There was something impressive and attractive about him, and Estêvão felt more and more drawn to this man who sought his company and held out the hand of friendship to him.
The conversation continued in the same affectionate tone in which it had begun; the first encounter between friends is the very opposite of the first encounter between lovers; in the latter, silence speaks volumes; in the former, you inspire and gain each other’s confidence by a frank exposition of feelings and ideas.
They did not talk about politics. Estêvão made a brief allusion to Meneses’s duties as a deputy, but it was a passing comment to which the deputy paid no attention.
After an hour, Estêvão got up to leave; he had to go and see a patient.
“That is the most sacred of reasons, otherwise I would keep you here longer.”
“I’ll come again, though.”
“You certainly will, and I’ll return the visit occasionally too. If, that is, you’re not fed up with me after two weeks . . . Look, come in the evening; have supper with me; once I’ve finished at the Chamber, I’m completely free.”
Estêvão agreed to all these proposals.
And he did go back and twice had supper with the deputy, who also visited him at home; they went to the theater together and became on good terms with the various families of their acquaintance. After a month, they were old friends. They had both taken careful note of each other’s character and feelings. Meneses liked the doctor’s seriousness and good sense; he respected him and accepted his prejudices, applauding the generosity of his ambitions. For his part, the doctor saw in Meneses a man who combined the austerity of experience with a gentlemanly amiability, being modest in his manners, cultivated, and sensitive. He found not a trace of the misanthropy he had been warned about. It’s true that, on occasions, Meneses did seem more disposed to listen than to speak, and, at such times, his gaze grew still and somber, as if he were contemplating his own consciousness, rather than looking at any external object. Such moments did not last, however, and Meneses soon reverted to his usual self.
“He’s not a misanthrope,” thought Estêvão, “but there is some kind of drama going on inside him.”
This idea took on a certain verisimilitude when, one night at the Teatro Lírico, Estêvão drew Meneses’s attention to a woman dressed in black, who was sitting in a box on the first level.
“I don’t know that woman,” said Estêvão, “do you?”
Meneses looked up at the box, studied the woman for a few moments, then said:
“No, I don’t.”
The conversation went no further, but the doctor noticed that the woman looked at Meneses twice more, and that Meneses did the same, and that their eyes met.
At the end of the performance, the two friends walked over to the side corridor where the woman in black had been sitting. Estêvão was curious—the curiosity of an artist: he wanted to see her from close up The door to her box was shut. Had she already left? It was impossible to know. Meneses walked by without looking. When they reached the landing of the stairs leading down to the exit onto Rua dos Ciganos, they were both stopped by the great crush of people. Shortly afterward, they heard someone’s hurrying footsteps, and Meneses immediately took Estêvão’s arm and continued on down the stairs despite having to push his way through the throng.
Estêvão understood, although he had seen nothing.
For his part, Meneses gave nothing away.
As soon as they were free of the crowd, the deputy launched into a lively conversation with the doctor.
“What effect does it have on you, pushing past all those elegant ladies, through that confusion of silks and perfumes?”
Estêvão replied distractedly, and Meneses continued the conversation in the same vein. Five minutes later, the incident at the theater was entirely forgotten.
IV
One day, Estêvão Soares was invited to a ball at the house of an old friend of his father’s.
It was a large and glittering company, and, although Estêvão led a quiet existence, he knew quite a number of people there. He did not dance, but he looked, talked, laughed a little, and left.
When he had arrived at the ball, his heart had been utterly free; when he left, however, it was—to adopt the language of the poets of Arcadia—pierced by an arrow, love’s arrow.
Love? To be honest, that word cannot be used to describe the feeling experienced by Estêvão; it was not yet love, but it could quite easily become love. For the moment, it was a feeling of sweet, gentle fascination; one of the guests had made on him the same impression that fairies make on wandering princes or exiled princesses, at least according to what we read in fairy tales.
The woman in question was not a maiden; she was a widow of thirty-four, very beautiful, gracious and kind. This was the first time Estêvão had seen her; at least, he could not recall having seen her before. They had talked for half an hour, and he was so enchanted by Madalena’s manners, voice, and beauty that, when he reached home, he was unable to sleep.
Like the good doctor he was, he noted the symptoms of this hypertrophy of the heart called love and did his best to combat the nascent illness. He read a few pages of a mathematics book, or, rather, he ran his eyes over the pages, because as soon as he started to read, his mind left the book and went off to find the widow.
Tiredness succeeded where Euclid failed and, toward dawn, Estêvão Soares finally fell asleep.
He dreamed of the widow.
He dreamed he was holding her in his arms, that he was showering her with kisses, that she was his wife in the eyes of the Church and society.
When he woke, he remembered the dream and smiled.
