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The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas · Chapters CXXXVII to CLX

The Barretina, the Ministry, and the Negatives

AmbitionAppearance and RealityDeathThe Meaning of Life

Chapter CXXXVII: The Cap

Ambition

Section summary

Dejected, Brás Cubas hears from Quincas Borba that it is the age of government, and he delivers a speech about the barretina of the National Guard in order to reach a ministerial portfolio; he backs down when they see opposition in the speech.

Analysis

Brás dresses up a minor matter as a question of State, and as soon as he is accused of opposition he offers to cut off only three-quarters of an inch and declares himself a pillar of the cabinet. What he wants is the portfolio, and the dead narrator recounts his own retreat without sparing himself. The final praise from Quincas Borba, who praises the speech and then condemns the barretina, shows how much Brás lets himself be carried along by whoever encourages him.

The National Guard was created in Brazil in 1831.

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Chapter CXXXVIII: To a Critic

Language and Narration

Section summary

Brás Cubas explains to the critic that death does not age: the style changes because he feels, in each phase narrated, the sensation of it. He thus answers whoever might find it incomprehensible that a dead man should say, as he did in chapter CXXXIV, that the style is no longer as nimble as in the first days.

Analysis

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Chapter CXXXIX: How I Did Not Become Minister of State

Section summary

The chapter that promises to tell how Brás Cubas never became minister of State consists only of a sequence of dots, with no words at all; the next chapter explains the silence.

Analysis

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Chapter CXL: Which Explains the Previous One

Ambition

Section summary

The dots stand for the pain of losing the seat as deputy. Quincas Borba calls Brás's ambition a whim, and Brás Cubas sends him to the devil with Humanitism, because he is tired of philosophies that get him nowhere.

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Chapter CXLI: The Dogs

The Meaning of Life

Section summary

Embarrassed, Brás Cubas wants to flee to Tijuca; Quincas Borba orders him to found a newspaper, because one cannot flee the fight, and if they shut the rostrum on you, you must open a newspaper; and he halts, in ecstasy, before two dogs fighting over a bone with no meat.

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Chapter CXLII: The Secret Request

Section summary

Brás Cubas doubts the advantage of contesting food with dogs, and Quincas Borba answers with the Precursor and Ezekiel. A letter arrives at home, in disguised handwriting so that its authorship could not be attributed to her, in which Virgília asks him to put Dona Plácida, very ill, into the Misericordia. Brás does not understand the request, for he had left Plácida five contos, and Quincas, who has not read the letter, takes a book of Pascal from the shelf to prove that he only spoke the truth about the dogs.

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Chapter CXLIII: I Won't

Section summary

Irritated by the request of Virgília, Brás Cubas broods over the five contos he gave Dona Plácida and decides not to go to Beco das Escadinhas, because he supposes she spent the money on parties, and finds it a nuisance to look for her in a nook he imagines to be narrow and dark.

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Chapter CXLIV: Relative Usefulness

Death

Section summary

Out of courtesy, Brás Cubas sends Dona Plácida to the Misericordia, where she wakes up dead, and concludes that her life served his loves with Virgília.

Analysis

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Chapter CXLV: Simple Repetition

Section summary

About the five contos, Brás tells that, before that, a neighborhood sharper had feigned love for Dona Plácida, married her and, months later, invented a business, sold the bonds and fled with the money. Brás Cubas says it is the case of Quincas Borba's dogs, a simple repetition.

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Chapter CXLVI: The Program

Section summary

Brás Cubas drafts the newspaper's program as applied Humanitism, without citing the unpublished book of Quincas Borba, which requires a reserved declaration of authorship. The program closes with the threat of toppling the ministry, which Quincas finds petty until Brás shows him it is pure Humanitism, and the philosopher proclaims him his beloved disciple and caliph.

