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Before entering his own house, Torcato Nunes went to the abbot's residence. He was being mysterious, cast cautious glances around him and asked whether anyone could hear them. The abbot marked the page of his breviary with his spectacles and assured him that he was alone. Nunes bent towards his ear and announced in a low voice that Dom Miguel I was in Portugal. The priest received the news with astonishment and called it nonsense. Nunes said that he had come from Porto and named Ferreira Rangel and Abbot Gonçalo Cristóvão as his sources. He added that the king was supposedly in the province, perhaps in Braga, and that the uprising would begin in that municipality. The abbot waved his arms with joy and immediately wanted to write to friends to prepare the way. Nunes put a finger in front of his nose and ordered him not to make a fuss or spread the news. According to him, the king would show himself to his friends only after the generals entered through Galicia. He further claimed that Dom Miguel had spoken only to a few trusted supporters in Lisbon and Porto, among them Father Luís do Torrão. The abbot knew that priest well and was already imagining him as viceroy in the North and future Patriarch of Lisbon. Nunes took his leave, saying that he had not even seen his wife and children since arriving. Before leaving, he announced that the regime would fall and that within a month the whole of Minho would be under arms behind the king. With tears in his eyes, the abbot invited him to dinner and promised to open a bottle of 1815 wine to Dom Miguel's health.
On the night from Shrove Saturday to Sunday, Veríssimo stayed at Relhas's inn in Póvoa de Lanhoso. He told the innkeeper that he came from far away, was travelling through the province and wanted to know where Carnival was celebrated. The man spoke of orange fights and brawls in Póvoa, but recommended the Calvos plays held on all three days of Carnival. The innkeeper's son was playing Alménio in The Sham Doctor and could obtain a chair from the abbot's house for the traveller. The performance took place in Gonçalves's spacious threshing yard, before a barn with three doors for the actors' entrances and exits. Chintz covers protected the still damp stage, and two chestnut poles decorated with box, rosemary and camellias supported worn red flags. Cheta, the mason who had painted the poles and rehearsed the play, was not acting because his father had died fifteen days earlier. Veríssimo entered the makeshift backstage area, where the performers waited sitting on maize boxes and a salting trough. Matilde was the sick young woman in the play, in love with Alménio, whom her father brought into the house disguised as a doctor. The role of Matilde belonged to a sturdy journeyman carpenter with hairy wrists and calloused hands. He wore a white satin dress made in 1824 for a noblewoman, but its bodice gripped his shoulders and almost prevented him from moving. A straw hat with yellowed feathers and a pair of heelless shoes completed the ill-fitting costume. Laberca, Matilde's maid, wore blue satin, a bonnet with red ribbons and her employer's boots with patent-leather toe caps. Veríssimo greeted the two ladies with truly royal solemnity. Alménio was the innkeeper's son, and he explained that the spectacles were part of his disguise as a doctor. Gonçalo, a Galician who worked as a water carrier, played a water carrier in the farce, although they had dressed him as a muleteer. Pantufo, Matilde's wealthy suitor, appeared in the mayor's best suit. Falsete and Astolfo were still dressing behind a screen while Cheta painted their faces red. Those figures were stage roles performed by people from Calvos, not family relationships within the village.
Nunes crossed the threshing yard and was heading for the barn when Gonçalves told him that a nobleman from far away was inside. Nunes and Veríssimo exchanged a glance, and the former hurried away while arranging an expression of surprise. He entered the residence breathlessly and asked the abbot whether he had already been to Gonçalves's threshing yard. The abbot replied that he was still finishing dinner before going to see that drunken comedy and asked why Nunes was so agitated. Nunes asked whether he knew the outsider who was in the threshing yard. The priest said that a lad from Póvoa had borrowed a chair for a stranger whom he called a nobleman merely because he wore a coat. Nunes urged him to come at once and asked whether he still remembered seeing Dom Miguel in Braga thirteen years earlier. The abbot remembered perfectly and declared that he had kissed the king's hand three times. Asked whether he would recognise him now, he replied that he thought it possible, although he was already suspicious of Nunes's excitement. Nunes insisted that the abbot accompany him before calling him mad or drunk. The priest offered him a mouthful of wine, and Nunes drank it at once and asked for another. He raised the second glass to the health of the king, who might be only a hundred paces away from them. On the way to the threshing yard, Nunes recommended the greatest discretion: no fixed stares, and they would speak to the stranger only if a natural opportunity arose. The abbot still told him that he was dreaming.
