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The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas · Chapters LXXXVIII to C

Viegas, Quincas Borba and the Anonymous Letter

Appearance and RealityDesireLanguage and NarrationDeath

Chapter LXXXVIII: The Invalid

Section summary

Brás Cubas says he refuted Jacó Tavares's doctrine, and that Jacó resisted, vexed. Then he shows Virgília showering caresses on the elderly relative Viegas, in hope of at least a codicil, while he talks of the new house he intends to build.

Analysis

Brás observes Virgília with precision, and it is he who speaks of her hope for the legacy. Then he turns what he saw into a general rule about women, a rule that protects her and spares him from calling the gesture by its name.

women's flattery is not the same as men's. The latter is measured by servility; the other blends with affection.
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Chapter LXXXIX: In Extremis

Death

Section summary

Virgília spends the day with Viegas, bedridden for good, and Brás Cubas stays with her. Viegas haggles over the sale of a house, demands forty contos, and dies when the buyer reaches thirty-eight.

Analysis

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Chapter XC: The Old Dialogue of Adam and Cain

Section summary

Viegas's will leaves nothing, and Virgília flies into a rage. Brás Cubas tells her to think of the son they share: it turns out that she is pregnant, and he spends the weeks conversing in thought with the embryo.

Analysis

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Chapter XCI: An Extraordinary Letter

Section summary

Brás Cubas receives from Quincas Borba a new watch, in place of the one the latter had borrowed, and a letter announcing Humanitism, a system that would abolish pain. He reads without understanding, takes the letter as a sign of sanity, and waits for the philosophy.

Analysis

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Chapter XCII: An Extraordinary Man

Section summary

Damasceno, Cotrim's brother-in-law, who says he made the revolution of 1831, brings Brás Cubas an invitation to dinner and, within five minutes, pours out politics, theater and his daughter's voice.

Analysis

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Chapter XCIII: The Dinner

Section summary

At dinner, Sabina seats Brás Cubas beside Damasceno's daughter, Nhã-loló, and declares that he is going to marry her. Brás wonders whether this was the reason for the reconciliation, and goes to the house of Lobo Neves.

Analysis

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Chapter XCIV: The Secret Cause

Section summary

Virgília sulks when Brás Cubas speaks of the son. After two hypotheses, he concludes that it is fear of childbirth and shame of the pregnancy, and rebukes her; she smiles, incredulous.

Analysis

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Chapter XCV: Flowers of Yesteryear

Death

Section summary

Brás Cubas loses the embryo: Lobo Neves gives him the news and leaves him alone in the room, and Brás looks out of the window at the orange trees without flowers.

Analysis

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Chapter XCVI: The Anonymous Letter

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Lobo Neves receives an anonymous letter denouncing the two. Virgília calls it slander in front of her husband and gets away with it; she tells everything to Brás Cubas in Gamboa, who is disturbed by her calm and kisses her on the forehead, and she draws back.

Analysis

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Chapter XCVII: Between the Mouth and the Forehead

Section summary

Brás Cubas calls the reader to look at the kiss in Gamboa and says that between the mouth and the forehead there is room for many things.

Analysis

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Chapter XCVIII: Suppressed

DesireLanguage and Narration

Section summary

Brás Cubas dines reconciled with the situation: the anonymous letter gives salt back to love. At the theater he sees Damasceno and his daughter, finds Nhã-loló more beautiful, takes from her dress the theory that clothing, teasing nature, sharpens desires and makes civilization advance, and says he is going to suppress the chapter because the slope is dangerous.

Analysis

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Chapter XCIX: In the Audience

Section summary

At the theater, Lobo Neves treats Brás Cubas first with coldness and then with affability. Brás concludes that the new situation is better, because Gamboa is enough for them and frequenting the husband's house would stir up envy, and that he must do something in public life, since he has passed forty and is not even a parish voter. He closes with an apostrophe to the crowd.

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Chapter C: The Probable Case

Section summary

Brás Cubas sets out a probable law between public and private life, with the example of the decree of the 13th (chapter LXXXIII), and promises later the opposite effect: Lobo Neves reconciled with the ministry four months after the theater.

Analysis

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