DRAGON’S TEETH

DRAGON’S TEETH

A Novel

FROM THE PORTUGUESE

BY

MARY J. SERRANO

AUTHOR OF “DESTINY AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC.
TRANSLATOR OF “PEPITA JIMENEZ,” ETC.

BOSTON
TICKNOR AND COMPANY
211 Fremont Street
1889

Copyright, 1889,
BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

PREFACE.

IN presenting this graphic picture of Lisbon life to the American public, the translator has assumed the responsibility of softening here and there, and even of at times effacing, a line too sharply drawn, a light or a shadow too strongly marked to please a taste that has been largely formed on Puritanic models, convinced (without entering into the question of how far a want of literary reticence may be carried without violating the canons of true art) that while the interest of the story itself remains undiminished, the ethical purpose of the work will thereby be given wider scope.

M. J. S.

MARCH, 1889.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE name of Eça de Queiros stands at the head of the list of Portuguese novelists. Born in Oporto early in the latter half of the present century, he was intended for the profession of the law by his father, who belonged to a family distinguished in the annals of Portuguese jurisprudence; but he soon abandoned his legal studies for literature, toward which his inclinations impelled him, and which he cultivated with immediate and marked success, the articles from his pen that appeared from time to time in the various periodicals of the day attracting wide-spread and favorable notice.

His characteristics as a writer are,—to quote from the Preface of the Spanish version of the present work,—

“A vigorous, flexible, and picturesque style, daring and unexpected flights of the imagination, extraordinary judgment, and a marvellous perception of the realities of things, as well as of their comic and sentimental aspects.” “His most marked characteristic, however, is the wonderful power with which he treats the humorous and the pathetic alike, moving his readers to tears or laughter at his will, with a magic art possessed only by the great masters in literature.”

In conclusion, it may be said that the publication of the present work, under the title of “O Primo Bazilio,” produced a profound sensation in Portuguese literary circles, as did the publication, by which it was soon followed, of a Spanish version in those of Madrid, and of a French version, by Madame Ratazzi, in those of Paris.

CONTENTS

DRAGON’S TEETH.

CHAPTER I.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.

THE cuckoo-clock in the dining-room had just struck eleven. Jorge, reclining in an antique easy-chair covered with dark leather, closed the volume of Louis Figuier that he had been listlessly turning over, stretched himself, yawned, and said,—

“Are you not going to dress, Luiza?”

“Directly.”

The person who thus answered was still seated at the breakfast-table reading the “Diario de Noticias.” She was clad in a dark-colored morning-gown adorned with large pearl buttons. Her blond hair was in some disorder; her head was small, her profile charming. Her elbow rested on the table, while her fingers with a slow and graceful movement mechanically caressed the tip of her rosy ear. Her nails were long and polished, and in addition to her wedding ring she wore another, set with small rubies, that shot forth crimson rays when they caught the light.

The floor of the dining-room was covered with matting; the ceiling was in imitation of wood, and the walls were adorned with a light-colored paper with a green vine running through it. It was July. The heat was intense. The windows were closed, but the fervor of the sun’s rays striking against the panes and falling on the stone floor of the balcony without penetrated into the apartment with a sultry glow. That mysterious and solemn silence reigned which characterizes the hour of the early Mass. The whole being was pervaded by a vague lassitude producing a desire for the siesta, or for pleasant reveries under leafy trees by the water-side. The canaries were asleep in their cages, which were suspended in the windows between the curtains of blue cretonne. The monotonous buzz of the flies, attracted to the table by the half-melted sugar at the bottom of the cups, filled the room with a drowsy murmur.

Jorge rolled a cigarette, and, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he began to think, as he sat here at his ease, comfortably attired in his blue flannel jacket and his colored shirt without a collar, of his journey to Alemtejo, and to ruminate on the discomforts attending it. He was a mining engineer, and business obliged him to leave Lisbon on the following day for Beja, thence to proceed to Evora, perhaps even still farther south to St. Domingo; and this journey in the month of July, this interruption in the course of his tranquil existence, annoyed him as if it were an injustice of fate that he should be compelled to take it.

Since the time of his graduation from college he had held a position under the Government. This was his first separation from Luiza, and he felt his heart contract within him at the thought of leaving this little room that he himself had helped to paper in the days preceding his marriage, and in which, after rising from happy dreams, the morning meal was prolonged in delightful abandon.

As he stroked his soft and curly beard, which he wore very short, his eyes lingered with tenderness on each separate article of the furniture which had been his mother’s, and which was dear to his heart: on the antique cupboard with glass doors, which contained the costly Indian porcelain, and the service of silver, bright with constant rubbing, and glittering now in all its decorative splendor; on the old varnished table, familiar to his eyes from his earliest recollection, and on which the few stains left by cup or pitcher were almost concealed by the ornaments that covered it. Before him, on the opposite wall, hung the portrait of his father attired in the fashion of 1830, the face round, the glance animated, the mouth sensual, the medal of Commander of the Order of the Conception decorating his closely-buttoned coat. He had been for many years an employee in the Treasury Department; he was of a sanguine temperament, and was a fine performer on the flute. Jorge did not remember him, but his mother had often assured him that nothing was wanting to make the likeness a perfect one but the power to speak. Jorge had always lived with his mother in the house he now occupied. Her name was Isaura; she was tall of stature, had a long nose, and was apprehensive by nature; she would drink nothing but tepid water at her meals. One day, on returning from the service of the Holy Sacrament, she expired suddenly, without breathing a sigh.

Jorge had never resembled her. He had always been robust and healthy, physically as well as mentally. He had inherited from his father an admirable set of teeth and an excellent digestion. At seven years of age he was turbulent and unruly; later on he became studious and a good boy. When he was a student at the Polytechnic School, on returning home at eight o’clock in the evening he would light his lamp and open his books to study. He did not frequent cafés, and never spent the night away from home.

Jorge was not at all sentimental. His companions, who read Alfred de Musset with responsive sighs, and indulged in dreams of being loved by a Marguerite Gautier, called him prosaic, bourgeois; he only laughed. A button was never wanting on his shirts; he was very methodical. He admired Louis Figuier, Bastiat, and Castilho. He had a horror of disputes; and he was happy.

When his mother died, however, Jorge remained for a long time inconsolable. He felt lonely. It was winter, and the weather was bad; his room, situated in the interior of the house, was not a pleasant one, and the wind sighed through it at times with a melancholy sound. At night, especially, bending over his books, his feet resting on a rug, he felt his being invaded by the languor of solitude. He began to experience in his imagination strange desires; he longed to encircle with his arm a lithe and graceful figure, to hear near him the silken rustle of a woman’s dress. He resolved to marry. He had met Luiza one night during the previous summer on the promenade. He fell in love with her blond tresses, her charming profile, and her large hazel eyes. He obtained his degree the following winter, and they were married. Sebastião, his intimate friend, the good Sebastião, had said, rubbing his hands together, and gravely shaking his head, “He has been hasty in his marriage,—a little hasty!”

But Luiza, Luizinha, soon showed herself to be a good housekeeper. She was an early riser, and had a delightful knack of doing well everything she did. Moreover, she was neat, gay as a lark, and resembled a little bird in its fondness for its nest and for the endearments of its companion. Her presence diffused through the house a sweet and serene gayety.

“She is a little angel,” said Sebastião, later on, in his deep bass voice.

Three years had passed since Jorge’s marriage. What happy years! He, especially, had improved during that time. He felt that his intelligence had become broader, his disposition livelier, his health sounder. Both were happy. Even those who did not know them said, “They are a charming couple; it is a pleasure only to look at them!” And Jorge, now going over in his mind all the little details of his pleasant and easy existence, sent the smoke curling up from his cigarette, with his legs stretched out before him, his soul expanding, and feeling himself as comfortably sheltered in life as he was in his flannel jacket.

