Chapter CLXXXII: The Emperor on Rua da Ajuda
Section summary
Rubião keeps gesticulating and speaking to someone he supposes he has on his arm, an empress who is Eugenie and Sofia at once. Men stop, people rush to the doors and windows, and a crowd of street boys follows him, shouting "Ó gira! ó gira!"; Rubião, who hardly hears them, supposes they are acclamations and thanks them with a bow. On Rua da Ajuda, a woman at the door of a mattress shop calls her son Deolindo, who had hidden among the others, and pulls him out of the group, because he was too small to walk among street riots.
Analysis
Rubião goes down Rua da Ajuda speaking to the empress he supposes he has on his arm, Eugenie, the empress married to Napoleon III, or Sofia, and the delirium gives sense to the chorus: when he hears the jeering, he takes it for acclamation and thanks them with a bow. Deolindo's mother pulls her son out of the group for a simple reason: he was too small to be among street riots.
Chapter CLXXXIII: The Boy Saved and the Savior
Section summary
Deolindo's mother and the neighbor laugh; she says her son is a little devil, that at two years old he nearly died under a carriage right there, saved by a well-dressed gentleman who came to his aid at risk to his own life. The husband arrives and says that the madman in the street is that man; the wife shudders, blames herself for her son's part in the mockery, and fears that one day he will go mad and be punished with the same mockery. The father says he wanted to offer the man his arm, but was ashamed of the boys' jeers and turned his face away, and concludes: "How sad a thing it is to lose one's reason!"
Analysis
For the mother, what hurts is less the man's illness than her son's part in the mockery, the same child the man had saved; she blames herself and fears that the boy, should he go mad one day, will be punished with the same mockery. The father recognizes him and wanted to give him his arm, but was ashamed of the street boys and turned his face away "because he might recognize me." Each of the two makes the affair a matter of their own.
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Chapter CLXXXIV: The Street Becomes a Palace
Section summary
Two hours after the scene on Rua da Ajuda, Rubião arrives at the house of Dona Fernanda. The loafers gradually scatter, and his gesticulation diminishes; he goes on as an emperor, dreaming, seeing every street lamp as a chamberlain and every corner as a curtain, on his way to the throne room, in an endless palace. Many who watched him forgot their gloomy thoughts for a moment, a debt, an illness, and some, comparing the two fortunes, thanked Heaven for the share that had fallen to them, "bitter, but conscious."
Analysis
Chapter CLXXXV: Rubião Goes to the Sanatorium
Section summary
Cristiano Palha had forgotten the duty to look after Rubião that Sofia had imposed on him, and Sofia the promise made to Dona Fernanda, because they were busy with a mansion in Botafogo that they wished to inaugurate in winter. Now the promise is fulfilled: Rubião checks into a sanatorium, on the recommendation of Dr. Falcão and Palha, and occupies a special room and bedroom. He puts up no resistance and goes along with them contentedly; when they take their leave, he invites them to a military review on Saturday and calls Palha the "Duke of Palha," promising him one of his carriages for his wife.
Analysis
Chapter CLXXXVI: Dr. Falcão's Hunch
Section summary
As he leaves the sanatorium, Dr. Falcão, who had heard Rubião call Palha a duke and speak of the body of his wife in a carriage, concludes on his own that that man was the lover of Palha's wife: "for me, it is clear."
Analysis
Chapter CLXXXVII: The Dog Locked in the House
Section summary
Quincas Borba (the dog) tries to climb into the carriage carrying his master and runs after it, until the servant seizes him and locks him in the house, repeating the situation at Barbacena, when the master left and the dog stayed behind. The narrator says that life is made up of four or five situations, which circumstances vary. Rubião insistently asks that the dog be sent to him, and Dona Fernanda, having obtained the director's consent, wants to write to Sofia, but goes herself to Flamengo.
Analysis
Chapter CLXXXVIII: The Visit to the House on Rua do Príncipe
Section summary
Sofia and Dona Fernanda walk from Flamengo to the house on Rua do Príncipe; Dona Fernanda proposes selling the furnishings and recovering whatever they bring, rather than keeping the rented house. The interior is neglected and filthy, the furniture of the sitting room in disarray, and the manservant Raimundo whistles a polka. Sofia, "dying to flee that filth," breathes with disgust, coughs, fans herself with her fan, and does not want to show interest in the dog. Dona Fernanda, by contrast, is moved by the illness of a man she barely knew, strokes Quincas Borba (the dog), thin and weakened, and, ignoring Sofia's remark about the fleas, orders the servant to wash him and take him to the sanatorium.
Analysis
Chapter CLXXXIX: Sofia and the Botafogo Construction
Section summary
On leaving, Sofia looks up and down the street, watching for anyone coming, and, once free of the pigsty, takes up again her gracious words and her art of winning people over, slipping her arm through Dona Fernanda's. She tells her of Rubião's unfortunate madness and of the Botafogo mansion, and invites her to go see the works, after a light lunch.
Analysis
Chapter CXC: The Birth of Maria Benedita's Daughter
Section summary
A happy event distracts Dona Fernanda from Rubião: a daughter is born to Maria Benedita. She rushes to Tijuca, showers the mother and child with kisses, offers her hand to be kissed by Carlos Maria, who calls her always exuberant, and attends Maria Benedita's convalescence, cordial and cheerful. The happiness there makes her forget the misfortune here, and only when the new mother has recovered does Dona Fernanda go back to attend the invalid.
