Select a Portuguese sentence to reveal its English support.
Tap a Portuguese sentence to reveal its English support; tap it again or tap outside to close it.
With a keyboard, focus or activate a sentence. Press Escape to dismiss its English support.
Mariana, João da Cruz's daughter, fainted when she saw her father treating the wound in Simão's arm. The farrier laughed thunderously at the girl's weakness. Simão, for his part, was surprised by such sensitivity in a woman accustomed to tending the wounds with which her father returned from fairs and pilgrimages. 'It is not yet a year since they made three holes in my head, when I went to Our Lady of Remedies at Lamego,' João related. 'She was the one who clipped my hair and shaved my scalp with a razor.' From what he now saw, the blood of a gentleman had turned the girl's stomach. The difference between common and noble blood left João, as he put it, very well provided for the nursing he had planned.
When Mariana opened her eyes, flushed with shame at her weakness, her father asked whether she would be the guest's nurse. 'I shall be glad to, if you wish it, Father,' she replied. João decided that, instead of sewing on the veranda, his daughter would remain beside Master Simão. She was to give him broth frequently and tend his wound. When the wound took on a purplish colour, vinegar and more vinegar would be the remedy. She was also to talk to him, keep him from brooding and not allow him to write too much whilst his head was weak. João advised Simão to dispense with ceremony and not address Mariana as 'Miss' with every request. It was enough to say: 'Girl, bring me some broth; girl, wash my arm; give me the compresses.' There was to be no politeness, for Mariana was there as the patient's servant. João had already explained to her that, without Simão's father, she would long ago have ended up begging, or in an even worse plight.
The farrier could leave his daughter some property earned through ten years of sweat at the anvil, besides four hundred thousand réis inherited from his mother. But if he were hanged or transported overseas, the law would take charge of everything to pay the costs. Simão observed that, possessing a respectable little property, João could marry his daughter into a good farming family. 'If only she wished it,' her father replied. There was no shortage of suitors, and even the church ensign wanted her, provided João gave him everything. It was not much, the farrier said, but it was still worth a good four thousand cruzados. Mariana had not wished to marry, and João admitted that he too did not wish to lose the only companion for whom he worked like a slave. Without his daughter, he would have committed many follies. When he took her to fairs or pilgrimages, he neither struck nor was struck; if he went alone, disorder was certain. Mariana knew the moment when the wine rose to his head, tugged him by the jacket and, with gentle persuasion, led him away from the festivities. If anyone called him back for another quart, she prevented him from returning, and João was amused by the meekness with which he obeyed the girl. It was enough for Mariana to ask him, for her mother's soul, not to go, and he no longer knew what parish he belonged to.
Mariana listened to her father with half her face hidden in her very white linen apron. Simão delighted in the simplicity of that rustic scene, sublime in its poetry and naturalness. João was called to shoe a horse, and he entrusted the patient to his daughter. 'Treat him according to his station and as though he were your brother or husband,' he ordered. Mariana's face turned cherry-red when the final word left her father's mouth as naturally as all the others. João left, and the girl remained leaning against the jamb of Simão's alcove. The silence still preserved the embarrassment that the word 'husband' had left in the room.
Simão lamented the plague that had descended on Mariana's house: they were making her a nurse and perhaps depriving her of sewing on the veranda and talking to passers-by. 'What do I care about that?' she replied, shaking her apron and settling it at her waist with childlike grace. Simão invited her to sit down and reminded her that her father had given permission. He asked her to fetch her sewing and bring him a sheet of paper and a pencil from his writing case. Mariana smiled and recalled that her father had also ordered her not to let him write. He promised to write only a few lines, and she handed him the paper and pencil. 'Take care what you do,' Mariana warned, fearing that some letter might be lost and everything discovered. Simão asked what that 'everything' meant and whether she knew anything. Mariana would have had to be a fool not to understand. She had already told him that she knew of his attachment to a young gentlewoman in the town. Now he was wounded, and everyone was speaking of the men who had been found dead. Simão asked what connection he had with those deaths, pretending that the news was new to him. Mariana replied that the dead men were servants of the cousin of the lady he loved. If Simão distrusted her, he was concealing a secret that Mariana wished no one to discover, lest it bring greater trouble upon her guest and her father.
