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In those days a letter arrived from Feliciano in Pernambuco, accompanied by an order for forty-eight thousand réis in ten gold coins. He set aside twelve thousand réis for a pair of earrings for his niece Marta and sent the rest to his brother. He said that he was settling his affairs so that he could return and rest, as he believed he already had enough for his daily bread. He also asked Simeão to look for one or two estates costing up to forty thousand cruzados and to reserve a convent, if one was for sale. The remittance was real, but the letter did not establish the total value of Feliciano's fortune.
Simeão seized upon the larger figure and exclaimed in wonder that forty thousand cruzados was an extraordinary sum. He took the letter to Father Roque, Trepa of Santo Tirso and the former militia commander of Landim. At the fair, he asked the fat and sleepy Pinto Soares whether he wanted to sell the estates of the former Benedictine monastery. Pinto Soares replied that he would not sell them, lest he pass on to the buyer the excommunication he had earned by purchasing property from the religious orders. The irony did not stop Simeão: he asked everyone about convents and estates, as though his brother's expectation were already certain wealth.
Zeferino das Lamelas, the stonemason, considered himself engaged because the marriage bargain had been settled for a little over one and a half contos. He sought out Simeão to arrange the marriage banns, but the farmer received him with studied absent-mindedness. The matter had changed greatly, Simeão said; his brother was coming from Brazil to buy estates and convents. Then he opened a greasy wallet stuffed with receipts, prayers, an old notice, Christmas verses and other papers as worn as the leather. At last he took out the already dirty letter, wetted his fingers to unfold it and declared that everyone knew about Feliciano's future purchases.
Zeferino realised that this display was meant to undo the bargain without saying so plainly. Is the bargain over the girl settled or not? he asked. Simeão chewed his words, twisted about and answered only that Zeferino understood how such things were. When the stonemason pressed him, the farmer asked that they wait and see what his brother would say. Zeferino replied that men were known by their word and oxen by their horns. To him, the hesitation confirmed that Simeão was breaking his promise because he expected Feliciano's wealth to let him escape the bargain made to pay the debts.
His anger broke loose: Zeferino called him a man without honour and a descendant of the bad stock of the Travessas of Serra Negra. The narrator recalls that an uncle of Simeão, Barnabé, had led a band of robbers in those hills. Zeferino also recalled a sow that Simeão had promised him for four coins and then sold to another man for more money. He struck with his axe and threatened to split the farmer's head, if the man's age did not protect him. Then he claimed that he would find a better wife for the same price and insulted Marta and her late mother. Simeão, so prudent when the axe was close, merely demanded that he should not speak badly of his daughter.
Zeferino replied that, the day before, he had seen Marta talking to José Dias in the Reguengo grove. He called the student a weakling and a future bad priest, and wished that he could kick them both. It was the hostile account of a rejected suitor, not neutral proof of Marta's or José's private intentions. As he spoke, he brought his axe down on stones and roots, throwing sparks and frightening Simeão.
The argument might have ended with Simeão's prudent escape, but José Dias appeared at the far end of the chestnut grove with a pack of hunting dogs. The dogs were chasing a bristling pig, and José whistled and made a noise so that Marta would hear him. José had not seen the stonemason. It was the dogs that recognised Zeferino, abandoned the pig and ran at him because of an old dislike. Full of hatred for the student, Zeferino waited for them with his axe raised and his body leaning forwards in provocation. José called the obedient animals back, but the stonemason preferred to keep challenging them.
Let them come, Zeferino said; I shall send the first one's brains flying into its owner's face. José tried to calm him, explaining that the dogs had no speech other than barking. Then Zeferino saw Marta on the balcony, knitting with her basket of wool on her arm, and became even more arrogant. He told the dogs and their owner to come on, adding coarse insults to the challenge. José, with an ominous calm, warned him that he should use the axe against him only when he heard him bark. I called the dogs; what more do you want? he asked, before telling him to go on his way.
Zeferino struck the ground with his axe and replied that this was precisely his path. Marta's presence gave him passing courage, which the narrator compares to the courage of drunkards after indigestible wine. He called the student an ass and ordered him to step forwards, if he was a man. José went pale and replied that he would put down his gun, take the axe from him and punish him with it. The stonemason advanced on the hunter with another furious exclamation. At that moment, one of the dogs seized the seat of his coarse trousers and pulled until Zeferino's left buttock was exposed.
Zeferino swung his axe, but the blows cut only the air, while the dog leapt about and tried to attack his right side. The rest of the pack gathered around him, with threatening teeth and eyes fixed on the movement of the axe. José beat the dogs and called them back, for he had not planned the attack. On the balcony, Marta did not know whether she should go down to help her father end the commotion or give in to laughter. She felt ashamed at the stonemason's exposure, but even that modesty could not overcome the absurd spectacle. In the heat of the struggle, Zeferino had not yet realised the full extent of the tear, nor remembered that he wore no drawers. Only when he felt the cold air did he put his hand to the spot and discover in himself the ancient innocence of Adam.
Marta could no longer contain herself: she fled the balcony, threw herself face down on the bed and rolled about laughing, out of Zeferino's sight. José withdrew, whistling to the pack, which was still growling in the man's direction. Simeão offered Zeferino the shelter of the stable, a borrowed pair of trousers or four stitches to mend his own. The stonemason answered with an obscenity, and the farmer went indoors before the reply became harsher. Public defeat and romantic rivalry became joined in Zeferino's humiliation, and he would carry away with him the desire to take revenge on José Dias.