“Ah!” suddenly exclaimed Luiza in accents of joyful surprise.

“What is it?” said Jorge.

“Cousin Bazilio is coming home!”

And she read aloud from the newspaper:—

“Sr. Bazilio de Brito, a distinguished member of our highest society, is soon to arrive at Lisbon, from Bordeaux. As may be remembered, he went, some years since, to Brazil, where it is said that by his indefatigable efforts he has retrieved his ruined fortunes. He has been travelling through Europe since the beginning of last year. His return to our capital will be a real cause of rejoicing to his friends, who are numerous.”

“Very numerous, indeed,” said Luiza, in an accent of conviction.

“So much the better,” replied Jorge, sending out a fresh puff of smoke from his cigarette, and stroking his beard with the palm of his hand. “It would seem, then, that he has made a fortune.”

Luiza cast a glance over the advertisements in the paper, took a sip of tea, and then rose and opened one of the windows.

“Oh, Jorge!” she exclaimed, “how hot it is outside!” The glare of the white and garish light dazzled her eyes.

The dining-room was situated in the back part of the house; it looked out upon a plot of ground enclosed by a low fence and overgrown with weeds. Here and there among the weeds, browned by the excessive heat, were a few large stones. A wild fig-tree, isolated in the midst of the plot, spread out its thick motionless foliage, that in the glare of the sunlight looked like burnished bronze. Other houses looked out on the same plot, with their balconies, their clothes spread out on a line to dry, the white walls of their little gardens, and their consumptive trees. An impalpable dust begrimed, so to speak, the luminous air.

“It is hot enough to suffocate the birds,” said Luiza, closing the window. “Can you not fancy yourself already in Alemtejo?”

She came and seated herself on the arm of the easy-chair in which Jorge was reclining, and ran her fingers through his dark and curling locks, which he wore, in obedience to a caprice of his wife, parted down the middle. Jorge passed his arm around her waist.

“Have you given orders to get my white waistcoats ready?” he asked.

“They should be ready now,” said Luiza. “Juliana!” she called, rising, “Juliana!”

A sound of petticoats stiff with starch was heard approaching. Juliana entered. She was a woman of about forty years of age, and was extraordinarily thin. Her neck, long and withered, rose from out the frills of a shirt-waist, bordered with imitation lace. Her features, livid and contracted, were of a pale yellow tint. Her eyes, large and prominent, were crossed by minute red veins, and moved within their reddened lids with an expression of restless curiosity. She wore a head-dress in imitation of braids of hair, that gave to her head an appearance of enormous size. Her nose twitched continually with a nervous movement; and her dress, flat over the chest, short, and puffed out below by her stiffened petticoats, allowed a small and well-shaped foot to be seen, clad in a cloth boot tipped with patent leather.

The waistcoats were not ready, she said, because she had not had time to starch them. She spoke in a sing-song voice, after the manner of the natives of Lisbon, through half-closed lips, and with her head bent down.

“But I told you to be sure to have them ready,” said Luiza; “go get them ready now, in the best way you can. They must be packed up to-night in the valise.”

Juliana had hardly left the room when Luiza exclaimed: “That woman inspires me with horror, Jorge.”

She had been two years in the house, and Luiza could not yet accustom herself to the sight of her, to her gestures, to the piping manner in which she pronounced certain words, drawling the r’s, to the noise made by the heels of her shoes, which were furnished with little metal plates, to her pretensions to possessing a small foot, and to her black kid gloves on Sunday.

“She sets my nerves quivering,” continued Luiza.

Jorge laughed. In his opinion she was an inoffensive woman, a good creature, an admirable laundress; and in the Department her shirt-fronts awakened universal enthusiasm. His friend Julião said of them that they were not ironed, but enamelled. She was not an agreeable woman, it was true, but she was neat, silent, discreet. And rising, with his hands in the pockets of his loose flannel trousers,—

“And in any case, child,” he added, “we must not forget the way she behaved during Aunt Virginia’s sickness, never taking a moment’s rest. She behaved like an angel towards her, yes, an angel,” he repeated gravely; “we are forever indebted to her, my dear.” And with a serious countenance he began to roll another cigarette.

Luiza, in silence, pushed out with the point of her slipper the edge of her morning-gown. Then, with bent head, her eyes fixed on her nails, she said poutingly, “But that would be no reason for not dismissing her, if she should at last become too disagreeable to me.”

“Not with my consent, my dear,” returned Jorge. “It is with me a question of gratitude.”

A few moments’ silence ensued. The cuckoo-clock struck twelve.

“I must get ready to make my calls, now,” he added. And leaning towards her, he caught between his hands the graceful blond head of Luiza. “Little serpent!” he murmured, fixing on her his tenderest glance.

Luiza smiled, and raised to his her magnificent hazel eyes, which she had a habit of moving around in their orbits in a slow and luminous manner, and which were so pure and limpid that one could penetrate into their profoundest depths. Jorge bent towards her, and pressed on her eyelids two sonorous kisses which could be heard at a distance; this was a caress which had the virtue of always pacifying her. Then laying his finger on her lip with a playful gesture,—

“Have you any commissions for me?” he asked. “Do you want anything, Luizinha?”

She said that all she wanted was that he should come back quickly. He replied that he was only going to leave cards; he would go like a flash; it was a question of a moment. And he went out with a radiant countenance, singing in his full baritone voice:—

“Dio del oro,

Del mundo signor,

La la ra, lara.”

Luiza yawned. Heavens! how tiresome to be obliged to dress! The heat was suffocating. She would like to recline in a bath of rose-colored marble, filled with tepid perfumed water clear as crystal, and afterwards, robed in primitive garments, to cradle herself softly in a silken hammock, and be lulled to sleep by the strains of melodious music. She threw off her slipper, and fixed her glance tenderly on her little foot, white as milk and marbled by delicate blue veins, while her thoughts flitted from one idea to another.

It was truly provoking that silk stockings should be so dear! For if that were not the case she would use no others. True that laundresses have the art of washing them all to pieces. But then a blue silk stocking with a little patent leather shoe is so charming, so pretty! And she yawned again. Then she went to the table, took from it a book that bore traces of use, and throwing herself into the easy-chair, gave herself up voluptuously to her reading, caressing her little ear with the tips of her fingers, as was her habit.

The book was the “Dame aux Camelias.” Luiza read a great many novels, and subscribed by the month to a circulating library. In her younger days, when she was about eighteen, she had cherished an enthusiastic admiration for Walter Scott and Scotland. She would have liked to live in one of those Scotch castles bearing the coat of arms of the clan over their vaulted doors, with their oaken chests and their trophies, their tapestries embroidered with historic legends that the breeze from the lakes sets in motion and seems to endow with factitious life. She had fallen in love successively with Evan dale, Morton, and Ivanhoe, those heroes at once grave and tender, with the eagle’s feather in their caps, fastened at the side by the Scotch thistle in diamonds and emeralds. But now her fancy was captivated by the modern,—Paris with its elegance and its sentimentality. She ridiculed the Troubadours, and placed above every other hero M. de Camors; and her ideal man presented himself to her imagination in a white cravat, in the midst of spacious saloons, endowed with a magnetic glance, consumed by passion, his lips overflowing with sublime words. For some days past the object of her enthusiasm had been Marguerite Gautier, whose ill-starred love had invested her in Luiza’s mind with a vague melancholy. She pictured her to herself tall, slender, enveloped in a cashmere shawl, her dark eyes lit up by passion and by the fever of consumption; she found even in the names of the characters—Julie Duprot, Armand, Prudence—the poetic savor of an existence dedicated to love; and she contemplated, steeped in an inexpressible melancholy, this life exhaling itself in sighs, passed in nights of delirium and days of sadness, enduring privations, or rolling in a coupé along the avenues of the Bois under a gray sky, while the first snows of winter were falling silently.

