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The Slum

Characters

João Romão Portuguese, owner of the store and of the quarry beside Miranda's townhouse, who raises the São Romão tenement with Bertoleza's savings and with materials taken from the neighboring works, and remakes it, chapter by chapter, into a tenement ever cleaner and... Bertoleza Food vendor and enslaved woman of an old blind man, who works from dawn to night beside João Romão, for whom she is shop assistant, servant and lover, convinced that she is free. The freedom she believes in is a letter he forged, which only he knows how to... Miranda Portuguese merchant, owner of the townhouse beside João Romão's grocery, married to Dona Estela for a dowry that sustains his trading house, father of Zulmira without being certain he is. He moves to the neighborhood to keep his wife out of reach of the shop... Jerônimo Portuguese quarryman whom João Romão hires for the quarry and installs in room 35 with his wife, Piedade, and a daughter who attends school. He arrives serious, thrifty and respected, and he is the case in which the narrator follows, for more chapters, the... Rita Baiana Washerwoman at the tenement, a woman from Bahia, who lives with one man at a time and refuses marriage, spends everything she earns and throws the best pagodes in the tenement. She is Firmo's lover when the book introduces her, and begins living with Jerônimo... Piedade Portuguese woman, Jerônimo's wife, a diligent washerwoman who arrives with him at room 35 and is described as honest, healthy and a match for her husband. She is the figure through whom the book measures the cost of Jerônimo's change: she senses the danger by... Pombinha Daughter of Dona Isabel, widow of a hat shop owner who went bankrupt, and the most beloved girl in the tenement: pale, sickly, with the manners of a well-born girl, she writes the letters and does everyone's accounts. She was to marry the young business clerk... Firmo Skilled and idle lathe operator, a former capoeira of renown, lover of Rita Baiana when the book introduces him. He earns in a week what he spends in a day, plays guitar and sings the chorado at the pagode, and has long-standing jealousy and quarrels with... Botelho Old parasite of the Miranda house, former commercial clerk and slave broker who lost his fortune and now languishes in the shadow of the townhouse, full of rancor against those who have what he never had. He listens to the complaints of each of the house's... Dona Estela Miranda's wife and Zulmira's mother, whom her husband moves to the townhouse to keep her away from the shop assistants, and whom the book shows through the eyes of others: the husband who knows of her adultery and does not leave her because of the dowry, the... Zulmira Miranda's and Dona Estela's daughter, whom her father suspects is not his, a pale and thin girl with lively eyes who grows from twelve to seventeen at the townhouse window and ends up engaged to João Romão. She hardly speaks on stage: what the book does is... Henrique A fifteen-year-old from Minas Gerais, son of an important farmer and client of Miranda, who comes to the Court to finish his preparatory studies for the Medical Academy and lodges at the townhouse. Of shy and delicate manner, he is the student whom Botelho... Léonie A French-style cocotte, comadre of Augusta Carne-Mole and godmother of Juju, who lives with her. She visits the tenement in showy clothes and open luxury, is admired by the residents, pays for the burial of Augusta's daughter, and in her house leads Pombinha... Libório An old resident of the worst corner of the tenement, who lives by scrounging leftovers, swears he is destitute and, according to the neighbors, keeps hidden money. He dies in the fire, clutching eight bottles full of banknotes, which João Romão takes from his...

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