Simão acknowledged that he should not have concealed from her the dangerous encounter on the road. Mariana prayed that this might be the last misfortune and said that she had begged Our Lord of the Stations to cure such a passion. She nevertheless had a foreboding that the worst was still to come. Simão assured her that everything would end there: he would go to Coimbra as soon as he recovered, and the young lady in town would remain at home. If that were so, Mariana had already promised two pounds of wax to Our Lord of the Stations. But her heart did not tell her that Simão would do as he promised. Moved, he thanked her for wishing him well and asked what he had done to deserve such friendship. 'It is enough to see what your dear father did for mine,' Mariana replied, wiping away her tears. What would become of her if João were taken from her and hanged, as everyone had said he would be? She had been only thirteen when her father was imprisoned, but she had resolved to throw herself into the well if he were sentenced to death. If he were transported, she would accompany him and die wherever he died. Not a day passed without her asking God to grant Simão's father as many joys as there were stars in the sky. She had gone specially into town to kiss Simão's mother's feet and had met his sisters. The youngest had given her a skirt of fine cloth, which Mariana still kept as a relic. Afterwards, whenever she went to market, she made a long detour in the hope of seeing Miss Rita at the window, and she had often seen Simão as well.
Mariana had been drinking at the fountain two or three years earlier when Simão beat the servants and raised a commotion that seemed like the end of the world. She had told João about the episode, and he had fallen to the ground laughing like a madman. She had not seen him again until he arrived with his uncle from Coimbra, but she had already known that he was heading towards this disaster. She had dreamt of much blood and had wept as she watched someone very dear fall into a deep grave. Simão said that they were only dreams, but Mariana insisted that she had never dreamt anything that did not later happen. Before João killed the muleteer, she had seen him in a dream firing at another man; before her mother died, she had awoken weeping for her, although her mother lived for another two months. Townspeople might laugh at dreams, but only God knew what they meant.
João da Cruz then entered with a letter brought by the poor woman who usually carried the messages. Whilst Simão read the letter written in the convent, Mariana fixed her large blue eyes on his face. Every contraction of the student's brow tightened her heart. Unable to master her anxiety, she asked whether the news was bad. Her father called her impertinent, but Simão intervened and said that the news was not bad. He asked João to allow him to have a friend in his daughter, for only the unfortunate knew how to value friends. João acknowledged the truth of the remark, although he did not dare ask what the letter said. Mariana explained that she had not asked either; it had merely seemed to her that Simão was distressed whilst reading. The patient confirmed that she had not been mistaken and told João that Tadeu had dragged Teresa into a convent. 'He truly is a scoundrel!' the farrier exclaimed, making with his arms the instinctive movement of squeezing a neck. At that instant, a perceptive observer might have seen a flash of innocent joy gleam in Mariana's eyes. The flash proved no treachery; it was a momentary emotion that Mariana herself might not have understood. Simão sat up to reply, and it was Mariana who spontaneously brought him a chair; Teresa remained in the convent.
Mariana said that she would watch the broth whilst he wrote. 'I must tear you out of that place,' Simão began in his letter to Teresa. 'That convent must have some way out: find it and tell me the night and hour when I must wait for you.' 'If you cannot escape, those doors shall open before my fury.' 'If they send you to another convent farther away, warn me.' 'I shall go alone or with others, intercept you on the road and take you with me.' 'You must recover your courage so that the boldness of my passion does not frighten you.' 'You are mine; I do not know what use my life is unless I sacrifice it to save you.' 'I believe in you, Teresa, I believe.' 'You will be faithful to me in life and in death.' 'Do not suffer patiently; fight heroically.' 'Submission is an ignominy when paternal power is an outrage.' 'Write to me whenever you can: I am almost recovered.' 'Say one word to me, summon me, and I shall feel that the loss of blood has not diminished the strength of my heart.' The reply transformed Simão's nearly completed convalescence into a promise of escape, force or interception.
