What It Is
The delirium of chapter VII is the episode in which Brás Cubas, sick, goes through twenty or thirty minutes of fever: he turns into a Chinese barber, then into the Summa Theologica, and a hippopotamus carries him to the origin of the centuries. On a snowy plain, an immense figure calls herself Nature or Pandora, mother and enemy, denies him more years, and from the top of a mountain shows him the parade of the centuries. The vision dissolves when the hippopotamus turns into the cat Sultan. In Hesiod's myth, Pandora opens a jar of evils and only hope stays inside, and Brás's figure carries a bag in which he keeps goods, evils, and hope.
Where It Appears
The delirium begins in chapter VI. Brás, sick, sees Virgília again after two years, and she returns two days later with her son, Nhonhô, and speaks with contempt of a friend's illicit love affairs. It is the hour when the delirium begins.
In chapter VII, Brás offers the account to science as the first of its kind, and the immense figure presents herself on the snowy plain.
Que me conste, ainda ninguém relatou o seu próprio delírio; faço-o eu, e a ciência mo agradecerá, As far as I know, no one has yet reported his own delirium; I do it, and science will thank me for it
Chama-me Natureza ou Pandora; sou tua mãe e tua inimiga, Call me Nature or Pandora; I am your mother and your enemy
Brás trembles, and the figure explains what she carries away.
Porque levo na minha bolsa os bens e os males, e o maior de todos, a esperança, consolação dos homens, Because I carry in my bag the goods and the evils, and the greatest of all, hope, consolation of men
To his request for more years, she answers with the law of one who has no other.
A onça mata o novilho porque o raciocínio da onça é que ela deve viver, e se o novilho é tenro tanto melhor: eis o estatuto universal, The jaguar kills the calf because the jaguar's reasoning is that it must live, and if the calf is tender, so much the better: such is the universal statute
From the top of the mountain, the parade of the centuries ends in a patchwork figure that flees or, when caught, laughs and vanishes. Brás laughs, and the vision dissolves when the hippopotamus turns into the cat Sultan.
nada menos que a quimera da felicidade, - ou lhe fugia perpetuamente, ou deixava-se apanhar pela fralda [...] e então ela ria, como um escárnio, e sumia-se, como uma ilusão, nothing less than the chimera of happiness, or it fled from him perpetually, or let itself be caught by the hem [...] and then it laughed, like a mockery, and vanished, like an illusion
In chapter VIII, Brás recounts the return of lucidity as a dispute between Reason, who wants to evict the intruder, and Folly, who asks for ten more minutes for the mystery of life and death. Reason laughs and expels her.
é sestro antigo da Sandice criar amor às casas alheias, de modo que, apenas senhora de uma, dificilmente lha farão despejar, it is an old habit of Folly to grow fond of other people's houses, so that, once mistress of one, she is hardly ever evicted
In chapter IX, Brás ties the delirium to the beginning of life: the delirium began in front of Virgília, Virgília was his great sin of youth, and from there, from childhood to birth, one arrives at October 20, 1805.
o meu delírio começou em presença de Virgília; Virgília foi o meu grão pecado da juventude [...] ao dia 20 de outubro de 1805, em que nasci, my delirium began in Virgília's presence; Virgília was my great sin of youth [...] to October 20, 1805, the day I was born
What It Means
The delirium gathers in minutes what the book develops: Nature who gives life and takes it away, the law of one who preserves himself without guilt, hope placed in the same bag as evils, happiness as a figure that flees. The one who recounts it is a man who now risks nothing and still asks for more years. The figure who answers his request is the one who made him and will undo him, and the argument she uses to deny it serves her, not him.
Brás's laughter at the end of the parade allows two readings: a sign that madness takes him, or the only attitude left in the face of the spectacle. Chapter VIII gives a clue to how the book chooses, by showing Reason expelling Folly, who was already content with a corner in the attic, and the same guest reappears, in another tone, in chapter LXIX, with the madman Romualdo, and in chapter CLIII, where the alienist says that madness enters every house. The consolation offered to humankind has yet another counterpart in the remedy of chapter II, the plaster. In chapter CLX, the last chapter, Brás says he has not passed on to any creature the legacy of our misery, and the close of the book responds, in its own way, to what the delirium showed.
Relationships
- Work: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas.
- Standard themes: Death, Meaning of life, Madness.
- Characters: Brás Cubas, who raves, and Virgília, in whose presence the delirium begins.
- Neighboring symbols: the plaster, the other consolation Brás offers to humankind. The myth comes from Hesiod.