What It Is
The tenement of João Romão, the one that gives The Slum its name and the place where almost everything happens. It begins in chapter I as three little houses built with the profit from the shop and stone taken from the neighboring quarry, on a plot bought with the savings of Bertoleza, grows to ninety-five little houses, passes four hundred rooms in chapter XX and changes its name from São Romão Tenement to São Romão Avenue as its owner rises. The narrator describes it as a living thing that grows, seethes and defends itself; for those who live in it, it is the common home, and for Romão it is the business.
Where It Appears
In chapter I Romão raises the little houses, closes off the front with a wall of broken glass and a gate and hangs up the signboard that names the place. The narrator watches the whole grow like a creature of its environment.
nas vinte braças que separavam a venda do sobrado do Miranda, um grosso muro de dez palmos de altura, coroado de cacos de vidro e fundos de garrafa, e com um grande portão no centro, in the twenty fathoms that separated the shop from Miranda's townhouse, a thick wall ten spans high, crowned with broken glass and bottle bottoms, and with a great gate in the center
“Estalagem de São Romão. Alugam-se casinhas e tinas para lavadeiras”, “São Romão Tenement. Little houses and washtubs for laundresses for rent”
E naquela terra encharcada e fumegante, naquela umidade quente e lodosa, começou a minhocar, a esfervilhar, a crescer, um mundo, uma coisa viva, uma geração, que parecia brotar espontânea, ali mesmo, daquele lameiro, e multiplicar-se como larvas no esterco, And in that sodden, steaming earth, in that warm and muddy dampness, there began to wriggle, to teem, to grow, a world, a living thing, a generation that seemed to sprout spontaneously, right there, out of that mire, and to multiply like larvae in dung
In chapter III the tenement wakes and the chapter shows it from the inside, from the taps to lunch, like a body full of life.
Sentia-se naquela fermentação sanguínea, naquela gula viçosa de plantas rasteiras que mergulham os pés vigorosos na lama preta e nutriente da vida, o prazer animal de existir, a triunfante satisfação de respirar sobre a terra, In that ferment of the blood, in that lush greed of creeping plants that sink their vigorous feet into the black, nourishing mud of life, one could feel the animal pleasure of existing, the triumphant satisfaction of breathing upon the earth
In chapter IV, leading the future employee Jerônimo through the yard, Romão says that the police have never come in there and never will.
Nunca nos entrou cá a polícia, nem nunca a deixaremos entrar, The police have never come in here, and we will never let them in
In chapter X the fight between Jerônimo and Firmo is interrupted by the police, and the residents raise a barricade at the gate against the invader. In chapter XI none of them denounces anyone to the deputy police chief.
Um empenho coletivo os agitava agora, a todos, numa solidariedade briosa, como se ficassem desonrados para sempre se a polícia entrasse ali pela primeira vez., A collective determination stirred them all now, in a spirited solidarity, as if they would be dishonored forever if the police entered there for the first time.
Como de costume, o espírito de coletividade, que unia aquela gente em círculo de ferro, impediu que transpirasse o menor vislumbre de denúncia., As usual, the spirit of community, which bound those people in a circle of iron, kept the slightest glimmer of a denunciation from leaking out.
In chapter XIII the Cabeça-de-Gato is born, a rival tenement with a hidden owner, and Romão pursues it with inspectors and guards until the neighborhood splits into cabeças-de-gato and carapicus.
In chapter XVII the division vanishes when the cabeças-de-gato come in to avenge Firmo and the fire starts at number 88: Brazilians and Portuguese run to save the little they have.
já não havia ali brasileiros e portugueses, havia um só partido que ia ser atacado pelo partido contrário, there were no longer Brazilians and Portuguese there, there was a single party about to be attacked by the opposing party
os mesmos que barateavam tão facilmente a vida, apressavam-se agora a salvar os miseráveis bens que possuíam sobre a terra, the very ones who held life so cheap hurried now to save the wretched goods they owned on earth
In chapter XVIII, on the morning after the fire, Romão, who was insured, points to the homeless residents, and Miranda answers that they have nothing to lose: the damage is theirs alone.
Nada têm que perder, They have nothing to lose
In chapter XX the rebuilt tenement has verandas, lamps and more than four hundred rooms, and the signboard now reads São Romão Avenue. Among the new residents are students, messengers and shop clerks, and the Italians occupy the left side, the dirtiest.
Fora-se a pitoresca lanterna de vidros vermelhos; foram-se as iscas de fígado e as sardinhas preparadas ali mesmo à porta da venda sobre as brasas; e na tabuleta nova, muito maior que a primeira, em vez de “Estalagem de São Romão” lia-se em letras caprichosas, Gone was the picturesque lantern of red glass; gone were the liver snacks and the sardines grilled right there at the shop door over the coals; and on the new signboard, much bigger than the first, instead of “São Romão Tenement” one read in elaborate letters
A feroz engrenagem daquela máquina terrível, que nunca parava, ia já lançando os dentes a uma nova camada social que, pouco a pouco, se deixaria arrastar inteira lá para dentro., The ferocious gearing of that terrible machine, which never stopped, was already sinking its teeth into a new social layer that, little by little, would let itself be dragged entirely in.
Depois da partida de Rita, já se não faziam sambas ao relento com o choradinho da Bahia, After Rita's departure, no more sambas were held in the open air with the choradinho of Bahia
In chapter XXII São Romão demands a letter of guarantee, raises prices and gains a tailor and a watchmaker, while the Cabeça-de-Gato takes in those who leave, Piedade among them.
O cortiço aristocratizava-se., The tenement was becoming aristocratic.
What It Means
The name on the signboard follows the owner. The São Romão Tenement, with little houses by the month and washtubs by the day for laundresses, becomes São Romão Avenue in chapter XX, and chapter XXII shows the price of the change: a letter of guarantee at the door, higher prices, laundresses and Italians leaving for the Cabeça-de-Gato. The same place is the one the residents defend from chapter X to chapter XVII.
The narrator treats the tenement as an organism of its environment, which grows where there is mud and water, and the scenes show the owner deciding what it becomes. One can read the Avenue as the same old machine, now with a new social layer among the residents, or as the tenement finally cleaned up, with lamps, taps and verandas. The text gives both movements, the gain in cleanliness and the departure of those who made the tenement grow, and does not choose between them.
Relationships
- Work: The Slum, by Aluísio Azevedo.
- Standard themes: Social Class, Ambition, Nature and Civilization, Corruption and Decay.
- Characters: João Romão, Bertoleza, Jerônimo, Miranda, Piedade, Firmo.
- Neighboring symbols: Miranda's townhouse, which looks at it from the side, the quarry, which feeds it with people and stone, and the fado and the chorado, the music heard in the yard.