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Simão Botelho's wound was too delicate to yield quickly to the farrier's treatment, however richly supplied with veterinary aphorisms he might be. The bullet had passed obliquely through the muscle of his left arm, but it had ruptured some important vessel. Not even the compresses could staunch his bleeding. Hours after the ambush, the student lay down with a fever and surrendered himself to João da Cruz's improvised science. The muleteer left for Coimbra with a mission as necessary as it was false. He was to spread the news that Simão Botelho had remained in Porto. His convalescence thus began under the double treatment of compresses and deception.
More than the pain or the fear of losing his arm, he was tormented by his longing for news of Teresa. João da Cruz remained constantly on the alert, guarding against any judicial action that suspicion might produce. Those returning from the market in town reported that two men had been found dead. They were said to be servants of a gentleman from Castro Daire. No one, however, had heard the deaths attributed to any particular person. Amid that uncertainty, silence protected Simão almost as effectively as the walls of the farrier's house.
That afternoon, Simão received a letter from Teresa. 'May God grant that you reached those good people's house safely,' she began. 'I do not know what is happening, but there is a mystery here that I cannot fathom.' 'My father spent the morning shut away with my cousin and will not let me leave my room.' 'He had my inkpot taken away, but fortunately I had another ready.' 'Our Lady willed that the poor woman should come to beg beneath my window.' 'Without her, I could not even have signalled for her to wait for this letter.' 'She spoke to me of dead servants, but I could not understand her.' 'Your sister Rita is now signalling to me from behind the panes of your room.' Rita managed to tell her that Baltasar's men had been found dead near the road. 'Now I know everything,' Teresa continued, immediately connecting the deaths with Simão's danger. 'I almost told her that you were there, but they gave us no time.' 'Every hour, my father paces the corridor and heaves very loud sighs.' 'My dear Simão, what can have become of you? Are you wounded? Shall I be the cause of your death?' 'Tell me whatever you learn, for now I ask nothing of God except that He preserve your life.' 'Flee these places, go to Coimbra and trust this unhappy woman, who is worthy of your devotion.' The poor messenger was returning, and Teresa ended in haste, unwilling to delay or expose her. She had also asked whether anyone was speaking of Simão and had been told that no one named him. 'God grant that it may continue so,' the letter concluded.
Simão replied, seeking to calm Teresa's mind. He spoke of the wound so casually that it seemed not even to have required treatment. He promised to leave for Coimbra as soon as he could do so without fearing that Teresa would suffer during his absence. He asked her to summon him as soon as the threats of a convent became reality. The letter concealed the danger to his body, but kept intact his promise to act for her.
Meanwhile, Baltasar Coutinho was summoned by the authorities to clarify the inquiry opened into the two deaths. He confirmed that the dead men were his servants and that they had accompanied the family from Castro Daire. He claimed, however, to know of no enemies they had in Viseu. He also denied having the slightest suspicion against anyone whatsoever. The nearest neighbours testified only that, late at night, they had heard two almost simultaneous shots and another shortly afterwards. One of them added that the scrub nearby had been cut, a detail that could shed no light on the inquiry. In that carefully prepared darkness, the investigation could not take a single step.
Tadeu de Albuquerque had been complicit in the attempt on Simão Botelho's life. The idea had come from him when Baltasar revealed the reason for Teresa's frequent outings on the night of the ball. Baltasar had then given the servants the practical orders to attack Simão far from the garden. Now it suited both the old man and the heir to erase any trace connecting them with the mystery of the deaths. In their masters' eyes, the servants were not worth avenging at the cost of staining their masters' names. They could produce no evidence against Simão, whom they believed already on his way to Coimbra or sheltered in his father's house. They could only hope that he had been wounded and would die far from the place where they had ordered him attacked.
As for Teresa, Tadeu resolved to confine her in a convent in Porto. He chose Monchique, where a close relation was prioress. He wrote to the prelate asking her to prepare rooms, and to his agent asking him to obtain the necessary ecclesiastical permissions. Fearing some incident whilst he waited for the permissions, he decided not to keep his daughter at home. He therefore asked for Teresa to be held temporarily in a convent in Viseu.
