Jerônimo is the Portuguese quarryman whom João Romão hires to run the quarry and who, after arriving at the tenement sober and thrifty, lets himself be carried away by food, music and Rita Baiana. He kills Firmo in an ambush and leaves his wife, Piedade, and his daughter.
He comes recommended by Machucas and asks for seventy milreis, which João Romão thinks impossible, until he works out that the money will come back through the shop. He arrives with Piedade at room 35, and his life is told in chapter V: he was a colonist on a farm, where he "toiled for two years without ever lifting his head" and left empty-handed, and then, at the quarry, he put something aside and sent his daughter to a boarding school. Within two months the shop clerks are saying he should be the boss.
At night he plays fados on the guitar, but at a Sunday pagode the chorado of Firmo and Porfiro silences the fado, and Rita dances in the middle of the circle. The next day he falls ill and is nursed by her. He starts drinking her coffee and parati, trades salt cod for black beans and gives up Piedade's bed for a hammock. During a samba night, he and Firmo fight, and Firmo wounds him in the belly with a razor.
When he comes back from the hospital, he plans revenge: with two companions he lures Firmo to Praia da Saudade and beats him to death with clubs, and afterward he proposes to Rita that they leave together. He goes to live with her in Cidade Nova, promises to pay for his daughter's school and does not pay, and drinks. During a visit by Piedade, the book shows him "with the sad air of a shamed addict who lacks the will to give up the vice".