“Get married!” he said. “That’s all I need. How could I, with my naturally shy, ambitious character, how could I possibly be happily married? I’ll think no more about it. I’ll never see that woman again, and that’s that.”
He began getting dressed.
Breakfast was brought to him, and he ate rapidly because it was late, then went out to see a few patients.
As he passed Rua do Conde, he remembered that Madalena had told him that this was the street where she lived, but where exactly? She had told him the number, but he had been so entranced by her voice that he had failed to retain this information.
Since no one could help him, he decided to continue on his way.
The following day, though, he made a point of walking twice up and down Rua do Conde to see if he could find the charming widow. He found nothing, but just as he was about to take a cab and return home, he bumped into the family friend at whose house he had met Madalena.
Estêvão had already considered approaching him, but had immediately rejected the thought, because asking him where the widow lived might betray his intentions.
That was the word Estêvão used—betray.
After greeting the doctor and exchanging a few words with him, the man said goodbye, announcing that he was going to visit Madalena.
Estêvão trembled with satisfaction.
He watched his friend from a distance and saw him go into a house.
“So that’s where she lives,” he thought.
And he walked briskly away.
When he got home, he found a letter perfumed with sandalwood; the address was written in a neat, elegant, but unfamiliar hand.
He broke the seal.
This is what the letter said:
We’re having tea at my house tomorrow. It would give us great pleasure if you would care to spend a few hours with us. Madalena C.
Estêvão read and reread the note; he even made as if to raise it to his lips, but, ashamed of what seemed to him mere weakness, he simply gave the letter a peremptory sniff and put it in his pocket.
Estêvão was something of a fatalist.
“If I hadn’t gone to that ball, I wouldn’t have met that woman and I wouldn’t be feeling as I do now, and I would have avoided either a misfortune or a joy, because both those things could come from this
chance encounter. To be or not to be, as Hamlet said. Should I go to her house? It’s only polite, after all. Yes, I must, but I will go prepared for everything. I must break with these ideas and resume my former tranquil existence.”
He was still thinking all this when Meneses arrived at his house. He had come to take Estêvão out to supper, and they left together. On the way, Estêvão asked Meneses a few strange questions.
For example:
“Do you believe in fate, my friend? Do you think there is a good god and a bad god constantly engaged in a power struggle over our lives?”
“Fate is will,” answered Meneses. “Each man makes his own fate.”
“And yet we do have presentiments. Sometimes we have an inkling of events in which we did not even take part. Do you not think perhaps that some beneficent god is telling us these things?”
“You’re speaking like a pagan, and I don’t believe any of it. I do believe that my stomach is empty and that the best thing we can do is to have supper right here in the Hotel de Europa rather than going back to Rua do Lavradio.”
They went into the hotel.
Various deputies were there, talking politics, and they all gathered around Meneses. Estêvão listened and responded, but without once forgetting the widow, the letter, and the smell of sandalwood.
There were some interesting contrasts between the general conversation and Estêvão’s thoughts.
For example, a deputy would say:
“The government is overreaching itself, and the provinces can’t take much more of it. Principle has been tossed out of the window. In my province alone, some subdelegates have been dismissed simply because they’re relatives of mine; my son-in-law, who was director of finances, was thrown out and the post given to some dandy who’s related by marriage to the Valadar family. I tell you I’m really going to lay into the opposition tomorrow.”
Estêvão was looking at the deputy who was speaking, but in his head, he was saying this:
“Madalena really is beautiful, unbelievably beautiful. She has extraordinary eyes. Her hair is gorgeous too; everything about her is fascinating. I would be happy to have her as my wife, but who knows? And yet I feel that I will love her. It’s irresistible. I have to love her. But what about her? What does she mean by that invitation? Does she love me?”
Estêvão was so immersed in these ideal thoughts, so distracted, that, when a deputy asked him if he didn’t also find the whole situation grim and hopeless, he replied:
“Oh, yes, gorgeous!”
“Ah,” said the deputy, “I see you’re on the side of the ministers!”
Estêvão smiled, but Meneses frowned. He had understood everything.
V
When they left, the deputy said to the doctor:
“My friend, you’ve been disloyal to me . . .”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Estêvão, half serious and half joking, not having understood the deputy’s remark.
“Because,” Meneses went on, “you have a secret you’re not telling me.”
“Me?”
“Yes, a secret love.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I noticed just now that, while everyone else was discussing politics, you were thinking about a woman, a gorgeous woman.”
Seeing that he had been found out, Estêvão did not deny it.
“It’s true. I was thinking about a woman.”
“And will I be the last to know?”
