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Quincas Borba · Chapters CLX to CLXXI

Sofia recoils, Rubião raves

Appearance and RealityDesireLoyalty and BetrayalMadness

Chapter CLX: The Sun Denies Light to Sofia's Desire

Section summary

The rain ceases and a ray of sun breaks through the fog, but the narrator makes the sun call it back, so as not to light up Sofia's desire. The sky closes again.

Analysis

The narrator gives the sun the restraint that Sofia does not yet have. She was waiting for the rain to stop so she could go out, "restless to see, to move," and the sun calls the ray back so as not to be her lantern. The fable says the withdrawal comes from outside, from time, before it comes from within, and that the desire exists: "let her love, if it seems so to her."

Chapter CLXI: Sofia's Nightmare

Section summary

Confined by the rain, Sofia reads the latest number of the Revista dos Dois Mundos, which she subscribed to in order to seem informed, and falls asleep. In the nightmare she writes the name of Carlos Maria in the water with her finger; he appears and embraces her with tender words; then masked men stab her, and their leader kisses her with a kiss wet with blood. She wakes screaming and, seeing her husband at the bedside, fears she had said the name; she tells him she dreamed they were killing Cristiano Palha, and he is moved.

Analysis

Sofia reads the Revista dos Dois Mundos, which she subscribed to in order to seem informed, and falls asleep. She dreams of Carlos Maria's name written in the water, his embrace, the murder, and the masked chief who kisses her. She wakes screaming and fears she has said the name; she saves herself with "I dreamed they were killing you." Palha, moved, hears the opposite of what the dream was.

Chapter CLXII: The Outing That Wipes Away Cares

Section summary

The next day, bright and warm, Sofia goes out by carriage on visits and an outing, to make up for her seclusion. The bustle of Rua do Ouvidor, the society news, and the pleasant looks of so many fine and friendly people suffice to drive from her soul the cares of the day before, and she dresses humming.

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Chapter CLXIII: Will Reduced to Whim

Appearance and RealityDesire

Section summary

The narrator explains that what seemed like an imperious will in Sofia is reduced, within a few hours, to pure whim, and that all the bad thoughts retire to their alcoves. He says he knows of no remorse in her and observes that the sin of thought, like the sin of action, passes from novelty to habit and from fear to indifference, until the mind no longer finds it strange or repels it. There always remains a moral refuge in outward exemption, the body without stain.

Analysis

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Chapter CLXIV: Rubião's Flight and Sofia's Insistence

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

On Rua do Ouvidor, Sofia, who is in a bookshop, sees Rubião come in and flees from him: she turns her face away, pretends to look at anatomy books, and leaves with her head down. Days later she meets him in the hall of Dona Fernanda's house, who tells her that he has already been there four or five times, that he only raved the second time, and that he can recover. Sofia lays the case before Cristiano Palha, who complains about the guardianship, the responsibilities, and having to accompany him, "a great nuisance"; she insists, because the compassion of Dona Fernanda, who barely knew him, impressed her, and it was good form not to be less generous.

Analysis

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Chapter CLXV: The House on Rua do Príncipe

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

Cristiano Palha rents a small house on Rua do Príncipe, near the sea, and installs Rubião there, with some furniture and Quincas Borba (the dog); Rubião accepts without displeasure and, when his delirium returns, with enthusiasm, as if he were in the palaces of Saint-Cloud. To the dinner guests of Botafogo, Palha says the day before that his friend needs rest and may move to a sanatorium, and they hear it dumbfounded, feeling the change as a decree of exile. When they take their leave, they notice that they can barely part: friendship and esteem did not bind them, only the habit of seeing one another every day at the same table.

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Chapter CLXVI: The Abandonment by Friends

Section summary

Rubião notices that his friends did not follow him to the new house, summons them, and none comes; the absence fills him with sadness in the first weeks: it is the family abandoning him. He tries to remember whether he did them any harm, by deed or by word, and finds nothing.

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Chapter CLXVII: Dr. Falcão's Diagnosis

Madness

Section summary

Dr. Falcão, deputy and physician, examines Rubião at the request of Dona Fernanda and believes he can recover. From the delirium, he concludes that he and Sofia loved each other, and the suspicion turns against Dona Fernanda.

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Chapter CLXVIII: The Suspicion That Night Does Not Erase

Section summary

On the morning after the talk with Dona Fernanda, Dr. Falcão, deputy and physician, still holds the suspicion that she too sighed for Rubião, and that her devotion to him is an extension of love: "the night had not erased the suspicion." Without knowing Shakespeare, he tacks on a line from Hamlet and concludes that a finger of love had been at work there; he neither mocks nor pities, and, being discreet, he tells no one his conclusion.

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Chapter CLXIX: The Return of Carlos Maria and Maria Benedita

Section summary

The newlyweds, Carlos Maria and Maria Benedita, return to Rio, and Dona Fernanda receives them aboard and takes them to Tijuca, where a family friend of his had rented a house. Maria Benedita cries as she embraces her friend, and, asked whether they are happy, she says yes, and that her husband loves her perhaps more than on the first day: "I believe more, because I adore him!" Carlos Maria, guessing that she has confided her happiness to the other woman, grows irritated: why say she was happy with him, if she could be nothing else? The return to Rio had been a concession by him, for he thought a pregnancy displayed in public immodest, and he yielded to his wife's wish to have the child here. Maria Benedita sees herself as the temple of one god, son of another god.

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Chapter CLXX: The Pale Smile and the Forgiveness

Section summary

Alone, Maria Benedita asks her husband Carlos Maria what is wrong, and he only smiles his usual pale smile, with neither tenderness nor reproach. In her room she reviews the conversation, supposes she was too expansive in confiding her joys to Dona Fernanda, agrees with her husband, as always, and, after a wave of pregnancy nausea, returns to him, asks his forgiveness, and promises to be less talkative. He absolves her with a nod, and joy enters his soul.

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Chapter CLXXI: Rubião Bursts into the Couple's Parlor

Section summary

Rubião appears on the veranda of the house of Carlos Maria and Maria Benedita, laughing, and enters saying "This is how I want to see you!", praises the couple and reports the fall of the Ministry. Sitting down without asking leave, he says he will form another, with Palha, Camacho, Major Siqueira and Carlos Maria himself, whom he offers a portfolio, in a cabinet of friends "capable of giving their lives for me." Carlos Maria dismisses him with a gesture, and Rubião leaves gesticulating through the garden, which leaves Maria Benedita unable to hold back her laughter.

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