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That was when my life as a millionaire began. I soon left Madame Marques's house. Since learning of my wealth, Madame Marques had given me rice pudding every day and served me in her Sunday silk dress.
I bought and moved into the yellow mansion at Loreto. French magazines published pictures of the house, and my residence became famous across Europe. My bed was extravagantly luxurious, with gold plates and black brocade curtains embroidered with erotic verses by Catullus. A lamp inside cast a white, loving light, like summer moonlight.
In my first months of wealth, I loved sincerely. I first saw Cândida as she watered carnations on her balcony. She was small and blonde, and lived in a house covered with climbing plants in Buenos Aires, Lisbon. In my imagination, she seemed like one of the fragile, perfect figures in novels.
Every night, I fell at Cândida's feet like a young man in love. Every morning, I filled her lap with twenty-thousand-réis banknotes. At first she refused the notes and blushed, but then she put them in the drawer and called me her angel Tótó.
One day, I moved silently across the thick carpet to Cândida's private room. She was writing and, when she saw me, she trembled, turned pale and hid the paper bearing her monogram. In a fit of jealousy, I snatched the letter from her. It was a love letter, began with 'my adored one' and was addressed to an ensign from the neighbourhood.
I immediately tore that love from my breast as if it were a poisonous plant. I stopped believing in blonde angels, innocence and modesty. I laughed bitterly at those ideals and arranged a grand, cynical, animal life.
At noon, I stepped into a pink marble bath, where perfumes made the water as white as milk. Young pages rubbed me with the care of people celebrating a religious rite. Then I put on a silk robe, passed among works of art and silent servants, and went to eat an English-style steak off blue-and-gold china.
I rested in a room of satin and porcelain, read the Diário de Notícias, and girls dressed in Japanese style cooled the air with fans. In the afternoon, I walked as far as the Pote das Almas, yawning like a sated animal while the crowd admired me.
At times, I missed my busy days at the Ministry. I would then shut myself in the library, where human thought lay forgotten in luxurious books. For hours, I wrote the old official formulas: 'I have the honour of informing Your Excellency...'
At nightfall, a servant sounded a silver trumpet to announce dinner. I ate alone, served by many servants, amid rare food, expensive wines, flowers, crystal and gold. Over all that splendour, boredom drifted like a mist.
Afterwards, I travelled by carriage to Janelas Verdes, where I kept a group of women in a secluded garden. They dressed me in a perfumed silk tunic, and I gave myself up to sexual excesses. Before dawn, they brought me home with scarcely any strength left. I made the sign of the cross without thinking and fell asleep exhausted, on my back and covered in cold sweat.
Meanwhile, Lisbon crawled at my feet. The mansion courtyard was always full of aristocrats, members of the clergy and ordinary people. They came to beg for the honour of my smile and a share of my gold.
Sometimes I received an old nobleman, who came forward bowing and full of praise. He would soon offer me his beloved daughter as a wife or concubine.
Other citizens brought poems, my monogram embroidered with hair, slippers, cigar holders and even their own consciences. If I looked at a woman in the street, the next day I received a letter in which she, whether a wife or a prostitute, offered me her body and love.
Journalists searched for ever grander words and called me sublime, celestial and even extra-celestial. Before me, everyone uncovered their head, whether they wore a crown or a hat. I was offered the post of prime minister or director of a religious brotherhood, but I refused in disgust.
Little by little, the fame of my wealth crossed the borders of the monarchy. Le Figaro praised me, and a French writer asked me to save France. Foreign magazines published coloured pictures of my life. Princesses from across Europe sent me photographs and documents about their bodies and their ancient families.
Two jokes of mine were sent by telegraph around the whole world. Even the noises from my bowels reached the newspapers. I lent money to kings and paid for civil wars. The Latin American republics around the Gulf of Mexico borrowed from me and never repaid the loans.
And despite all this, I was sad.
Whenever I entered the house, I froze in fear before the same vision, on the threshold or upon the golden bed. I saw the fat figure with the black queue, yellow tunic and paper kite in his arms. It was the Mandarin Ti-Chin-Fú. I rushed at him with my fist raised, and the vision vanished.
Then I collapsed into a chair, weak and covered in sweat. 'I must kill this dead man!' I would murmur in the silent room. But it was not the unwelcome presence of that old ghost on my furniture that made life bitter for me.
