“Does the senhora wish anything else?”
“No.”
“Good-night, Senhora.”
And no further word was exchanged between them.
“It seems a dream!” said Luiza to herself, as she undressed sorrowfully. “That woman here in my house, with my letters in her possession, to torture me and rob me!”
What had brought about this state of affairs? She did not know, events had followed each other so rapidly, with the furious haste of a tempest. She had no time to think and to defend herself; she was carried along, and she found herself in her own house in the power of her servant. Ah, if she had only spoken to Sebastião! He, no doubt, had money. With what eagerness she would take it, pay Juliana’s demand, and send her away, and her trunks with her, her rags, everything! She determined to go speak to Sebastião and tell him everything, there in his own house, in order to make the stronger impression upon him. After a while, worn out by the agitations of the day, she fell asleep, and dreamed that she saw a large black bird, with the wings of a bat, flying through her room, creating a current of air as it passed; it was Juliana. She ran in terror into the study, calling on Jorge; but she saw there neither books, nor bookcase, nor table,—nothing but a pyramid of bundles of cigars, and in the balcony Jorge caressing a woman magnificently formed, who was seated on his knee, and who said to him, with languid voice and eyes full of passion, “Brejeiros or Xabregas cigars?” Then she thought she fled from her house, and after a series of confused events found herself beside Bazilio, in a street without end, in which the façades of the palaces had a cathedral-like aspect, and through which carriages rolled on majestically. She told Bazilio, with tears in her eyes, of Jorge’s treachery; and her cousin hovered around her, making love to her while he sang, accompanying himself on the violin,—
“I sent a letter to Cupid
To ask if the duty laid
By the Court of Love be binding
On a heart that has been betrayed.”