A SEMINARIST
This is Ezequiel de Sousa...
Escobar.
A slim boy, light eyes, rather flitting,
like his hands, his feet, his speech...
like everything.
I was going over yesterday's lesson.
I was seduced by his words and almost told him my story.
Escobar opened up his whole heart to you from the front door to
the far end of the garden.
Our soul, as you know, is not a very unusual house...
with windows all around, bright and airy.
There are also locked, dark ones, without windows or only a few with bars,
rather like convents and prisons.
I know not what mine was like.
I wasn't yet "casmurro", much less Dom Casmurro.
But since the doors had no keys nor locks a push was all that was required,
and Escobar pushed and entered.
I found him already inside,
and inside he stayed.
Until...
A SONNET
First, though, I'll tell the story of a sonnet I never wrote.
One night, I know neither how nor why, this verse came into my head:
Oh! Heavenly flower! Oh! Candid and pure flower!
Insomnia, the muse of open eyes, wouldn't let me sleep.
I understood the restlessness a son feels, the first son.
I was going to be a poet.
Oh! Heavenly flower!
Oh! Candid and pure flower!
Who was the flower?
Capitu, naturally.
But it might be virtue, poetry, religion.
I waited for more, but nothing came.
Then I remembered that the great sonnets always had
...superb endings.
After much toil the last verse came to me:
Life is lost, the battle is won!
Modesty aside, it was a magnificent verse.
At the time I thought it sublime.
I sensed that a perfect sonnet was being formed.
but it didn't come...
nor did the third, nor the fourth.
Tired of waiting, I thought of altering the order of the verses.
Instead of "Life is lost, the battle is won!" I put:
Life is won, the battle lost.
The sense ended up quite the opposite, but perhaps that...
...would bring me inspiration.
I worked in vain, I sought, hunted, waited.
The other verses wouldn't come...
and now I'm composing this narrative and finding no difficulty in writing.
But nothing can console me about that sonnet I never wrote.
I offer these two verses to the first idler who'd like them.
All you need is an idea and fill in the missing middle.
Life is won, the battle is lost!
Everyone misses you, but it is naturally the one with...
the greatest heart who misses you the most. Who might that be?
Mother.
She speaks of Bento every day, almost every hour.
Uncle Cosme too.
Yesterday for instance...
But José Dias, what about my departure from here?
That's my business.
What's needed is the trip to Europe...
but it might come in a year or two, in 1859 or...
Too far away!
It'd better if it were this year, but time must run its course.
Be patient, study and don't lose any opportunity to learn something.
Even if you don't become a priest, the seminary life is useful...
walking around the new-born offspring, groaning.
I didn't ask him what was the matter, out of embarrassment...
and because two professors, one of whom taught Theology...
Nothing can be certain for now, but it looks as if he'll manage.
That's what I was just saying.
than the one you provide here.
You'll go on the journey of existence anointed by theology's saint oils.
I couldn't care less about theology's saint oils...
I want to get out of here as fast as possible,
if not now.
My angel, now is not possible.
But 1859 or 1860 is too late.
This year, then.
- In three months? - Or six?
-No, three months. -We'll see.
Now I have a plan I think is better than any other.
It means combining the absence of an ecclesiastic vocation...
with the necessity for a change of scenery.
Why don't you cough?
Why don't I cough?
No, not now, but I'll tell you when to cough, when it'll be necessary.
Gradually, a little dry cough, a lack of appetite...
I'll work on her Excellency.
This is all for her benefit, isn't it?
Since the son cannot serve the Church...
the best way of serving God's will is to devote him to something else.
The world is also a church for good men.
Oh, I see! Show that I'm sick in order to travel, right?
Show the truth, because frankly, Bento, I've been concerned...
about my chest for months now.
You don't feel well from the chest.
When you were little, you were prone to fever, breathing difficulties.
It all cleared up, but you've been looking pale for several days now.
I'm not saying you're ill, but the illness might strike quickly.
The house may crumble at any time. Which is why I think a decent cough...
If the cough might really come, you'd better hurry it along.
There, I'll let you know.
Well...
And Capitu, how is she?
Capitu? She seems happy, as ever. Such a foolish girl.
Until that one finds some lad from the neighborhood to marry her...
A TOUCH OF IAGO
She was perfectly happy,
while I wept every night.
She made my heart beat so violently I can hear it to this day.
This is a slight exaggeration...
but don't forget it was the emotion of my first love.
I was nearly going to ask José Dias to explain Capitu's happiness...
what she was doing, if she was always laughing, singing...
or skipping.
