Chapter X: Miranda's Title and the Razor Slashing
Section summary
Domingos, the shop clerk who seduced Florinda, vanishes into the night, and João Romão refuses to answer for the dowry he had promised: Marciana spends Saturday at police stations and lawyers' offices, returns furious and beats her daughter, who runs away from home, and the mother, once full of rage, falls into the lament of someone who has lost a son. At the same time the household of Miranda gets ready for the party: the newspaper brought the news that the Portuguese government had made him Baron of Freixal, and Dona Estela, Zulmira and Henrique rush among the servants and suppliers, with Botelho helping with the arrangements, while Henrique flirts with Pombinha from the window.
The title keeps the grocer awake: he had never envied his neighbor, and now he sees himself in dreams as a baron and banker, and, awake, he wavers between having lived in privation and having lived like Miranda. Not knowing how to wear a dress coat, put on dancing shoes or make conversation in a parlor, he takes out his frustration on others all day long: he quarrels with the inspector, with Machona, with old Libório and with the Italians, and orders room number 12 emptied, where Marciana, speechless, sits in the street until a policeman takes her to jail at his request. At night, at the samba, Rita Baiana dances and sings, and Jerônimo whispers a proposal to her, which leads Firmo to challenge him. Firmo, the capoeira, wins the first part with kicks and head blows, Jerônimo comes back with a cudgel and overpowers him, until Firmo slashes his belly with a razor and runs off. Piedade and Rita rush to the wounded man. When the police knock at the gate, the whole tenement, which talks of defending the "commune," throws up a barricade, resists with stones and lime, and gives way only when Neném shouts that there is a fire at number 12, and the police storm in, smashing everything under a storm of blows.
Analysis
The "Jornal do Comércio," where João Romão reads the news, is the Rio daily founded in 1827.
that being stunted by greed, who seemed to have renounced his privileges and feelings as a man; that wretch, who had never loved anything but money, now envied Miranda
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Chapter XI: The Police Retreat and Pombinha's Visit
Section summary
The Witch, infected by Marciana's madness, tries to set the tenement on fire by carrying straw to number 12; people rush to stop her in time, the rain helps put out the fire, and the police leave without arresting anyone, but they leave the little houses ravaged. João Romão assesses the damage, thinks of charging a tax on the residents by raising rents and the price of goods, and is summoned to the subdelegado, to which he goes with a crowd from the tenement in procession. No one informs on anyone: not he, who says he was away when the clash happened, nor Jerônimo, who tells the doctor they were playing. Rita Baiana watches over the wounded man and clings to him, now without scruple before Piedade, and Jerônimo is taken to the hospital of the Order of Saint Anthony, of which he is a brother, with both women at his side.
The chapter then returns to Pombinha, who wakes up dejected and nervous. On the day of the party, she and her mother had spent the day at Léonie's house, who had Dona Isabel sleep in a room locked from the outside and, alone with the girl, led her to the alcove and, despite her protests and tears, imposed on her a contact that left her ashamed. Pombinha could only leave after giving the kiss of reconciliation, accepted the diamond ring out of her mother's insistence and returned home silent. Dona Isabel, who looks at the luxury of the house with impatience for a better future, notices nothing. Two days later, with pains and fever, Pombinha goes out to the weedy patch behind the tenement, falls asleep in the shade of the mango trees and dreams of a rose and a fiery butterfly; she wakes at noon with the first blood of puberty, which the narrator receives as nature smiling.
Analysis
Reading of the chapter block
Analysis