Succumbiu; e com isto esvaiu-se-lhe aquella
Visão fantastica e subtil.
Hoje, quando elle ahi vae, de áloe e cardamono,
Na cabeça, com ar taful,
Dizem que ensandeceu, e que não sabe como
Perdeu a sua mosca azul.[3]
As one reads this, a fable comes to mind out of childhood days. What is this poem of the fly, but the tale of the man who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, retold in verses admirable for colour, freshness,—for everything, indeed, except originality and feeling? Those critics are right who find in Machado de Assis a certain homiletic preoccupation; but he is never the preacher, and his light is cast not upon narrow dogmas, with which he had nothing to do, but upon the broad ethical implications of every life that seeks to bring something like order into the chaos we call existence,—a thing without rhyme or reason, as he would have agreed, but what would you? Every game has its rules, even the game of hide and seek. And if rules are made to be broken, part of the game is in the making of them.
Companioning the search for roots of illusion is the theme of eternal dissatisfaction. This Machado de Assis has put into one of the most quoted of Brazilian sonnets, which he calls Circulo Vicioso (Vicious Circle):
Bailando no ar, gemia inquieto vagalume: