailed two
pounds of adulterated Epsom salts. And the martyr, steeped in insults,
only sees one way out of it: to take to his feet and run ... run to
any country where he is unknown and can die in peace.
Thus the modern torture of the post service, besides drying up the
flesh of a human creature free from crime, gives him a beautiful moral
death.
And all this so that no news will be lacking to the learned people of
the little towns, unserved by railroads; for they must get the daily
paper and learn about the knifings between Spread-foot and Black Shirt,
the cheese stolen by Little Bahiano from Manoel of the grocery-store,
the novel translated from Georges Ohnet, the country’s rescue from
national thieving, the spouting of Leagues for this and that, the
discovery of spies where there is nothing to spy, polyculture, zebu
oxen, illiteracy, the falsehoods of the International News Agency and
all the nonsense that sprouts from the soil of this wonderful country.
* * * * *
Colonel Evandro’s policy in Itaóca fell through when, at a certain
election, the rival candidate Fidencio, also Colonel, hoisted the
quotation of votes of those who wore neck-ties, to five hundred _mil
réis_ and of those who went bare-foot to two suits of clothes and
a hat besides. The first act of the winner was to turn out everyone
turnoutable connected with public employment. Among those dismissed
were the post-office employes, including the postman, who was replaced
at the suggestion of the Government, by Izé Biriba.
Said Biriba was a human snail, slow in movement and obtuse in ideas,
with two tremendous preoccupations in life: politics and his forelock.
The forelock was a stubborn tangled lock of hair always falling over
his forehead, and so obstinate that he spent half the day raising his
left hand to his forehead in an automatic movement to push back the
rebellious lock. It is needless to say what the politics consisted of.
Forelock and politics, both combined, took up all of his time so that
Biriba found no spare moment in which to work his farm, which finally,
gnawed by the mortgage-bug, fell into the hands of a wily Italian.
Then he started a bar that failed. While he pushed back his forelock,
the customers stole the tips from him; and during the political talks,
the men of his party drank cooling drinks and ate fish-cakes in
celebration of the future victory while they spouted sarcastic remarks
against those in power.
Besides brushing back his forelock, Biriba had the habit of saying,
“Yes, Sir,” used as a comma, semicolon, colon and period in reply to
all the nonsensical remarks of his companions; and sometimes, through
habit, when the customer ceased talking and began to eat, Biriba would
utter a series of “Yes, Sirs,” in accompaniment to the chewing of the
stolen cake.
At the time of the other man’s fall and the ascent of his own faction,
he was reduced to the conspicuous position of an electoral pawn.
He worked like a nigger at the election. The bosses gave him the
hardest jobs: to hunt out country voters hidden away in mountain
fastnesses, to do commerce with their consciences, to bargain prices
of votes, exchange them for mangy mares and prove to the unbelieving,
by arguments whispered in their ears, that “the Government is on your
side.”
After the victory Biriba felt for the first time in his life entire joy
of heart, head and stomach.
To win! Oh, nectar! Oh incomparable ambrosia!
Our friend Biriba fully enjoyed the gifts of the gods. At last the
darkness of his life of misery was dispelled by the happy dawn! To eat
plentifully, to have the upper hand ... delights of victory!
What would the boss give him?
In anticipation of the prize in prospect he spent his time dreaming
rosy dreams until his appointment as postman was announced. With no
inclination for that work he tried to resist, to ask for more; however,
in a conference with his chief, the objections which rose to his lips
were transmuted into the habitual “Yes, Sir,” so that the Colonel was
convinced that his ideal had been realized.
“You see, Biriba, what loyalty is worth. You get a fine job! Regino is
to be agent and you postman.”
The most he could complain of was that he had no horse.
“That can be managed,” said the Colonel promptly; “I have an Arab mare,
single-footer, thoroughbred, worth two hundred _mil réis_; but
since it is for you, you can have her at half price. The money? That’s
a minor matter. Borrow it from friend Leandro. All can be arranged,
man!”
The arrangement was that Biriba bought the trotting mare for double the
price she was worth, with money raised at three per cent per month from
said Leandro, who was merely the creature of Fidencio.
Thus, by a master stroke, the sly boss won interest on the worst nag on
his farm, besides holding the poor idiot, made postman, the halter of
gratitude.
Biriba began his work: six leagues to do today and undo tomorrow,
without any rest except the thirty-first day of every other month.
