A fortune teller
Machado de Assis
HAMLET OBSERVES HOURS THAT THERE ARE MORE THINGS IN
HEAVEN AND ON EARTH THAT DREAMS OUR PHILOSOPHY. It was once that he gave a
beautiful Rita to Camilo, a Friday of November 1869, when she was her, for
having gone the day before to consult a fortune-teller; the difference is that
it was in other words.
- Laugh, laugh. Men are like that; does not believe
in anything. Because what it was, and she guessed the reason for the
consultation, even before I said what it was. I only started to put as letters,
he said to me: "You like a person ..." I confessed that yes, and then
she continued to put as letters, matched them, and it did not end that I was
afraid of you that I forgot, but that it was not true ...
- You missed! stopped Camilo, laughing.
"Do not say that, Camilo. You feel like I've
been walking, because of you. Do you know; already said. Do not laugh at me, do
not laugh ...
Camilo took it in his hands, and looked at it
seriously and fixedly. He swore that he loved him very much, that his frights
seemed like a child; in any case, when he had some fear, the best fortune teller
was himself. Then he rebuked her; told him that it was unwise to walk through
these houses. Vilela could have known, and then ...
- What do you know! I was very cautious when I
entered the house.
- Where is the house?
"Near here, on Rua da Guarda Velha; no one
passed by on that occasion. Rests; I'm not crazy.
Camilo laughed again:
"Do you really believe these things?" she
asked him.
It was then that she, not knowing that she
translated Hamlet into vulgar, told her that there was much mysterious and true
in this world. If he did not believe, patience; but the fortune-teller had
guessed it all. What else? The proof is that she was now calm and content.
I know he was going to talk, but he stifled
himself. He did not want to uproot his illusions. He too, as a child, and even
afterwards, was superstitious, had a whole arsenal of crendices, which his
mother instilled in him and which at the age of twenty disappeared. On the day
when he dropped all this parasitic vegetation, and left only the trunk of
religion, he, as he had received from the mother both teachings, involved them
in the same doubt, and then in a single total negation. Camilo did not believe
in anything. Because? He could not say it, he did not have a single argument;
he simply denied everything. And I say evil, because to deny is yet to affirm,
and he did not formulate unbelief; in the face of the mystery, he contented
himself with shrugging his shoulders, and walked.
They separated gladly, he even more than she. Rita was sure to be loved; Camilo not only was, but he saw her shudder and risk it, run to the fortune tellers, and no matter how much she rebuked her, she could not help but feel flattered. The house of the encounter was in the old Rua dos Barbonos, where lived a comprovinciana of Rita. This one went down Rua das Mangueiras, in the direction of Botafogo, where it resided; Camilo went down the Old Guard, looking in the direction of the fortune teller's house.
Vilela, Camilo and Rita, three names, an adventure and no explanation of origins. Let's go to her. The first two were childhood friends. Vilela pursued a magistrate's career. Camilo entered the functionalism, against the will of the father, who wanted to see him doctor; but his father died, and Camilo chose not to be anything until his mother got him a public job. At the beginning of 1869 Vilela returned from the province, where she had married a fair and beautiful lady; he left the magistracy and came to open a lawyer's office. Camilo arranged a house for him to the sides of Botafogo, and was aboard to receive him.
- And you? exclaimed Rita, holding out her hand. You can not imagine how my husband is your friend; I always spoke of you.
Camilo and Vilela looked at each other with tenderness. They were really friends.
Then Camilo confessed to himself that Vilela's wife did not deny her husband's letters. Really, she was graceful and lively in the gestures, warm eyes, fine and interrogative mouth. She was a little older than both: she was thirty, Vilela twenty-nine, and Camilo twenty-six. However, Vilela's grave bearing made him appear older than the woman, while Camilo was a naive in moral and practical life. It lacked as much the action of time, as the glasses of crystal, that nature puts in the cradle of some to advance the years. Neither experience nor intuition.