“Good-by for a while, Luiza,” cried Jorge from the dining-room, as he was about to go out.

“Listen,” said Luiza.

Jorge re-entered the apartment, putting on his gloves.

“Try to come back soon, will you not?” she said. “Ah, and don’t forget to bring me some tarts. Buy them at Bastreleque’s; do you hear? And if you pass by the shop of Madame François, tell her to send me my hat. Ah, listen, listen!”

“Good heavens! what more do you want?”

“I want you to go to the circulating library and ask them to send me some novels. But I forgot—the library is closed. Above all, don’t stay away long.”

With two tears trembling on her lids Luiza finished the last page of the “Dame aux Camelias.” She breathed a sigh, and leaning back in her easy-chair, with the book resting on her knees, she began to sing softly, and with profound emotion, the final aria of “Traviata”:—

“Addio del passato

Igli rosi pallenti.”

The death of Marguerite Gautier, her letters, had produced in her nerves a kind of sentimental vibration.

Suddenly the news she had read in the paper of the return of her Cousin Bazilio recurred to her mind. A vague smile parted her rosy lips. Cousin Bazilio! He was her first love. She was just eighteen at the time. No one was acquainted with this fragment of the past, not even Jorge or Sebastião. It is true, indeed, that it had lasted only eight months.

Besides, she was then but a child. When she recalled the tender emotions, the tears of those happy days, she laughed at herself for her folly. How changed must her Cousin Bazilio be! She remembered him perfectly. He was tall, somewhat slender, of a distinguished appearance, with a mustache curling up at the ends, a bold glance, and a peculiar habit of putting his hands in his pockets and jingling his keys and his money. This episode in Luiza’s life had had its beginning at Cintra, at the villa of her uncle João de Brito, while the others were engaged in playing billiards. Bazilio had just returned from England; and had come home somewhat of an Anglo-maniac, awakening the admiration of the colony at Cintra by his red neckties, which he wore passed through a gold ring, and his white flannel suits. The billiard-room was a corner room, whose yellow-painted walls gave it an air of grandeur, as if it belonged to a family of illustrious lineage. A large door at the foot of the avenue opened into a garden to which one descended by three stone steps. The fountain was surrounded by pomegranate-trees, whose red blossoms Bazilio would pluck for her. The dark green foliage of the tall camelias formed shady walks. The water of the fountain sparkled in the sunlight; two turtle-doves cooed monotonously in their wicker cage; and in the midst of the sylvan silence of the villa the noise made by the billiard-balls had a quite aristocratic sound. Then followed all the well-remembered episodes in Lisbon of this love-affair begun at Cintra,—the moonlight rambles over the dark grass to Sitiaes, with long and silent pauses at Penedo da Saudade, before them the valley, and the distant sandy plains, illuminated by a light, dim, ideal, and dreamy; the midday hours passed under the shades of Penha Verde, listening to the cool murmur of the waters that fell, drop by drop, upon the rock; the evenings spent in a boat on the water darkened by the shadow of the trees at Collares, and those bursts of laughter when their boat ran into the tall grass, or her little straw hat caught, in passing, on the overhanging branches of the elms. She had always liked Cintra. A soft and pleasing melancholy stole over her whenever she penetrated into the cool and shady depths of Ramalhão.

She and her Cousin Bazilio had enjoyed complete liberty together. Her mother, poor lady, always engrossed in herself and her rheumatism, would send them away smiling, and then fall asleep. Bazilio called her Aunt Jójó, brought her boxes of bonbons, and she was happy. When the winter arrived, their love took refuge in the old red-tapestried parlor in the street of the Magdalena. What happy nights!—her mother, snoring peacefully, her feet enveloped in a rug, and a volume of the Ladies’ Library resting on her knees. They sat, to their supreme content, side by side, upon the sofa. The sofa! what memories it called up before her! It was low and small, covered with light cashmere, with a strip down the middle which she herself had embroidered,—a marvellous compound of red and yellow on a black ground. One day the catastrophe came. João de Brito, who was a partner in the house of Bastos and Brito, suspended payment and declared himself insolvent. The house at Almada and the villa at Collares were sold.

Bazilio, left penniless, went to Brazil. Luiza passed the first days after his departure seated on the beloved sofa, sobbing quietly over her cousin’s likeness. Then came the surprises of letters long looked for, and the persistent calls at the consignatorial agency when the steamers were behind their time.

A year passed. One morning, after a long silence on the part of Bazilio, she received a letter dated in Bahia, which began thus: “After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that we should regard our feeling for each other as a piece of childish folly.” On reading these words she fainted. Bazilio breathed profound distress through two pages full of explanations. He was still poor, he said, and would have many struggles to pass through before he would be able to earn enough for them both. The climate was execrable, and he did not wish to sacrifice the health of his dear angel. He called her “My dove,” and ended by signing his name in full in the midst of complicated flourishes.

For many months afterwards Luiza was very sad. It was winter; and seated at the window, working at her embroidery, she told herself continually that her illusions were forever dead. She thought of entering a convent, as her melancholy gaze followed the dripping umbrellas of the passers-by, or as she sang at night, accompanying herself on the piano, “Soares de Passos,”—

“Gone forever are the days

Blest that by thy side I passed,”

or the final aria of “Traviata,” or a sorrowful fado of Vimioso that she had just learned. Meantime her mother’s cold had grown worse, and this brought with it fears and nightly vigils beside the patient’s couch. During the convalescence they went to Bellas.

When they returned home in the winter she had gained flesh, her cheeks were rosy, and she ate with a good appetite. One day she chanced to come across a likeness of Bazilio, in a writing-desk,—a likeness which her cousin had sent her shortly after his arrival in Brazil, and which represented him with white trousers and a Panama hat. She looked at it and shrugged her shoulders. “To think that I should ever have allowed my peace to be disturbed by that good-for-nothing!” she said. “What a fool I was!”

Three years from this time she became acquainted with Jorge. At first she did not find him attractive; she did not like men with beards. Afterwards she noticed that Jorge’s beard was fine and silky; and she began to find a certain charm and sweetness in his glance. Without being in love with him, she felt when with him a languor and abandonment, as if she could be content to rest forever on his bosom, careless of what the future might bring. What joy when he said to her, “Let us get married”! He had caught her hand in his; that warm pressure penetrated to her inmost soul and pervaded her whole being. She answered yes, and then remained silent, unable to add another word, but with her heart beating violently under the bodice of her merino gown.

She was now engaged. What tranquil happiness for her mother!

They were married at eight o’clock in the morning one foggy day. It was necessary to light candles in order to put on her wreath and veil. That day remained in her memory, vague and indistinct, like some half-forgotten dream, in which stood out in clearly-defined outlines the discolored and swollen face of the priest and the horrible visage of a wretched-looking old woman trembling with the palsy, who held out her hand with mingled greed and hatred, fastened herself on each of the guests in turn, and pouring forth a volley of coarse speeches, when Jorge, much moved, distributed at the door of the church some pieces of money among the beggars. Her satin slippers were too tight for her; she felt a void in her stomach, and they were obliged to make her a cup of very strong tea on her return home. And afterwards, what fatigue when she unpacked her trunks in the evening in her new home!

But Jorge was now her husband, and a husband young, affectionate, and always cheerful. She told herself, therefore, that she would adore him. She was possessed by an insatiable curiosity in regard to everything pertaining to him,—to his business, his weapons, his papers. She observed other husbands attentively, and she grew proud of her own. Jorge surrounded her with all the delicate attentions of a lover; but in all that related to his honor or to his profession he was exacting to a degree that bordered on excess. At times he would make use of expressions that caused her to turn pale; he was jealous in the extreme, and one of her friends once observed to her, “That man is capable of striking you.” She had but little doubt of it, and this increased her love for him. He was her all,—her strength, her fortune, her religion; her maw, in a word. She thought of what she would have been, married to her Cousin Bazilio. What misery! What would have been her fate? She grew bewildered in the contemplation of the hypothetic modes of existence that unfolded themselves before her mind like scenes in a drama. She pictured herself in Brazil, reclining under the shade of the cocoanut-trees, in a hammock, attended by little negroes, and watching idly the flight of the paroquets, and those large spiders and horrible cockroaches that so greatly terrified her when she chanced to see one near her.

