“Much good they’ll do her!” growled Paula, as he left them. His business was bad just now, and the deaths that had recently taken place in the street impressed him with the uncertainty of life. He hated the priests more and more every day; at night he read the Nação, which Azevedo lent him, spitefully turning his eyes away from the devotional articles, which exasperated him and impelled him to atheism, while his disgust at the state of public affairs inclined him to communism. Everything, as he said, was a mass of rottenness.
Going down the street of Alecrim, Bazilio saw the Viscount Reynaldo standing at the door of Street’s Hotel. He told the driver to stop, and getting out of the coupé, said to him,—
“Do you know what has happened?”
“What?”
“My cousin is dead.”
“Poor thing!” murmured Reynaldo, politely.
They walked down the street arm in arm till they reached Aterro. The day was a glorious one; there was an invigorating coolness in the air, the atmosphere was filled with a golden light in which the houses, the trees, the masts of the vessels, took on softer outlines; every sound vibrated with joyous sonorousness; the river shone like molten metal; the boat from Cacilhas sent forth puffs of smoke that floated upward with opaline tints, and a blue haze enveloped the hills, in the midst of which nestled peaceful villas.
As they walked along they talked of Luiza.
The viscount regretted that the poor lady should have died in the midst of such glorious weather. But as a matter of fact he had always thought that affair absurd. For after all, to be frank, what was there in his cousin to attract Bazilio? He wished to speak no ill of the poor lady, who was now lying in that horrible Prazeres, but it could not be denied that she was wanting in chic; she drove in a hired carriage; she had married an employee; she lived in a mean little house; she had no respectable acquaintances; she bought tickets in the lottery; she had no esprit; and she did not know how to dress.
“Still, for a month or two that we are to remain in Lisbon,” murmured Bazilio, with eyes bent on the ground.