The three of them joined. Coexistence brought intimacy. Shortly after Camilo's mother died, and in that disaster, that was, the two showed themselves to be his great friends. Vilela took care of the burial, the suffrages and the inventory, Rita especially dealt with the heart, and nobody would do better.
Since they came to love, he never knew. The truth is that he liked to spend the hours beside her; was her moral nurse, almost a sister, but mostly she was a woman and beautiful. Odor di femmina: this is what he aspired to in her, and around her, to incorporate into himself. They read the same books, went to theaters and walks together. Camilo taught him the ladies and the chess and played at night; - she badly - he, to be pleasant, not less evil. Until then things. Now the action of the person, the stubborn eyes of Rita, who
they often sought his, who consulted them before doing it to his husband, his hands cold, his actions unusual. One day, when he was a year old, he received from Vilela a rich cane of gift, and of Rita only a card with a common greeting in pencil, and it was then that he could read in his own heart; he could not take his eyes off the note. Common words; but there are sublime, or at least delightful, vulgarities. The old caleça de plaza, where you first walked with the woman you love, closed both, is worth the car of Apollo. So is man, so are the things that surround him.
Camilo sincerely wanted to escape, but he could not. Rita, like a serpent, approached him, enveloped him whole, smashed his bones in a spasm, and dripped venom in his mouth. He was stunned and subdued. Vexame, scares, remorse, desires, all felt mixed; but the battle was short and the victory delirious. Goodbye, scruples! It was not long before the shoe settled on its foot, and there they went, out of the way, arm in arm, treading loose on grasses and gravels, suffering nothing but a few misses, when they were absent from each other. Vilela's confidence and esteem remained the same.
One day, however, Camilo received an anonymous letter, which he called immoral and perfidious, and said that the adventure was known to all. Camilo was frightened, and in order to deflect suspicions, the visits to Vilela's house began to diminish. He noticed the absences. Camilo replied that the reason was a frivolous passion of a boy. Candura generated cunning. Absences continued, and visits ceased entirely. It may be that she also entered into this a bit of self-love, an intention to diminish her husband's obsequies to make the act of deceit less harsh.
It was at this time that Rita, suspicious and fearful, ran to the fortune teller to consult her on the true cause of Camilo's procedure. We saw that the fortune teller restored her confidence, and the boy rebuked her for doing what she did. It was still a few weeks. Camilo received another two or three anonymous letters, so passionate, that they could not be a warning of virtue, but spite of some suitor; such was the opinion of Rita, who, in other words, poorly composed, formulated this thought: - virtue is lazy and miserly, does not spend time or paper; only interest is active and prodigal.
But Camilo did not rest; He feared that the anonymous man would go to Vilela, and the catastrophe would come without remedy. Rita agreed it was possible.
"Well," she said; I take the envelopes to compare the letter with those of the letters that appear there; if any is equal, keep it and tear it ...
None appeared; but after a while Vilela began to look bleak, speaking little, as if suspicious. Rita hurried to tell the other, and deliberated on that. Her opinion is that Camilo she should return to her house, touch her husband, and it may be until she heard the confidentiality of some private business. Camilo diverged; to appear after so many months was to confirm suspicion or denunciation. It would be better to beware, sacrificing for a few weeks. They combined the means of matching each other, if necessary, and separated with tears.
The next day, when he was in the office, Camilo received this note from Vilela: "Come, now, to our house; I must speak to you without delay. "It was after noon. Camilo left soon; on the street, he warned that it would have been more natural to call him to the office; Why at home? Everything indicated special matter, and the letter, whether reality or illusion, seemed trembling. He combined all these things with the news of the day before.
"Come, now, to our house; I need to talk to you without delay, "he repeated, his eyes on the paper.
