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A month passed. Meanwhile, sad and bound to routine, I continued to place my cursive hand at the service of the public authorities and, on Sundays, to admire the skill with which D. Augusta removed Couceiro's dandruff.
It now seemed evident to me that I had fallen asleep over the folio and dreamt a Temptation on the Mountain in familiar forms. Yet I instinctively began to concern myself with China and went to the Havaneza to read the telegrams in search of news from the Middle Kingdom. At that time, however, the Havas Agency spoke only of Herzegovina, Bosnia, Bulgaria and other matters that I called barbarous curiosities. Little by little, I forgot the phantasmagorical episode, and my mind recovered its calm.
Then my old ambitions returned: a director-general's salary, Lola's loving breast and steaks more tender than D. Augusta's. Those pleasures seemed as inaccessible as the Mandarin's millions themselves. Across the monotonous desert of life, the slow caravan of my melancholy continued on its way.
On a Sunday morning in August, I was dozing in bed in my shirtsleeves, with an unlit cigarette at the corner of my mouth. The door creaked softly and, as I opened a sleepy eyelid, I saw a bald head bow respectfully beside me. - Mr Teodoro, from the Ministry of the Realm? - a troubled voice murmured. I slowly propped myself up on one elbow and answered with a yawn that I was the man.
The man bent his spine still further, like a courtier before the august King Bobeche. He was small and obese, with white side-whiskers, gold spectacles and a well-fed face that seemed to represent Order itself. He trembled from his bald head to his boots and, between coughs and broken words, introduced himself as Silvestre, of the firm Silvestre, Juliano & Company.
He said that the news had just arrived on the packet boat from Southampton and that his firm corresponded with Brito, Alves & Company of Macau. Brito, Alves & Company corresponded in turn with Craig and Company of Hong Kong, and the drafts came from there. As he spoke, his plump hand shook a bulging envelope sealed with black wax. He assumed that I had already been warned, begged me to retain my benevolence and proclaimed me a flower of virtue and a mirror of good men. At last, he announced the first drafts on Bhering and Brothers of London and thirty-day bills on Rothschild.
On hearing that name, which rang like gold itself, I leapt from the bed and demanded to know what it meant. - It is one hundred and six thousand contos, sir! - Silvestre cried, rising onto the tips of his boots and waving the envelope. The money had been placed in my favour in London, Paris, Hamburg and Amsterdam. It came from the houses of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Canton and belonged to the deposited estate of the Mandarin Ti-Chin-Fú.
I felt the globe tremble beneath my feet and closed my eyes for a moment. I understood at once that, from that hour, I was an incarnation of the Supernatural, from whom I had received strength and attributes. So as not to break that sacred posture, I even restrained the urge to sob upon Madame Marques's ample breast.
Convinced that I must display the impassiveness of a god or a demon, I casually pulled up my trousers and said that the Mandarin had behaved like a gentleman in a family matter. I told him to leave the papers and dismissed him; Silvestre, Juliano & Company backed out, with his back bent and his forehead turned towards the floor.
I then opened the window wide and breathed the warm air, relieved like a weary doe. In the street, the bourgeoisie emerged peacefully from Mass between two rows of carriages.
Suddenly, I had the triumphant certainty that I could hire all those carriages by the hour or by the year. I imagined that none of the women would refuse to offer me her body at the slightest gesture of my desire. I also imagined that every man in a frock coat would prostrate himself before me as before Christ, Muhammad or Buddha if I showed him the one hundred and six thousand contos. I leant against the balcony and gave a bored laugh at that inferior humanity, which believed itself free and strong. On the fourth floor, I held in a black-sealed envelope the very principle of those people's weakness and enslavement.
In an instant, through imagination, I drank in the pleasures of luxury and love and the pride of power. At once a great satiety overcame me and, with the world at my feet, I yawned like a well-fed lion. What use would so many millions be, I thought, except to prove human baseness every day? Under the impact of so much gold, the moral beauty of the universe would vanish from my sight like smoke. I collapsed into a chair and wept freely, with my face in my hands.
A little later, Madame Marques opened the door, splendid in her black silks, and called me Enguiço to dinner. I answered curtly that I would not dine, and she merely said: - All the more left over!
