Chapter LVIII: Camacho Wins Over Rubião
Section summary
Days earlier, one evening at a councillor's house, Camacho hears Rubião tell, still trembling, what he witnessed in the Chamber during the session in which the Itaboraí Ministry requested the budgets, and he takes him to a corner by the window to give him his opinion of the situation. The next day, at a lunch he gives at the Hotel de la Bourse, he says that months earlier he founded a newspaper whose sole program is to continue the war at all costs. Rubião, flattered to find himself a political confidant, already dreams, without Camacho having proposed it, of a seat in the Chamber. It was with this that Camacho arrived on the night Palha appeared at Rubião's house.
Analysis
Camacho gives Rubião what he lacked: an attentive listener who treats him as a political confidant. Rubião, who had trembled as he told what he saw in the Chamber, delights in the position, and the idea of a Deputy's seat "stretched its golden wings" in his brain without Camacho having asked for it. Camacho proposes nothing; he lets the ambition come from the other man.
Chapter LIX: Holding Rubião at Court
Section summary
Rubião insists on going to Minas, out of longing for his native land, repentant of the pleasure and ill at ease with his own wealth. Cristiano Palha and Camacho exchange a glance and agree to stop him from leaving: Palha proposes that he go, but a few months later, and that all three will go together, with Sofia; Camacho says that the serpent, as he calls the political opponent, must be crushed in the capital itself, not in Minas, and that afterward there will be no lack of time to satisfy homesickness and collect the reward, which Rubião understands to be the Deputy's diploma. Rubião, agitated by an ambition he had never had, still asks for a few days of travel, without any desire to be granted them. Before leaving, Palha observes that it would be odd to go to Minas without settling accounts, and Rubião replies that debts are paid when one can.
Analysis
Rubião insists on Minas out of longing, "repentant of the pleasure and ill at ease with his own wealth"; only after Camacho dangles the reward before him does he ask for a few days of travel, and the text says that he makes this last request without any desire to have it granted. Palha and Camacho understand each other with a look, and each holds him with what he has: the first with the trip of the three to Minas, later, and the accounts still to be settled; the second with the reward, which Rubião reads as the Deputy's seat. "It was necessary to keep Rubião from leaving."
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Chapter LX: The Atalaia and the Boy from Rua da Ajuda
Section summary
Rubião reads the Atalaia, likes the article, and runs to Camacho's office. On the way he pulls a boy out from in front of a carriage, hurts his hand, and receives the thanks of the neighborhood.
Analysis
Chapter LXI: Five Contos for the Paper
Section summary
Camacho sees Rubião's wounded hand, and Rubião tells him about the incident in the street; Camacho then shows the portrait of the Marquis of Paraná, his friend. Rubião comes to subscribe to the Atalaia, but Camacho says the paper is doing well on subscriptions and that the capital of fifty contos, at five per person, has eight of ten shareholders and needs only two more. Rubião, who does not want to receive the paper for free, asks the amount and comes in with five contos; Camacho thanks him in the name of ideas, as though he meant to invite him, and shows him the list of the other shareholders.
Analysis
Chapter LXII: The Baroness on the Stairs
Section summary
Leaving the office, Rubião crosses paths in the hallway with a tall lady dressed in black and hears Camacho greet her as Baroness, while he goes down the stairs slowly, so as not to seem to be listening. The fine scent she leaves behind, and the coupé with its coachman and uniformed footman at the door, make him feel, despite his own luxury, the same old teacher from Barbacena, though he does not know why.
Analysis
Chapter LXIII: The Luck of the First Carriage
Section summary
Rubião meets Sofia in the street and, that evening, leaves it to chance whether he goes to Santa Teresa. The first carriage says no, but he amends the rule, and the calashes of a funeral say yes.
Analysis
Chapter LXIV: Sofia's Aunt and Cousin
Section summary
In Santa Teresa, Sofia receives Rubião without rancor and introduces him to the two ladies he had passed in the street: the aunt from the country, Dona Maria Augusta, author of the letter the postman brought, and her daughter, Maria Benedita, Sofia's cousin, a native of Iguaçu who had gone to learn the piano and came back out of longing for her mother. Dona Maria Augusta feigns crossness to delay her daughter's marriage, because her other daughter ran off to marry and she fears being left alone.
Analysis
Chapter LXV: The Short Visit and the Portrait
Section summary
Rubião pays a short visit, which ends at nine o'clock: Sofia is natural and free of ill humor, but she no longer has the long looks of before, and she holds out her hand to him without asking him to stay. As he is leaving, Carlos Maria comes in and sits down beside Dona Maria Augusta. Rubião crosses the garden and hears Carlos Maria tell Sofia that he is going to report her husband for keeping her portrait in the parlor, since she is infinitely more beautiful than the painting.
Analysis
Chapter LXVI: The Way He Says Those Things
Section summary
At home, Rubião recalls the words of Carlos Maria and admires the ease with which he says such things, like disparaging the portrait only to praise the woman depicted. He notices that the portrait is very much like Sofia.
Analysis
Chapter LXVII: News of the Rescue
Section summary
The next morning, Rubião sees his name in the Atalaia, in a news item more than a column long about the rescue of the boy on Rua da Ajuda, written by Camacho with many adjectives. At first annoyed, he rereads the news with satisfaction, receives congratulations, among them Freitas's, who calls him Saint Vincent de Paul, and recounts the scene to the curious. He goes to thank Camacho with a feeble reproach, buys copies of the paper for his friends in Barbacena and, on Freitas's advice, reprints the news in the Jornal do Comércio.
Analysis
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Analysis