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Quincas Borba · Chapters L to LVII

Palha, Sofia, and Camacho's Entrance

AmbitionDesireMoney and WealthLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter L: Sofia Tells, Palha Confesses the Debt

Money and WealthLoyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

Late at night, after the party, Sofia tells Cristiano Palha that Rubião made her a declaration of love in the garden: he did not say the word love, but he pressed her fingers, asked her to gaze at the Southern Cross so that their souls might meet, and held her back by the hands when she wanted to return to the parlor. Palha turns pale, for he likes his wife, but he minimizes it: the man is still a country bumpkin, the fault is hers for having gone into the garden, it may have been the effect of the wine. Silent, he reflects that he trusted Rubião so much that it was he himself who drafted the note about the strawberries. Sofia replies that she prefers to close the door on Rubião, all at once or little by little. Only in the face of that proposal does Palha confess, embracing her: "but, my dear, I owe him a great deal of money," and he speaks of the pinches of the business and of holes to be patched. Sofia gives in, promises to cool the arrangement little by little, says he should not change his manner so that Rubião will not notice the couple knows about the affair, and complains of a headache.

Analysis

Sofia tells the story, asking that her husband not be angry, and proposes closing the door on Rubião, all at once or little by little. Palha turns pale and minimizes in stages: he is a country bumpkin, the fault is hers, it was the wine, the man is a simpleton; that he himself drafted the strawberry note he only thinks about in silence. Only at the proposal to cut off relations does he confess the debt, and Sofia gives in: she promises to cool the arrangement little by little.

But, my dear, I owe him a great deal of money
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Chapter LI: Sofia's Next Day

Section summary

The next day, Sofia, pale and in pain, looks for Cristiano Palha in his office, and he speaks to her only about a newspaper article on a quarrel between merchants over bank drafts, explaining the question in technical terms. Alone that afternoon in the garden, she blames herself for the special attentions paid to the man, fears that Major Siqueira will spread the story, and thinks of leaving the city, because she wants neither to obey nor to disobey her husband's demand that she receive Rubião as before.

Analysis

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Chapter LII: The Young Man Who Greets and the Postman

Section summary

A tall young man greets her slowly in the street, and Sofia, not knowing who he is, searches her memory until she recalls a ball the month before, at a lawyer's house, where they danced a quadrille and he praised her eyes and shoulders: it is Carlos Maria, the first figure of the ballroom, as her husband had said. The memory interrupts the tedium of the day. Afterward, a postman who brings her a letter from the country trips over a bench and falls flat on his face, and she laughs.

Analysis

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Chapter LIII: Laughter and Homer's Gods

Section summary

The narrator defends Sofia's laughter before the reader, who would find it untimely after the poor night. He recounts that Homer's gods, in the middle of a furious quarrel between Juno and Jupiter, burst out laughing on seeing Vulcan limp while serving nectar, and that a single grotesque memory is enough to break the most serious passion. For that reason he lets Sofia laugh and read her letter from the country.

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Chapter LIV: Camacho in the Botafogo Parlor

Section summary

Fifteen days later, Cristiano Palha visits Rubião in Botafogo to ask why he has disappeared, and runs into Dr. Camacho, to whom Rubião introduces Palha, saying that he had already spoken to him about him. That phrase and the mention of the moon stun Palha, and since Rubião does not know what to say either, the two fall into a long silence; when Camacho, from the window, exclaims that here comes the moonlight, Rubião wants to go to the window and Palha wants to seize him by the collar. Rubião then tells Palha that he is going to leave them.

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Chapter LV: Palha and the Patchwork Quilt

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

Cristiano Palha did not expect to hear from Rubião that he is going to leave them; his anger dissolves into astonishment, and he imagines the reasons: a punishment Rubião imposes on himself for what he did at Santa Teresa, flight from his passion for Sofia, or a marriage plan. The last hypothesis disappoints him, and the narrator, who adds to this the sorrow of parting and the anger, calls his soul a patchwork quilt, but one with moral unity, because its colors do not contradict one another.

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Chapter LVI: Short Remorse and Camacho on the Way

Section summary

The day after the garden scene, Rubião wakes oppressed, cannot bear the dog's caresses, and gives it a slap on the ear, and he is left regretful, irritated, and ashamed. The narrator compares this remorse to that over the hidden letter of Quincas Borba (the philosopher), which he said was easy and short-lived: there it was a letter Rubião hid from the doctor, here an attempt at adultery, for morality is one and sins are different. Rubião waited on Sunday for a note from Sofia and, on Monday, decided to go to Minas for two months, until Camacho cuts him off: let him forget Minas for now.

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Chapter LVII: Portrait of the Politician Camacho

Ambition

Section summary

Camacho, who took a law degree at the Recife Faculty in 1844, practices political journalism: in the provincial newspaper he changes his adjectives according to the government, "ominous" and "spendthrift" to attack it, "energetic" and "enlightened" when he begins to defend it. He rises to Deputy and provincial president, wants to be a minister and no one gives him a ministry, and to simulate influence he treats the powerful familiarly and loudly recounts his visits to the ministers. He lives on his law practice and takes no interest in anything but politics.

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