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Mariana dismounted before the convent and went to the gatehouse to call the friend she had previously named as Brito. Beside the gate's side grille, the chaplain was talking to the prioress. They were discussing the salvation of souls and some small casks of Pinhão wine he had received that day. He had already set aside a generous measure to strengthen the prelate's stomach. ‘What a fine young woman!’ the priest exclaimed when he noticed Mariana. He repeated the compliment, with one eye on the young woman and the other on the grille. The jealous prioress swallowed her resentment and asked when she should send for the wine. ‘Whenever you wish, but look at her eyes, her bearing, her whole figure,’ the chaplain replied. ‘You may look, Father João; I have more important things to do,’ the nun retorted. She withdrew with a wounded heart whilst the snuff made her upper lip weep.
The chaplain gently asked Mariana where she came from. ‘I am from the village,’ she replied. ‘I can see that; but which village?’ ‘I am not making my confession now,’ Mariana cut in. The priest observed that there would be no harm in confessing to him. Mariana merely said that she could plainly see he was a priest. ‘What a bad temper you have!’ he complained. ‘It is the one you see,’ the young woman replied, refusing to be intimidated. The chaplain asked whom she was seeking in the convent. ‘I have already told them inside whom I am seeking,’ Mariana replied. ‘Mariana, is that you? Come here!’ a voice called from the parlour. Mariana gave the priest a slight bow of the head and followed the voice.
‘I wanted to speak to you in private, Joaquina,’ Mariana explained. Her friend went to find a more private grille and told her to wait. The chaplain had left the courtyard, and Mariana examined the convent windows one by one. Behind the iron bars of one of them, she saw a lady without a religious habit. Mariana's heart throbbed: ‘Could that be her?’ And an impossible longing passed through her: ‘If only I were loved as she is!’ Joaquina directed her to some steps and the first door in the corridor. Before going in, Mariana looked back at the window and repeated her wish. As soon as she reached the grille, she asked who the very fair young lady, white as milk, at the window had been. Joaquina first thought of one of the two beautiful novices. Mariana explained that the lady was wearing no nun's clothing. ‘Ah, now I know: it is Dona Teresa Albuquerque,’ Joaquina concluded. ‘Then I was not mistaken,’ Mariana murmured thoughtfully. Joaquina wanted to know whether she knew Teresa. ‘No, but it was because of her that I came to speak to you,’ Mariana replied.
‘What have you to do with the young lady?’ Joaquina asked, intrigued. Mariana replied that she herself had nothing to do with her, but knew someone who loved Teresa deeply. ‘The chief magistrate's son?’ Joaquina guessed. ‘The very one,’ Mariana confirmed. Joaquina objected that Simão was in Coimbra. Mariana neither confirmed nor denied it and asked whether her friend would do her a favour. ‘If I can,’ Joaquina replied. Mariana wanted to speak to Teresa in person. Joaquina feared it might be impossible: the nuns were watching Teresa, who would leave the next day. She did not even know for certain whether the other convent was in Lisbon or Porto. The trunks were ready, and Teresa was longing desperately to leave. Mariana could not explain the matter, but needed to give her a paper. She promised Joaquina printed cotton for a dress if she managed to bring Teresa. Joaquina laughed at her friend's sudden wealth, but refused the cotton. She would try to call Teresa without being overheard; the summons to choir made this a favourable moment.
Joaquina succeeded in the difficult task. Teresa was alone and absorbed in thought, her eyes fixed on the place where she had seen Mariana. The servant asked her to come quickly. Teresa followed her to the grille, which Joaquina closed behind them. Joaquina told her to knock quickly from inside when she wished to leave. If anyone asked, she would say that Teresa was at the lookout.
