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The Slum · Chapters XV to XVII

Firmo's Death, Piedade's Fight, and the Fire

Corruption and DecayNature and CivilizationSexuality

Chapter XV: Firmo Is Ambushed and Killed on the Beach

Corruption and DecayNature and CivilizationSexuality

Section summary

On the night Jerônimo returns from the infirmary to the tenement, Pataca, his assistant, looks for Firmo at the Garnisé and finds him drunk and despondent, because Rita Baiana missed their meeting. To lure him out of the tavern, Pataca says he saw her at Saudade Beach with a man he does not know; Firmo leaves furious, and on the beach two shadowy figures hold him while Pataca takes his razor. They let him go, and the three beat him to death and throw him into the sea. Jerônimo, who was one of the figures, then pays four notes of twenty milreis, two to each of his companions, and keeps Firmo's razor as a keepsake.

Before dawn he knocks on Rita's door; she had spent the night anxious, afraid that Firmo, unable to find her, would come to provoke the Portuguese man. Jerônimo shows the razor, says he killed him, and proposes they leave together, leaving his wife the savings and their daughter's schooling. Rita agrees, embracing him, and the two lie down on her bed.

Analysis

giving in to the pressures of the environment, he grows weary of his wife, his counterpart, and wants the mulata

The narrator explains Jerônimo's turn through the environment and not through a decision of his own: the wife wearies him, the mulata attracts him, and it is the man, placed in the climate of the place, who changes. The keyhole scene shows the same movement from within: the grimace of disgust when he thinks of Piedade comes before any declared resolution.

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Chapter XVI: Piedade Waits for Jerônimo and Fights with Rita

Corruption and DecayNature and CivilizationSexuality

Section summary

Piedade spends the night awake, imagining disasters for her husband, who has not returned; in the morning she tells the neighbors, and the Machona, Augusta, and the washerwomen make the matter the scandal of the day. Furious at the land that stole her man, she sees Rita Baiana singing cheerfully across the way, and Rita, anxious for news from the night, leaves the house at eleven, just as Piedade sets out after her husband. In the afternoon Piedade hears in the street that Jerônimo is alive, was seen at the Garnisé and on the beach, and fetched his laundry box from the Ordem. Jealousy takes the place of fear, and the news of the death of Firmo, which the Machona gives her when handing over the key, only deepens her suspicion that he traded her for the mulata.

Rita comes back happy, having arranged the move with Jerônimo, and Piedade, seeing her pass, asks whether she is moving out. The Bahian woman's cheeky reply sets off insults and a brawl of clogs and nails, in which Rita wins. João Romão cannot separate them, Miranda's family watches from the window, indifferent, and the fight turns into a melee between Brazilians and Portuguese, with the police too afraid to enter. João Romão takes the money from the grocery store and arms himself with a bar, and Bertoleza boils water in the kitchen to defend his property. In the thick of the fight, the chanting of the Cabeça-de-Gato capoeiras comes from the street, come to avenge Firmo.

Analysis

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Chapter XVII: Two Capoeira Gangs and the Fire

Corruption and DecayNature and Civilization

Section summary

When the carapicus sense their rivals approaching, the melee dissolves: Brazilians and Portuguese run to their houses for weapons and lend iron bars to one another. The Cabeça-de-Gato men, about a hundred, dancing behind Porfiro, charge through the gate to avenge Firmo, and the battle begins with method, ten against ten, while Botelho, from the window of the Baron (that is, Miranda), applauds and shouts military commands. Before exhaustion decides it, fire breaks out at number 88, the house of the Witch, who laughs at the window and is buried alive when the timbers give way.

The two gangs suspend the fight without striking each other in the back, and everyone runs to save the little they have; from the Baron's house come the shrieks of Zulmira, who is having a fit. The bells ring, the water carriers fight over the tip, and the police hold the street until the fire brigade arrives, which puts out the fire in silence and is applauded by the crowd.

Analysis

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Reading of the chapter block

Analysis

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