Simão asked for his purse, took out some silver coins and handed them to João. He instructed him to give the money to the poor messenger together with the letter. Then he stayed behind, rereading Teresa's letter and recalling the reply he had written. Master João went to the kitchen and told his daughter that he suspected something. The patient had no money: his purse weighed as much as a pig's bladder full of air. The suspicion troubled João, who wished to offer him money but did not know how to do it. Mariana became thoughtful and promised to find a solution.
João told her to ponder it, for his daughter had better ideas than he did. Mariana pointed out that, if her father did not wish to touch his four hundred thousand réis, she had the money earned from her calves. It was the equivalent of ten and three-quarter gold coins. Her father agreed to discuss it later and asked her to devise a way for Simão to accept without scruples. In Master João's unpolished language, those scruples received the name 'remorse'. The misuse of the word did not lessen the delicacy of the problem that father and daughter were trying to solve.
Mariana took the broth to Simão, who refused it, distracted by deep thought. She asked sadly whether he would not have the broth. Simão replied that he had no appetite and might eat later. He asked her to leave him alone for a while and not spend her day beside a tiresome patient. 'You do not want me here? I shall go and return when you call me,' Mariana said. Her eyes were brimming with tears. Simão noticed them and thought for a moment about the girl's devotion, but said nothing to her. He was left to his thorny situation and to the distressing thoughts that novelists rarely attribute to their heroes.
In novels every crisis is explained except the ignoble crisis of having no money. Authors consider the subject low and plebeian, and style approaches such humble matters unwillingly. Balzac speaks a great deal about money, it is true, but about money in millions. In fifty of his books, I know of no leading man who, during an interval in the tragedy, broods over finding money to pay his tailor. None seems to need to escape the nets that a moneylender stretches from the magistrate's office to every street corner. In those nets, capital and interest at eighty per cent assail the debtor with equal zeal. It is from this embarrassment that the masters of the novel always escape. They know that the reader's interest cools as the hero shrinks to the proportions of a tavern hero. The wealthy reader flees him by instinct, and the poor reader flees as well, having no use for such a companion. I confess sincerely that the matter is prosaic. It is hardly elegant to make the hero so commonplace that he thinks about money just after writing his beloved a letter like Simão's. Anyone reading it would suppose that the young man had carts and teams of mules stationed at various points along the country's roads. They would be ready to carry the beautiful fugitive to Paris, Venice or Japan. The roads of that time must have served admirably for such a purpose, although I cannot guarantee that there was a road to Japan. Now I believe that there is, because I am told that everything exists. Readers have already learnt from Master João himself that the chief magistrate's son had no money. It was precisely money that Simão was brooding over when he refused Mariana's broth.
How was he to pay for João da Cruz's hospitality and repay Mariana's care? If Teresa escaped, with what resources would he support them both? Simão had left Coimbra with his allowance, which was not large. Almost all of it had been consumed by the hire of the horse and the generous gratuity given to the muleteer who had introduced him to the helpful farrier. That day he had given the remainder of that money to the bearer of the letter. It was a bad situation. He thought of writing to his mother, but he would have to explain why he was in that house. Would he not thereby provide clues concerning the mysterious deaths of Baltasar Coutinho's two servants? Besides, he knew only too well that his mother did not love him. Even if she sent him money in secret, it would be only what was strictly necessary for the journey to Coimbra.
