“Betty, I wanted to know if ‘she’ had arrived.”
He was clearly referring to the new mistress. I told him that a telegram had come and that everything had been postponed until the following day.
“Again!” he murmured in a voice as desolate as if something crucial, vital even, to his life hung on that one fact. “Again!” he repeated.
Then, in one of those impulses so peculiar to him, he rushed over to me, clutched my hands and said:
“Betty, I wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Of course, if I can help . . .”
I could see Senhor Demétrio’s implacable orders before me, as if engraved in stone.
“Yes, you can, you can help,” he said. And before I could respond, he explained: “I want to see her, Betty, I need to see her as soon as she arrives. Will you promise to give her a message from me?”
I hesitated, but his eyes remained fixed on mine, and so I said:
“Yes, I promise.”
“Thank you, Betty, thank you,” and he gave a sigh of relief. “I just want you to go to her and say: ‘A person wishes to see you as soon as possible, about a matter of extreme importance.’”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. You swear you won’t forget my words.”
I held out my hand:
“I swear.”
And with that oath we parted company.
21st– I think I was the first person to see her when she got out of the car and—oh!—I will never forget the impression she made on me. It wasn’t just admiration I felt, because I had seen other beautiful women in my time. But never before had my initial feeling of amazement been edged with anxiety, that slight breathlessness, it was not only the certainty that there before me stood an extraordinarily beautiful woman, it was my awareness that she was also a presence—a definite, self-assured being who appeared to give off her own light and her own warmth, like a landscape. (Note written in the margin: Even today, after all this time, I don’t think any one thing has ever impressed me so much as that first encounter with Dona Nina. She was not only graceful, she was subtle, generous, even majestic. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was intensely, violently seductive. She emerged from the car as if nothing else existed outside the aura of her fascination—this was not mere charm, it was magic. Later, as she deteriorated, I watched as the fatal illness left its marks upon her face, and I can honestly say that her features never became coarse or anything less than noble. There was a metamorphosis, a shift perhaps, but the essence was there, and even when I saw her dead, wrapped in the sad winding sheet of the despised outsider, I could see the same splendor as on that first day, flickering, sleepless, rootless, like moonlight glinting on the wreckage of a ship.)
She paused for a moment, one hand resting on the car door. We were lined up before her, with Senhor Demétrio, Dona Ana, and Senhor Valdo slightly ahead, followed, as befitted my station, by me, then old Anastácia, who had been Senhor Valdo’s nursemaid and was in charge of the black servants in the kitchen, then Pedro and the other servants. Such ceremony, such solemn faces, slightly embarrassed her.
“Valdo! Valdo!” she cried. “Help me unload the luggage.”
Senhor Valdo beckoned to me and I stepped forward, closely followed by old Anastácia. I began the task of unloading suitcases of varying sizes, endless hat boxes—why so many?—and an infinite number of smaller items. Even while I was engaged in doing this, I still had time to observe the welcoming party. The mistress went over to Senhor Valdo, and I noticed their slightly awkward embrace, even though they were newlyweds. He was doubtless wounded by her continual postponements and wanted to make his feelings clear. As for Senhor Demétrio, he gave her a far warmer reception than I would have expected—as if he were both surprised and excited by Dona Nina’s beauty. As soon as she had extricated herself from her husband’s arms, Senhor Demétrio immediately stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek, saying how delighted he was to welcome her to the Chácara. At the same time, he pushed poor Dona Ana forward, but she showed not the slightest glimmer of pleasure at meeting the new arrival. That was the most difficult moment for all those present: the newcomer merely offered Dona Ana the tips of her fingers, as if she had no great interest in meeting this new acquaintance either. Dona Ana turned even paler than usual and murmured a few words that no one understood. Finally, they all went into the house. At the very foot of the steps, I saw the new mistress crouch down and pick a violet that was growing among the clover. “My favorite flower,” she said.
Helped by Pedro and Anastácia, I took the luggage to the newlyweds’ room, which was right next to Senhor Timóteo’s room—so close that, outside, the windows almost touched. This meant that, for some time, I lost track of events. When I returned to the drawing room, Senhor Demétrio and Dona Ana had already withdrawn. Standing at the window, looking out onto the verandah—although what was there to look at in that sea of mango trees?—were Senhor Valdo and the mistress. They must have been quarrelling, because they both seemed very ill at ease. Not noticing my presence, he turned to her and said:
“You are never right, Nina, and the worst of it is that you don’t seem to realize it.”
I saw her spin around, aflame with indignation:
“Is that why you wanted me to come here, Valdo? So that you could pester and threaten me with your jealousy? I’ve already explained the reason for my delay, that I had to say goodbye to various friends. As for the Colonel, I’ve haven’t seen him since. Now, if you think . . .”
“You don’t understand, Nina,” he said, interrupting her.
Those words seemed to raise her anger to a new pitch. She began pacing furiously up and down, and I withdrew discreetly into Senhor Demétrio’s study, intending to tidy some of the bookshelves. Since his study immediately adjoined the drawing room and I had left the door open, I could still hear fragments of their argument. As far as I could make out, it was about some money that Senhor Valdo had failed to send to her in Rio de Janeiro, with, according to her, the “base” intention of forcing her to start out for Minas earlier than expected. (Ah, Minas Gerais, she roared, the ugly, silent people she had seen from the train, people who had seemed to her both sad and mean, qualities she loathed.) Standing at the window, doubtless pointing at the dense host of mango trees outside, she declared in her most eloquent tones: “You cannot imagine how I hate all this!” She was doubtless sincere in this, for she had never lived in the countryside, and that low, flat landscape, with its bare expanses parched by the summer sun, did not speak to her at all and aroused in her only a genuine feeling of anxiety. I think it may well have been that aversion, expressed on innumerable occasions, in every possible tone of voice, that laid the foundations for the hostility between her and Senhor Demétrio, who was so deeply rooted in Minas Gerais. More than anything, though, he loved the Chácara, which, in his eyes, represented the tradition and dignity of the local customs—which were, according to him, the only authentic customs in all Brazil. “People may speak ill of me,” he used to say, “but not of this house. It dates back to the days of the Empire, and represents several generations of the Meneses family, who have lived here proudly and with dignity.”
The fact is that, once the argument between Dona Nina and Senhor Valdo was over—it was early days for them to have any truly bitter disputes—they both went out into the garden while they waited for lunch to be served. I have no idea what they did or talked about as they walked up and