If only he had simply to devour the leagues in company of the limp
mail-bags. His work, however, did not turn out so easy. As Itaóca
was only a little place perched on a ridge of the mountain range and
lacking everything, his political friends were always looking him up to
order something from the city. When it was already time to leave, the
unscrupulous people would appear with lists of notions or messages sent
by little darkies.
“Missus says will you buy three spools of number 50 thread, a paper of
needles, a roll of white tape, five packages of fine hairpins and if
there is a penny left over will you bring a candy for Master Juquinha?”
Very often all these articles could be found in Itaóca; a trifle
dearer, however, and therefore the object in ordering them elsewhere
was to save the penny for the candy.
“Yes, sir, yes, sir!...”
No other words left his lips, although the continued abuse exasperated
him. Besides the small and less troublesome orders there were other
large ones, such as leading a harnessed horse to Mr. So-and-so who was
to arrive on such and such a day, to accompany Mr. Etcetera’s wife, and
other missions of like nature. Whenever Tiburcia, the collector’s black
cook, went on a holiday rest to the city, Biriba was detailed to take
her.
It was so I met him, protecting the Amazon. On the way to Itaóca,
half way there, I met a man mounted on the most dilapidated mare that
ever I saw; behind him he carried mail bags and several smaller bags,
besides a new broom stuck into the harness with the straw part up. He
had stopped in a stupid attitude, holding by the bridle a little horse
carrying a side-saddle. I approached him asking for a light. Having lit
the cigarette, I inquired who was riding the other horse.
“I am accompanying Dona Engracia who is mid-wife in Itaóca; she
dismounted for a moment and....”
I heard a rustle behind me: out of the woods came a large ruddy woman,
her skirts stiffly starched and on her head a little cap of the time
of His Most Faithful Majesty.... Not to embarrass her I went on my
way, but not without looking out of the corners of my eyes to enjoy
the postman’s difficulty in placing on the little horse the mid-wife’s
generous avoirdupois.
And the scoldings....
“Mr. Biriba, it wasn’t number 40 thread I ordered. You are stupid!”
When the material was not right:
“Couldn’t you see that the calico would fade, you ass?”
What hurt him above all was to carry for the execrable people of the
opposition. The Colonel of the opposite party, neutral or secret
opponent, did not hesitate to take advantage, through the influence of
a third party, of the martyr’s good faith.
Biriba recalled painfully a thoroughbred goat that gave him great
trouble on the way, and several butts besides; finally upon his arrival
he discovered that the animal was destined for the enemy. Everybody
received news of the incident with laughter and jest.
“This Biriba is an idiot! To think of his bringing the opposite party’s
goat! Ha! ha! ha!”
This and other happenings embittered him. He became thin and yellow.
The poor mare lost all shape of a horse. Her loins became sway-back so
that the rider’s feet nearly touched the ground. Biriba sank when he
mounted. His head nearly came on a level with the mare’s haunches and
ears. Horribly sore, the miserable animal’s eyes were always filled
with tears of pain. All this suffering, however, instead of moving the
hard hearts of the people of Itaóca, amused them and was the cause of
endless ridicule and idiotic jokes about the “postman of the Sorry
Aspect and his Bucephalus,” as they were nicknamed by a town wag....
Scrofulous as they, only one other creature, Cunegundes. Cunegundes was
a dog without owner, covered with mange, that strayed about the town
avoiding flies and kicks. What should they do but change Cunegundes’
name to Biriba! The scoundrels!
And soon the Government contributed to the torture by deciding to cut
down the salaries of the postmen in order to save itself on a certain
occasion from financial difficulty.... And it did so.
Clothes threadbare. At the beginning of the rainy season a charitable
soul presented Biriba with an old rain-coat; however, the first
downpour showed the recipient that the coat leaked like a sieve, thus
increasing his difficulty with an overweight of cloth that absorbed
several quarts of water.
Biriba lost his patience and grumbled.
Alas! The boss soon heard of it and called him to account.
“Is it true that you are complaining of the job we gave you? Perhaps
you would rather be elected senator or Vice-President? A shabby thing
that went about nearly dying of hunger, due to our generosity obtains a
Federal post, with a right to a pension, a fairly good salary ... (here
Biriba coughed out a “Yes, Sir”) finds everything easy, receives a good
animal and still complains? What does Your Excellency desire, then?”
Biriba took his courage in his hands and declared that he only desired
one thing: his dismissal. He was ill, worn out, threatened with the
loss of the mare and his haunches at any moment. He wanted to change
his mode of living.
“So one’s mode of life can be changed offhand like that? You want to
abandon your friends: And partisan discipline, what of that, my dear
idiot?”