Imaginarily, he saw the tip of the ear of a drama, Rita subjugated and tearful, Vilela outraged, taking the pen and writing the note, certain that he would come, and waiting for him to kill him. Camilo shuddered, he was afraid: then he smiled yellow, and in any case he was repelled by the idea of retreating, and walked. On the way, he remembered going home; she could find some message from Rita, to explain everything. He did not find anything or anyone. He returned to the street, and the idea of being discovered seemed to him more and more believable; it was natural an anonymous denunciation, even of the very person who had threatened him before; it could be that Vilela now knew everything. The same suspension of his visits, for no apparent reason, only on a futile pretext, would confirm the rest.
Camilo walked restlessly and nervously. He did not reread the note, but the words were fixed before his eyes fixed; or-worse-they were whispered in his ear, in Vilella's own voice. "Come, now, to our house; I need to speak to you without delay. "Said like this, by the voice of the other, they had a tone of mystery and threat. Come, already, already, for what? It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. The commotion grew from minute to minute. So much did he imagine what would happen, that he came to believe and see him. Positively she was afraid. He started to think about going armed, considering that if there was nothing, nothing was lost, and the precaution was useful. Then he rejected the idea, vexed of himself, and followed, stomping his pace, toward Largo da Carioca, to enter a tilburi. He arrived, entered, and ordered the broad trot.
"The sooner the better," he thought; I can not be like this ...
But the same horse-trotting had aggravated his commotion. Time flew, and he would soon be in danger. Almost at the end of the Rua da Guarda Velha, the tilburi had to stop; the street was cluttered with a cart, which had fallen. Camilo, in himself, cherished the obstacle, and waited. At the end of five minutes, she noticed that next to the left, at the foot of the tilburi, was the house of the fortune teller, whom Rita had consulted once, and he never wanted to believe in the cards. He looked, saw the windows closed, when all the others were open and filled with curiosity of the incident of the street. It would have been the abode of the indifferent Destiny.
Camilo leaned back on the tilburi, to see nothing. His agitation was great, extraordinary, and from the bottom of the moral layers emerged some ghosts from another time, the old beliefs, the old superstitions. The coachman proposed to return to the first lane, and to go another way; he said no, wait. And he leaned over to look at the house. Then he made a disbelieving gesture: it was the idea of hearing the fortune teller, who passed him far away, with vast gray wings; disappeared, reappeared, and faded again in the brain; but then he moved his wings again, closer, making a few concentric turns ... In the street, the men shouted, taking off the wagon:
- Come on! now! push it! go! go!
The obstacle would soon be removed. Camilo closed his eyes, thought of other things; but her husband's voice whispered to her ears the words of the letter: "Come now, already ..." And he saw the contortions of the drama and trembled. The house looked at him. His legs wanted to go down and in. Camilo found himself facing a long, opaque veil. He thought quickly of the inexplicability of so many things. Her mother's voice repeated a number of extraordinary cases; and the same sentence of the Prince of Denmark reasserted him within: "There are more things in heaven and on earth than philosophy dreams ..." What did he lose if ...?
He found himself on the pavement by the door; told the coachman to wait, and hurried down the hall, and up the stairs. The light was dim, the feet eaten by the feet, the sticky railing; but he neither saw nor felt anything. He crawled and knocked. When no one appeared, he had the idea of descending; but it was late, his blood was beating with curiosity, the sources were throbbing; he struck once, twice, three strokes. A woman came; it was a fortune teller. Camilo said he was going to consult her, she let him in. From there they climbed into the attic, down an even worse staircase than the first and darker. Above, there was a little room, dimly lit by a window, facing the back roof. Old frets, dark walls, an air of poverty, which once increased from what was destroying prestige.
The fortune-teller made him sit down at the table, and sat on the opposite side with his back to the window, so that the little light outside struck Camilo's face. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of long, threadbare letters. As he shuffled them, quickly, he looked at him, not his face, but beneath his eyes. She was a forty-year-old Italian woman, dark and thin, with big, sharp, sharp eyes. He returned three letters on the table, and said to him:
"Let's see first what brings you here. You have a great fright ...