Teresa had just read Simão's reply and hidden it against her breast when her father entered the room. At dusk, the poor woman had sent the letter up on a thread. Tadeu told his daughter to dress, and she obeyed, taking a cloak and a shawl. 'Dress according to your station, and remember that you still bear my name,' the old man said sternly. Teresa replied that she had not thought she needed better clothes to go out at night. 'Do you know where you are going?' Tadeu asked. 'I do not know, Father,' she replied. He ordered her to dress and not to dictate terms to him, but Teresa asked him to hear her for a moment.
'If you intend to force me to marry my cousin, I shall not marry him,' she declared. 'I shall die, and die content, but I shall not marry him.' Tadeu retorted that Baltasar no longer wanted her and that she was unworthy of a man of their blood. No man, he said, would accept a woman who spoke to lovers in gardens at night. He then told her to hurry, because she was going to a convent. 'At once, Father; I have asked you for that fate many times,' Teresa replied. Tadeu forbade any further observations and announced that her cousins were waiting to accompany her.
When she was alone, Teresa burst into tears and wished to write to Simão. At that hour, however, there was no one to carry the letter for her. She turned to the image of the Virgin, whom she had made the confidante of her love. On her knees, she asked the Virgin for protection and for strength to help Simão withstand the blow and remain faithful through the trials ahead. Then she dressed and pressed against her breast a parcel containing the inkpot, paper and the bundle of Simão's letters. As she left, she cast one last tearful glance at the image and asked her father's permission to take it with her. 'It will be sent there,' Tadeu replied, adding that if she had as much shame as devotion she would be happier.
One of her cousins, Baltasar's sister, drew Teresa aside and told her that she could still remedy the disorder in the household. The remedy was to tell her father that she agreed to marry Baltasar. With feigned seriousness, Teresa asked whether her cousin did not know that Baltasar no longer wanted her. She said that her own father had informed her of that refusal. Her cousin attributed those words to Tadeu's agitation and offered to speak to him. 'You are joking, cousin,' Teresa replied. 'I shall be your sister-in-law only when I no longer have a heart.' 'Your brother knows that I love another man.' 'I wished to live for that man, but if they wish me to die for him, I shall bless all my tormentors.' She told her cousin to repeat those words to Baltasar before she forgot them. At Tadeu's impatient summons, Teresa replied that she was ready.
The convent gate opened, and Teresa entered without shedding a tear. She kissed her father's hand, which he did not dare refuse her before the nuns. She embraced her cousins with an expression of feigned happiness. As the door closed, she exclaimed, to the nuns' great astonishment: 'I am freer than ever.' 'The freedom of the heart is everything.'
The nuns glanced at one another as though the word 'heart' were a heresy uttered in the house of the Lord. The prioress peered at Teresa over her spectacles whilst catching in her scarlet handkerchief the snuff running from her nose. 'What did you say, child?' she asked. Teresa corrected herself, saying only that she felt very well there. The convent secretary interrupted her to explain that she must not say 'madam'. The proper form was 'Mother Prioress'. Teresa obediently repeated both the form of address and her statement. 'But those who come to these houses of God do not come to feel well,' the prioress warned her. Teresa received that first doctrine of the house with genuine astonishment.
The prioress explained that there one mortified the spirit and left worldly passions outside. She introduced the mistress of novices, whose duty it would be to guide her. Teresa made a respectful gesture and followed the way indicated to the prelate's rooms. There she learnt that she would be the prioress's guest whilst she remained in that convent. The nun did not know whether Tadeu would choose that house or another for his daughter's final destination. According to her, Teresa's father might wish her to take vows in a wealthy order, among Benedictines or Bernardines. 'Take vows? I do not wish to be a nun here or anywhere else,' Teresa exclaimed. The prioress replied that she would have to be whatever her father wished. Teresa declared that no one could force her to take the veil. The prioress admitted that this was true, but reminded her that a year's novitiate gave ample time to grow accustomed to that life.