Biriba’s dismissal would suit no one.
Who could be of greater service? They recalled the former postmen, rude
fellows, unwilling even to bring a paper of needles to anyone. He must
not leave. He must sacrifice himself for Itaóca.
However the daily torture of having his insides shaken up along seven
leagues ended by loosening the cement of his political loyalty. The
martyr’s eyes were opened. He remembered with longing the ominous days
of Colonel Evandro, the delights of the bar and even the degrading
cat’s paw service of electioneering days. Things had grown worse
undoubtedly after the victory.
This free examination of conscience, believe me, was the beginning
of the downfall of Colonel Fidencio. Biriba, the staunch support,
was rotting at the base. He would fall and with him the roof of that
political shanty. In his harassed soul the viper of treason made its
nest....
As the new election was approaching, new victory only meant a new
three years of martyrdom for the postman. Biriba confabulated with his
mare and decided that the salvation of both lay in defeat. He would
be dismissed and, veteran and martyr of Fidencio’s party, he would
continue to warrant the support of the party without suffering through
his bruised haunches the hateful contact of the seven daily hours of
shake-up.
He decided to betray.
On the eve of the election, Fidencio commissioned him to bring an
important paper from the city for the counting up of votes. Don’t know
what it was. A paper. The word “paper,” said in a mysterious tone,
means “something.”...
I know nothing of elections. I couldn’t say positively if a “paper”
that isn’t just paper has the power to decide these social ills. All
I know is that everything depended on the “paper,” so much so that
Biriba’s mission was a secret one. Fidencio emphasized the importance
of the commission--the greatest proof of confidence ever given by him
to any electoral pawn.
“Take care! Our fate is in your hands. There’s confidence for you, hey?”
Biriba set out; he received the paper and started to return. Half way
he took a side path which led to an old negro’s hut. He loosened the
mare and began to talk with the gorilla. Night fell and Biriba remained
where he was. The next day dawned and Biriba still kept quiet. Ten days
passed thus. At the end of the ten days he harnessed the mare, mounted
and went off to Itaóca as though nothing had happened.
His appearance caused astonishment. All efforts to find him during the
day of the election and those following had been in vain; they had
given him up as lost, eaten by the panthers, he, mare, mail-bag and
“paper.” Now to see him appear alone and calm, made mouths open and the
whole village gape. What had happened?
Biriba met all questions with an idiotic expression. He explained
nothing. Knew nothing. Cataleptic sleep? Witchery? He did not
understand what had happened. To him he seemed to have left the day
before and to have come back today.
Everyone was astonished and looked foolish. Fidencio was in bed with
brain-fever and delirious. He had lost the election completely. “Out
and out defeat,” said Evandro’s followers, setting off whistling
fire-works.
In consequence of the inexplicable eclipse of the postman, the
exominous Evandro assumed leadership. The slaughter began. Everything
savouring of Fidencio was turned out.
However the new broom of dismissals spared ... Biriba! The new chief
approached him and said:
“I threw out all the trash, Biriba, except you. You are the only saving
grace of the Fidencio tribe. Rest easy, your little place will not be
taken from you, even though the heavens fall!...”
Biriba, for the last time in Itaóca murmured his, “Yes, Sir.” That
night he kissed his mare’s nozzle and went forth on his tip-toes. He
reached the high-road, disappeared, and no one ever saw him again....
THE PENITENT WAG
Francisco Teixeira de Souza Pontes, bastard scion of a Souza Pontes
family, rich planters of Barreiros and owners of thirty thousand
“arrobas”[4] of coffee, at thirty-two years of age began to take life
seriously.
A wag by nature, up to that time he had lived off his comic strain and
thereby reaped board, lodging, clothing and all else. His currency
consisted of grimaces, jokes, anecdotes about Englishmen and everything
that tickles the facial muscles of the animal that laughs, commonly
called man, provoking hilarity or raising hearty guffaws.
He knew So-and-So’s “Encyclopedia of Laughter and Mirth” by heart--the
most mirthless creature God ever made, but such was Pontes’ ability that
he could turn the most feeble jokes into excellent witticisms, to the
delight of his hearers.
He had a knack for imitating man and beast. The entire gamut of a dog’s
voice, from the baying of the hound chasing the wild pig, to howling at
the moon and all other sounds, growling or barking, were imitated by
him to such perfection as to deceive both dogs and moon.
