Who He Is
Joaquim Borba dos Santos, one of the two Quincas Borbas the title holds, inherited from The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas: the castaway of existence who appeared there as a beggar, unexpected heir, and inventor of a philosophy, and whom the novel meets again in Barbacena, in 1867, with a grain of madness. Inventor of Humanitas, he has Rubião as his only friend and nurse, leaves him everything in his will, and dies in Rio, in Brás Cubas's house (Chapter XIII).
Trajectory
In Barbacena, the philosopher had courted the widow Piedade in vain, and a pleurisy carried her off; her brother, Rubião, becomes his only friend and cares for him for almost six months (Chapter IV). He gave his name to the dog Quincas Borba (the dog) for doctrinal reasons and to survive in his name, and tells Rubião that he is going to die (Chapter V).
He explains Humanitas through the death of his grandmother, run over by a gig whose owner was hungry: there is no death, war preserves, to the vanquished hatred or compassion, to the victor the potatoes (Chapter VI).
Ao vencido, ódio ou compaixão; ao vencedor, as batatas, To the vanquished, hatred or compassion; to the victor, the potatoes
Exhausted, he describes the world with praises that astonish Rubião and asks whether the other is his friend (Chapter VII). He registers the will with the notary, entrusts the dog to Rubião, and leaves for Rio, weeping for the dog (Chapter VIII).
From Rio comes a letter in which he calls himself Saint Augustine (Chapter X), and in the newspapers of the Court Rubião reads the notice of the philosopher's death, who bore the illness with philosophy, raved at the end, and leaves many assets (Chapter XI). Brás Cubas's note says that he passed away in his house, where he had turned up tattered and sordid (Chapter XIII).
The will makes Rubião the universal heir with a single condition: to take care of the dog as if he were not a dog, but a human person (Chapter XIV).
cuidar finalmente como se cão não fosse, mas pessoa humana, finally to take care of him as if he were not a dog, but a human person
After death, the philosopher continues in the book by four routes: in the memory of Rubião, who understands the allegory of the tribes only after inheriting (Chapter XVIII); in the challenge that tries to annul the will on grounds of his dementia (Chapter XXV); in the dog, in whom Rubião wonders whether his spirit has transmigrated (Chapter XLVIII); and in the voice that asks whether Rubião should not marry (Chapter LXXIX). At the end, the motto he had taught returns, shouted in Barbacena by the disciple, now without the meaning of the allegory (Chapter CXCV).
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Madness and Money and Wealth, and the symbol that defines him is Humanitas, with its maxim of the potatoes.
The text never decides whether the philosopher is mad: the Saint Augustine letter may be delirium as easily as jest, and whoever reads it as one or the other is Rubião's self-interest, which needs a sane friend for the will to hold. His death is given from outside, by the newspaper notice (Chapter XI) and by Brás Cubas's note (Chapter XIII), and the book never shows the scene: what remains of the philosopher is the doctrine and the dog.
Humanitas is a doctrine that works only for whoever holds it in hand: Rubião does not understand it poor and understands it rich, and the philosopher, who says there is no death, leaves his friend the fortune and a clause obliging him to watch over an animal. It is an ending worthy of his philosophy: what survives is the name, not the man.
Relationships
- Rubião: the nurse, friend, and heir, whom he teaches Humanitas without his understanding it.
- Quincas Borba (the dog): the dog with his name, in whom he wanted to survive, and whose keeping is the will's only condition.