At that moment, distant fireworks reminded me that it was Sunday and a bullfighting day. At once I saw the glittering vision of a bullfight from a private box, followed by dinner with champagne and, at night, an orgy as an initiation. I filled my pockets with drafts on London and went down into the street with the fury of a vulture diving upon its prey.
I stopped an empty carriage and shouted to the driver to take me to the bullfight; he asked for ten tostões. I looked with disgust at that mere piece of organised matter, which spoke of silver coins to a colossus of gold. I put my hand into the pocket laden with millions, but discovered that I had only seven hundred and twenty réis in cash. The driver set the mare moving while I showed him, in vain, the drafts on London and Hamburg. - No good - he muttered.
The bullfight, the lordly dinner and the naked Andalusian women burst like a soap bubble against the point of a nail. I hated humanity and money, and another carriage full of merry people nearly ran me down while I stared at the seven hundred and twenty réis in my sweaty hand.
With my head lowered and my pockets full of millions on Rothschild, I returned to the fourth floor. I humbled myself before Madame Marques, accepted her tough steak and spent my first night of wealth yawning alone in bed. Outside, Couceiro, a poor lieutenant on a salary of fifteen thousand réis, laughed with D. Augusta and played the Fado da Cotovia on his guitar.
Only the following morning, while shaving, did I consider the evidently supernatural and suspicious origin of my millions. My Rationalism prevented me from attributing the treasure to the capricious generosity of God or the Devil, whom I regarded as scholastic fictions. The fragments of Positivism in my philosophy did not allow me to investigate first causes either, so I decided to accept the phenomenon and use it freely.
I therefore ran, with my coat open, to the London and Brazilian Bank. I threw a thousand-pound draft drawn on the Bank of England onto the counter and uttered the delicious word: - Gold! A clerk gently suggested that banknotes would be more convenient, but I repeated curtly: - Gold!
I slowly filled my pockets by the handful and climbed into a carriage under the weight of the coins. I felt fat and obese, with the taste of gold in my mouth and gold dust drying the skin of my hands. The houses seemed like long golden blades, and in my brain an ocean resounded whose waves rolled bars of gold. I surrendered to the swaying springs, with the clouded gaze of a creature stuffed full, and let out a rich man's belch.
For a long time, I rolled through the city, stupefied by a nabob's pleasure. Suddenly, a fierce appetite to spend and scatter gold filled my chest like a gust swelling a sail. I ordered the driver to stop and looked around for something expensive, a queen's jewel or a statesman's conscience, but found nothing. I then entered a tobacconist's and demanded cigars at every price, each dearer than the last; when the man asked how many I wanted, I brutally replied that I wanted them all.
At the door, a poor woman dressed in mourning, with her child huddled against her breast, held out her transparent hand to me. As I could not be troubled to search for copper coins among the handfuls of gold, I pushed her away impatiently. It was then that I saw the imposing figure of my director-general approaching. Without thinking, I bent my back into an arch and swept my hat against the paving stones in greeting. It was the habit of dependence: the millions had not yet made my spine upright.
At home, I poured the gold onto the bed and rolled over it for a long time, grunting with pleasure.
When the tower struck three and the sun began to sink, I ran, armoured in sovereigns, to satisfy myself. I dined alone in a private room at the Hotel Central, with the table covered in Bordeaux, Burgundy, champagne, Rhine wine and liqueurs from various religious communities. It was as though I wished to quench a thirst of thirty years, yet only the wine of Colares managed to satisfy me.
Afterwards, staggering, I dragged myself to the brothel. Dawn found me sprawled on the carpet, exhausted and half-naked, in stifling air that smelt of face powder, woman and punch.
When I returned to Travessa da Conceição, the bedroom windows were closed and the candle was dying in pale flashes in its brass candlestick. As I approached the bed, I saw the paunchy figure of a stricken Mandarin stretched across the coverlet. He wore yellow silk, his long queue hung loose, and in his arms he held a paper kite as though it too were dead. I opened the window in desperation, and the vision vanished completely. Only an old pale coat remained on the bed.