Analysis
Chapter CXCI: Three Contos and Two Hundred
Section summary
Dona Fernanda sends Sofia the reply from the director of the sanatorium, who expects to restore Rubião to reason in six or eight months, and invites her to visit him. Sofia answers by note that she would not have the heart to see him, because he was so much their friend that she does not know whether she could bear the sight of the poor man, and she adds that Cristiano Palha has liquidated Rubião's assets and recovered three contos and two hundred.
Analysis
Chapter CXCII: The Botafogo Ball
Section summary
The months pass with their events: the fall of the Ministry, the rise of another in March, the return of Teófilo, the debate over the Law of the Free Womb, and the death of Dona Tônica's fiancé three days before the wedding. In October, Sofia inaugurates the Botafogo salons with a ball, the most famous of the time; she shows off her jewels, among them a necklace that is one of Rubião's first gifts, and the men speak with pity of her conjugal virtues and of the adoration she has for her husband.
Analysis
Chapter CXCIII: The Disappearance
Section summary
On the day after the ball, Dona Fernanda reads a letter from the director of the sanatorium, which Teófilo had received: Rubião disappeared three days ago, and neither the police nor the director has found him, although his improvement had been great. Dismayed, she gets her husband to write to the chief of police and the minister of justice, asking for severe searches. Teófilo has no interest in finding Rubião or in his cure, but he wants to serve his wife, whose kindness he knows, and perhaps enjoys corresponding with the men of high administration.
Analysis
Chapter CXCIV: Lucidity and the One Hundred Milreis
Section summary
The narrator explains that Rubião and the dog had left for Barbacena. Eight days earlier, Rubião wrote to Cristiano Palha, who found him sane, without a trace of delirium; Rubião asked to be taken out of the sanatorium and for one hundred milreis to leave tokens of gratitude for those who had served him and the dog. Palha gave the money without hesitation and promised to get him out within a week, but, on the eve of the ball, he confessed to the director that he had found him sane and asked that the discharge not be hastened.
Analysis
Chapter CXCV: Barbacena and the Potatoes
Section summary
On reaching Barbacena, Rubião starts up the street and exclaims "To the victor, the potatoes!", a formula and allegory he had forgotten completely, which return to him, but only with the vague sense of struggle and victory. He climbs with the dog to the church, where no one opens the door for him, and sees his hometown resurface in memory: the church, the jail, the pharmacy that used to send medicines to the other Quincas Borba. He sees no one and thinks that perhaps they do not know he has arrived.
Analysis
Chapter CXCVI: The Storm
Section summary
A storm breaks over Barbacena. Rubião leaves the church and goes down the street through the downpour, followed by the hungry and faithful dog, without destination, without hope of shelter or food. He remembers the pharmacy and turns back against the wind, but after twenty steps he loses the thought and goes down again; the dog follows him, neither understanding nor fleeing, for they cannot run, because Rubião fears falling and the dog does not want to lose him.
Analysis
Chapter CXCVII: The Night in the Open Air
Section summary
Hungry and cold, Rubião and the dog wander through the night, climbing and descending slopes. The delirium deceives Rubião's hunger with banquets at the Tuileries, a resource the dog does not have. Reaching the church door, Rubião sees the stars, takes them for the chandeliers of the great hall, and orders them put out, and falls asleep right there with the dog at his side, so close together by morning that they seem stuck to each other.
Analysis
Chapter CXCVIII: The Morning of the Potatoes
Section summary
On waking in the morning, Rubião sees the street "without night, without water, kissed by the sun" and exclaims once more "To the victor, the potatoes!", taking the light, after the night of storm and hunger, as a sign of victory, the only thing left to him of the philosopher's doctrine.
Analysis
Chapter CXCIX: The Delirium Before the Comadre
Section summary
It was Rubião's comadre, Angélica, who took him in, along with the dog, when she saw them pass in front of her door. Rubião, feverish, eats little, and when she asks him to account for the life he led at Court, he begins a summary so disjointed that within twenty minutes she is afraid and goes to tell the neighbor that he seems to have lost his wits. Curious onlookers and old enemies gather and suggest sending him to jail, and the doctor who had treated the late Quincas Borba is summoned. Rubião repeats "To the victor, the potatoes!", says he is the emperor, and claims that he captured the king of Prussia, from whom he will demand an indemnity of five billion francs.
Analysis
Chapter CC: The Death of the Emperor
Section summary
A few days later, Rubião dies. Before the agony begins, which is brief, he places on his head a crown that only he sees, heavy with gold and diamonds, raises half his body, which soon falls back, and murmurs: "Keep my crown. To the victor..." without finishing the motto. His face grows serious, "because death is serious," and in two minutes of agony the abdication was signed.
Analysis
Chapter CCI: The Death of the Dog and the Closing
Section summary
The narrator says he wanted to recount the death of Quincas Borba (the dog), who fell ill, whined endlessly, fled frantically in search of his master, and was found dead in the street three days later. But, seeing it narrated in a special chapter, the reader might ask whether the dog or his deceased namesake is the one who gives the book its title, a question that would lead far. He bids the reader weep for the two dead, if he has tears, or laugh, if he has only laughter, for it is the same thing, and he says that the Southern Cross, which Sofia did not want to look at as Rubião asked her, is too high to tell the laughter and the tears of men apart.
Analysis
Reading of the block of chapters
Analysis