Mariana's voice trembled when Teresa asked who she was. ‘I am the bearer of this letter for Your Excellency,’ she replied. ‘It is from Simão!’ Teresa exclaimed. Mariana confirmed it, maintaining her respectful form of address. Teresa read the letter twice, seized by violent emotion. She could not reply in writing: her inkwell had been taken, and no one would lend her another. Mariana was to tell Simão that Teresa would leave before dawn for the Monchique convent in Porto. He must not distress himself, because Teresa remained ever the same. Above all, Simão must not come there: it would be useless and very dangerous. He was to seek her later in Porto, where Teresa would find a way to speak to him. Teresa asked Mariana to remember that message word for word. Mariana promised that she would. Teresa insisted: Simão must not come to Viseu under any circumstances. Escape was impossible, and Teresa would travel with a numerous escort. Baltasar, his sisters, Tadeu and several baggage and litter servants would be going. Trying to take her on the road would be madness with disastrous consequences. ‘Tell him everything, will you?’ Teresa concluded.
From outside, Joaquina warned that the prioress was looking for Teresa. Teresa started, said goodbye and offered Mariana a token of her gratitude. She removed a gold ring from her finger and held it out to her. ‘I cannot accept it, my lady,’ Mariana replied. Teresa asked why she refused it. Mariana explained that she had done no service deserving payment. If she ever received a reward, it would have to come from the person who had sent her to the convent. She wished Teresa God's protection and every happiness.
Teresa left, and Joaquina returned to the grille. Mariana said she was in a hurry, but promised to return one day for a long conversation. Joaquina wanted to know whether the young lady's lover was nearby and promised to keep the secret. ‘Another time, dear Joaquina; thank you,’ Mariana replied, revealing nothing.
During the swift journey back, Mariana repeated Teresa's message without ceasing. Whenever that exercise of memory faltered, she thought only of the features of Simão's beloved. In secret, she told her heart that her rival was not merely noble and rich. Teresa was also more beautiful than any woman Mariana had ever seen. The poor young woman's heart bowed beneath what her conscience told it and wept.
Simão watched the road through a slit in the shutter or strained to hear the mare's hoofbeats. When he saw Mariana, he went down to the yard, forgetting every precaution. He also forgot his wound, whose dangerous crisis had worsened on that eighth day after the shot. Mariana delivered Teresa's message without altering a word. Simão listened serenely until he learnt that Baltasar would accompany Teresa to Porto. ‘Cousin Baltasar!’ he murmured with a sinister smile. He saw in that man someone who continued to dig two graves: his own and Simão's. João protested: Baltasar might die and take every devil with him, but Simão would live as long as João remained João. He advised him to let Teresa go to Porto, where she would be safe in the convent. Time improved matters: Simão could return to Coimbra and wait for an opportunity. When Tadeu was less watchful, Teresa might outwit him and finally become Simão's. ‘I shall see her before leaving for Coimbra,’ Simão decided. Mariana reminded him that Teresa had repeatedly urged him not to go there. ‘Because of her cousin?’ the student asked ironically. Mariana thought so and added timidly that going there might serve no purpose. João, by contrast, declared that if that was the case, they would have to take Teresa on the road. ‘Father, do not involve this gentleman in still greater trouble!’ Mariana begged. Simão replied that he would drag no one into it and would struggle alone against his own misfortune.
João assumed a gravity that rarely ennobled his appearance and said that Simão knew nothing of the world. Troubles, once they began entangling a man, did not even let him recover his breath. He was a rustic, but his little donkeys' ailments had made a veterinary surgeon of him, as the saying went. He sent passions, and anyone who fattened upon them, to the devil. No man should ruin himself over a woman, even if she were a king's daughter. Women were as plentiful as a plague: they were frogs in a pond, where one dived and four surfaced. A rich gentleman like Simão would find everywhere a pretty face and a dowry that pleased the eye. He should let Teresa go, for if she were destined to be his, she would eventually return to his hands. João insisted that fear did not speak through him: he knew how to send two men at once to stare at the stars. If Simão wished to take Teresa from her father, her cousin and even a regiment, he would help. He would mount the mare and return in three hours with four men worth four dragons. Simão fixed his blazing eyes upon the farrier. Mariana clasped her hands over her breast and begged her father not to give such advice. João told her to be quiet, remove the mare's pack-saddle, cover her and give her dry fodder.