He also grunted like a pig, cackled like a hen, croaked like a toad,
scolded like an old woman, whimpered like a baby, enjoined silence like
a Representative or speechified like a patriot at a street meeting.
What two-legged or four-legged hum of voices did he not mimic to
perfection, as long as he had before him an audience well equipped with
those “muscles of mirth” invented by our talented authoress Albertina
Bertha?
On other occasions he reverted to prehistoric times. When his
hearers were not over ignorant, drawing upon his own modicum of
learning, he would reconstruct for their intellectual delectation the
paleontological roars of extinct brutes, love-growls of mammoths to
their mates or the yells of the _stegosaurus_ upon seeing hairy
_homos_ perched upon tree-ferns, according to the laughable
descriptive science of Barros Barreto.
If he ran across a group of friends talking on a street corner, he
would come quietly up to them and slap the calf of the nearest leg. It
was funny to see the frightened jump and hear the nervous “Get out!”
of the unsuspecting victim, followed by the hilarious laughter of the
others and also of Pontes who had his own mode of laughter, boisterous
and musical--music after Offenbach. Pontes’ laugh was an imitation of
the natural and spontaneous laughter of the human species, the only one
that laughs, with exception of the drunken fox,--and passed abruptly
without transition into a seriousness irresistibly comic.
In all his gestures and manner, in his way of walking, reading, eating;
in the most trivial details of life, this man possessed of the devil,
differed from the others in that he made prodigious fun of everything.
This reached such a point that it was only necessary for him to open
his mouth or raise his hand, for humanity to writhe in laughter. The
sight of him was enough. As soon as he appeared, all faces beamed; if
he made a spontaneous gesture, laughter could be heard, if he opened
his mouth some shrieked, others loosened their belts so as to laugh
better. If he spoke, good Lord! one heard shrieks of laughter, yells,
squeaks, chokes, sniffling and tremendous catching of breath.
“He beats the devil, this Pontes!”
“Hold on, man, you’ll make me gag!”
And when the wit tried to look innocent and idiotic, remarking:
“But what did I do? I never opened my mouth....”
“Ha, ha, ha!” everyone laughed, their jaws aching, weeping
spasmodically with uncontrollable hilarity.
As time passed, the mere mention of his name was enough to provoke
merriment. If anyone pronounced the word “Pontes,” the gun-cotton of
risibles by which man raises himself above animals who do not laugh,
would instantly ignite.
Thus he lived until the age of Christ in a smiling parable, laughing
and provoking laughter, without a serious thought,--a vagabond life
that exchanges grimaces for dinners and pays small bills with ponderous
jokes. A merchant whom he had cheated once said to him, amidst bursts
of spluttering laughter:
“You amuse me, at least, and are not like Major Carapuça who cheats
with a face like a wooden Indian.”
That unstamped receipt troubled our wag not a little; but as the bill
amounted to two dollars, it was well worth the trick. However, the
memory of it remained, like a pin-prick to his self-respect. Following
this came other pin-pricks, some shoved in with less force, others
straight through.
One wearies of everything. Sick of such a life, the tireless joker
began to dream of the joy of being taken seriously, of speaking and
being listened to without the play of facial muscles, of gesticulating
without disturbing human dignity, of crossing a street without hearing
a chorus of “Here comes Pontes!” in the tone of those who check
laughter or prepare themselves for a hearty guffaw.
Attempting reaction, Pontes tried to be serious--a disaster! Pontes
solemnly changed his tactics and adopted English humorism. Formerly he
was amusing as a clown, now he took the part of Tony.
The enormous success which everyone supposed to be a new phase of his
comic strain, threw the penitent wag into despair. Was it possible that
he could never follow any other path in life than that one, now so
hateful to him? A clown then, everlastingly a clown against his will?
But the life of a grown man requires seriousness, gravity and even
soberness, unnecessary in youth.
Even the most humble government employment, an office of alderman,
requires that immobility of countenance, characteristic of laughterless
idiocy. One cannot conceive a smiling alderman. Rabelais’ phrase is
lacking in one exception: laughter is the prerogative of the human
species,--aldermen excepted.
As the years passed, reflection matured, self-respect grew and the free
dinners tasted bitter to him. The coining of joke currency became very
difficult; it no longer was cast with the former light-heartedness; now
it was done as a livelihood, not in thoughtless merriment of the days
past. He mentally compared himself to a circus clown, old and ailing,
obliged through poverty to transform rheumatism into comical faces
required by the paying public.
He began to flee from mankind and spent months in the study of the
transition necessary to obtain an honest employment for his activities.
