Who He Is
Husband of Sofia, the man Rubião meets on the train and who comes to guide him at every stage in Rio: the lawyer, the house, the purchases, the probate, the business partnership. He prospers with shares, bonds, and war supplies, dreams of a mansion and a barony, and the heir's trust yields him a partner, credit, and finally control of the assets: by the time the book ends, he has already come up with three contos and two hundred from Rubião's assets.
Trajectory
Palha appears first as a name: the slippers Rubião puts on in Chapter I were given by him, and in Chapter III Rubião remembers the servants he imposed on the house in Botafogo. The scene that defines him is the one on the train: he and Sofia sit opposite Rubião, Palha's eyes glow when the teacher says he is staying in the Court and may go to Europe; on hearing of the inheritance, which Rubião estimates at no less than three hundred contos, he no longer glows, he reflects, and only then asks for discretion (Chapter XXI).
At the Court station, he offers the house in Santa Teresa (Chapter XXII); he recommends to his friend a lawyer, a relative of his, and invites him to dinner (Chapter XXIII). He celebrates the end of the probate (Chapter XXV), guides Rubião in his purchases for the house in Botafogo (Chapter XXVI), and rescues him from Major Siqueira's stories (Chapter XXXIV).
The narrator portrays him spending everything on his wife and showing her off in low-cut dresses, and compares Sofia's eyes to the lantern of an inn with no rooms for guests (Chapter XXXV). When Sofia tells him of the garden episode, he downplays it and only afterward confesses that he owes his friend a great deal of money (Chapter L).
Mas, meu amor, eu devo-lhe muito dinheiro, But, my love, I owe him a great deal of money
The next day, he talks only of business with his wife (Chapter LI). When he visits Rubião in Botafogo and finds Camacho in the drawing room, the mention of the moon leaves them speechless (Chapter LIV); he wonders why his friend is leaving, and the narrator calls his soul a patchwork quilt (Chapter LV). Palha and Camacho understand each other with a glance and hold Rubião in the Court, one proposing to accompany him, the other dangling the deputy's seat (Chapter LIX).
He becomes Rubião's partner (Chapter LXIX), praises the waltzing of Carlos Maria without suspecting anything (Chapter LXXI), and takes leave of Sofia at the window with the usual wave of the hand (Chapter LXXII). In mourning for his aunt, he says he has a hunch about Rubião and Maria Benedita (Chapter LXXXIII). To the bank director, who had humbled himself before the minister, he restores dignity with bows, and it is on these bows and scrapes that the man will ruminate afterward (Chapter XCIV, Chapter XCVI).
When Rubião subscribes five contos to Sofia's subscription and asks him for ten, Palha, who holds his bonds and sees the capital shrinking, advises caution and ends up giving in (Chapter CVIII). Rubião also asks him for two contos before sending a diamond to Sofia (Chapter CXV).
On the return from the steamer, he says he has long wanted to talk about something important (Chapter CXXVI), proposes dissolving the partnership to run a bank, invokes Camacho as an argument, and sees Rubião accept the reason (Chapter CXXVIII).
Pois não pagues, e vê se te não fica ainda mais, Well, then don't pay, and see if you don't end up with even more
The narrator then reveals that the bank did not exist: Palha invented the reason because the truth would not serve (Chapter CXXIX). The major complains that the Palhas did not invite him to the birthday or the wedding (Chapter CXXX).
In the scene of Sofia's knee, he swears that nothing was seen and plays with her leg, proud to possess her (Chapter CXLIV). He downplays Rubião's illness when Dona Fernanda asks why no one is treating him (Chapter CLVIII), is moved by Sofia's nightmare (Chapter CLXI), and complains of the bother of Rubião, but his wife insists (Chapter CLXIV). He installs his friend and the dog in a little house on Rua do Príncipe and tells those who feel the exile that his friend needs rest (Chapter CLXV).
After delaying on the promise, he commits Rubião with Dr. Falcão (Chapter CLXXXV); he comes up with three contos and two hundred from his assets (Chapter CXCI) and, days before the patient's disappearance, finds him sane, gives him a hundred milreis, and asks the director not to rush his discharge (Chapter CXCIV).
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Money and Wealth, Loyalty and Betrayal, and Ambition.
The book does not say where Palha's friendship ends and self-interest begins, and that is its strength: the same scenes, the lawyer, the probate, the purchases, the partnership, the house on Rua do Príncipe, serve Rubião and Palha's pocket at the same time. The narrator sums him up in an image, the patchwork quilt, and adds that, morally, whole-cloth quilts are just as rare.
In the scene of the separation (Chapter CXXVIII) Palha asks for what suits him and wraps the request in affection, and Rubião, who asks whether there is a hidden motive, accepts the reason. The book hands the truth to the reader in the next scene, and it is the reader, not Rubião, who learns that the bank did not exist.
Relationships
- Sofia: the wife he shows off as a shop window and to whom he confesses the debt to Rubião.
- Rubião: the friend, debtor and creditor at once, whom he guides, uses, and commits.
- Camacho: the politician with whom he understands himself without a word in order to hold Rubião in the Court, and whom he invokes as an argument when dissolving the partnership.
- Maria Benedita: his wife's cousin, whose marriage to Rubião he hunches about and who ends up engaged to another.
- Dona Fernanda: the visitor who asks about Rubião and to whom he answers by downplaying.