Master Bento! Master Bento!
Master Bento! Come back here!
Confess! Confess!
Confess how many times the lad from the neighborhood kissed you?
That was what bit me. "Some lad from the neighborhood."
They'd exchange flowers,
and who knows what else.
I'd never imagined such a disaster.
I lived her so fully, within her and for her...
it never occurred to me there might be lads from the neighborhood.
I already miss my mother.
May I visit her this week?
Go on Saturday.
Saturday?
Yes! Yes! Ask mother to come and fetch me! Without fail!
THE DECEPTION
Saturday came, other Saturdays came and the new life ended up growing on me.
I alternated between home and the seminary.
The priests liked me, and so did the other boys...
and Escobar more so than the other boys and the priests.
At the end of 5 weeks I was almost telling him my fears and hopes.
But Capitu refrained me.
-Escobar is a very good friend, Capitu! -But he's not mine.
But he will be.
He told me he'd like to meet mother.
No matter.
You have no right to tell a secret which isn't only yours, but mine too...
and I don't give you permission to say anything to anyone.
José Dias, do you still doubt he'll make a fine priest?
Your Excellency...
And you, Capitu, don't you think our Bento will make a fine priest?
Yes, ma'am, I think so.
A fine priest.
While my life is severed by longing, you seem increasingly happy
that I went to the seminary!
How would you have me behave? They suspect us, Bento.
You should know I too have had bleak nights...
and days as sad as yours.
Ask my father, my mother.
She even said I no longer thought of you.
To Dona Glória and Dona Justina I appear happy so that...
it doesn't seem that José Dias's accusation is true.
If it did, they'd try to separate us further still...
and perhaps they wouldn't even receive me.
To me all that counts is our oath
that we shall marry each other.
You're right, Capitu, we'll fool all these people.
Right?
THE AGREEMENT
One Monday,
as I returned to the seminary I saw a lady fall on the street.
Merci, merci... Merci, merci...
This habit of imitating the French on Ouvidor Street...
is clearly a mistake.
Our girls should go about just as before...
slowly and patiently, not with this Frenchified buzzing about.
Mon Dieu...
I don't think she's hurt.
She must have grazed her knees.
That agility is in vogue.
Come on!
If it weren't for that, this book might just be a parochial manual...
if I were a priest, or a pastor, a bishop, or canon, or pope.
Go on, lad, come back as the Pope!
One of man's habits is to close tight his eyes to see if the...
broken dream of the young night persists into the old.
As the evil returned in the morning, I tried defeating it...
but in such a way as I wouldn't lose out completely.
Unable to free myself of those images...
I made an agreement between my conscience
and my imagination.
The feminine visions would from now on...
to strengthen me, and didn't reject them.
They then grew weary and left.
INTIMACY
Capitu continued to enter my mother's soul.
They spent almost the whole time together talking about me,
the sun and the rain, or about nothing.
Capitu would go there to sew, in the mornings...
and would sometimes stay for dinner.
Cousin Justina didn't join in with my mother's favors...
but didn't treat my friend entirely badly.
My husband was an exception.
No other man could compete
with his affection, his work,
honesty, his manners
and sharpness of spirit.
A posthumous opinion, cousin Justina
for in life you two were forever quarreling
and lived separately for the last six months.
Glorifying the dead is a way of praying for them, cousin Cosme.
I think she did like my mother...
not that she aspired to an inheritance.
People with such dispositions exceed their natural service...
make themselves more smiling.
If to begin with she didn't treat Capitu badly,
with time alone with my mother
she always found some bad word to say about the girl...
Being a house guest, she wouldn't cross the lady of the house...
she kept her resentment quiet or only spoke ill of her...
to the God and the Devil.
A SIN
When my mother fell ill with fever which placed her at death's door...
she wanted Capitu to nurse her.
Haven't you got things to attend to at home?
There's no great hurry.
What's to be yours will arrive
in your hands.
Dear Glória, you are alarmed for no reason, the fever is passing.
No! No! Please, send for him!
I may die, my soul will not be saved if Bento is not beside me.
He'll be alarmed.
Then tell him nothing, but have him sent for. Hurry!
It was the first time death had come so close to me...,
enveloping me, staring at me with his dark empty eyes.
hearing the wailing, and seeing a dead body.
I could never put down here all
I felt during those terrible minutes.
I began to accept the worst, as a gesture of fate...
as a necessity of the human condition.
And it was then that Hope confided in my heart an idea:
Mother dead, no more seminary!
What, Bento?
Mother.