Seeing her withdraw in bitterness, Simão asked Mariana not to be distressed. He would follow none of João's advice, though he listened because he recognised the good intention behind it. He would do only what honour and his heart counselled him.
At nightfall, when he was alone, Simão wrote a long letter from which the narrator preserves only a few passages. ‘I consider you lost, Teresa,’ he began. Perhaps he would not see the next day's sun; everything around him had taken on the colour of death. He seemed to feel the cold of his own grave passing through his blood and bones. He could not be the man Teresa had wished him to be, because his passion would not submit to misfortune. Teresa had been his life, and he had believed no obstacle could deprive him of her. Now, the mere fear of losing her was killing him. All that remained to him from the past was the courage to face a death he considered worthy of them both. He might endure an unhappy passion, but resentment without vengeance seemed to him a hell. He would not give his life cheaply. Teresa would be left without him, but no villain would continue persecuting her after his death. He was jealous of every future hour of Teresa's life. She would remember her heavenly spouse with longing and would not turn her soul's eyes towards the wretch who had destroyed so many hopes. Teresa would see that letter when he was already in another world, awaiting prayers made with her tears. He marvelled at an unexpected spark of faith illuminating his darkness. Teresa's love had also given him religion, and that light had not yet gone out. He still believed, although he felt that divine providence had abandoned him. He asked Teresa to live and explain to the world, through her loyalty to a shadow, why she had drawn him into an abyss. She would hear with pride the world saying that she had been worthy of him. The next sentence began: ‘At the hour when you read this letter...’ Tears prevented Simão from continuing, and then Mariana entered.
Mariana had come to lay the table for supper. As she unfolded the cloth, she said softly, as though speaking only to herself: ‘This is the last time I shall lay the table for Senhor Simão in my house.’ Simão asked her why she said that. ‘Because my heart tells me so,’ Mariana replied. This time, the student considered the dictates of that heart with superstitious seriousness. His meditative silence gave Mariana an early certainty that the prediction would be fulfilled. When she returned with the dish of chicken, Mariana was crying. Moved, Simão asked whether she was crying because she pitied him. Mariana replied that perhaps she would never see him again. Or, if she saw him again, he would be in such a state that she would rather have died first. Simão tried to say that perhaps it would not happen so. Mariana asked whether he would do one thing she requested. He replied that it would depend upon the request. ‘Do not go out tonight or tomorrow,’ she begged. ‘You ask the impossible. I shall go out, because I would die if I did not,’ Simão replied. Mariana begged pardon for her boldness and entrusted him to God's protection.
The young woman went to tell her father of the student's intentions. João tried to dissuade him, insisting on the danger that going out posed, given the state of his wound. When he realised that he could not persuade him, he resolved to accompany him. Simão thanked him for the company, but firmly refused it. The farrier would not yield: he prepared his carbine and gave the mare a double ration for whatever might happen. Then Simão lied, saying that, after thinking better of it, he had decided not to go to Viseu. He claimed that he would follow Teresa to Porto when his days of convalescence were over. João readily believed him, but Mariana distrusted the change and asked her father to watch Simão.
At eleven that night, Simão rose and listened to the house. He heard not the slightest sound, except the mare grinding at the manger. He primed both pistols with fresh powder. He wrote a note addressed to João and placed it with the unfinished letter for Teresa. He opened the shutters, stepped onto the wooden veranda and jumped safely down to the road. He had taken only a few steps when a slit beside the door opened. ‘Then farewell, Senhor Simão. I shall pray to Our Lady to accompany you,’ Mariana said. Simão stopped and heard an inner voice call that woman his guardian angel. In his mind, it was a heart illuminated by love that spoke through Mariana's mouth. He asked her to embrace João for him and took his leave: ‘Until later, or...’ ‘Until the Last Judgement,’ Mariana completed. ‘Destiny must be fulfilled. Let heaven's will be done,’ Simão replied. After he disappeared into the darkness, Mariana lit the sanctuary lamp and knelt, praying with fervent tears.
