Who He Is
Slow, cold, and superior young man who eats at Rubião's table and dances with Sofia. Cousin of Dona Fernanda, he sees himself as the center of others' admiration and invents, with the ease of someone who does not care, the beach line that makes Sofia think of him for the rest of the book. He marries Maria Benedita without having loved her beforehand and, once married, is irritated when he hears her say they are happy.
Trajectory
He appears at Rubião's Sunday lunch, where he humiliates the parasite Freitas and is respected by Rubião, who does not dare to laugh (chapter XXIX, chapter XXXI). On the street, a young man greets Sofia and she recognizes him: they danced at a ball, and he praised her eyes and shoulders (chapter LII). Rubião hears him praise Sofia in front of the portrait and admires the naturalness with which he says such things (chapter LXV, chapter LXVI).
At the ball, he waltzes with Sofia and makes his declaration, saying he spent an hour between the sea and her house (chapter LXIX). In bed, he reconstructs the scene and laughs at the lie, since he never went to the beach, and concludes that it is not worth amending: there are beautiful lying sonnets (chapter LXXIV).
a emenda era pior que o soneto, e que há bonitos sonetos mentirosos, the amendment was worse than the sonnet, and there are beautiful lying sonnets
Other admirers make Sofia lose importance in his queue (chapter LXXV); he rides well, and passersby admire his bearing and regal calm (chapter LXXVI). The letter Rubião finds in the flowerbed is addressed to him (chapter XCIX), and Sofia, on learning it was the commission's circular, thinks of him (chapter CV). The narrator adds a fourth cause for her failure: perhaps he had other loves (chapter CVII).
Rubião realizes that the fiancé of Maria Benedita is him (chapter CXVI). Dona Fernanda, leaving Mass, tells her cousin that someone adores him in secret and, finally, that it is Maria Benedita; his wariness turns to sympathy, and the courtship begins (chapter CXX).
Que bom que era sentir-se um deus adorado, How good it was to feel like an adored god
On the morning of the wedding, he rides on horseback and sees a nuptial homage in nature (chapter CXXII); the couple marry and, three months later, leave for Europe (chapter CXXIV). Sofia dreams that he is killed in front of her (chapter CLXI). He returns to Rio with his wife and is irritated to hear her say they are happy (chapter CLXIX); alone, he only smiles when she asks what is wrong (chapter CLXX).
When a delirious Rubião bursts into the veranda and offers him a portfolio, he dismisses him, and Maria Benedita, seeing him cross the garden afterward, gesticulating, cannot hold back a laugh (chapter CLXXI). He asks his wife to confess that she would love him even as a minister's orderly, and returns to the English magazine and the statuette of Narcissus from the Naples Museum (chapter CLXXIII). The daughter is born in Tijuca (chapter CXC).
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Desire, Appearance and reality, and Loyalty and betrayal.
He invented the beach declaration during the conversation, without having gone there. In bed, the text speaks of commitment, nuisance, and obligation regarding the confession of love, and of inferiority regarding the lie, and it is that inferiority that weighs on him: what seems to burden him is having lied, more than having declared love to a married woman.
He only comes to like Maria Benedita on learning that he is adored, and the statuette of Narcissus, to which the book returns him after the veranda (chapter CLXXIII), says the rest: the marriage begins with the couple seeing the same painting, he as homage to himself, she as surrender (chapter CXXII, chapter CXXIII). The book does not punish him.
Relationships
- Sofia: the woman to whom he declares an invented sentence and who later loses importance in his queue.
- Maria Benedita: the wife who adores him in silence and whose happiness irritates him.
- Dona Fernanda: the cousin who arranges the marriage and tells him he is adored.
- Rubião: the host who respects him, sizes him up as a rival, and offers him, in delirium, a minister's portfolio.