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Chapter CXLVII: The Folly

Section summary

Brás Cubas announces the opposition newspaper, and Quincas Borba praises it. Cotrim and Sabina try in vain to dissuade him: Cotrim says he would lock the doors of parliament against a ministry that will live a long time, and Sabina that it is provoking the government for no reason; Brás replies that it does not suit him to beg for a seat and that he wants to bring down the ministry.

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Chapter CXLVIII: The Insoluble Problem

Section summary

Brás Cubas publishes the newspaper, and Cotrim declares in the press that he has no part in it and disapproves of his brother-in-law's ideas. Brás does not understand why, since their relations were good and, as a deputy, he had obtained for him supply contracts for the naval arsenal that could be worth some two hundred contos.

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Chapter CXLIX: Theory of Benefit

Section summary

Quincas Borba rejects the charge of ingratitude against Cotrim: the benefit ends with deprivation, and only the one who gives it remembers it, because of the superiority he feels.

Analysis

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Chapter CL: Rotation and Translation

Death

Section summary

Brás Cubas's newspaper dies within months, and he breathes easier. Lobo Neves, who was about to become minister, also dies; Brás admits to relief, because the rumor that his rival would be minister had given him irritation and envy, and he sees Virgília weep truly at the burial.

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Chapter CLI: Philosophy of Epitaphs

Section summary

After the burial, Brás Cubas moves away from the groups, pretending to read epitaphs, because he had no desire to talk, and says that they are the selfishness of the survivors: snatching from death a scrap of shadow.

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Chapter CLII: Vespasian's Coin

Section summary

Brás Cubas does not understand how Virgília betrayed and wept for her husband with sincerity, and concludes that grief is like Vespasian's coin.

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Chapter CLIII: The Alienist

Section summary

Brás Cubas dreams of being a nabob and tells the joke to Quincas Borba, who thinks him mad and sends an alienist. The alienist declares him sane and asks that he distract his friend.

Analysis

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Chapter CLIV: The Ships of Piraeus

Section summary

The alienist tells of the Athenian who thought the ships of Piraeus were his, and applies the story to the servant of Brás Cubas, who flings open the windows so that people outside may see the richly furnished room.

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Chapter CLV: Cordial Reflection

Section summary

After the story of the Athenian who thought he owned the ships of Piraeus, Brás Cubas concludes that, if the alienist is right, Quincas Borba is not so pitiable, but should be watched over.

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Chapter CLVI: Pride of Servility

Section summary

Quincas Borba calls the servant's attitude "pride of servility", a noble sentiment of Humanitism, and not a mania: the servant's intention is to show that he is not just anyone's servant.

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Chapter CLVII: Brilliant Phase

Section summary

Brás Cubas tells Quincas Borba of the alienist's suspicion, and the philosopher trembles and pales. Brás is reconciled with Cotrim, because solitude weighed on him, and, invited by him, joins a Third Order, with Quincas's temporary permission, since Quincas wants to make Humanitism a religion too; there he lives the most brilliant phase of his life.

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Chapter CLVIII: Two Encounters

Section summary

After three or four years, tired of the office, Brás Cubas leaves the Order with a donation that entitles him to a portrait in the sacristy. He also recounts two encounters from the time of the Order, on the same day: in a tenement, where he went to distribute alms, he finds Eugênia, lame and sadder, who would not accept alms from him; and in the Order's hospital he sees Marcela die.

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Chapter CLIX: Semidementia

Death

Section summary

Brás Cubas finds himself old and in need of strength, but Quincas Borba comes back from Minas demented and aware of it: he burned the manuscript in order to perfect Humanitism, and he recites it as the religion of the future. He dies shortly after in Brás's house, repeating that pain is an illusion.

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Chapter CLX: Of Denials

AmbitionDeathThe Meaning of Life

Section summary

Brás Cubas says that between the death of Quincas Borba and his own came the events of the beginning of the book, above all the plaster and the illness that killed him, and he takes stock of what he was not and did not have. The losses seem offset by what fortune spared him, but he finds a small balance, which is a negation: he had no children, and so did not pass on to any creature the legacy of our misery.

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