“The Senhorita Leopoldina,” Juliana announced in a low voice, half opening the door.

Luiza sat up erect, startled. “What! Leopoldina!” she said. “Why have you admitted her?” She asked herself, while she was arranging the folds of her morning-gown, what Jorge would say if he knew of this visit. Heavens! he who had charged her so often not to receive this woman. But she was now in the parlor, and what was to be done?

“Very well,” she said aloud; “say I will be with her directly.”

Leopoldina was her most intimate friend. As children they had been neighbors in the street of the Magdalena, and school-girls together in the Patriarchal. Leopoldina was the daughter of the Viscount of Quebraes, who had been one of the pages of Don Miguel, and a man of bad reputation. She had contracted an unhappy marriage with a certain João Noronha, a clerk in the Custom House. It was known that she had lovers; it was whispered that she was an unfaithful wife. Jorge detested her. He had often said to Luiza, “Anything you like, but Leopoldina.”

Leopoldina was twenty-seven years old. She was not very tall, but she had the reputation of having the best figure of any woman in Lisbon. Her gowns were always becoming, and so close-fitting that they followed every line of her figure, encasing her form like a second skin. Her face was not pretty; it was, on the contrary, of a somewhat vulgar cast; the nostrils were too wide to be beautiful; and her complexion, of a rosy though not very clear brunette, retained almost imperceptible traces of the small-pox. But she possessed an incontestable attraction in her eyes, which were of an intense black, liquid, languishing, and shaded by long lashes. As she entered, Luiza ran towards her with open arms; they embraced each other warmly, and Leopoldina, as soon as she was seated, began a series of lamentations, folding and unfolding her light silk parasol. She had been indisposed, she said, ennuyée, and overwhelmed with annoyances; the heat was killing her. And Luiza, what had she been doing? Leopoldina thought her looking stouter. She observed Luiza attentively, wrinkling her brows as she did so, for she was somewhat near-sighted. Her lips, which were slightly parted, were of a beautiful red, though perhaps too full, and her teeth were small, white, and even.

“Happiness gives everything, even a good complexion,” she sighed, after her inspection was completed. She had come, she added, to learn the address of the French milliner who made Luiza’s bonnets. Besides, she was distressed at not having seen her friend for so long a time.

Luiza gave her the address of the milliner; her prices were moderate, she added, and she had taste. As the room was somewhat dark, she opened the blinds slightly. The covering of the furniture was of a dark green, with stripes; the paper and the carpet, of a foliage pattern, were of the same disagreeable color. On the dark background of the wall the gilded frames of two engravings, the “Medea” of Delacroix, and the “Martyr” of Delaroche, stood out in bold relief. There were also on the walls some illustrations of Dante by Doré. Between the windows was an oval mirror in which was reflected a porcelain Neapolitan dancing the tarantella.

Over the tête-à-tête was the portrait in oil of Jorge’s mother. She was represented sitting bolt upright in her black gown. One of her hands, of a deathlike pallor, rested under the weight of its rings on her knee; the other was lost to view amid the voluminous folds of lace, painted with much minuteness, that adorned her black satin mantilla. Her long and cadaverous countenance stood out in bold relief against the background of a crimson curtain, whose folds, drawn back with studied care, allowed a perspective of blue horizon, and trees with symmetrically rounded foliage, to be seen between them.

“And your husband, how is he?” said Luiza, seating herself beside Leopoldina.

“As little amusing as ever,” responded the other, laughing. Leaning towards Luiza, and slightly elevating her eyebrows, “Do you know that I have broken off with Mendonça?” she added, with a serious air.

“Yes?” asked Luiza, blushing faintly.

Leopoldina gave her all the details. She was by nature extremely indiscreet. From Luiza she had never had secrets. She consulted her alike in regard to her admirers, her opinions, her manner of life, her nervous attacks, and her gowns.

“So your cousin Bazilio is coming home again?” asked Leopoldina presently.

“So I have just read in the ‘Diario de Noticias,’” returned Luiza. “The news surprised me very much.”

“Ah, before I forget,” said Leopoldina, abruptly, “I should like to know how you have trimmed your blue check gown. I want to make one like it.”

“I have trimmed it with the same color, but of a darker shade. Come and look at it.”

They went into the bedroom. Luiza opened the window and then the wardrobe. The apartment was small and fresh-looking, and was furnished in pale-blue cretonne; a cheap carpet of a blue pattern on a white ground covered the floor. The high toilet-table stood between the windows under a canopy of coarse lace, and was furnished with, bottles of various sizes, and adorned with a cover embroidered by Luiza’s own hands. On stands in front of the windows were plants of luxuriant foliage, such as begonias and mahonias, whose leaves fell gracefully over the earthen flower-pots in which they were planted.

All these details, which breathed of peace and comfort, brought before Leopoldina’s mind images of tranquil joys. She looked around her, and said slowly:

“You are still very much in love with your husband, are you not? Ah, you are right,” she added, sighing; “you have cause to be so.”

She proceeded to powder her face and neck before the looking-glass. “Yes, you have cause to be so,” she repeated. “But show me the woman who could love a husband like mine.”

She threw herself on a tête-à-tête, and broke out into complaints against her husband. He was so coarse, so selfish, she said. “Would you believe that if I do not return at four he sits down to table without waiting for me, dines, and leaves me the remnants?”

She then enlarged on his other defects. He took care of nothing, he spat on the carpet, and so on, and so on. “His room—for you know we have separate rooms—is like a pigsty.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Luiza, gravely. “But for that you too are a little to blame.”

“I?” responded Leopoldina, with flashing eyes, starting to her feet in amazement. “Well, nothing but that was wanting,—that I should concern myself about my husband’s room!”

There was a pause. At last she repeated that she was the most unfortunate woman in the world. Then with a quick and expressive gesture of the hand,—

“The stupid fellow is not even jealous,” she said. Juliana here entered and said, coughing and lowering her eyes,—

“Does the senhora still wish me to iron the white waistcoats?”

“Yes, all of them; I have already told you so,” answered Luiza. “They must be in the valise before we go to bed to-night.”

“What valise? Who is going away?” asked Leopoldina.

“Jorge. He is going to the mines in Alemtejo.” “Then you will be alone. I can come and see you. Bravo!”

The clock struck four. Leopoldina, as if suddenly awakened from sleep, rose.

“I must go,” she said; “it is getting late, and if I am not there he will sit down to dinner without me. We have baked fish to-day, and there is nothing so detestable as cold fish. Good-by—for a little while, is it not so? While Jorge is away I will come to see you very often. Good-by. The French milliner’s address is Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s, eh!”

Luiza accompanied her to the landing. She had almost reached the front door, when, raising her voice, she said,—

“You think it best to trim the dress with blue, do you not?”

“I have done so with mine,” answered Luiza, leaning over the banister; “it seems to me the most suitable.”

“Good-by,” repeated Leopoldina. “Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s, you say?”

“Yes, Ouro Street. Good-by.”

And Luiza added in a louder voice,—

“The door to the right,—Madame François.”

Jorge returned at five, and putting his umbrella in a corner, said, from the threshold of Luiza’s room,—

“So you have had a visitor.”

Luiza colored faintly. She was at her toilet; her hair was already arranged, and she was attired in a gown of light fabric, trimmed with lace.

“Leopoldina was here,” she said; “Juliana admitted her, though she was evidently not very much pleased with the visit. She came to inquire the address of the French milliner, and she remained but a short time. Who told you of it?” she ended.

