What It Is
The delirium of Rubião, who takes himself for Napoleon III and then for emperor outright, and the crown he puts on his head at the hour of death, made of nothing. The delirium begins with the busts of Napoleon I and Napoleon III on the desk, passes through the goatee and the mustache copied from the emperor, through Compiègne, Louis, and the duchess, and ends in Rua da Ajuda and in Barbacena. It appears in many chapters, but the object that gives it its name appears only in the last one.
Where It Appears
In chapter CIX the dream already carries the image: Sofia appears as Empress Eugénie, Rubião orders Cristiano Palha hanged, and he rides out in a triumphal carriage with her and Quincas Borba (dog), feeling himself to be Emperor Louis Napoleon.
In chapter CXXV, Sofia, ill, recalls his remark that he would still make her empress.
In chapter CXXXIV the busts of the two Napoleons reach Rubião's desk.
In chapter CXLV the barber Lucien finds them in the study, with an engraving of the battle of Solferino and a portrait of Empress Eugénie, while the owner marches on toward the moon.
In chapter CXLVI Rubião has his beard cut by the bust of Napoleon III and defends the emperor against Orsini, saying there is no malice that can prevail against the destiny of whoever receives the imperial crown. He answers the French barber in Portuguese and thinks he is speaking French.
respondendo-lhe em português, cuidava falar francês, answering him in Portuguese, he thought he was speaking French
In chapter CXLVII he imagines himself in Biarritz or Compiègne, governing a great state and listening to ministers and ambassadors. Compiègne, the text says, lay on the way to the moon.
In chapter CXLVIII, without the beard, he alternates between himself and the emperor of the French, and the text says the two balance each other, each whole without the other.
Equilibravam-se, um sem outro, ambos integrais, They balanced, one without the other, both whole
In chapter CLIII, in Sofia's coupé, he speaks to her as a lover, asks her to call him Louis, offers her a solitaire, and promises the title of duke to her husband, who will make her duchess. The text calls that delirium, with the sincerity of someone who sees, or really saw, the things he relates.
Delírio, sim, é o que era; tinha a sinceridade da palavra, como pessoa que vê ou viu realmente as coisas que relata, Delirium, yes, that is what it was; it had the sincerity of speech, like someone who sees or has really seen the things he relates
In chapter CLV news of the mania spreads, and whoever tests it, steering the conversation to France and the emperor, sees Rubião slip toward the abyss.
In chapter CLVI, with the Franco-Prussian War, the crises grow more acute: the fall of Napoleon III is for him the capture of King William, and the dinner guests, promoted to marshals, do not contradict him.
In chapter CLXXXI, in Major Siqueira's house, when the major reaches the battle of Monte-Caseros, the man in front of him is already Napoleon III: Rubião applauds, cites Solferino and Magenta, and promises him a decoration. When the major leads him to the door, he insists that he is his emperor.
In chapter CLXXXII he parades down Rua da Ajuda with an invisible empress, Eugénie or Sofia.
In chapter CLXXXIV he arrives at Dona Fernanda's house with the street turned into a palace: every street lamp looks like a chamberlain, every corner like a portière.
In chapter CXCIX, at godmother Angélica's house, he tells the curious that he is emperor and says he has captured the King of Prussia.
In chapter CC he dies a few days later, neither a subject nor defeated: he puts the crown on his head, a crown that the text says is not even an old hat or a basin, where onlookers could touch the illusion, and that only he sees.
Guardem a minha coroa, Guard my crown
What It Means
The crown runs through the book in four states: object of admiration, in the busts of chapter CXXXIV; copy, in the beard of chapter CXLVI; occupation, in the coupé of chapter CLIII and in the streets of chapter CLXXXII; and finally nothing, on the head of a dying man, in chapter CC. The delirium enters as a comic detail, the answer in Portuguese that he takes for French, before becoming a diagnosis, and the narrator leaves open whether he mocks or respects Rubião's glory.
The narrator insists there is no object: no old hat or basin, nothing where the onlookers could touch the illusion. The crown exists only for whoever sees it, and whoever sees it is the one who dies. The victory that the potatoes promised and the world denied him reaches Rubião by this path, at the moment when no one else sees it.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Madness, Appearance and reality, Ambition.
- Characters: Rubião; Sofia, who is Eugénie and the duchess in the delirium; Cristiano Palha, to whom he promises the title of duke; and Camacho, the only one who argues, in chapter CXLVIII, that the face should not be altered.
- Neighboring symbols: the potatoes, whose motto he repeats until his death, and the Southern Cross, which in chapter XCVII Rubião already thinks of making an honorary distinction.