When they entered the threshing yard, the entertainment had already begun, and Veríssimo was standing with his right hand resting on the back of the chair. The crowd shifted about, the girls laughed at the men dressed as women and the lads shouted crude jokes at the actors. The actors replied with equally rude gestures from the stage, while dogs barked and the old women told the audience to be quiet so that they could hear the lines. The narrator ironically compares that commotion to a first-rate theatre. Gonçalves, the owner of the threshing yard, apologised to the stranger for the disorder by saying that it was Carnival. When the abbot appeared at the gate, the audience settled down and the play resumed in his honour. Some solemn old men observed that the large-bearded outsider had remained very serious throughout the mockery. Gonçalves asked the abbot whether he knew that gentleman, and the abbot replied aloud that he did not. Immediately afterwards, however, he nudged Nunes and whispered that he had guessed correctly: it was the king. Veríssimo moved three paces away to light a cigarette beside a musician sitting on a bass drum. The priest took Veríssimo's limp as further proof of the identity he wished to recognise. Nunes told him to lower his voice and not to stare, for Veríssimo had already noticed them. At that moment general laughter broke out, and Veríssimo also laughed and applauded. With tears of emotion, the abbot marvelled at seeing the man he believed to be Dom Miguel applaud a play in a Calvos threshing yard.
The laughter was not an ovation for the author or the actors, but the result of an accident on stage. In the first scene, Astolfo asked his daughter to eat something. Matilde replied that a cold sweat was making her faint and prepared the pretended swoon prescribed by the script. The carpenter expected to be caught by the fellow actor playing Astolfo. Either Matilde fell too soon or Astolfo was late, and the actor slipped backwards onto the fresh clay of the stage. As he tried to rise, his skirts rode up to his waist and accidentally exposed the man inside the costume. The embarrassment provoked laughter and jeers from the audience. Veríssimo Borges could not maintain the gravity proper to the royal character he was playing and burst into convulsive laughter. That loss of composure might have earned him a blow if the entire village had not been laughing too. Matilde fled into the barn, took off the costume and refused to return to the stage. Cheta came out into the yard and announced in rustic language that there would be no more theatre that day. The audience began to disperse in a great uproar while Veríssimo waited for young Relhas. Gonçalves asked the outsider what he had thought of the joke and told the abbot that, in the actor's place, he would hide his head. Veríssimo replied indulgently that it had been an accident and that the man had forgotten he was dressed as a lady.
The abbot gathered his courage, approached and observed that nobody would have laughed if the actor had not fallen. Veríssimo agreed and courteously returned Nunes's greeting as Nunes pretended to approach timidly. He added that such falls happened in the greatest theatres and even in ballrooms. When the victims were real ladies, he continued, the matter became much more delicate. The priest and Nunes agreed with many gestures. The conversation turned to the natural beauty of Minho, and the stranger regretted having arrived in winter. It began to drizzle, and the abbot offered him shelter in his house until the rain passed. Veríssimo accepted for a while, as he had brought no umbrella and detested the object. The showers grew heavier, the clouds covered the hills and, with night approaching, the abbot would not allow his guest to leave.
During supper, several girls disguised in sheets came in and embraced Senhorinha, who was serving at the table. In falsetto voices, they teased Nunes, calling him Trocatles and the attorney for lost causes. Veríssimo appeared pleased and praised those excellent people, calling Minho the good heart of Portugal. He said that the inhabitants deserved to be happier, for they were burdened with taxes and crushed by the weight of public officials. The abbot listened with religious attention while Nunes pinched the abbot's thigh to encourage the illusion. The priest presided at the table and had seated the guest on his right. At the end of supper, he rose with his glass in hand to toast the visitor. He declared that he believed he had the honour of drinking to the health of a royalist and supporter of His Majesty Dom Miguel I. Veríssimo thanked him and stated that he would not hide his political sympathies even among liberals. He said only that he was a royalist and toasted all the friends of the exiled prince. Nunes gave the abbot discreet and sometimes painful kicks, and the abbot answered with a look as though he already knew he was before the king.