“Juliana. Leopoldina was here the whole afternoon.”

“The whole afternoon!” repeated Luiza. “What nonsense! She was here scarcely ten minutes at the utmost.”

Jorge took off his gloves without answering a word. He approached one of the windows and began to finger the leaves of a pale rose-colored begonia. He whistled softly, and seemed to be intently occupied in detaching a bud of the amaryllis, hidden among the brilliant foliage, and resembling in color the yellowish stalk of the plant itself.

Luiza was engaged in fastening around her neck a gold locket with a black velvet ribbon. Her hands trembled slightly, and her face was flushed.

“Has the heat given you a headache?” she asked her husband.

Jorge did not answer. He whistled louder than before, and went over to the other window. There he busied himself in fingering the flexible leaves of a mahonias, of variegated red and green. Then, suddenly putting his hand to his throat as if he felt himself suffocating,—

“Listen,” he said to Luiza. “You must give up the acquaintance of that creature. This must end at once and forever.”

Luiza turned scarlet.

“I neither can nor will bear it longer,” he continued. Then, prefixing the words with a short and somewhat violent expletive, he added, “And this for your own sake, for the sake of the neighbors, for the very commonest decency.”

“But—it was Juliana—” stammered Luiza, unable to add another word.

“Next time, put her outside the door,” returned Jorge, walking with long strides up and down the room. “Say you are not at home, that you have gone to China, that you are sick—”

Then he paused, and in a voice full of emotion,—

“Only consider, my dear child,” he said, “that every one is but too well acquainted with her reputation. The Quebraes! A byword! A shameless creature! As if the odor in the room were not enough for me to know that she has been here! That hateful odor of new-mown hay!” he continued. “You were school-fellows, it is true; but that will not prevent me from giving her a fright some day, if I should catch her here,—yes, a fright,” he repeated.

He was silent for a moment; then, turning to his wife with open arms, “Come, am I right, or not?” he said.

“Yes, you are right,” returned Luiza, confused and blushing, while she went on arranging her ornaments before the looking-glass.

“Very well, then,” he said, and left the room, furious.

Luiza remained standing before her glass, and a pearly tear rolled silently down her cheek.

“That tattling Juliana!” she cried; “and all for the pleasure of sowing discord!”

She was seized with a sudden fit of anger, and went into the laundry, slamming the door behind her as she entered.

“Who has given you orders to say whether any one comes to my house or not?” she said abruptly to Juliana.

“I did not think it was a secret,” responded the latter, laying down in surprise the iron she was using.

“Of course it is no secret, stupid! Why did you admit her? Have I not told you a thousand times that I do not wish to receive her?”

“The senhora has never told me so,” answered the woman, with a look of amazement, and beginning to grow angry in her turn.

“That is not the truth! Be silent!”

She turned her back on Juliana, and went to her own room with her nerves all unstrung. Presently she crossed over to the window, and leaning against it looked out.

The sun was just setting, darkness was gradually falling over the ill-paved street without, and not a breath of air was stirring. The houses of the neighborhood were old and shabby, with mean entrances; one could guess that they were inhabited by poorly-paid clerks. On their balconies, in pots, were some common plants,—sweet basil and carnations. In the upper stories, where the services of the laundress were but seldom called into requisition, clothes were hanging out to dry. The appealing notes of the “Virgin’s Prayer,” which some young girl of the neighborhood was playing on the piano with all the sentimental abandon peculiar to the day, fell upon her ears. Crowded together in the narrow balcony of the house opposite were the four daughters of Senhor Teixeira Azevedo, thin as tenterhooks, their hair in disorder, their faces unwashed, devoting the afternoon to the inspection of the neighboring windows, to making sport of the passers-by, and to watching, with the seriousness of idiots, their saliva fall in large drops on the pavement beneath.

“Jorge is right,” thought Luiza. But what more could she do, she asked herself. She never put her foot in Leopoldina’s house; she had taken her likeness out of the album in the parlor; and she had felt herself obliged to confess to her the fact of her husband’s antipathy towards her. What tears had they not shed together! Poor Leopoldina! she came to see her so seldom, and remained so short a time! But if he found her in the parlor would he really put her out of the house?

At this point in her reflections a man, short and stout, with bow legs, and bending over a Barbary organ, made his appearance at the entrance of the street; his black beard gave him a savage aspect. He stopped, and began to play, directing, as he did so, an uneasy glance up at the windows, and smiling sorrowfully. The aria of “Casta Diva,” accompanied with an incessant tremolo, filled the air with its harsh and metallic sound.

Some of the neighbors looked out from between the muslin curtains of their windows. Gertrudes, the servant of the professor of mathematics, showed in the narrow frame of her window her broad and swarthy face, on which were plainly discernible the traces of her forty springs. Farther on, leaning over the balcony of the second story, was seen the dark figure of Senhor Cunha Rosado, tall and thin, his cap on his head, his transparent hands clasping his dressing-gown over his stomach with an air indicative of pain.

The shopkeepers of the street came idly to their doors. The woman who kept the tobacco-shop stood at her threshold, dressed in mourning, and revealing in her whole appearance her state of widowhood, her arms folded over her dyed shawl, her figure squeezed into a jacket too small for her, that made her look still thinner than she was, an expression of languor and fatigue in her eyes. From the ground-floor of the house in which Senhor Azevedo lived, the coal-vender emerged,—a person of massive proportions, who affected a grotesque gravity, her hair in tangles, her face black and shining from the coal-dust with which she was covered from head to foot, accompanied by her three little boys, who looked like three little crying blacks, half-naked, and hanging on to her skirts. Senhor Paula, the furniture-dealer, in his cloth cap with its peak of patent leather, which he never removed from his head, advanced as far as the gutter. His soiled stockings hung down over the heels of his slippers, which were embroidered with glass beads. He suffered from a chronic hoarseness, and he had a disagreeable trick of making a clicking noise with his tongue. His long gray mustache drooped over the corners of his mouth. He hated kings and priests. The state of public affairs was a source of unceasing sorrow to him. He was always whistling the air of “Maria da Fonte;” and his every word and gesture revealed the discontented patriot.

The organ-grinder took off his hat, and without ceasing to play held it up to the balconies with the supplicating glance of one who asks an alms, leaving uncovered his forehead, to which the hair clung, wet with perspiration. The Senhoritas Azevedo quickly shut their window. The coal-vender gave him a copper coin, not, however, without first putting some questions to him; she wanted to know where he came from, what streets he had passed through, and how many airs his organ played.

A bell tolled in the distance, announcing the conclusion of some religious service, and the Sunday was approaching its close with a calm and melancholy tranquillity.

“Luiza!” said Jorge, entering the room suddenly.

She turned around, answering mechanically,—

“What is it?”

“Let us go to supper, child; it is seven o’clock,” he returned. And putting his arm around her waist, he continued, in a voice low and full of tenderness, as they stood together in the middle of the room, “You were angry with me a little while ago, were you not?”

“No,” responded Luiza, in humble accents; “you were right; I confess it.”

“Ah!” he said, in the tone of one who has conquered, and is proud of his victory. And rubbing his hands together, he declaimed gayly, “‘The husband whom the heart accepts is always the best counsellor and the truest friend.’ To supper!” he ended joyously.

CHAPTER II.
A PORTUGUESE “TEA.”

ON Sunday evenings a number of intimate friends—a sort of conversazione—gathered in Jorge’s parlor around the antique lamp of rose-colored porcelain. They drank tea and chatted together in a somewhat bourgeois fashion. Luiza crocheted; Jorge smoked his pipe.