“Know what? There’s no love, nothing. I happened to meet a woman who made a real impression on me, and I’m still thinking about her now. But it may well go no further than that. That’s it. It’s an unfinished chapter; a novel of which there is only the first page. I really think it will be difficult for me to fall in love.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I find it hard to believe in love.”
Meneses looked hard at Estêvão and smiled, shaking his head:
“Look, leave disbelief to those who have already been disappointed in love; you’re young and as yet know nothing of such disappointments. No one can be a skeptic at your age. Besides, if the woman is pretty, I wager you’ll end up telling me a very different story.”
“Possibly,” said Estêvão.
And at the same time, he thought about Meneses’s words, words that reminded him of what had happened at the Teatro Lírico.
Meanwhile, Estêvão duly went to Madalena’s house. He was as meticulously dressed and perfumed as if he were going to visit his fiancée. What would come of that encounter? Would he emerge a free man or a slave? Estêvão could not help thinking that perhaps she loved him already, and the invitation seemed to him irrefutable proof of this. As he got into a cab, he began to build all kinds of castles in the air.
At last, he reached her house.
VI
Madalena was alone in the room with her small son.
No one else.
It was half-past nine.
“Am I too early?” he asked.
“You could never be too early.”
Estêvão bowed, and Madalena went on:
“The reason I’m alone is because I felt a little unwell earlier and sent messages putting off the handful of people I’d invited.”
“But I didn’t receive a message . . .”
“That is because I didn’t send you one. It was the first time I’d invited you, and I certainly didn’t want to drive away such a distinguished gentleman.”
Madalena’s words were not even believable as the feeblest of excuses.
Estêvão realized at once that there must be some hidden motive.
Could it be love?
Estêvão thought that it was, and he was sorry, because, despite everything, he had imagined a more discreet, less precipitate passion. However pleasing this was, he did not want to be the object of her desires, and felt terribly embarrassed to be there with a woman with whom he was beginning to fall in love and who perhaps loved him. What could he say to her? It was the first time he had found himself in such a situation. There is every reason to think that, at the time, Estêvão would have preferred to be a hundred leagues from there, and yet, however far away he was, he would still be thinking about her.
Madalena was extraordinarily beautiful, and yet her face revealed her to be someone who has suffered greatly. She was tall and strong, and had a beautiful neck, magnificent arms, large brown eyes, and a mouth made for love.
At that moment, she was wearing a black dress. Black suited her.
Estêvão gazed on her with love and adoration; he heard her speak and felt enchanted and overwhelmed by a feeling he could not explain.
It was a mixture of love and fear.
Madalena was tactful and solicitous. She spoke of his many merits and his burgeoning reputation, and urged him to come and visit her occasionally.
At half-past ten, tea was served, and Estêvão stayed until eleven o’clock.
By the time he left, he was completely besotted. Madalena had yoked him to her cart, and the poor boy had no wish to cast off that yoke.
As he walked home, his head was full of plans: he could see himself married to her, beloved and loving, provoking envy everywhere, and, more importantly, happy in himself.
When he reached his house, he thought he should write a letter to send to Meneses the next day. He wrote five and tore all of them up.
Finally, he wrote this very simple note:
My friend, you were quite right; at my age, no one is a skeptic; we believe. I believe and I am in love. I never would have thought it possible, but it’s true. I am in love. Would you like to know who I’m in love with? I will take you to her house. You’ll find her very pretty—because she is!
The letter said many more things, but they were all basically a gloss on the same idea.
Estêvão went back to Madalena’s house, and became a regular, assiduous visitor.
The widow treated him so kindly that it was impossible to doubt the feelings that lay behind
that kindness. That at least is what Estêvão thought. She was nearly always alone, and he delighted in listening to her talk. They were growing closer and closer.
On only his second visit, Estêvão spoke to her about Meneses and asked permission to introduce her to him. She said she would be delighted to receive any of his friends, but asked him to postpone any introductions for the moment. He accepted everything Madalena asked or thought and so said nothing more.
As was only natural, when his visits to the widow grew more frequent, his visits to his friend became less so.
Meneses did not complain; he understood and said to Estêvão:
“Don’t apologize, that’s the way things are. Friendship must give way to love. I just want you to be happy.”
One day, Estêvão asked his friend why he no longer believed in love, and if he had suffered some great misfortune.
“No, not at all,” said Meneses.
Then, realizing that the doctor deserved his confidence and might not believe him, he added:
“No, why deny it? I did suffer a great misfortune. I, too, loved, but did not find sweetness and dignity in love. Anyway, it’s a personal tragedy of which I prefer not to speak. I have to accept it.”
VII
“When would you like me to introduce you to my friend Meneses?” Estêvão asked Madalena one night.
“Oh, yes, that’s right. Well, one of these days. I see you are a great friend of his.”