I do not lack for male friends who help me and give me what I need, and who are, to be frank, sometimes surplus to requirements. Yes, I do have male friends, I won’t hide the fact, and some of them occasionally say of me: “Nina has never looked lovelier”—men whom, I’m pleased to say, and you will be pleased to hear, I keep at a distance and even treat with a certain disdain. No, my problem is of quite a different nature. Imagine, for example, always assuming you’re capable of imagining such things, and that those things are capable of touching your heart, that a woman of my status, married into such a family—and what higher status could I have in the eyes of a Meneses?—finds herself obliged to live in a cramped apartment that reeks of poverty and of that unmentionable thing: the life of a woman abandoned by her husband. By now, you, who were always trying to second-guess my motives, will have said to yourself: “It’s as clear as day what she’s trying to get out of me!” I can’t deny it . . . ah, Valdo, how we honest souls do suffer, how we cover ourselves in unnecessary shame when it comes to dealing with certain of the world’s material values. On the other hand, consider that in the Chácara, where you enjoy a life of relative plenty ........................ ................................................................................................................... ...................... and of all my friends, the person who takes the fairest view of the matter is the Colonel. He says that, even when legally separated, a wife deserves the full consideration of the man who was her husband—even more so when there is no legal separation. I can see Demétrio leaning over your shoulder like a shadow and roaring: “The lengths that woman will go to . . .” May God forgive me, but I very much doubt that any sensible person would take your brother’s opinions seriously, for they are fueled by prejudice rather than by any kind of fair, reasoned judgment. So think carefully, Valdo, especially since I am really not asking for very much at all. And even if I were, right would be on my side, I would have my reasons and my justifications. For example, the allowance you promised—do you remember?—and that never materialized, and for which I waited in the hope that the family situation would ease, even though, deep down, I was sure you would never get out of the cul-de-sac you have chosen to go down. I say this because I know now that building the Chácara, not to mention maintaining it, has been a complete waste of money, and could have been avoided if you weren’t all convinced that abandoning Vila Velha and this mansion of ours would be an act discrediting the family. The fact is that rather than dismembering the old Fazenda do Baú and dividing up the lands among creditors who could perfectly well have waited a little longer, you would have done far better to accept the situation and simply refurbish the old house that is now moldering away in the hills. I have to say that on the occasions when I rode up there, I felt it had a poetry and a dignity I did not always find in the pretentious mansion where you live today . . . If you had done what I always advised and sold the house, auctioned the furniture, dismissed some of the servants, divided the land up into lots and come to an agreement with the rest of the creditors, we wouldn’t be in this state of ................................................................. ......................................... which are the same as before. This increases the not inconsiderable amount I’m having to pay out. I actually think that, at times, I might have gone hungry had it not been for the zealous male friends I mentioned earlier. Among them, Colonel Amadeu Gonçalves, who never lets a day go by without visiting me, encouraging me to despise men’s evil nature and, at the same time, bringing me a word of comfort. It’s hard to believe such men still exist: the devotion of the man, the constancy of his friendship, his selflessness; I sometimes find such qualities frightening. What would become of me were it not for his paternal zeal? Sometimes he arrives and finds me in tears, and then he says: “Nina, I don’t want to weigh you down with any more suffering, you have quite enough to cope with as it is, I just want you to know that I come here as a father and that you can depend upon me as if you were my daughter.” He was, of course, the only real friend my late father had, and I cannot but feel grateful, especially when he goes still further and often leaves lying about, as if absentmindedly, varying sums of money that have been my sole source of income. I sometimes say to him: “Please, Colonel, don’t do that, because I really don’t know that I’ll ever be able to repay you . . .” He smiles and shakes his head: “Don’t be silly, one day you’ll pay me back in full.” I feel ashamed, Valdo, because I know that day will probably never come. And I feel sorry for that quiet, humble, helpless man at my side. He, for his part, rails against the way you have treated me, saying: “Really, a woman of your quality, who deserved only the very best, who merited every respect!” In writing this letter, I only wish I could tell you all the sympathetic things he has to say about my situation. Perhaps only then would you understand that this world, whose opinion you seem to value so highly, is not on your side, but on mine. Yes, I am the person being wronged and persecuted, despite all Demétrio’s efforts to portray me as a flibbertigibbet, a femme fatale who would lead any man to his ruin. And strangely enough, the rumors you so fear are not about me, as you might expect, but about the Meneses family. The Meneses of Vila Velha, that ancient trunk whose roots reach down into the very origins of Minas Gerais. I can’t help but feel a certain pleasure when I say this and imagine Demétrio, tremulous with resentment, and Ana, disdainfully sticking her nose in the air whenever she passes me, meanwhile peering at me through every window and shutter she comes across. As I say, this world does not accuse me, it judges you as severely as the Colonel does.
I stopped writing for a moment to wipe away the tears filling my eyes. It’s hard to write and harder still to write when what rises to one’s lips are words of love that the heart silences beneath the weight of bitter grievances. No, Valdo, my situation could not be more wretched, and you could not possibly blame me were some misfortune to occur. I don’t sleep, I’m feverish; I pace back and forth, remembering how things once were, wondering what force it was that drove me to turn my back on everything that made up my life. It wasn’t me, you can be quite sure of that, I didn’t want it to end like this, it was someone else, prompted by secret powers bent on destroying me. I’m not accusing anyone, because I can’t say for certain that it was this person or that, and I can’t even pinpoint the motive, because I can’t say it was for this reason or that, but the truth is that I always felt a distinct lack of love and watched as the atmosphere I had always imagined to be warm and affectionate slowly turned to ice. When I wake in the night and sit up in bed, listening to the dogs barking in the darkness, behind the railings and gardens that surround more fortunate people—and when I imagine, although I don’t know why, that some horrible fate awaits me, and that death is tearing off the pages from the calendar of my allotted time . . . ah, Valdo, is there no pity in your heart? Are you Meneses not made of flesh and blood? Can you never forgive me, never forget an outrage I never actually committed? And can you not sympathize with my situation now, can you not see how you tore my heart in two? The worst thing is the active part played in all this by your brother. The day will come when you will understand what he did to me, the influence he had on my behavior. Until then, until that day, banished and forgotten, I must endure the painful insults heaped on me. (And yet I will say this: you should have seen the way he used to follow me with his eyes down the hallway, pretending, of course, that he wasn’t, but devouring my every gesture and opening any doors behind which I tried to take refuge—you should have felt the greedy touch of his hands, on the few occasions when he dared to touch me, revealing the sick desires that lay behind the Meneses mask—you should have heard the cry he let out—the only time—one afternoon when I was crossing the verandah aglow with sunlight. I was just about to open the door when I heard that strange yelp—Nina!—and it was as if the black, stagnant water of his lust had spouted forth from the very depths of his being . . . I hadn’t even seen him, but I could sense his presence behind me, the galloping beat of his heart. I swear I didn’t even turn around, but all that night, I could feel his eyes fixed on me, as if they could penetrate walls—the eyes of a lunatic, a starving man not brave enough to touch the food set before him. My hand fails, the pen falls from my grasp: how can I possibly describe the devil you have living in your house? But nothing I can say will convince you, Valdo, because you’ll think it’s just another of my extravagant claims.) And yet someone, even if that someone is me, needs to warn you against your own credulity. What kills us is nearly always the unrecognized cruelty of those around us. If only I could make you recall certain facts . . . certain long-past situations . . . the early days . . . life in the Pavilion. That day, Valdo, when you stood on the steps strewn with dead leaves and embraced