Tired of thinking, Simão received from the providence of the unfortunate a deep sleep. Mariana entered the room on tiptoe and, hearing his heavy breathing, ventured into the alcove. She placed a light handkerchief over his face to keep away the swarm of flies buzzing around it. She saw his purse on a small stool that adorned the room, picked it up and left as silently as she had entered. When she opened it, she found papers she could not read and, in one compartment, only two small coins of six vinténs each. Mariana returned the purse to its place. Then she took the guest's breeches, waistcoat and Spanish-style jacket from a peg. She examined every pocket and did not find a single coin. She withdrew to a dark corner of the upper floor and spent half an hour pondering in distress. That investigation had not sprung from curiosity: Mariana wished to confirm Simão's poverty so that she could help him without humiliating him. At last, she rose suddenly and spoke at length with her father.
João heard the proposal, opposed it, but yielded little by little to his daughter's replies. 'I shall do as you say, Mariana,' he declared at last. He asked for her money, for he was not going to lift the hearthstone and disturb the chest containing the four hundred thousand réis. It made no difference which sum they used, he added, because it all belonged to his daughter. Mariana hurried to the chest and took out a linen purse containing silver coins, besides chains, rings and earrings. She put the gold ornaments away in a small box and handed her father the purse containing her savings. João saddled the mare and left, carrying Mariana's money and the plan they had agreed upon.
Mariana returned to the patient's room and waited for Simão to wake. When he opened his eyes, she exclaimed with an expression poised between joy and alarm, carefully feigned: 'Have you heard?' She told him that his mother knew Simão was in that house. The statement was false and intended to prepare an explanation that would allow him to accept help without suspecting Mariana. Simão replied that such knowledge was impossible and asked who had told her. Mariana said only that his mother had sent for João. Simão wondered why he had received no letter from his mother. Mariana improvised that perhaps his mother knew only that her son had been there and believed he had already left. The story was plausible, but Simão remained astonished that anyone had revealed his hiding place. He feared that, if his presence was known, he might be connected with the servants' deaths. Mariana replied that perhaps they would not suspect him and that, even if they did, there were no witnesses. João had said that he was not afraid: whatever was to happen would eventually come to light.
Mariana asked him not to brood any longer and offered to fetch the broth. 'Go, if you wish, Mariana,' Simão replied. 'Heaven has given me, in you, the friendship of a sister.' The girl's joyful spirit found no words with which to answer the sweetness in his face. She returned with the 'little broth', a diminutive approved by the rhetoric of affectionate speech. Against the smallness of the word protested the broad, deep white bowl beside a dish holding half a chicken golden with fat. Simão smiled at so much food. Blushing, Mariana asked him to eat what he could. She knew that gentlemen from town did not eat from such large bowls, but she had bought that one specially, thinking he had rejected the previous bowl out of distaste. Simão assured her that she was being unjust: he had not eaten the day before, and was not eating now, only because he lacked an appetite.
Mariana asked him to eat for her sake and forgive her boldness. 'Pretend that it is your sister asking you,' she added, recalling the words he had just spoken. Simão considered that sacrifice as necessary to his own survival as to the happiness of kind-hearted Mariana. Without a trace of vanity, Simão wondered whether that gentle creature might love him. It was only a possibility, not something Mariana had admitted. Simão told himself that it would be cruel to show that he was aware of such affection. He had no love to offer in return, nor could he lie to the girl. Even so, far from distressing him, gentle Mariana's attentions flattered him. No one feels the love they inspire but do not return as a burden. Even amid the greatest afflictions and in the heart's final hours, it is comforting to feel loved when love can no longer distract one from pain or mend the last thread as it breaks. Whether this is pride or the human heart's insatiability, it is in the love we receive that we measure our worth before our own conscience. Mariana's possible love therefore did not displease Simão, who remained passionately in love with Teresa; nor did it redirect his love towards Mariana. Severe female readers may condemn him, but Simão's fault lies in human nature: splendid in the sky, sea and earth, yet full of inconsistencies, absurdities and vices in man, proclaimed king of creation.