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Quincas Borba · Chapters CIII to CXIII

The Returned Letter and the Ten Contos

AmbitionAppearance and RealityDesireMoney and Wealth

Chapter CIII: Rubião Tells Everything at Flamengo

Desire

Section summary

On the seventh day after the death of Dona Maria Augusta, Rubião sees Carlos Maria at mass and, three days later, runs to Flamengo with the letter in his pocket. Sofia, alone and beautiful in mourning, asks what paper that is; Rubião, who had carried harsh words in his memory, ends up telling her that he loves her, that the train journey on which they met was his misfortune, and that she is cruel and holds him without disillusioning him. He speaks louder and louder, not caring who hears him, until Sofia, fearing the servants, covers his mouth with her hand, and he loses his voice.

Analysis

Seeing Carlos Maria at the seventh-day mass is enough for Rubião to run to Flamengo with the letter. He had carried harsh words by heart, but in front of Sofia, who is beautiful in mourning, "the first word dragged the others along." He speaks louder and louder, "I do not care if they hear," and falls silent only when she covers his mouth: contact with her skin takes away his voice.

That journey was my misfortune
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Chapter CIV: The Letter Delivered and the Exit

Section summary

Sofia returns to the parlor, sits on the ottoman, and says she will forgive Rubião if he repents of what he said. Rubião refuses, asserts that he has nothing to repent, prefers that she not forgive him, and accuses her of having deceived him. He takes the letter out of his pocket and hands it over: on reading the name of Carlos Maria, Sofia goes white, but controls herself, recognizes the handwriting, and asks him to open the letter himself and read it. Rubião violently pulls his arm away, takes his hat, and leaves.

Analysis

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Chapter CV: Sofia, the Circular, and the Mandarin

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Alone, Sofia opens the letter and finds the circular of the Alagoas committee; the servant who was to take it to Carlos Maria had lost it and, afraid, said nothing. Remembering Carlos Maria, who comes to her mind "dear and annoying," she calls him frivolous and a nobody, but then thinks that perhaps she would have had him at her feet if she had not shown herself so grateful, so servile; and, out of rage at herself, she breaks a porcelain mandarin on the floor, a gift from her husband, and sends the maid away. Only then does she recall her own conduct, the advance pardons and the firm handshakes, and conclude that she had thrown herself at his feet.

Analysis

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Chapter CVI: The Narrator Defends the Coachman

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

The narrator tells the bewildered reader, who does not connect Sofia's sorrows with the coachman's anecdote, that the slander was the reader's and Rubião's, not the coachman's: he gave no names and told no true story. He explains that the coachman took Rubião to a house, where the passenger stayed nearly two hours, and that he saw him gaze wistfully at a young woman with a child in Saúde; from this he supposed the rest. Rua da Harmonia came from the neighborhood they had come from, Rua dos Inválidos from some young man he had driven the day before, and the seamstress who lives on Rua da Harmonia is merely a coincidence.

Analysis

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Chapter CVII: Carlos Maria's Fourth Cause

Section summary

The narrator affirms that Sofia's reflections "were grounded in the truth": Carlos Maria indeed did not live up to her first hopes, nor to the second and third. To explain the failure, Sofia imagined three causes in turn, but she did not think of a fourth, perhaps the true one: the loves he might have brought with him, which made any other love insipid to him.

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Chapter CVIII: Five Contos and the Request for Ten

Money and Wealth

Section summary

For some months, Rubião stops going to Flamengo, with the memory of Carlos Maria making him draw back and the shame of appearing like a prodigal son, while Sofia waits to swear to him that the letter was not against her. When Sofia sends him the subscription for Alagoas, he signs for five contos, and Cristiano Palha, who keeps his securities and knows the total of his fortune, advises him to sign for three. Rubião keeps the five and asks for ten contos more, for two loans and a company; Palha refuses, warns that capital calls for caution, recalls the União dos Capitais Honestos Company, in which Rubião lost money, and in the end says he will bring the ten contos the next day and asks why he is angry with the ladies.

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Chapter CIX: Dream of Sofia and Louis Napoleon

Section summary

That night, Rubião dreams that Cristiano Palha flogs Sofia and Maria Benedita in a yard, with a five-tailed leather whip tipped with iron. Indignant, he orders the punishment to stop, Palha to be hanged, and the victims to be gathered; Sofia accepts a place in the open carriage, and the two ride off at a gallop amid acclamations and flowers, with Rubião feeling himself the French emperor Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III), and Quincas Borba (the dog) at Sofia's feet. In the dream, Sofia is the Empress Eugénie, and Maria Benedita a lady-in-waiting.

Analysis

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Chapter CX: Loans and Camacho's Article

Money and Wealth

Section summary

Rubião makes the two loans and joins a company that intends to improve the loading and unloading at the port of Rio. One of the loans pays an overdue paper bill of the Atalaia, and Rubião takes the money to Camacho, who thanks him, pockets the bundle of banknotes, and begins to speak of correcting the paper's fellow partisans, attacking them to give them a shove. Camacho recalls that Rubião's candidacy had foundered through the opposition of some party bosses, which stirs his resentment, and that night he reads him an article warning the party not to yield to the perfidies of power.

Analysis

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Chapter CXI: The Amendment to the Article

Section summary

Rubião applauds Camacho's article and suggests putting "vis" in front of "vendilhões." Camacho objects to the sound of the repeated v's and proposes "vis mercadores," but he himself finds that "mercadores" lacks the force of "vendilhões"; Rubião then suggests leaving "vis vendilhões," because it is strong, no one notices the sound, and he likes energy. Camacho, repeating the phrase, ends up accepting the amendment. Rubião, hearing the passage reread, feels himself something of an author of the article.

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Chapter CXII: The Table of Contents the Book Lacks

Section summary

The narrator regrets not having given the book the method of the old books, in which the summary puts the subject of the chapter in the title, as in Bernardim Ribeiro and in the novels of Fielding. He cites the chapter of Tom Jones titled "Containing five sheets of paper," which deceives no one: whoever does not want to read does not, and whoever wants to read does; and the author concludes: "And now, without more preface, let us go on to the next chapter."

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Chapter CXIII: Rubião, Author of Other Men's Books

Section summary

If the book used the method of the summaries, the narrator would give this chapter its title: how Rubião, satisfied with the amendment made to the article, composed and ruminated so many sentences that he ended up writing all the books he had read. He dispenses with the analysis of this mental operation, which would be long and tedious and would not fit in Fielding's five sheets, and says only that the hardest part for Rubião was going from the sentence to the first book, because after that the career was rapid. For some minutes, Rubião took himself to be the author of many works by others.

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Reading of the block of chapters

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