Camilo, in wonder, nodded.
"And she wants to know," she went on, "whether something will happen to him or not ..."
"Me and her," he explained briskly.
The fortune teller did not smile; I just told him to wait. Quickly he picked up the cards again and shuffled them, his long thin fingers, his nails cut off; he shuffled them well, he transposed the packs one, two, three times; then began to extend them. Buck had his eyes on her, curious and anxious.
- The letters tell me ...
Camilo leaned down to drink the words one by one. Then she told him not to be afraid of anything. Nothing would happen to either of them; he, the third, was ignorant of everything. Nevertheless, much caution was indispensable; they envied envy and spite. He told her of the love that bound them, the beauty of Rita ... Camilo was dazzled. The fortune teller finished, picked up the cards, and closed them in the drawer.
"You restored my peace to the spirit," he said, reaching across the table and squeezing the fortune-teller.
She stood up, laughing.
"Go," she said; go, ragazzo innamorato ... "He stood with his forefinger and touched her forehead. Camilo shuddered, as if it were the sibyl's own hand, and rose as well. The fortune teller went to the dresser, on which was a plate of raisins, took a bunch of them, began to pluck them and eat them, showing two rows of teeth that denied the nails. In that same common action, the woman had a private air. Camilo, eager to leave, did not know how to pay; ignored the price.
"Raisins cost money," he finally said, taking out his wallet. How many do you want to send for?
"Ask your heart," she replied.
Camilo took out a ten milreis note, and gave it to him. The fortune-teller's eyes flashed. The usual price was two milreis.
"I see very well that you love her very much. She likes you very much. Go, go, easy. Look at the stairs, it's dark; put on the hat
The fortune-teller had already put the note in her pocket, and came down with it, speaking with a slight accent. Camilo said goodbye to her downstairs, and down the stairs leading to the street, while the fortune-teller, cheerful with the pay, came up, humming a barcarola. Camilo found the tilbury waiting; the street was free. He went in and followed the long trot.
Everything seemed better now, the other things were different, the sky was clear and the faces cheerful. He came to laugh at his fears, which he called puerile; recalled the terms of Vilela's letter and acknowledged that they were intimate and familiar. Where had he discovered the threat? He also noticed that they were urgent, and that it was wrong to delay so long; it could be some serious and very serious business.
"Come on, let's hurry," he repeated to the coachman.
And to explain the delay to his friend, he did something; it seems that he also formed the plan to take advantage of the incident to return to his former assiduity ... Back with the plans, the words of the fortune-teller echoed in his soul. In truth, she had guessed the object of the inquiry, the state of it, the existence of a third; Why would not you guess the rest? The present that is ignored is worth the future. It was thus, slow and continuous, that the old beliefs of the young man went back to the top, and the mystery excited him with the nails of iron. Sometimes he wanted to laugh, and he laughed at himself, something vexed; but the woman, the letters, the dry and affirmative words, the exhortation: "Go, go, ragazzo innamorato; and in the end, in the distance, the barcarola of farewell, slow and graceful, such were the recent elements, which formed, with the ancients, a new and lively faith.
The truth was that the heart was happy and impatient, thinking of the happy hours of old and of those that were to come. As he passed the Glory, Camilo looked out at the sea, stretched out his eyes to where the water and the sky gave an endless embrace, and thus had a sense of the future, long, long, endless.
He came to Vilela's house shortly. He broke off, pushed open the iron gate of the garden, and entered. The house was quiet. He climbed the six stone steps, and barely had time to knock, the door opened, and Vilela appeared to him.
"Sorry, I could not come early; What's up?
Vilela did not answer; his features were broken; signaled him, and went into an inner room. Entering, Camilo could not suppress a cry of terror: - in the background on the settee was Rita dead and bloody. Vilela took him by the collar, and, with two gunshots, stretched him dead on the ground.