The first to arrive on the present occasion was Julião Zuzarte, a distant relative of Jorge, who had been his school-fellow in the old days of the Polytechnic. He was a thin and nervous-looking man, with blue spectacles, and long hair falling over the collar of his coat. He had studied medicine at the School. He was very intelligent, and an indefatigable worker; but, as he himself said, he worked without any definite purpose. At thirty years of age, poor, in debt, without patients, he began to be discontented with his fourth floor in an unfashionable neighborhood, his two-shilling dinners, and his overcoat bound with braid. While he was restricted to this narrow way of living, he saw others of far less ability succeed in all they undertook and obtain the object of their ambition. He was in the habit of saying that he was unlucky. He might have had the position of titular doctor in one of the provinces, with his own house and garden; but his pride rebelled against this, and as he had confidence in his ability and his knowledge, he did not wish to bury them in an insignificant and gloomy village, with its three streets overrun by pigs. Everything that smacked of provincialism inspired him with horror. He beheld himself in imagination leading this obscure existence, playing manilha at evening parties, and dying of tedium; therefore he made no effort to change his way of living. He still hoped, with the audacity of the ambitious plebeian, for a large practice, a chair in the School of Medicine, a carriage in which to visit his patients, and a handsome wife with a good dowry. He believed firmly in his right to all these good things, and as they delayed in coming to him, his temper became soured. He hated this existence in which he had no pleasures. The periods of long and bitter meditation, during which he gnawed his nails in silence, grew every day more frequent; or if he opened his lips at all it was only to give harsh answers and utter unjust complaints in accents that had the steely sharpness of a sword.

Luiza could see nothing attractive in him; on the contrary, she thought him extremely tiresome. She detested his magisterial tone, the glitter of his blue spectacles, and the cut of his trousers, which he wore so short as to allow the worn elastics of his boots to be seen below them. But she concealed her antipathy, and always treated him with amiability because Jorge admired him, and thought him, as he said, a man of genius, a great man.

As Julião arrived early, he went to the dining-room to take his after-dinner cup of coffee with Jorge and Luiza. He glanced askance and with bitterness at the silver on the table and at the fresh toilet of Luiza. All these evidences of prosperity irritated him. Jorge was, in his opinion, a man of mediocre abilities, who did not deserve his good fortune; and the thought of this relative of his who lived comfortably, who was happily married, good-looking, well thought of in the Department, and who, in addition to all this, possessed some hundreds of dollars in bonds, imbittered his mind, like an injustice of fate, and weighed upon him like a humiliation. But he professed affection for him, and never failed to visit him on Sunday evenings. On these occasions he endeavored to hide his envy, chatting gayly, and passing his hand from time to time over his dry and disordered hair.

Towards nine o’clock Donna Felicidade de Noronha made her appearance. She entered the room with open arms and a smiling countenance. She was a lady of about fifty years of age, and was very stout. As she suffered from a flatulent dyspepsia, she was unable to lace herself, and her figure, as a consequence, was devoid of symmetry or shape. A few silver threads glittered here and there in her wavy hair; but her face, round and full, had all the soft and delicate fairness of a nun’s. The dark and humid pupils of her prominent and restless eyes shone beneath their wrinkled lids; her mobile nostrils were somewhat wide; the corners of her mouth were shaded by a slight down that resembled a circumflex accent lightly traced by a fine pen. She had been the intimate friend of Luiza’s mother, and she had kept up the habit of going to see the little one every Sunday. She was, according to her own account, of a noble family,—the Noronhas of Redondella. For the rest, she was highly esteemed in Lisbon. She was somewhat of a devotee, and was a constant attendant at the Chapel of the Encarnação. The moment she entered she gave Luiza a noisy kiss, and asked her in a low and anxious voice,—

“Is he coming?”

“The counsellor?” said Luiza. “Yes, he is coming.”

She spoke with knowledge, for he, the Counsellor Accacio, never came to take a cup of tea with Donna Luiza, as he called her, without going the evening before to the Department of Public Works to see Jorge, and say to him with a solemn inclination of his tall figure,—

“My dear Jorge, I shall go to-morrow to ask a cup of tea from your charming wife.” He almost always added, “Do our beautiful works progress?—Yes? I am delighted to hear it. If you should see the Minister, present my respects to him.” And he would then take his leave, threading with measured step the dirty passage-ways.

Five years ago Donna Felicidade had become enamoured of him. They bantered her occasionally, on account of this sentiment, at Jorge’s. Luiza thought it very amusing. They saw her fresh color, her rounded cheeks, and they did not suspect that this concentrated passion that burned in secrecy and silence in her bosom, fed anew from week to week, was destroying her bodily health like an illness, and demoralizing her nature like a vice. She had once been in love with an officer of the Lancers, whose likeness she still kept. Later, she conceived a sudden attachment for a young baker of the neighborhood, whom she had the pain of seeing marry before her very eyes. She then devoted herself entirely to a little dog, Bilró. A servant whom she had discharged revenged herself by giving the little animal black pudding to eat. Bilró had an attack of indigestion, of which he died; but he still reigned, stuffed with straw, in his mistress’s dining-room. Donna Felicidade, at fifty years, was still unmarried. One day the counsellor made his appearance, and kindled anew her dormant affections. Senhor Accacio became her craze; she admired his countenance, the gravity of his manner; she opened her eyes wide with admiration at his eloquence; nor was she blind to the fact that he would be a good parti. The counsellor came to be the object of her hopes, her desires, her ambition. The indifference of the counsellor irritated her,—not a glance, not a sigh, not the least indication that her love was requited. He was for her solemn, glacial, courteous; but at the least demonstration of her affection for him he would rise and withdraw with severe and modest demeanor. One day she fancied that the counsellor cast an admiring glance from behind his dark spectacles at the superabundance of her charms. Suddenly she felt herself endowed with a greater facility of expression; she felt her voice capable of more tender accents, and she said to him softly,—

“Accacio!”

But he extinguished her ardor by a gesture, and then said gravely,—

“Senhora, the snows that have accumulated upon the head end at last by settling on the heart. It is useless, Senhora.”

The martyrdom of Donna Felicidade, then, was a secret one. That her affection was unrequited was known, but not so the pangs she suffered.

They were speaking of Alemtejo, of Evora, and its sources of wealth, of the chapel of relics, when the counsellor entered, carrying on his arm his overcoat, which he placed on a chair in a corner of the room, first carefully folding it. Then with measured and dignified step he approached Luiza and pressed her hands in his.

“I see you are in the enjoyment of your usual perfect health, Senhora,” he said, in sonorous accents. “Jorge told me yesterday. That is well, very well!”

The counsellor was tall and thin; he was dressed in black, his neck imprisoned in a high stiff collar. The lower part of his face was narrow; his head, which was bald and polished, was slightly flattened on the crown. He dyed the little hair he still possessed, which formed a fringe above his neck, and this hand, black and shining, heightened by contrast the lustrousness of the bald cranium above. But he left in its natural color his gray mustache, which drooped over the corners of his mouth. His beard was full, his complexion pale. He always wore dark-colored spectacles. His enormous ears projected from either side of his head like the fans of a windmill. He had been Director-in-Chief of the Department of Home Government, and whenever he spoke of the king he mechanically took off his hat and bent his head. His every gesture, even to the taking of snuff, was measured. He made use of none but the choicest words, and uttered the simplest phrases with a certain air of dignity. In speaking of public persons he had a habit of saying “Our Garrett,” or “Our Herculano,” as the case might be. He had been something of an author, too, and was never without some apt quotation at his command. He had no family, and lived on a third floor in Ferregial Street, with a housekeeper who was at the same time a companion; and he devoted his time to the study of political economy. He had written a work on “The Reproductive Principles of the Science of Wealth and its Distribution, according to the best Authorities,” with the supplementary title, “Reading for Wakeful Hours.” It was only a few months since he had published the “History of all the Ministers of State, from the illustrious Marquis of Pombal to those of our own Times, with the Dates of their Deaths and Births carefully verified.”