She assured her that no existence was more restful for the body or healthier for the soul. Teresa, smiling as though irony came naturally to her, recalled that the mother herself had said that no one came there to feel well. 'It is merely a manner of speaking,' the prioress corrected her. There were mortifications, duties in the choir and services for which the spirit was not always inclined. Compared with the world, however, the convent was a paradise. There were no passions or cares there to steal one's sleep or appetite, blessed be the Lord. The nuns lived with one another as God did with the angels, all desiring exactly what one desired. Malicious tongues, intrigues and gossip in sunny corners were things Teresa would never find in that holy house.
The prioress went to fetch supper, leaving Teresa with the organist, a supposed dove, and with the mistress of novices, supposedly an expert in virtue. As soon as the prelate turned her back, the organist called her a great impostor. 'And what a fool!' added the mistress of novices. The mistress of novices advised Teresa not to trust the schemer and to ask her father for another companion. They said that the prioress, now a missionary against other people's passions, had in her youth been the nun who brought the greatest scandals upon the house. After growing old, she had become ridiculous by still wishing to love and be loved. Now she treated indigestion and preached missions with the solemnity of one who had erased her own past. Despite her sorrow, Teresa could not suppress a laugh when she recalled the life of God with the angels described by the prioress.
Shortly afterwards, the prelate entered with supper and the two nuns left. She asked Teresa what she had thought of the nuns. When the young woman replied that she had thought very well of them, the old nun stretched her snuff-stained lips and muttered that they were not among the worst. She presented two chicken legs and a broth which, according to her, even the angels might eat. Teresa declared that she had no appetite, but the prioress assured her that no one could keep going without eating. As for passions, the devil could take them, for women were left the losers and men had nothing to lose. She herself, praise be to God, did not know what passions were, but fifty-five years in a convent gave one much experience of other foolish women's suffering. The organist, already well into her forties, still went to the parlour to indulge in amorous endearments. And the mistress of novices, if she were not watched, would corrupt the girls she was meant to train.
This edifying exercise in charity was interrupted by the convent secretary, who entered picking her teeth. She had come to ask the prioress for a little glass of a certain digestive wine that she received every night. The prelate informed her that she had been telling Teresa what characters the organist and the mistress were. The secretary readily agreed and announced that both women had gone to the portress's cell. By that hour, she said, the two tongues would already be cutting Teresa to pieces. The prioress asked her 'flower' to go and listen at the door. Delighted with her mission, the secretary slipped along the dormitories to a door that did not muffle the shrill laughter.
Whilst the spy performed her office, the prioress explained to Teresa that the secretary had only one fault: she got drunk. Although she received a good allowance, she spent it all on wine and sometimes entered the choir unable to articulate the words. Apart from that, she was a pure soul and a loyal friend to her friends. It was true that, when clouded by wine, she attacked everyone and everything and exposed the faults of those she liked. She had even accused the prioress herself of seeking more than fresh air when she left the convent for a change of air. The slander was harder to bear because it came from a woman whose own admirers drank with her beside the grille. 'But after all, no one is perfect,' the prelate concluded, absolving her sister in order to condemn her more thoroughly.
When the bell summoned them to the choir, the venerable prioress drank a second glass of the digestive wine. She asked Teresa to wait a quarter of an hour, for she did not intend to linger over the prayers. As soon as the prioress left, the secretary returned and found Teresa with her face in her hands. 'A convent, my God! Is this what a convent is?' the young woman was saying to herself.
