“But you have a bachelor’s degree, haven’t you?” he asked, in some surprise.
“Yes, I believe so, if I haven’t lost it somewhere along the road, but——”
“Then you are a doctor in Brazil,” he replied, “for the bachelor’s degree carries with it that title in this country.”
“Dr.” Franck I remained, therefore, as long as I continued to manage the Kinetophone.
With matinées only on Sundays, I found plenty of time for my favorite sport of tramping the countryside. One afternoon I strolled at random out beyond the low, dry, reddish cliffs at the edge of town and struck off in the direction of São Caetano. Great banks of white clouds lay piled into the sky on all sides, and the dead-dry, almost burning stretch of rolling country was half-hidden under a haze of red dust. I passed several suburban beer-halls, each with its “Giocce di Bocce,” or Italian nine-pin earth court behind it, and wandered on along more red roads, the light-colored houses scattered over the rolling country showing up in front and disappearing behind me in the thick, dust-laden atmosphere as in a fog. Gradually I came to realize that almost a procession of men, women and children was bound in the same direction, some tramping the dusty road on weary, blistered feet, others lolling at their ease in carriages and automobiles. Not a few of the latter were expensive private cars with chauffeurs in livery.
For nearly an hour I followed the same direction. Then all at once, topping a slight ridge, I came upon all the concourse that had gone before—automobiles, carriages, and pedestrians—gathered in a broad bare space on the brow of a treeless, thirsty hill. Down below the throng was a small tile-roofed hut with two bar fences so arranged before it that only one person at a time of the crowd that was jammed up against it could enter and bend over a sort of counter across the open door to talk with a man inside. Each ended the interview by handing the man a ten, or more, milreis note and passed out through a gap between fence and hut. Though the entire assortment of Brazilian complexions was to be found in the throng, many were full whites, blond European immigrants as well as women in silks and diamonds, dandies in gloves, spats and canes—and every mother’s son and daughter of them talked with bated breath while they waited their turn to approach the counter. When this came, the men reverently raised their hats, the women gave a species of curtsey and in many cases kissed the man’s hand, then conversed with him for two or three minutes in an undertone, which could not but have been heard by those crowded nearest to the speaker. Then they paid the fee and passed on, with as contrite and sanctified a look on their faces as if they had just ended a private conference with St. Peter. Each carried away a mammoth visiting card bearing the name Vicente Rodriguez Viera, and at the exit a shaggy countryman halted each by thrusting forth photographs of the man behind the counter, which each hastened to buy with a meek and grateful countenance, as if by divine command.
Inside the hut was an electric push-button which, like the back door, connected with a rambling lot of fazenda buildings, and near at hand was a large liquor emporium and two restaurants of a crude, frontier-like variety. I was preparing to sample the attractions of the latter when the man behind the counter suddenly rose and strolled toward the farmhouse in the rear, leaving the perspiring crowd—automobiles, diamonds and all—to await his sweet will about returning. He was a big bulk of a countryman, plainly a caboclo, or copper-colored native Brazilian of considerable Indian and probably some negro blood, with a great bushy black beard. Dressed in an uncreased, broad-brimmed felt hat, a heavy, dark suit, and black riding-boots, he wore also a colored handkerchief knotted loosely about his neck, a conspicuous watch-chain and charm across his slightly prominent abdomen, and huge brass rings on seven of his fingers considerably enhancing his general air of cheap vulgarity. His face was puffy under the eyes and had a “foxy” expression that no one of a modicum of experience with the human race could have mistaken for anything than what it was,—proof of cunning rascality.
As the fellow was returning to the hut I approached the vendor of photographs and asked who the man was. His ally gave me a look of mingled astonishment and disgust for my ignorance and explained that the noble being was a curandeiro, or a “curer.”
“You mean a physician?” I suggested.
“No, senhor, not a doctor; a curandeiro.”