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.
Friar João could no longer understand Marta in the confessional. The narrator imagines that the revelations seemed absurd to him. The friar suspected that Marta was possessed. He also attributed the visions to an incubus demon. Feliciano did not agree with that opinion. João asked him questions about the couple's bedroom. Feliciano said that Marta spent the day praying. On some days she ate well, and on others she ate nothing. She did not speak to the servants or manage the household. She also spoke little to her husband. According to him, she showed no other clear disorder. She slept well and remained in the same bed with him. This did not prove that she freely accepted married life. Sometimes Feliciano woke and saw her sitting up. Marta would sit with her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“That is it,” Friar João would interrupt.
“What is it, Friar João?” Feliciano would ask.
The confessor said that he could not explain. He followed a manual by Brognolo, expanded by another friar. That friar was called Friar José de Jesus Maria. The manual ordered him to hide the supposed signs of possession. First it was necessary to prepare the fight against the enemy. The equipment was a stole, holy water and Latin. The narrator says that the Devil knew Latin well. There was also the sacred secrecy of confession. João wanted to hide an indecent idea from Feliciano. He imagined a demon in the form of the dead José Dias. But he told the vicar of Caldelas more. He told Father Osório that Marta was gravely possessed. Osório could not hide a doubtful smile. Friar João saw heresy in that gesture. He asked the priest whether he had any doubt.
Osório replied that he had a small doubt. He could not accept that a child of God made Marta suffer.
“The Devil, a child of God!” Friar João cried. He clasped his hands to his forehead and called the statement blasphemy. Then he pronounced an anathema against Osório.
“Then let logic be condemned too,” Osório replied calmly.
João said that it was the logic of Calvin and Voltaire.
Osório said that he had learnt logic at the seminary in Braga. Then he asked whether a creator was not a father.
Friar João answered that he was.
God is the father of all his creatures, Osório continued. If the Devil is God's creature, God is his father.
“I make a distinction!” Friar João protested.
Osório did not stop for the friar's scholastic formula.
If God is good, his creatures cannot be evil, he said. But the Devil is evil. Therefore, the Devil cannot be God's creature. Osório recalled an African man's question to a missionary. The question was simple: “Who is the Devil's father?”
Friar João again said that he made a distinction. God created the angels, he explained. Some angels rebelled and were cast out of Heaven. Others remained in dark air to punish humanity. João quoted Saint Augustine in Latin. According to João, God allows demons to torment people. He said that some good could come from that suffering. He also quoted the Gospel of Saint John. But his own explanation ended in a contradiction. He said that evil was good, although evils were not good things.
Osório tried to speak, but João interrupted him.
João quoted Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine. He repeated that God could bring good out of evil. Thus, the Devil would serve to test people. He claimed that there were twelve reasons for this suffering. He began to explain the first reason. A stubborn sinner would be punished in this world and the next.
Osório interrupted before the second reason. He said that he was already convinced and enlightened. But he spoke ironically, not because he believed that explanation.
Friar João replied, “That is exactly right.”
Osório continued to take the idea to an absurd conclusion. He compared God to a father who beats his beloved son. That father would expect the son to receive blows as caresses. “What a fine father!” he commented bitterly. Then he revealed his real fear. Superstitions could destroy Catholicism, Osório said. For him, the Church had defeated idolatry with truth. He ended with the Latin words: “I am the truth.”
Friar João was preparing another reply. At that moment, the other missionaries arrived for the farewell dinner. The dinner was at Marta and Feliciano's home.
The mission ended and the priests went on to Barcelos. Friar João stayed to try to drive the demon out of Marta. He stayed at the place called Quinta da Revolta. The text does not explain whether it was the familiar Quinta da Retorta. In the chapel, João said Mass and heard confessions. The narrator mocks the devout women as sleepy and curious about other people's lives.
Friar João gathered objects that he believed were dangerous to the Devil. He placed a piece of sacred wood around Marta's neck. He added an amulet, symbols and small crosses from Jerusalem. There were images of Saint Benedict and Saint Anastasius. There was also the Creed of Saint Athanasius. He added relics, pieces of bone and handwritten prayers. The prayers were in small bags that were already much used. Other women accused of possession had worn those bags. João was preparing a religious battle, but the exorcism had not yet begun.
Marta had to fast before the planned ceremony. The narrator jokes about the idea of a demon with a full stomach. Friar João also fasted. He advised Feliciano to do the same. He quoted the words of Jesus in Saint Matthew's Gospel. According to the quotation, certain demons came out only through prayer and fasting. Feliciano claimed that he obeyed. But in secret he ate ham steaks with eggs. He cared more about food and rest. He treated the suffering within the family cynically.
Friar João presented the supposed signs of possession to Osório.