The secretary rebuked the daughter of a tinsmith for leaving a guest alone and announced that she would miss the choir to keep Teresa company. Teresa insisted that she would be fine, hoping at last to ease her distress in tears. The other woman refused to leave and immediately asked whether the prioress had been speaking ill of her. Teresa denied it, but the secretary knew that the old stork never spoke well of anyone. According to her, the prioress did not drink wine: she sucked it up like a living sponge. As for loose conduct, the old woman had had more lovers than her age and her snuff allowed one to calculate. The secretary then drank a glass of the prelate's wine and continued her demonstration. When she had taken vows twenty-six years earlier, the prioress had already been almost as old as she was now. The nun invited Teresa to imagine how many hundredweights of snuff had accumulated in those nostrils. She claimed to have known more than a dozen of the prioress's admirers, not counting the chaplain who still stocked her wine cupboard at the community's expense. As secretary, she knew how much of the house's income the hypocrite squandered.
After demolishing her hostess's reputation, Dionísia da Imaculada Conceição offered Teresa a genuine service. She knew that Tadeu had ordered the prioress to prevent his daughter from writing or receiving letters. Even so, she promised to give her an inkpot, paper, sealing wafers and the use of her room. If anyone wished to write to Teresa, the letters should be addressed to Dionísia. Encouraged by the offer, Teresa asked whether a message could be taken to the poor woman who lived in an alley in the town. Dionísia promised to send someone there as soon as day broke. She nevertheless demanded exclusive trust: the mistress and the organist were false, and Teresa would be lost if she encouraged them.
On seeing the prioress return, Dionísia called her a slug and immediately changed the subject. She began praising convent life and the happiness of living under such a prioress. The prioress entered in time to hear the praise and, winking at Teresa, declared: 'I know you never speak ill of me.' Dionísia replied that fortunately the other woman had heard what she was saying, unlike the nuns who disgraced the house with intrigues. The prioress asked her why she had not gone to the choir. It was already too late, Dionísia replied, asking to be absolved of the fault. The penance imposed consisted of drinking another little glass of digestive wine. Dionísia performed it without resistance and left, claiming that she was leaving the prioress to her prayers.
We shall not prolong this sample of the evangelical and exemplary life of the convent where Tadeu had sent his daughter to breathe the angels' purest air. Meanwhile, at Monchique, a crucible was being prepared which he considered still more effective for purging vice. Two hours in the convent had filled Teresa's heart with bitterness, disgust and a desire to flee. She had not known that the world contained such a spectacle. She had heard convents spoken of as refuges of virtue, innocence and immortal hopes. Letters from her aunt, the prioress at Monchique, had given her the image of a saint, and the devout ladies of Viseu attributed virtue, charity and even miracles to those Dominican nuns. Her disillusionment with the women's hypocrisy did not diminish the sincere faith with which Teresa had entrusted herself to the Virgin.
Teresa's bed stood in an alcove divided by curtains within the prioress's cell. When she was told that she might go to bed, she asked whether she could write to her father. The nun replied that perhaps she might do so the next day, although Tadeu had ordered that his daughter should not write. She added that she would not forbid it, if by chance there were paper and an inkpot in the cell. Teresa went to bed, and the prelate knelt before an oratory to say the rosary in a low voice. By the second Lord's Prayer, the devout nun was already nodding so heavily that she could not manage the first Hail Mary. She rose, made a swaying bow to the sacred images, lay down and began to snore.
Teresa silently drew back the curtains and took from her clothes the screw-top inkpot and the paper she had brought concealed in them. The lamp in the oratory cast a faint ray over the chair where she had left her dress. She climbed out of bed, knelt beside the chair and wrote to Simão, giving him a detailed account of that day's events. The letter ended thus: 'Do not fear for me, Simão.' 'All these trials seem light to me when I compare them with what you have suffered for love of me.' 'Misfortune does not shake my resolve, nor should it daunt your plans.' 'They are only a few stormy days, and nothing more.' 'Whatever new decision my father makes, I shall tell you as soon as I can.' 'If you have no news from me, always attribute my silence to the impossibility of communicating.' 'Love me in my unhappiness, for it seems to me that the unhappy are those who most need love and comfort.' 'I shall see whether I can forget by sleeping.' 'How sad this is, my dear friend! Farewell.'