Who He Is
Brás Cubas's brother-in-law, husband of Sabina and father of the niece Venância in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. The book presents him first as a family figure and only later portrays him full length (chapter CXXIII): fiercely honorable, accused of stinginess and brutality, treasurer of a confraternity, who sends the newspapers news of his good deeds. He disputes the inheritance with Brás, warns him of the risk of the affair with Virgília, and breaks with him through the press.
Trajectory
Brás names him, when telling of his own death, as Sabina's husband (chapter I), and presents him as the father of the niece Venância (chapter III). After the seventh-day mass, he nearly drags Brás away by force, and Brás isolates himself in Tijuca (chapter XXV). In the division, he values the house at thirty-five contos and Brás's share at fifty, and asks whether the father did not also free the silver; he answers his uncle's moral lesson with the joke that the question is not one of bread, it is one of butter (chapter XLVI).
creio que não libertou a prata?, I believe he did not free the silver?
He visits Brás with his niece Sara, the truce made, and condemns the trip north; Brás admits he did not understand a gesture of his (chapter LXXXI). He leads Brás to the window and advises him to give it up: at court such a case gets lost in the crowd of people and interests, but in the province it changes its face, and he says he has "known that" for long months (chapter LXXXIII).
Aqui na corte, um caso desses perde-se na multidão da gente e dos interesses; mas na província muda de figura, Here at court, a case like that gets lost in the crowd of people and interests; but in the province it changes its face
Consulted about the marriage to Nhã-loló, he does not give an opinion, because praising his niece would look like self-interest, and he holds that it is indispensable to marry a man with political ambitions; Brás then paints his portrait, with arguments that also accuse him (chapter CXXIII).
a avareza é apenas a exageração de uma virtude e as virtudes devem ser como os orçamentos: melhor é o saldo que o deficit, avarice is merely the exaggeration of a virtue, and virtues should be like budgets: a surplus is better than a deficit
A few weeks after Nhã-loló's burial, when Damasceno complains about the friends who did not come, Cotrim tells him that those who truly care did come (chapter CXXVI). Upset when he learns of the newspaper, he repeats "nonsense" and refuses to read the program (chapter CXLVII); he declares through the press that he has no part in it and disapproves of his brother-in-law's ideas, and Brás does not understand why, though he includes in the scene the fact that the supplies depend on the government the newspaper attacks (chapter CXLVIII). Quincas Borba defends him from the charge of ingratitude with the theory of benefit (chapter CXLIX), and Brás is reconciled with him (chapter CLVII).
Themes Embodied
The themes that run through him are Slavery and Appearance and reality.
Slavery: Brás's defense of him explains his harsh treatment of enslaved people by his trade as a smuggler, and reveals the dungeon from which people came down dripping blood (chapter CXXIII).
Appearance and reality: the portrait in oil and the news in the newspapers make honor a staging, and each virtue Brás enumerates brings its opposite with it (chapter CXXIII).
What Cotrim leaves unsaid weighs more than what he says: in chapter CXXIII he does not reveal what he was going to say about the marriage, and in chapter LXXXIII he warns of a secret he has known for months without saying why he speaks now. Brás defends him against his own injustice, and the praise turns into an accusation with every virtue he recounts.
Relationships
- Sabina: his wife, with whom he forms the couple that quarrels and then reconciles with Brás.
- Brás Cubas: the brother-in-law with whom he disputes the silver, whom he warns, and from whom he separates through the press.
- Nhã-loló: the niece he will not praise, so as not to seem interested.
- Quincas Borba: the philosopher who gives him absolution through the theory of benefit.
- Prudêncio: the formerly enslaved man, placed in the inventory beside the silverware.