No! no! What an idea!
Her condition is highly critical, but not deadly.
And God can do anything.
Dry your eyes it's not nice for a young man your age
to be crying in the street.
And fever, just as it hits with a force, leaves in the same manner.
Don't use your fingers. Where's your handkerchief?
Here.
Let's go?
Come on, Bento.
Of all José Dias's words, only one remained in my heart:
Critical.
Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive me!
Forgive me!
I thought of telling my mother everything as soon as she was well.
But the intention was a passing one, an action I'd never carry out,
however much the sin pained me.
Then I used that old ploy from spiritual vows and asked God...
to forgive me and save my mother
and I'd pray two thousand... Lord's Prayers.
Any priests reading this, please forgive this ploy.
It was the last time I employed it.
That made another two thousand, but what about all the old ones?
I paid neither.
Such vows are like promissory notes...
even if the debt isn't paid the amount written down is still worth something.
VIRTUE DELAYED
Few would be pleased about confessing that thought of mine.
I'll confess everything which is important to my story.
There's only one way of writing its true essence: to tell everything...
the good and the bad.
For instance, now I've told you a sin...
I'd love to recount some fine deed, if I could remember one.
But I can't.
We'll leave that to some other moment.
THE MASS
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary...
that never was it known, that any one who fled to thy protection...
implored thy help, and sought thy intercession...
was left unaided.
Sancha, Capitu's friend from school.
What is it, dear?
I want news of Dona Glória. Ask him, father.
AFTER MASS
So here we are. Will you stay for lunch?
-Please! -Thank you, but mother is expecting me.
Oh, we can send a slave to say you've stayed for lunch...
and will be home later.
I'll come another day.
ESCOBAR'S VISIT
It was a day of good sensations.
Escobar went to visit me and enquire about my mother's health.
He'd never visited me before.
Our friendship wasn't as close as it would become later.
Hearing the reason for my departure Escobar used his Sunday to come...
and see me and ask whether she was still in danger or not
- The worst is over. - I was worried.
- Do the others know? - I think so, some of them.
Uncle Cosme and José Dias liked Escobar.
He was very polite,
and that day I thought him little more affable than usual.
Will you stay for dinner?
I can't, one of my father's correspondents is expecting me.
We can send a slave to say you'll dine here and will come later.
Too much trouble!
Escobar's eyes were so utterly sweet.
That's how José Dias put it, after he'd gone.
And he wasn't exaggerating.
You can tell he has a pure heart!
I thought him an agreeable boy,
although...
Although what?
Cousin Justina could see no clear or important defect in our guest.
The "although" just a reservation in case...
any were found one day.
What great friend was that?
Escobar, my friend from the seminary.
THE STAGE MANAGER
Destiny is not only a playwright, but his own stage manager...
in charge of the character's entrances on stage.
Now, the dandy on the sorrel horse didn't pass like the others.
It was the bugle of the final judgment!
It was jealousy's second tooth biting me.
It was natural to admire fine figures,
but that fellow used to pass there, in the afternoon, and then...
and then...
Come on, reason with a flaming heart like mine was at the time!
THE BUTTON
"Until that one finds some lad from the neighborhood to marry her..."
I felt like grabbing José Dias by the collar and asking him...
whether he was speaking the truth or hypothetically.
I was impatient and felt like going next door imagining Capitu...
coming away from the window alarmed and losing no time in...
asking and explaining herself.
Let's go and see how sister Glória is.
I, who felt like asking her what had being going on between Capitu
and the lads from the neighborhood now, imagining what she had come to tell me,
was afraid of hearing it.
What is it, Bento?
In order not to stare, I looked down.
My averted eyes noticed that one of the buttons on...
José Dias's trousers was undone.
The button!
I broke free, escaped my mother by not going to her room...
but I couldn't escape my own self.
I ran to my room, and entered on my own heels.
DESPAIR
I never want to see Capitu again! I swear!
I'll take my vows right away!
I already imagined myself ordained facing her as she wept tears of regret.
And I, cold and serene, would feel nothing but loathing...
such loathing.
-Cheat! -Forgive me, Bento...
- Cheat! Cheat! - Forgive me.
- Cheat! - Forgive me.
- Cheat! Cheat! - Forgive me.
Forgive me, Bento.
And there's this veil, too.
Isn't it lovely?
It's the veil, not any old veil.
Not any veil, right?
And isn't it lovely?
Twice I caught myself grinding my teeth...
as if she were between them.
I felt like digging my nails into her neck, burying them deep...
until I saw her life seeping away, and blood!