The Theme in the Work
The book runs in two directions at once. The owner of the tenement rises through acts the text shows one by one: the forged letter of freedom (chapter I), the bottles taken from the old Libório (chapter XVIII) and the enslaved woman returned to her master (chapter XXI, chapter XXIII). Those who remain go down: Jerônimo, who loses his energy and joins the ambush that kills Firmo (chapter IX, chapter XV); Piedade, who drinks, is evicted and is abused in the kitchen (chapter XIX, chapter XX, chapter XXII); Pombinha, who marries, tires of it and becomes a courtesan (chapter XXII).
The narrator tells the falls in the vocabulary of the milieu, and gives people the part that the climate takes from their choice: Jerônimo's turn comes from the impositions of the milieu (chapter XV), and Piedade's from a nature that stole her man (chapter XVI). The fire of chapter XVII and the ruin of the Cabeça-de-Gato (chapter XXII) give the decline of things alongside that of people.
Around the protagonists, decline has smaller faces too. Marciana is put out of number 12 and taken to the lockup at Romão's request (chapter X); the Witch, infected by her madness, tries to set fire to the tenement (chapter XI) and dies buried in the fire at number 88, which fulfills her madwoman's dream (chapter XVII).
The ending leaves the owner without punishment: the last picture is the honor (chapter XXIII), and the decline is spread among those who helped him rise. The text sustains two readings that do not exclude each other. In one, the fall is the work of the place, a machine that does not choose whom it swallows (chapter XX). In the other, each one takes part in what happens to them, like Jerônimo, who knows he is wrong and does not pay his daughter's school fees (chapter XIX), or Pombinha, who protects Piedade's daughter with the kindness Léonie once showed her (chapter XXII). The book does not decide between the two.
Where It Appears
- Chapter I: The forged letter of freedom that Romão reads to Bertoleza is his doing, and the tenement is born from her savings and from stolen material.
- Chapter IX: Jerônimo loses his energy, trades wine for firewater and his wife's bed for a hammock, while Piedade turns to the Witch and to baths to win him back.
- Chapter X: Romão has number 12 emptied, where Marciana, speechless, sits in the street until a policeman takes her to the lockup at his request.
- Chapter XI: The Witch, infected by Marciana's madness, tries to set fire to the tenement with straw at number 12.
- Chapter XV: Jerônimo helps kill Firmo on the beach, pays his companions, keeps the razor and proposes to Rita that they leave together, leaving his wife the savings and his daughter's school fees.
- Chapter XVI: Piedade blames the nature that stole her man, and the quarrel with Rita turns into a brawl between Brazilians and Portuguese.
- Chapter XVII: The fire at number 88 fulfills the Witch's dream, and she dies buried; those who risked their lives in razor fights are left with a mattress and an old bed.
- Chapter XVIII: Romão tears the bottles of money from the dying Libório, says it would have been an act of justice to take them earlier, and uses the rest on the renovations.
- Chapter XIX: Piedade drinks parati to drown her sorrows; Jerônimo promises to pay his daughter's school fees and does not.
- Chapter XX: Piedade, drunk, dances to mimic Rita, and Pataca, after scolding her, abuses her in the kitchen.
- Chapter XXI: Romão discovers he can return Bertoleza to her owner and hands the job to Botelho for two hundred milreis.
- Chapter XXII: Pombinha, after two years of marriage, goes to live with Léonie; Piedade is evicted and takes refuge in the Cabeça-de-Gato, which sinks lower as the São Romão grows grander.
- Chapter XXIII: Bertoleza understands the lie of the letter and wounds herself with the knife; Romão covers his face and soon receives the diploma of honorary member.
Passages
The narrator explains Jerônimo's turn through the milieu.
cedendo às imposições mesológicas, enfarava a esposa, sua congênere, e queria a mulata, yielding to the pressures of the milieu, he grew weary of his wife, his counterpart, and wanted the mulata
Piedade turns her revolt against the land, not against her husband.
Parecia rebelar-se contra aquela natureza alcoviteira, que lhe roubara o seu homem para dá-lo a outra, porque a outra era gente do seu peito e ela não., She seemed to rebel against that procuring nature, which had stolen her man to give him to another, because the other was someone close to him and she was not
The fire fulfills an old dream of the Witch's.
A Bruxa conseguira afinal realizar o seu sonho de louca: o cortiço ia arder, The Witch had finally achieved her madwoman's dream: the tenement was going to burn
Dying, Libório would rather hold on to his bundle than let go.
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, drew back his lips, showing his toothless gums, and tried to bite the hand the shopkeeper was already stretching out over the bottles
Jerônimo knows he is wrong and does not pay.
só a ideia de separar-se da amante punha-lhe logo o sangue doido e apagava-se-lhe de novo a luz dos raciocínios, the mere idea of separating from his lover would at once set his blood wild and snuff out again the light of his reasoning
The chain goes on in Piedade's daughter.
A cadeia continuava e continuaria interminavelmente; o cortiço estava preparando uma nova prostituta naquela pobre menina desamparada, que se fazia mulher ao lado de uma infeliz mãe ébria., The chain went on and would go on endlessly; the tenement was readying a new prostitute in that poor, helpless girl, who was becoming a woman beside an unfortunate drunken mother
Bertoleza understands that the letter was a lie.
adivinhou que tinha sido enganada; que a sua carta de alforria era uma mentira, e que o seu amante, não tendo coragem para matá-la, restituía-a ao cativeiro., she realized she had been deceived; that her letter of manumission was a lie, and that her lover, lacking the courage to kill her, was returning her to captivity
Romão cannot bear to see what he ordered.
João Romão fugira até ao canto mais escuro do armazém, tapando o rosto com as mãos., João Romão had fled to the darkest corner of the warehouse, covering his face with his hands