The Theme in the Work
The book sets three floors side by side: the residents of the tenement, who wash, break stone, and sell; João Romão, who rents them the ground and sells them food; and the townhouse of Miranda, with its title, its dowry, and its windows over the courtyard (ch. I, ch. II). The difference does not appear as a thesis, it appears in signs of use: the Sunday clothes (ch. VI), the right to stay at home with friends (ch. VII), the dress coat that Romão does not know how to wear (ch. X), the letter of surety demanded at the entrance (ch. XXII).
The paths from above and from below cross. Romão rises to the point of looking down on the courtyard from Miranda's window (ch. XIV) and of overtaking the townhouse in height (ch. XX). Dona Isabel and Pombinha come from a bankrupt hat shop and struggle to return to their former circle (ch. III, ch. XII). Piedade goes down, from careful washerwoman to someone who is evicted (ch. XX, ch. XXII).
The tenement itself changes class when its owner changes. The rooms grow from a hundred and some to more than four hundred, and students, office attendants, and clerks arrive (ch. XX). Then the tenement begins to demand a letter of surety and loses washerwomen and Italians to the Cabeça-de-Gato, which takes in those who no longer fit in the São Romão (ch. XXII).
The distance between the houses is measured in small things, and the text shows them without comment: Dona Isabel refuses the marriage that would take her out of the tenement because what she has left is the decency of someone who was once treated with respect (ch. III). Romão, who already has money, does not know how to wear a dress coat or make conversation in a drawing room (ch. X). Romão's rise is less about money than about manners, and it is this that replaces the people of the tenement (ch. XXII) and makes Bertoleza an obstacle (ch. XXI). The book leaves in plain view the cost to those who do not rise along with him and does not say whether the price could have been avoided.
Where It Appears
- Chapter I: Miranda buys the townhouse next door, with his trading house secured by Estela's dowry, and Romão, unmarried, raises the tenement against the wall; the two houses end up face to face.
- Chapter II: Miranda envies his neighbor, who got rich without a dowry; Botelho, a ruined former slave broker, lives in the shadow of the house and nurses a grudge against those who have what he never had.
- Chapter III: Dona Isabel, widow of the owner of a bankrupt hat shop, refuses to marry Pombinha off before the time, even knowing that the marriage would take them out of the tenement.
- Chapter VI: On Sunday everyone changes clothes and only Bertoleza stays at the stove; Rita Baiana says she would rather be mistress and owner of what is hers than marry.
- Chapter VII: Miranda shouts from the townhouse against the pagode, and Rita answers that no one has the right to bother them for spending Sunday at home with friends; the two parties coexist without meeting.
- Chapter IX: The Frenchwoman Léonie visits her comadre Augusta and the whole tenement comes to admire them.
- Chapter X: Romão knows how to save money, but not how to wear a dress coat, put on ballroom shoes, or make conversation in a drawing room; the residents defend the gate together against the police.
- Chapter XII: Dona Isabel thanks the blood of her daughter on her knees, since it guarantees her the marriage and the future of them both.
- Chapter XIII: The Cabeça-de-Gato has a front man as its owner because the real one, a councillor, cannot afford to appear for reasons of social decorum; Bertoleza is left behind in Romão's rise.
- Chapter XIV: From Miranda's window, Romão looks with contempt at the people who made him rich and who go on working from sunrise to sunset.
- Chapter XVIII: Romão, who was covered by insurance, points to the homeless, and Miranda answers that they have nothing to lose.
- Chapter XX: The rooms grow from a hundred and some to more than four hundred, students, office attendants, and clerks arrive, and Romão's townhouse becomes taller than Miranda's.
- Chapter XXI: Botelho warns that Estela turns up her nose at the rumor about the Creole woman; for the marriage to Miranda's daughter, Bertoleza is what remains of the counter and the little stove.
- Chapter XXII: The São Romão demands a letter of surety and loses washerwomen and Italians to the Cabeça-de-Gato; Pombinha, married, slides into Léonie's world, and Piedade reaches rock bottom.
- Chapter XXIII: At the confectioner's on Rua do Ouvidor, Romão receives Miranda's family amid courtesies and a question about the opera company that leaves him bewildered.
Passages
Dona Isabel prefers the decency she has left to leaving the tenement.
não era decente, nem tinha jeito, dar homem a uma moça que ainda não fora visitada pelas regras! Não! Antes vê-la solteira toda a vida e ficarem ambas curtindo para sempre aquele inferno da estalagem, it was not decent, nor did it make sense, to give a man to a girl who had not yet been visited by her monthly courses! No! Better to see her single all her life and for the two of them to go on enduring forever that hell of the tenement
Rita defends Sunday as a right, and answers the man who spies on her from above.
Pois então a gente não é senhora de estar um domingo em casa a seu gosto e com os amigos que entender, So are we not mistresses of spending a Sunday at home as we please, with whatever friends we choose
Miranda orders the pagode silenced, napkin and carving knife in hand.
O Miranda apareceu furioso à janela, com o seu tipo de comendador, a barriga empinada para a frente, de paletó branco, um guardanapo ao pescoço e um trinchante empunhado na destra, como uma espada, Miranda appeared at the window, furious, in his commander's manner, belly thrust forward, in a white jacket, a napkin at his neck and a carving knife gripped in his right hand like a sword
Romão has the money and lacks the manners.
um desejo forte de querer saltar e um medo invencível de cair e quebrar as pernas, a strong wish to leap and an unconquerable fear of falling and breaking his legs
Miranda says this of the homeless, standing next to Romão, who was covered by insurance.
Nada têm que perder, They have nothing to lose
The gearing of the tenement reaches a new social layer.
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 fierce gearing of that terrible machine, which never stopped, was already casting its teeth at a new social layer that, little by little, would let itself be dragged entirely inside.
Miranda's townhouse recedes before Romão's building.
O prédio do Miranda parecia ter recuado alguns passos, perseguido pelo batalhão das casinhas da esquerda, Miranda's building seemed to have backed away a few steps, pursued by the battalion of little houses on the left
The tenement becomes aristocratic, and whoever cannot pay the surety leaves.
O cortiço aristocratizava-se., The tenement was becoming aristocratic.