When the maid announced that the bed was ready, she addressed the guest as 'Your Honour'. Veríssimo smiled and regretted the inconvenience he was causing that excellent family. He took leave of the abbot and Torcato, observing that he thought he had heard him called by that name. 'Nunes Elias, a servant of Your...' the accomplice began, but stopped himself before saying 'Majesty'. In the yard, the abbot asked whether he had really been on the point of declaring himself a servant of His Majesty. Nunes admitted that he had and attributed the slip to his certainty that the king was in that house. Looking up at the windows, he exclaimed that Dom Miguel, the beloved king of the Portuguese, was spending the night in the poor residence of São Gens de Calvos. Nunes then exclaimed that the whole thing seemed like a dream.
On Carnival Monday it rained without stopping, there was no play and nobody could be seen near the wayside cross. The abbot again prevented his guest from leaving and, on Nunes's advice, sent for the luggage from Póvoa. The luggage amounted to a tin trunk with a dented lid and a padlock covered in rust. Veríssimo had still given no name, and the others avoided asking a question that would force him to invent one. The priest considered it impolite to oblige the visitor to lie and always addressed him as 'sir'. He thought this brought him close to the form of address due to kings while also hinting that he had already recognised his guest. In private, he told Nunes that it was good for the visitor to realise that they were not simpletons. Nunes praised his subtlety but confessed that he could hardly stop himself from kneeling before Veríssimo at once. The abbot told him to wait for the right moment and not frighten the quarry.
Veríssimo asked the priest for a book to entertain himself with so that he would not take up too much of his time. On a pine bookcase, the abbot showed him The Dagger of the Hunchbacks, Defence of Portugal, The Flayed Beast, The Donkeys and The New Prince. Veríssimo took them all to his room except The Donkeys, because he said that he did not like poetry. He spoke admiringly of Father José Agostinho and Frei Fortunato de São Boaventura, whom he called pillars of the altar and the throne. When the abbot asked whether he had known them personally, Veríssimo replied that he had. He then smiled as the exiled prince might have smiled at such a question. The priest imagined aloud how delighted José Agostinho would be if he were alive and able to see the king. Veríssimo agreed indifferently and asked who could still hope to see Dom Miguel in Portugal. 'I do, sir, I do!' replied the abbot, striking his chest with both hands. Veríssimo continued leafing through The Dagger of the Hunchbacks as though he did not notice that vehemence. The abbot declared that almost the whole nation shared his wish and that Dom Miguel had never ceased to reign in the people's hearts. He said that he had carried the king's image in his soul since seeing him in Braga thirteen years earlier and kissing his hand three times. Veríssimo asked whether he still remembered Dom Miguel's features well, and the priest replied that he remembered them perfectly. 'If you saw him today, perhaps you would not recognise him; he has aged greatly,' Veríssimo suggested. The abbot insisted that he would recognise him.
A theatrical emotion ran through the priest, who stepped back and went down on one knee. He stretched out his arm, pointed at Veríssimo and exclaimed, 'There he is! It is he!' Veríssimo protested that the abbot was deluded, urged him to rise and declared, 'I am not the man you think I am!' The abbot lowered his other knee as well and replied that he was as he should be before his king. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Veríssimo again urged him to rise, but it was Nunes who was entering. Torcato found the priest on his knees and Veríssimo trying to raise him. The abbot ordered Nunes to kneel beside him, for they were both at Dom Miguel's feet. Nunes knelt and said, 'I knew it already, Royal Sir!' Thus the court of Dom Miguel I was inaugurated at São Gens de Calvos on Carnival Monday in 1845, at three o'clock in the afternoon.