Chapter VI: Sunday and the Return of Rita Baiana
Section summary
On an April Sunday the washerwomen trade their aprons for new kerchiefs, the men play cards, read and drink at João Romão's grocery, and Bertoleza keeps at the stove of the eating house. The arrival of Rita Baiana, who reappears after three months in Jacarepaguá with Firmo, turns the tenement upside down: everyone surrounds her, and she, who says she lives with one man at a time but does not want to marry, jokes with old Libório and announces a pagode for the night, because her revels are the best in the tenement. Noticing the new neighbors at number 35, she asks who they are, and she is told they are Jerônimo and Piedade, a couple who moved in after she left.
Pombinha, in a new dress, reserves her scribe's work for Sundays: she spends the day writing the letters that the workers and washerwomen dictate, one at a time, because none of them wants to deliver their message in front of anyone else.
Analysis
there was Bertoleza at the stove, always grimy and sooty, always without Sunday or a holy day, stirring the pots and filling the plates
The narrator places this line in the middle of the description of the day of rest to show the contrast: everyone has changed clothes, only she keeps to the same work. The text does not say whether she stays for lack of choice or because she works for João Romão's business, and both readings fit.
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Chapter VII: Dinners, Miranda's Shout and the Pagode
Section summary
At three in the afternoon Firmo, Rita Baiana's current lover, and his friend Porfiro arrive, with a violão and a cavaquinho. Firmo is a skilled but idle turner, who spends in one spree what he earns in a week, and who had once been an election-time capoeira; his friendship with Rita is made of jealousy, fights and reconciliations. The two neighboring dinners, hers at number 9 and the one at number 8 run by Das Dores, grow noisier, and Jerônimo and Piedade turn down the invitations from both tables to dine alone, in peace. When the noise reaches the townhouse, Miranda, who also has guests, appears furious at the window, with a carving knife in his hand, and threatens to call the police. Firmo challenges him at the top of his lungs; Alexandre, already in uniform, warns the merchant that insulting people is not prudent, and Miranda is pulled inside by Dona Estela, Zulmira, Henrique and Botelho. Rita replies that no one has to bother them for spending Sunday at home with their friends, and the two mixed-race men and Bruno agree.
At night Libório comes by to eat and nearly chokes; Albino is the target of the circle's teasing; and the group discusses what Leocádia and Alexandre say they saw in the townhouse family: Dona Estela with the student, and Zulmira's courtship with a young man in pince-nez. João Romão and Bertoleza also come to watch the pagode. Jerônimo plays the homesick Portuguese fado on the guitar, but Firmo and Porfiro's chorado silences the tune, and Rita dances in the middle of the circle; he, who since arriving in Brazil has felt the light, the fruits and the women of the land acting upon him, is held by the dance and forgets Piedade and the hours. Before dawn, alone in the yard, he feels that the mulata's hair forms inside him a nest of snakes, and he decides not to sleep, because it is almost time to start work.
Analysis
Reading of the chapter block
Analysis