Who He Is
Husband of Virgília and rival of Brás Cubas in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, who takes his bride and his candidacy within a few weeks. A declared ambitious man, a deputy and orator, he wants public glory and promises his wife the title of marquise. He is also the man Brás cannot read, pale and quiet in the face of suspicion, and to whom he grants, amid the betrayal, a stratum of solid rock of dignity.
Trajectory
Brás says Lobo Neves was no more svelte, elegant, well-read, or likable than he was, and yet he sees him take the bride and the candidacy; to Virgília, who asks when he will be a minister and whether she will be made a baroness, he answers that he will make her a marquise (chapter XLIII). Brás begins to measure himself against him and asks himself why he would not be a better deputy and a better marquis (chapter XLVII).
He reappears married to Virgília and praises Brás for his political writings, at the ball where the two waltz (chapter L). He tells Brás that he adores his wife and gradually confesses to him the sad woodworm gnawing at his existence, the lack of public glory; he asks for secrecy, and when two deputies and a political boss come in, he receives them with joy (chapter LVIII). He comes home and kisses his son, invites Brás to dinner, and the dinner is that of a placidly superior man (chapter LXIII). The cigar box that warns Brás comes in his name (chapter LXVII).
He announces that he may take the presidency of a province and treats it as settled, and asks his wife not to put a weight on the wings of ambition (chapter LXXVIII).
Dirás que sou ambicioso? Sou-o deveras, mas é preciso que me não ponhas um peso nas asas da ambição, Will you say I am ambitious? I am, truly, but you must not put a weight on the wings of ambition
He invites Brás to go as secretary, and Brás looks in him for a hidden thought and does not find one (chapter LXXX). He refuses the presidency because the decree is dated the 13th, a number tied to the deaths of his parents; he does not tell Brás the reason, is torn between ambition and doubt about his own superstition, and, since the minister does not believe in private motives, he goes over to the opposition (chapter LXXXIII, chapter LXXXIV).
O pai morreu num dia 13, treze dias depois de um jantar em que havia treze pessoas. A casa em que morrera a mãe tinha o n.° 13, My father died on the 13th, thirteen days after a dinner at which there were thirteen people. The house in which my mother had died bore the number 13
Brás grants him a fundamental dignity, a stratum of rock that life did not wear away (chapter LXXXVII).
havia no Lobo Neves certa dignidade fundamental, uma camada de rocha, que resistia ao comércio dos homens. As outras, as camadas de cima, terra solta e areia, levou-lhas a vida, que é um enxurro perpétuo, there was in Lobo Neves a certain fundamental dignity, a stratum of rock, which resisted the commerce of men. The other strata, the upper ones, loose earth and sand, life carried off from him, for it is a perpetual torrent
He receives the anonymous letter denouncing his wife and Brás, and Virgília calls it slander in front of him (chapter XCVI). At the theater he treats Brás first with coldness and then with affability (chapter XCIX), and four months later he reconciles with the ministry (chapter C). When Brás arrives suddenly at the house in Gamboa, he turns pale, cold, and quiet, without an outburst (chapter CIV), and Virgília's note says he is serious and silent, and that he smiled once, at the son, after staring at him for a long time, scowling (chapter CVII).
He is named president of a province by a decree dated the 31st, and the transposition of the digits takes away from the number its diabolical substance (chapter CX). Brás meets him on Rua do Ouvidor and judges that he is afraid of public opinion, and not of him (chapter CXII). He tells his wife that the absence will last only until the elections (chapter CXIV). Later it is the orator whom Brás hears in the Chamber (chapter CXXVIII, chapter CXXIX). He dies when he was about to become a minister, and Brás confesses his relief (chapter CL).
Themes Embodied
The themes that run through him are Ambition and Appearance and reality.
Ambition: he wants public glory and sacrifices a presidency to a number in which he does not fully believe (chapter LVIII, chapter LXXXIV).
Appearance and reality: he receives his visitors with the joy of the most fortunate of men, and the reader may see in that joy a mask that Brás also needs (chapter LVIII).
Lobo Neves appears almost always through Brás's gaze, and so the book leaves open what he knows: the calm of chapter CIV may be that of one who noticed nothing or that of one who controls himself, and the brake that Brás attributes to him, public opinion, is a hypothesis that spares the lover (chapter CXII). What the text affirms is that ambition stands firm, for the man goes back to being named president after refusing the first presidency (chapter CX).
Relationships
- Virgília: the wife he adores and to whom he promises the title of marquise.
- Brás Cubas: the confidant and the invited secretary, who is also his wife's lover.
- Dona Plácida: the old woman who closes the lattice when she sees him arrive at the house in Gamboa.