“Were you ever in Alemtejo, Counsellor?” Luiza asked him.

“Never, Senhora,” he answered, bowing, “never. And, believe me, to my great regret; for I have been told that there are curiosities there of the first order.”

He delicately took between his thumb and finger a small pinch of the golden snuff he was in the habit of using, and added, with a majestic air, “It possesses, besides, a great source of wealth in its hogs.”

“Jorge,” said Julião, from the corner where he sat, “find out how much the titular doctor of Evora makes a year.”

The counsellor, always well informed, approached Julião, still holding his pinch of snuff between his thumb and finger. “He must make six hundred thousand reis,[1] Senhor Zuzarte,” he said; “I have it so stated in my notes. But why this question?” he added, straightening himself. “Do you desire to abandon Lisbon?”

Every one present joined in expressing disapproval of such an intention.

“Ah, Lisbon is always Lisbon,” sighed Donna Felicidade.

“A city of marble and of granite, as our immortal historian has said,” added the counsellor with emphasis.

He inhaled his pinch of snuff, spreading out his fingers in the form of a fan. His hand, thin and pale, but well cared for, was adorned with a seal ring.

“The counsellor would no more abandon Lisbon than would the hand of God the Father,” said Donna Felicidade, blushing as she spoke.

“I was born in Lisbon, Senhora, and I am a son of Lisbon to the bottom of my soul,” answered the counsellor, turning slowly towards her, and bowing, with eyes bent on the floor.

“I remember,” said Jorge, “that you were born in the street of S. José.”

“No. 75, my friend, in the house next to that in which my poor Geraldo lived up to the time of his marriage.”

This “poor Geraldo” was Jorge’s father, and Accacio had been his most intimate friend. They were neighbors, and as Geraldo performed on the flute and Accacio on the violin, they played duets together; both were members of the Philharmonic Society of the street of S. José. Afterwards, when Accacio became a member of the Cabinet, he abandoned the violin, as well from conscientious scruples as through considerations regarding his dignity, and with it all the joyful and tender emotions of the evenings at the Philharmonic. He dedicated himself to statistics, but he always remained faithful to Geraldo, and continued to extend to Jorge the same vigilant friendship. He had been Jorge’s witness on the occasion of his marriage; he went to see him every Sunday; and he never failed to send him, on his saint’s day, his card, and a confection of almond paste in the form of an eel.

“Here I was born,” he repeated, unfolding his India silk handkerchief, “and here I intend to die;” and he blew his nose discreetly.

“It is not yet time to think of that,” said every one.

“The thought of death does not terrify me, my dear Jorge,” he responded in a melancholy accent. “I have even caused my last resting-place, modest but convenient, to be constructed in the Cemetery of the Heights of São João. It is situated on the right of the entrance, in a sheltered situation, beside the tomb, constructed in the form of a mausoleum, of some good friends of mine.”

“Has the Senhor Counsellor already composed his epitaph?” asked Zuzarte, in his incisive and ironical accents.

“No, Senhor Zuzarte, no; I desire no eulogies written on my tomb. If my friends or my fellow-citizens consider that I have done anything worthy of remembrance, they have other means of recording it; such as the press, a necrological article, poetry itself. For my own part, the utmost I desire on the marble that covers me is my name in black letters, with my title of counsellor, the date of my birth and that of my death. I do not object, however,” he added, after a moment of reflection, “to having engraved underneath, in small letters, the words, ‘Pray for him.’”

There was a moment’s silence, interrupted by the opening of the door.

“May I come in?” said a thin treble voice.

“Ah,” said Jorge, “it is Ernesto.”

Ernesto advanced with hasty steps towards Jorge, and threw his arms around his neck. “I have heard that you are going away, Cousin,” he said. “How do you do, Cousin Luiza?”

The new-comer was a cousin of Jorge, thin and fragile in appearance. He looked more like a school-boy than a man. His scanty mustache, anointed with pomade, curled up at the ends in points like needles, and in his hollow countenance his eyes glittered with an unhealthy brightness. He wore patent-leather shoes, with broad laces. A watch-chain, which supported an enormous locket, with a complicated pattern of flowers and fruits enamelled in relief upon it, hung from his waistcoat. He wrote for the theatre. He had in his portfolio several plays he had translated,—two original ones, in one act each, and a farce. He had just written for the “Variety” a spectacular drama in five acts, called “Love and Honor.” This was the only one of his pieces which had been accepted. Since then he was always seen apparently overwhelmed with business, his pockets filled with manuscripts, surrounded by actors, and paying without a murmur for unlimited cups of coffee and glasses of cognac, an expression of fatigue upon his pallid countenance, his hat pushed back from his forehead, and repeating to every one he met, “This life is killing me.” It is to be observed that he had been led into literature solely by his love for it, as he was employed in the Custom House at a good salary, and possessed, besides, a rent-roll of five hundred thousand reis.[2] He confessed that this passion for art had cost him a good deal of money; he had caused to be made at his own expense the patent leather boots used by the lover, as well as those used by the noble father, in his drama, “Love and Honor.”

He was at once surrounded; and Luiza, laying down her work, remarked to him that he was pale, and looked depressed. He began thereupon to complain of his troubles,—the rehearsals gave him nausea, he had constant disputes with the director. Yesterday he had had to alter, from beginning to end, the finale of an act; yes, he repeated, from beginning to end. “And all,” he added with irritation, “because that stupid fellow wants the scene laid in a salon, when I have placed it on the edge of a precipice.”

“Of a what!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, in astonishment.

“Of a precipice, Donna Felicidade,” said the counsellor, with his customary suave urbanity. “It might also be called with propriety an abyss.” And he quoted,—

“And straight he plunges into the abyss.”

“But why on the edge of a precipice?” inquired the guests.

The counsellor asked for the argument of the piece.

Ernesto, delighted, sketched in broad strokes the plot of his work.

“The heroine,” he said, “is a married woman, who meets in Cintra a man who is destined to prove fatal to her peace,—the Count of Monte Redondo. Her husband has lost at play a hundred contos de reis,[3] which he is unable to pay. His name is dishonored, and he himself in danger of being thrown into prison. The heroine, rendered desperate, hurries to the ruined castle inhabited by the count, and there reveals to him the misfortune that has befallen her husband. The count wraps himself in his cloak and departs; at the moment in which the police are about to lay hands upon the husband, he arrives upon the scene. Then follows an affecting scene by moonlight. The count discovers himself, and throws a purse, full of gold, at the feet of the officers, exclaiming, ‘Satiate yourselves, vultures!’”

“A fine situation!” said the counsellor.

“Towards the end,” continued Ernesto, “the plot thickens. The Count of Monte Redondo and the heroine fall in love with each other; the husband discovers it, throws at the feet of the count the gold he had received from him, and kills his wife.”

“How?” they all ask.

“He throws her over a precipice, at the end of the fifth act. The count sees him, rushes to her assistance, and falls over with her. The husband folds his arms, and gives way to a burst of demoniac laughter. That is how I have arranged it.”

He paused, breathless, and glanced around him with eyes languid and colorless as those of a fish.

“It is a well-planned work, in which the grand passions elbow each other,” said the counsellor, stroking his bald cranium with his hand. “I offer my congratulations to Senhor Ledesma.”

“But what the deuce does that director want?” said Julião, who had been listening to the conversation, silent and attentive. “Does he perchance wish to place a precipice on a first floor furnished by Garde?”

Ernesto turned towards him. “No, Senhor Zuzarte,” he said, in mellifluous accents; “he wishes the catastrophe to take place in a salon. So that,” he added with resignation, “I have been obliged to rewrite the whole of the fifth act. In order to be obliging, I had to spend the night in vigil, and to drink three cups of coffee.”

“Take care, Senhor Ledesma!” said the counsellor, stretching out his hand with a warning gesture. “Take care! one should be prudent in the use of stimulants.”

