“Do you think I have done right? Tell me,” Sebastião continued. And after a pause, “She is a virtuous woman in the fullest sense of the word, Julião,” he added.
They remained silent. The day was cloudy, and there were signs of a coming tempest in the air. Large clouds, heavy and gray, had been gathering in the heavens, and now darkened the horizon in the direction of Graça; a creeping wind came from time to time from behind the hills, setting the leaves of the trees in motion.
“You are now convinced of that,” resumed Sebastião. “Is it not so?”
Julião shrugged his shoulders, and a melancholy smile passed over his lips.
“What would I not give if my troubles were like yours!” he said.
And he then began to speak with bitterness of his own anxieties. Within a week the examinations for the place of a substitute in the School were to take place, and he was preparing for it. It was the plank on which he hoped to escape shipwreck, he said. If he could obtain that position he would be able to make a name afterwards, and get sufficient practice to enable him to live,—perhaps, after a time, to amass a fortune. And what the deuce! At least he would not have to go out. But the certainty of his own superiority did not tranquillize him, for in Portugal,—was it not so?—in these matters, science, study, talent, are all a farce if one has not influence, and he had none. And his competitor, an ignorant fellow, was the nephew of a director-general, had acquaintances in the Chamber, was in fact a formidable opponent. So that while he worked hard to pass the examination, he was also seeking a wedge with which to displace his adversary. To whom should he apply?
“Do you know no one, Sebastião?” he asked.
Sebastião thought of a cousin of his, a deputy from Alemtejo, a person of importance among the conservatives. If Julião wished, he would speak to him. But he had always heard it said that nothing was obtained in the School by favor or by intrigues. Besides, Julião had at his disposal Counsellor Accacio.
“An idiot,” said Julião; “a bombastic fool! Who pays any attention to him? Your cousin, eh? Your cousin seems to me a good idea. It is necessary that some one should speak in my favor,—should work for me.”
He was going on to explain his thesis, when Sebastião interrupted him, saying,—