The first sign was Marta hearing José Dias. She said that she heard him in dreams and while awake. João pointed to a Latin sentence about voices in the book. Another sign was Marta not wanting meat or bread. Father Osório pointed out that this could come from pregnancy. It was Osório's hypothesis, not a certain cause. Friar João answered with another Latin sentence from the manual. Difficult digestion was also, for him, the Devil's work. The same applied when Marta cried without explaining why. There was also a more serious and intimate article. The narrator supposes that Marta had spoken of repugnance towards her husband. Perhaps she had spoken of forced concessions and resistance to caresses. Perhaps she also saw José's image at those moments. None of this appears as a reliable transcript of the confession. Friar João drew the idea from Brognolo's thirteenth sign. The sign spoke of a body seen between husband and wife. The book left that sentence in Latin.
“Here is the main point!” João said, tapping the page.
Osório asked whether the vision could signal mental illness. He pointed to Marta's deep sadness. That sadness was linked to her past.
João replied that melancholic people suffered more attacks from the Devil. He told Osório to look at Galen and Avicenna in the manual.
“Read this,” João said when he found the passage. The passage said that madness could be the Devil's work.
Osório read the passage with curiosity. It was an old explanation about a melancholic humour. It said that this humour was rebellious and hard to remove. It also said that it could cause incurable illnesses. If it was too dry, it would attack the membranes of the brain. It could then produce madness, apoplexy, rage and hatred. The manual added that the Devil often caused those effects. These were old ideas, not modern medicine.
Friar João became angry because Osório was laughing. He said that another abbot doubted the vicar's faith. He accused Osório's sermons of carrying a smell of heresy. He also said that Osório trusted quinine more than the saints.
Osório replied that, in that case, he really was a heretic. For Marta, he preferred shower baths to exorcisms. He also preferred sedatives and distractions. If that failed, he proposed a hospital for mental illness. Osório invoked Marta's mother and grandparents. He predicted that she would lose her reason completely. He called it the demon of hereditary madness, which science rarely defeats. He said that neither shower water nor holy water guaranteed a cure. He asked João to consult the doctors before the exorcisms. These proposals belong to the nineteenth century.
Friar João said that he already knew the doctors' opinion. He smiled with contempt for medicine. He trusted the exorcisms handed down by the Church. He stated that Jesus himself had cast out demons. He asked whether Osório denied the authority of the Gospels.
Osório replied that he knew the story of the demons and the pigs.
João said that the sacred books were full of such cases. For him, they were not stories but facts.
Osório asked whether the life and miracles of Jesus were not history. Ironically, he said that João's answer was dangerous.
The argument continued for some time and became bitter. Osório offended Friar João's devout ears. The friar quoted Saint Paul and said that scandals were necessary. Feliciano interrupted them with news. He said that his niece had suffered a seizure in the garden. Friar João entered the room where Marta had been carried. Osório stayed to listen to the governess.
The governess said that Marta had completely lost her reason. She had been beside the tank washing handkerchiefs. Marta entered the orchard without noticing her. Then she cut roses for her beloved. She called that beloved and husband “José Alves”. The name refers to the same beloved previously called José Dias. The governess asked Osório who that man was.
“And then?” was all the priest asked.
The governess said that Marta had sat beneath the vine trellis. She cried with the bunch of roses close to her face. Soon afterwards, she fell sideways and began to thrash about. The governess called the cook. The two women carried Marta unconscious to the bedroom. The governess thought that José Alves had been a suitor before Marta's marriage. She had also heard that Marta had married against her will. She called Marta's uncle a dried fish and criticised that marriage.
Osório did not explain the name to the governess. Feliciano told him that they were going to read the exorcisms. The priest decided to leave and mentioned parish duties. Before leaving, he gave Feliciano a warning.
“Do not let them torment your niece too much,” Osório urged. For him, Marta's demon was an illness. He told Feliciano to follow Friar Roque's advice. He called Roque an educated and virtuous man. Feliciano should travel with Marta and take her to the capital. They should return only when she was distracted and content. They would also wait for her appetite to return.
Feliciano admitted that the exorcisms were nonsense. But the friar had settled in his house. João said that he would not leave before curing Marta. Feliciano said that he could not leave Minho at that time. He was waiting for Cerveira de Quadros's sons to lose money through gambling. They had inherited several million réis from their father. Feliciano wanted to buy the Quinta da Ermida. That estate lay beside his property. Another Portuguese man who had returned from Brazil also wanted it. Thus, his plans for wealth mattered more than the journey. For Marta, he was considering sea bathing. He also wanted to buy Raspail's Manual. He said that, in Pernambuco, Raspail cured every illness. That idea is treated ironically, not as medical advice. Finally, Feliciano cursed the friar and the exorcisms.
Osório agreed that Feliciano should buy Raspail's Manual. Then he left feeling very tired. He told his sister Teresa that he was very tired of dealing with two blockheads: Friar João and Feliciano, not Marta.