At one in the morning, Simão stood before the convent, examining every window. He saw no light in the rooms; only the lamp of the Blessed Sacrament shone, dim and pale, through a slit in the church. He sat on the church steps and remained there motionless until he heard four o'clock strike. A thousand visions crossed his tormented mind, but the most persistent showed Mariana with clasped hands, pleading with him. At the same time, he imagined that he heard Teresa groaning with longing and asking heaven to save her from her tormentors. The image of Tadeu dragging his daughter to another convent did not awaken his thirst for revenge. Yet whenever the hateful figure of Baltasar came to mind, his hands instinctively sought the pistols.
At a quarter past four, all nature awoke in hymns and acclamations at the coming of dawn. Birds sang within the convent grounds, interrupted by the solemn ringing of the Ave Marias in the tower. The horizon had passed from scarlet to pale, while the purple of the dawn dissolved into fragments of light. Those fragments rippled over the mountains and spread across plains and meadows, like wonders unfurled by an angel of God. None of that beauty of heaven and earth could captivate the eyes of the young poet.
At half past four, Simão heard the litters approaching and moved into a narrow street opposite the convent. The empty litters stopped by the gatehouse and, shortly afterwards, three ladies dressed for travel arrived. They appeared to be Baltasar's sisters and came with two lads leading the mules. They sat on the stone benches at either side; then the heavy door groaned on its hinges and admitted them. Moments later, Tadeu de Albuquerque arrived leaning upon Baltasar Coutinho's arm. The old man showed signs of exhaustion and, at times, seemed about to faint. Baltasar appeared perfectly composed, dressed elaborately in the Spanish fashion and confident in his supposedly irrefutable arguments. He gestured with assurance and consoled his uncle by making light of the older man's pain.
‘No lamenting, uncle! The disaster would be to see her married,’ Baltasar was saying. He promised to return Teresa cured before a year had passed. He called a year in a convent an excellent emetic for the heart, capable of cleansing it of the sediment of vice. According to him, Tadeu had raised his daughter with excessive freedom. Had he imposed blind obedience upon her from childhood, Teresa would now be submissive and would not imagine herself entitled to choose a husband. ‘She was my only daughter, Baltasar!’ Tadeu sobbed. ‘Precisely for that reason,’ his nephew replied; if there were another daughter, the loss would be less painful and the disobedience less disastrous. He could favour the daughter he preferred, even if he needed royal permission to disinherit the eldest. Now, Baltasar concluded, all that remained was to cauterise the wound: poultices would be of no use.
The gatehouse opened again; the three ladies came out first, followed by Teresa. Tadeu wiped away his tears and stepped forward to greet his daughter, who kept her eyes fixed upon the ground. ‘Teresa...’ the old man called. ‘Here I am, sir,’ she replied, without looking at him. Tadeu said that there was still time; Teresa asked, ‘Time for what?’ ‘Time for you to be a good daughter,’ her father replied. Teresa declared that her conscience did not accuse her of being otherwise. Tadeu asked whether she wished to return home and forget the accursed man who made them all unhappy. ‘No, Father. My destiny is the convent. Not even death will make me forget him,’ Teresa replied. She accepted that she might be a disobedient daughter, but refused to be a liar. When she looked around and saw Baltasar, Teresa shuddered and exclaimed, ‘Not even here!’