He thought of going into business, commerce, the administration of a
plantation, the setting up of a bar--anything was preferable to the
comic idiocy adopted up to the present.
One day, his plans fully matured, he decided to change his way of
living. He looked up a friendly tradesman and frankly told him of
his intentions to reform, finally asking him for a place in his
business-house, if only that of sweeper. He hardly finished telling
his plans when the Portuguese and all the cashiers who looked on at
a distance awaiting the outcome, writhed in a hearty guffaw, highly
delighted.
“What a good joke! First class! Ha! ha! ha! Then you ... ha! ha! ha!
You’ll give me a pain, man! If it’s on account of that little bill for
cigarettes, rest easy, I’m already paid for it! Ha! ha! ha! Pontes
has.... Do you hear that one, Jose? Ha! ha! ha!”
And the clerks, customers, the loafers and even the passers-by stopped
on the sidewalk to hear the joke, and their laughter sounded like
policemen’s rattles as they shook until their sides ached.
The wretched creature, bewildered and perfectly serious, tried his best
to dispel the misunderstanding:
“I am in earnest and you have no right to laugh. For God’s sake, don’t
make fun of a poor unfortunate who asks for work and not laughter.”
The merchant loosened his belt.
“You mean it? Pshaw! Ha! ha! ha! Look here, Pontes, you....”
Pontes left him in the middle of his sentence and went forth with his
soul tortured by despair and rage. It was too much. Then everyone
spurned him?
He applied at other houses in the town, explained as best he could,
implored. The case was judged unanimously as one of the best jokes of
the “incorrigible” wag and many persons commented upon it with the
usual observation:
“He is still the same! he’ll never behave, that devil of a fellow, and
he is no longer young....”
Barred from trade, he turned his attention towards the farms. He looked
up an old planter who had dismissed his overseer and stated his case.
The Colonel, after listening attentively to his reasons, ending up with
the offer to take on the job as overseer on the farm, exploded in a fit
of laughter.
“Pontes overseer! He! he! he!”
“But....”
“Let me laugh, man, you don’t hear this sort of thing in the country
very often. He! he! he! Splendid! I have always said there was no wit
like Pontes! None!”
And shouting within doors:
“Maria, come and hear Pontes’ latest. He! he! he!”
That day the unfortunate wag wept. He understood that one cannot
destroy overnight what has taken years to form. His reputation as a
funny man, as a joker, as inimitable, as monumental, was built of far
too good mortar and cement to crumble so soon.
However, it was necessary to change his mode of life and Pontes began
to reflect on government employment, the most convenient and only
possible master in this abstract case, because it neither knows how
to laugh, nor does it know from close observation the cells whence
laughter arises. This master, and this one alone, would take him
seriously--the road to salvation, therefore, lay in that direction.
He studied the possibility of a post-office agency, notary office,
collector’s office and others. Weighing well the pros and cons, trumps
and suits, he decided upon the choice of a federal collector’s office,
the occupant of which, a Major Bentes, being old and suffering from
heart trouble, was not expected to last long. His aneurism was the talk
of the town, the final break being expected at any moment.
Pontes’ trump card was a relative in Rio, a rich man on the way to
influence in politics, should a change of government occur. Pontes
chased after him and worked so hard to interest him in his claim that
the man finally dismissed him with a sure promise.
“Go in peace, for when the affair breaks out here and your collector
breaks down there, no one will laugh at you any more. Go, and advise me
of the man’s death without waiting for the body to cool.”
Pontes returned radiant with hope and patiently waited for subsequent
events, with one eye on politics and the other on the provident
aneurism.
Finally the crisis came; ministries fell, others rose to power and
among these a negotiating politician, partner of the relative. Half the
battle was over, the other half still to be fought.
Unfortunately the Major’s health came to a standstill without any
visible signs of a rapid decline. His aneurism was, according to the
doctors who killed by allopathy, a serious thing, which could break
with the slightest effort; but the cautious old man was in no hurry to
leave a life of comfort, for a better world, so he fooled the illness
with an ultra-methodical regime. If a violent effort would kill him
then such an effort should not be made.
Pontes, already almost owner of the prize, became impatient with the
swaying balance of his calculations. How could he clear the way of that
obstacle? He consulted in Chernovitz’s medical manual on aneurisms;
learned it by heart. He inquired here and there about all that had
been said and written on the matter and became more familiar with the
subject than ever Dr. Ioduret, a local doctor, who, we may truthfully
say, knew nothing at all.
