Who He Is
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 hands.
Trajectory
On the Sunday of Rita Baiana's return, she teases him (chapter VI); the narrator later introduces him as the resident no one knows where he lunches or dines (chapter VII).
Ocupava o pior canto do cortiço e andava sempre a fariscar os sobejos alheios, filando aqui, filando ali, pedindo a um e a outro, como um mendigo, chorando misérias eternamente, He occupied the worst corner of the tenement and was always rummaging through other people's leftovers, scrounging here and there, begging from one and another like a beggar, weeping over his misery forever
Na estalagem diziam todavia que Libório tinha dinheiro aferrolhado, contra o que ele protestava ressentido, jurando a sua extrema penúria., At the tenement, however, people said Libório had money bolted away, which he resentfully protested, swearing to his extreme destitution.
At night he shows up to eat at the pagode and nearly chokes on a piece of meat that is too big (chapter VII). He gets bumped by João Romão, who takes out on him his bad mood after the news of Miranda's title (chapter X). When Pombinha goes off to church, he complains that he has lost his sweetheart (chapter XII).
On the night of the fire, Romão sees him flee from his hiding place and follows him. Libório takes eight bottles from the mattress, wraps them in a blanket, collapses vomiting blood, and tries to bite the hand of the shopkeeper who wants to help him carry them (chapter XVIII).
Libório, por única resposta, arregaçou os beiços, mostrando as gengivas sem dentes e tentando morder a mão que o vendeiro estendia já sobre as garrafas., Libório, in reply, pulled back his lips, showing toothless gums, and tried to bite the hand the shopkeeper was already stretching out over the bottles.
His body is laid out in the courtyard between two candles, beside that of the Bruxa, with a plate at his feet for alms to pay for his shroud (chapter XVIII). Romão counts the bottles: fifteen-odd contos, of which eight contos and six hundred are in banknotes already demonetized, and says it would have been an act of justice to have taken them before (chapter XVIII).
Seria um ato de justiça!, It would have been an act of justice!
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that pass through him are Social Class and Corruption and Decay. The symbol that goes with him on stage is the São Romão tenement, of which he was one of the first residents and where his declared poverty lives alongside his hidden money (chapter VII, chapter XVIII).
The text shows Libório through two faces that the fire brings together: the beggar who asks at every door and the owner of eight bottles of banknotes (chapter VII, chapter XVIII). The neighbors' suspicion is confirmed, and more than half of what he saved is no longer worth anything.
The bottle scene admits two readings of the shopkeeper: helping the old man escape the fire, as he says, or using the rescue as a pretext to lay hands on money he had been sniffing out for some time (chapter XVIII). The old man who guards the bundle with his body is the figure against whom the shopkeeper sees himself: both hoard, but only one of them decides what to do with the rest, and Romão puts it into the tenement's renovations (chapter XVIII).
Relationships
- João Romão: the owner who follows him into the fire and keeps the bottles.
- Rita Baiana: the neighbor the old man jokes with on Sundays.
- Pombinha: the young woman whose wedding makes him complain he has lost his sweetheart.