Smiling, Baltasar asked whether his cousin was speaking to him. ‘I am! Will you not leave me free of your hateful presence even here?’ Teresa replied. Baltasar presented himself as one of the servants who would accompany her. He said that he had had two men worthy of that duty, but that a murderer had killed them; therefore, he offered to replace them. The charge was false as to who had caused the deaths: João da Cruz, not Simão, had killed the two servants. Teresa vehemently dispensed with that courtesy, but Baltasar insisted upon serving her and repeated the charge. ‘So it ought to have been,’ she retorted ironically, for cowards hid behind servants who allowed themselves to be killed. Baltasar replied that the final reckoning had not yet been made, calling her ‘my dear cousin’.
The conversation passed quickly while Tadeu greeted the prioress and other nuns. The four ladies left the forecourt, followed by Baltasar, and came face to face with Simão, leaning against the opposite corner. Teresa was the first to see him, or to recognise him instinctively, and exclaimed, ‘Simão!’ The chief magistrate's son did not move. Baltasar was terrified by the encounter and, even as he stared at Simão, still seemed to doubt what he saw. ‘Can it be that this vile man has come here?’ Baltasar exclaimed. Simão took a few steps forward and asked calmly, ‘Vile, am I? And why?’ Baltasar called him vile and a murderer and ordered him out of his presence. Simão declared that the man was a fool and that he would not argue with him. Then he addressed Teresa, his voice moved and his face altered only by the emotions of his heart. He asked her to suffer with resignation, following the example that he himself was giving her. He told her to carry her cross without cursing the violence done to her. Perhaps, halfway along her Calvary, divine mercy would redouble her strength.
Tadeu shouted, asking what that scoundrel was saying. Baltasar accused Simão of insulting his uncle and of having the insolence to comfort Teresa in what he called her wickedness. ‘This is too much! I shall crush you here, you villain!’ he threatened. Simão replied that the villain was the wretch who threatened him without daring to advance a step. Furious, Baltasar said that he had not punished him because he would not lower himself before Tadeu's servants, who might appear to be his defenders. Simão smiled and replied that he did not expect ever to meet him alone, face to face. He considered Baltasar so cowardly and so lacking in dignity that he would have the first labourer he found in the street whip him. Baltasar lunged violently at Simão and managed to grip his throat with both hands. Simão fired one of the pistols; Baltasar's fingers rapidly lost their strength. When the ladies tried to separate the two men, the bullet had already entered Baltasar's forehead and torn open the top of his skull. Baltasar swayed for a second and collapsed helplessly at Teresa's feet.
Tadeu was shouting desperately while the men attending the litters and the servants surrounded Simão. He kept his finger on the trigger of the second pistol. Encouraged by one another and by the old man's cries, the men prepared to attack, risking their lives. At that moment, a man with a handkerchief over his face ran from the opposite street. It was João da Cruz; he took his place beside Simão with his blunderbuss cocked, and the other men stopped. ‘Flee; the mare is at the end of the street,’ the farrier told his guest. ‘I shall not flee. Save yourself, and quickly,’ Simão replied. João insisted, warning that the people were gathering and the soldiers would not be long. Simão refused again, his eyes fixed upon Teresa, who had fallen unconscious on the church steps. ‘You are lost!’ João lamented. ‘I was lost already,’ Simão replied; he begged João to leave for Mariana's sake, because João might still be useful to him. As doors and windows opened everywhere, João fled and mounted the mare.
The first neighbour of the convent to come out into the street, because of his office, was the chief bailiff. ‘Arrest him! He is a murderer!’ Tadeu was shouting. ‘Which one?’ the chief bailiff asked. ‘It was I,’ Simão replied. Astonished to recognise the chief magistrate's son, the officer approached and quietly offered to let him escape. For the second time, Simão refused to flee: ‘I shall not flee. I am under arrest.’ He voluntarily handed both pistols to the chief bailiff.
When he recovered from his convulsion, Tadeu had his still-unconscious daughter placed in one of the litters. He ordered two servants to accompany Teresa to Porto. Baltasar's sisters followed their brother's body to their uncle's house.