Chapters I to II: João Romão's Tenement and Miranda's Townhouse
that so-called letter of freedom was the work of João Romão himself, and not even the stamp, which he thought to slap on top of it to lend the hoax more formality, was an expense, since the sly man had reused a stamp that had already been used
Explanation and analysis
Bertoleza, a greengrocer and slave of an old blind man, loses her companion and is left with the savings she had gathered for her manumission. João Romão offers himself as her confidant, keeps the money and, some time later, reads her a letter of freedom. The narrator reveals, with the air of one recounting a clever trick, that the letter was the work of Romão himself. She believes it, weeps with gratitude, and goes on working for him as if she no longer owed anything to anyone.
The sentence goes beyond the fraud and descends to the detail of thrift: not even the stamp, placed to give the "greater formality" to the sham, cost money, because he reused a stamp that had already been used. The reader sees in a single line both the forgery and the stinginess of one who will not spend even to deceive. The text also shows that Romão calms down only three months later, when the former master dies, which suggests that he feared being discovered.
The passage can be read as the key to the relationship between the two and to his rise: the only proof Bertoleza has of her freedom is what he reads aloud, and it is with her work and her savings that the tenement begins to rise. Slavery enters the novel as a cog in Romão's enrichment, and ambition appears without shame.
It was no longer ambition, it was a nervous disease, a madness, a desperate urge to accumulate; to reduce everything to coin
Explanation and analysis
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And on that soaked, steaming earth, in that hot, muddy dampness, there began to wriggle, to seethe, to grow, a world, a living thing, a generation that seemed to sprout spontaneously, right there, out of that marsh, and to multiply like maggots in dung
Explanation and analysis
Above all he prized his social standing, and he trembled at the mere thought of being poor again, without resources and without the nerve to start life over
Explanation and analysis
Chapters III to V: The Tenement Wakes and Romão Hires Jerônimo
One could feel, in that sanguine fermentation, in that lush greed of creeping plants that plunge their vigorous feet into the black, nourishing mud of life, the animal pleasure of existing, the triumphant satisfaction of breathing upon the earth
Explanation and analysis
it was not decent, nor was it proper, to marry off a girl who had not yet started her periods! No! Better to see her single all her life than both of them enduring forever that tenement's hell
Explanation and analysis
My seventy milreis will come back to my drawer. Everything stays in my house
Explanation and analysis
they looked like a handful of demons, enraged in their helplessness, against the impassive giant who watched them with contempt
Explanation and analysis
Chapters VI to VII: Rita Baiana's Sunday and the Pagode
there was Bertoleza at the stove, always grimy and sooty, always without Sunday or a holy day, stirring the pots and filling the plates
Explanation and analysis
There is no way for each one to live as lord and master of what is their own!
Explanation and analysis
Miranda appeared furious at the window, with his comendador's air, belly thrust forward, in a white jacket, a napkin at his neck and a carving knife raised in his right hand like a sword
Explanation and analysis
Brought low by the harmonious, nostalgic little fado of the exiles, all of them, even the Brazilians, were growing absorbed and falling into sadness; but suddenly Porfiro's cavaquinho, accompanied by Firmo's violão, burst out vibrantly into a Bahian chorado
Explanation and analysis
Chapters VIII to IX: Jerônimo, Leocádia and Florinda's Scandal
It was not intelligence or reason that pointed out the danger to her, but instinct, the subtle and suspicious nose that every female has for other females when she feels her nest is exposed
Explanation and analysis
scarcely had her flesh touched his than an ardent desire seized him
Explanation and analysis
little by little all his simple habits of a Portuguese villager were reshaped, and Jerônimo became Brazilianized
Explanation and analysis
His balance is not enough to pay the girl's dowry
Explanation and analysis
Chapters X to XI: The Baron's Title, the Razor Slashing and Pombinha's Visit
a strong desire to leap and an invincible fear of falling and breaking his legs
Explanation and analysis
everything was turned into commendas and badges; even the modest two-vintém portion of butter, which he measured on a sheet of wrapping paper to give the customer, was transformed, from a simple yellow stain, into an opulent gold insignia set with diamonds
Explanation and analysis
A collective resolve now stirred them all, in a spirited solidarity, as if they would be dishonored forever if the police entered there for the first time.
Explanation and analysis
Jerônimo was tall, broad-shouldered, built like a bull, with the neck of Hercules and a fist that could crack a coconut with one punch: he was calm strength, a leaden wrist
Explanation and analysis
Chapters XII to XIV: Marriage, a Rival Tenement and a Plan for Revenge
She kissed her belly again and again, and seemed to want to kiss that blessed blood too, the blood that opened up the horizons of life for them and guaranteed their future
Explanation and analysis
João Romão climbed and she stayed down here, abandoned like a beast of burden we no longer need to continue the journey.
Explanation and analysis
Botelho wanted twenty contos de réis, and a signed document promising marriage; the other offered ten.
Explanation and analysis
he cast looks of contempt downward at that sensual rabble that had enriched him, and that kept toiling stupidly from sunup to sundown, with no ideal other than eating, sleeping, and breeding
Explanation and analysis
Chapters XV to XVII: Firmo's Death, Piedade's Fight, and the Fire
giving in to the pressures of the environment, he grows weary of his wife, his counterpart, and wants the mulata
Explanation and analysis
She seemed to rebel against that pimping nature, which had stolen her man to give him to another, because the other was of her own kind and she was not.
Explanation and analysis
where she had so often, her head resting on her man's shoulder, sighed happily, listening to the dear fados from overseas groan from his guitar
Explanation and analysis
the same people who had so cheaply devalued life now hurried to save the miserable goods they owned on earth
Explanation and analysis
Chapters XVIII to XX: Libório, the Construction Work, and Piedade's Fall
It would have been an act of justice!
Explanation and analysis
They have nothing to lose
Explanation and analysis
little by little she had entirely stopped being the shopkeeper's mistress, to become only his slave
Explanation and analysis
The ferocious gears of that terrible machine, which never stopped, were already sinking their teeth into a new social stratum that, little by little, would be dragged in entirely.
Explanation and analysis
Chapters XXI to XXIII: Bertoleza's End and Romão's Rise
Whoever has eaten my flesh must gnaw my bones!
Explanation and analysis
to hand her back to her master, to legally return her to slavery.
Explanation and analysis
The tenement was becoming aristocratic.
Explanation and analysis
It was a delegation of abolitionists coming in tailcoats! to respectfully bring him the diploma of honorary member.