The apple of science thus eaten, he was led to the temptation of
killing the man, obliging him to burst the aneurism. An effort would
kill him? All right, Souza Pontes would lead him to make that effort.
“A hearty guffaw is an effort,” he satanically philosophized to
himself, “so a guffaw can kill. Well, I know how to provoke laughter.”
Many days passed, lost to the world in a mental dialogue with Satan.
Crime? No! in what code is to be found the provocation of laughter as
a crime? If the man died of this the fault would be due to the bad
condition of his great artery.
The rascal’s head turned into a field of combat where his “plan” fought
a duel against all objections raised by conscience. His bitter ambition
served as judge of the contest and heaven knows how often said judge
prevaricated, led by scandalous partiality for one of the combatants.
As was expected, Satan won and Pontes reappeared before the world a
little thinner, with dark rings under his eyes but with a strange
light of victorious decision in his expression. Anyone observing him
closely would note his nervous manner; however, close observation was
not a prevailing virtue among his countrymen and furthermore, Pontes’
various states of mind were of no importance because Pontes....
“Well, Pontes was just Pontes!”
The future employe proceeded to plan a careful campaign. In the first
place it was necessary to approach the Major, a reserved man and not
fond of jests; to ingratiate himself into his home life, study his
whims and pet habits until he could discover in what part of his body
lay the weak spot.
He began to frequent the receiver’s office assiduously, under various
pretexts, sometimes for stamps, sometimes for information regarding
taxes; everything was an excuse for sly and clever prattle meant to
undermine the old man’s severity.
He would also go on other people’s business for the paying of excise
taxes, taking out permits and other little matters. He became of great
use to the friends who had business with the exchequer.
The Major was surprised at such assiduity and said so, but Pontes
evaded the question, turning it into a joke, and persevered in a well
calculated conclusion to let time round off the sharp corners of the
sick man.
Within two months Bentes had become used to that “chipmunk” as he
called him, who on the whole seemed a good sort of fellow, sincere,
eager to be of use and above all, harmless. From asking him a favor
on a very busy day, then another and still a third, and finally
considering him as a sort of adjunct to the department, was only a
step.
For certain commissions there was no one like him. Such earnestness!
Such subtleness! Such tact!
One day the Major, reprimanding the clerk, held up his diplomacy as an
example.
“You great idiot! go learn with Pontes who has a knack for everything,
and is amusing besides.”
That day he invited Pontes to Dinner.
Pontes’ soul was filled with joy: the fortress had opened its doors to
him.
That dinner was the beginning of a series where the “chipmunk,” now an
indispensable factotum, found a first-class field of action for his
tactics.
Major Bentes, however, possessed one invulnerable point: he never
laughed, he limited his hilarity to ironical smiles. A joke that would
make the other guests rise from the table smothering their mouths in
their table-napkins, would barely elicit a smile from him. And if the
joke were not of the very best, the bored collector pitilessly guyed
the story-teller.
“That’s old as the hills, Pontes, I remember reading it in Laemmert’s
Almanack for 1850.”
Pontes would smile with a vanquished look; but would inwardly say,--if
that one wasn’t appreciated another would be.
All his sagacity was focussed on the discovery of the Major’s weak
point. Each man has a preference for a certain class of humor or wit.
One delights in wanton jests of rotund friars. Another regales himself
with the boisterous good-humoured German joke. Still another would
give a year of his life for the Gaul’s spicy vulgarity. The Brazilian
adores a joke which exposes the rank stupidity of the Portuguese--the
most convenient way our people have found to demonstrate by contrast,
their own intelligence.
But how about the Major? Why did he not laugh at the English, German,
French or Brazilian jokes? Which did he prefer?
Systematic observation and methodical exclusion of the classes of humor
already found inefficient, led Pontes to discover the weak point of
his stern adversary. The Major delighted in tales of Englishmen and
friars. But they must be stories of both together. Separate, they were
a failure. Just an old man’s crankiness. At the appearance of red-faced
Britishers, with cork helmets, checked clothes, formidable boots and
pipes, side by side with rotund friars doting upon a hogshead of wine
and revelling in feminine flesh, the Major would open his mouth and
suspend his chewing like a child enticed by candy; and when the comic
climax was reached, he would laugh, but without exaggeration enough to
upset the equilibrium of his circulation.
Pontes with infinite patience bet on that class of fun and stuck to
it. He increased the program, the spiciness, the dose of malice and
systematically bombarded the Major’s great artery with the fruits of
his clever manipulation.