“They don’t hurt me, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, smiling. “I altered the dénouement,” he continued, “in three hours; and I have just read it over to the director. I have it with me.”

“Read it to us, Senhor Ernesto,” said Donna Felicidade; “read it to us.”

“Yes, read it,” repeated every one.

“It is only the first sketch; I am afraid of boring you,” said Ernesto, who could not conceal his delight. “But, since you desire it—”

And, in the midst of profound silence, he unfolded a roll of blue-ruled paper. “I must claim your indulgence before beginning,” he said, looking around him, “in view of the fact that this is only a sketch. I have not crossed the t’s nor dotted the i’s yet.” And he began to read in a theatrical manner:—

“Agatha—that is the name of the wife, and we are now in the scene in which the husband has discovered everything,—”

“AGATHA (falling on her knees at the feet of Julio). Kill me! kill me! for pity’s sake. Rather death than to feel my heart slowly breaking under the weight of your contempt!”

“JULIO. Have you not torn my heart out of my bosom? Have you had compassion upon me? My God! I who in happier days believed her stainless!”

One of the portières of the parlor was here seen to move slightly; the noise of cups gently striking against one another was heard, and Juliana, in a white apron, entered, bringing in the tea.

“How annoying!” exclaimed Luiza. “After tea we will continue, eh?”

“It is not worth while, Cousin,” said Ernesto, folding up the paper and casting a furious glance at Juliana.

“What do you mean? Why, it is charming!” said Donna Felicidade.

Juliana placed on the table the plate of biscuits, the oeiras cakes, and the cocoanut bonbons.

“Senhor Counsellor,” said Luiza, “here is your tea,—a little weak, as you like it. Julião, help yourself. Hand the biscuits to Julião,” she said to Juliana.

And with her sleeve slightly turned up, her white arm exposed to view, she inquired, taking the sugar-spoon in her hand, “Who wants more sugar? Senhor Counsellor, a biscuit?”

“A thousand thanks, dear Senhora,” he responded, bowing. “I have already helped myself.” And turning to Ernesto, he declared that he found the style of his work admirable.

“But what more does the director want, now that he has his salon?” they demanded on all sides.

Ernesto, standing up, a bonbon between his fingers, said with animation,—

“He wants the husband to pardon his wife.”

There was a movement of astonishment.

“What an idea!” “What nonsense!” “But why?” “What a curious notion!” resounded on all sides.

“What would you have?” said Ernesto, shrugging his shoulders with a melancholy air. “He says the public do not like that kind of dénouement; that it does not suit the people of Lisbon.”

“In truth, Senhor Ledesma,” said the counsellor, “our public is not accustomed to these scenes of bloodshed.”

“That is true,” assented Donna Felicidade.

“But, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, balancing himself on the points of his toes, “in my play there is no blood shed, not a drop; a push of the shoulder, merely.”

Luiza, here calling the attention of Donna Felicidade, said to her aside, with a smile,—

“Try these egg bonbons; they are fresh.”

“Impossible, child, impossible,” she responded, in plaintive accents, placing her hand at the same time upon her stomach.

Meantime the counsellor, his hands on Ernesto’s shoulders, was recommending clemency to the latter, saying in persuasive accents,—

“That gives more gayety to the piece, Senhor Ledesma. The spectator leaves the theatre in a more agreeable frame of mind.”

“A tart, Senhor Counsellor?” interrupted Luiza.

“I have finished, dear lady. Come, Jorge, are you not of my opinion?”

“I, Senhor Counsellor?” responded Jorge, putting his hands in his pockets. “By no means. I am for her death,—most decidedly!”

“Ah, then—”

“I am for her death,” repeated Jorge, with animation; “and I demand that you kill her,” he added, turning to Ernesto.

“Let him talk, Senhor Ledesma,” interposed Donna Felicidade, quickly; “he is jesting,—he, who has the disposition of an angel!” she added, appealing with a smile to the others.

“You deceive yourself, Donna Felicidade,” said Jorge, standing before her. “I speak in all seriousness. I am a very tiger!”

Every one laughed.

“If she has deceived her husband,” he continued in severe accents, “I am of the opinion that she should be put to death. Could I consent, in a case like this, that a member of my family, a cousin of mine, one of my own blood, should allow himself to be carried away by pity, like a fool? No!” And turning to Ernesto, “Kill her! It is a tradition of the family. Kill her at once!”

“Here is a pencil,” said Julião, offering one to Ernesto.

“No,” said the counsellor, gravely, “I cannot believe that our Jorge speaks seriously. He is too intelligent to hold opinions so—so—” He could not find the adjective he wished. Julião handed him a toothpick-holder—a monkey sheltering himself under an umbrella—bristling with toothpicks. He took one, and continued, “So—so—barbarous.”

“But you deceive yourself, Senhor Counsellor,” protested Jorge. “Those are my real sentiments; in the full understanding that if the question, instead of being of a play, were one of real life, and Ernesto were to come to me and say, ‘I have found my wife—’”

“Oh, Jorge!” interrupted those nearest him, in accents of reproach.

“Well, if he were to come and say this to me, I should answer in the same way. I give you my word of honor,” he added, with an energetic gesture, “that I should say to him, ‘Kill her!’”

Every one protested against this. They called him a tiger, an Othello, a Bluebeard. Jorge said nothing; he only smiled tranquilly.

Luiza worked on at her embroidery in silence. The light of the lamp, softened by the shade, gave her hair a pale-yellow tint, and glanced off her skin, white as polished marble.

“And you,” Donna Felicidade asked her,—“what do you think of all this?”

Luiza raised her beautiful countenance, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.

“The Senhora Donna Luiza,” said the counsellor, “will say proudly what all true matrons would say: ‘The impurities of the world do not touch even the hem of my garment.’”

“Good-evening to every one,” said a deep bass voice in the doorway.

“Sebastião!” they all cried, looking towards the door; “Senhor Sebastião! the great Sebastião!”

Sebastião had been the bosom friend, the comrade, the inseparable companion of Jorge, ever since the time when they studied Latin together in the class of Brother Liborio the Paulist. He was a man of colossal proportions, and was dressed entirely in black. He carried in his hand a soft broad-brimmed hat. His temples began to show signs of baldness; his chestnut hair was fine and silky, and he wore a short blond beard. He sat down by Luiza, and in answer to the question where he came from, responded that he had just come from Price’s Circus; that he had laughed a great deal at the clown; and that they had given the pantomime of the “Cask.”

His countenance, seen in the full light, was round, plump, and rosy; his eyes, somewhat small, and of a light blue, had a very sweet expression, especially when he laughed; his lips were red and fresh-colored; his teeth, white and brilliant, gave indication of a tranquil life cheered by chaste affections. Speaking of Price’s Circus brought to his mind, he said, the old-time pantomimes of Salitre, and the traditional bladders that burst with a loud noise when the clown let himself fall upon them. His manner of speaking was slow, and somewhat timid, either as if he feared to put forward an opinion of his own, or did not wish to fatigue himself. Tea was handed to him, and with eyes still smiling he stirred the sugar gently in the cup with his spoon.

“Yes, the pantomime of the ‘Cask’ is really very pretty and amusing,” he said. “So you are going away to-morrow, Jorge?” he added, after a moment’s silence.

“Without fail.”

“Have you no desire to accompany him?” he asked Luiza.

Certainly she would like to do so, she said, but the roads were so bad. Besides, she could not leave the house alone, in the care of servants.

“True, true,” answered Sebastião, looking down, and stroking his beard.

“Sebastião,” said Jorge, “do me the favor to come here a moment.”

He entered the study, followed by Sebastião, with his heavy step, his broad shoulders somewhat stooped, and the skirts of his coat flapping against his legs,—a coat that seemed to have been cut out of the cloak of a priest.