The true horror was the idea, fixed in my mind like a piece of iron, that I had killed an old man.
I had not used a rope in the Muslim manner or poison in a cup of wine in the manner of the Italian Renaissance. Nor had I used the dagger or firearm of murderous kings. I had eliminated that person from afar by ringing a bell. The method was absurd, fantastic and almost comic. But that did not reduce the tragic gravity of what I had done. I had murdered an old man.
Little by little, this certainty became solid within me. It was like a dark column that dominated all my thoughts. I tried to think about other things, but the accusing memory always returned.
The thought of having stopped a living body filled me with horror. After dinner, I rested on the sofa, satisfied with my coffee. At that moment, my conscience spoke inside me. 'Ti-Chin-Fú will never be able to feel this comfort again because of you.'
I replied that the Mandarin was old and suffered from an incurable illness. 'Even a weak life is a supreme good,' Conscience replied. I shouted that conscience was only a disorder of the nerves. I said that I could make it disappear with orange blossom water. Then the voice answered ironically: 'Eat, sleep, bathe and love.'
I obeyed, but every pleasure changed its form. The sheets looked like a shroud. The perfumed water felt like cold blood on my skin. The bare breasts of my lovers made me think of marble tombs.
Then I began to imagine that Ti-Chin-Fú had a very large family. I imagined grandchildren and great-grandchildren without the money that I was spending. In my mind, they spent days without rice and nights without shelter. It seemed to me that the image of the old man spoke to me.
'I do not weep for myself; I weep for the people you have ruined.' In the voice I imagined, the family suffered on the Bridge of Beggars, beside the Temple of Heaven. As I ate bread, I imagined hungry children, like birds in an empty nest. As I put on my coat, I imagined women freezing beneath old silks.
The rich ceiling reminded me of homeless people sleeping beside the canals. The carriage made me imagine long walks along wet roads. None of these images was a certainty about the family. They were fears created by my guilt. Even so, I suffered while the people envied my house.
At last, I decided to ask God for help, for he is said to stand above conscience. But I did not believe in him. So I turned to Our Lady of Sorrows, the old patron saint of my family. I paid many priests to pray for me in churches and chapels. No relief came down from heaven.
I also knelt at altars and said the Hail, Holy Queen. At the same time, I criticised religion used by the rich to calm the poor. Then I paid for thousands of Masses for Ti-Chin-Fú's soul. I myself thought that this Catholic ritual might mean nothing to him. I attributed the morality of Confucius to him, but that was only my own supposition.
Some prelates advised me to offer flowers, fabrics and jewels to the Virgin. I tried to buy her favour and built a white marble cathedral. Cardinal Nani came from Rome to consecrate the church. Amid the incense, I did not see the Virgin. I saw the old man again with the paper kite in his arms. In my vision, the priests covered in gold were praising Ti-Chin-Fú.
I thought that Lisbon was feeding these images, so I left with a servant. I travelled through Paris, Switzerland, London, Scotland, Jerusalem and Egypt. The journeys tired me, but they did not lessen my suffering.
My guilt grew even greater. I read reports about poverty, disease, revolts and ruins in China. Then, in my sick mind, I imagined that Ti-Chin-Fú was essential to the whole empire. I thought that he might have saved China. I also imagined that his death had destroyed the country's strength. I did not know whether that was true. It was an enormous, unproven idea created by my remorse.
I also thought that his fortune could help the state treasury. Meanwhile, I was spending that money on luxuries and lovers. I came to feel the absurd guilt of having ruined an empire.
To forget this guilt, I gave myself up to debauchery in Paris. I held parties with prostitutes, violent music, alcohol and blasphemy. At those parties, I got down on the floor and imitated a donkey. Later, I sought out taverns and drank with people from poor districts.
I staggered through the streets and sang a French political song at the top of my voice. I wanted to sink lower and lower and stop thinking. But those excesses did not silence my conscience.
One morning, after another excess, I suddenly had an idea. I would leave for China. First, I would search for Ti-Chin-Fú's family. Then I would marry a woman from that family. In this way, I thought I could make my possession of the millions legitimate.
I would also restore that family's former wealth. I would arrange a grand funeral to calm the dead man's spirit. I would distribute rice in the poor provinces. I would ask the emperor for a Mandarin's crystal button. Because I was a graduate, I thought it would be easy to obtain that office. I wanted to replace Ti-Chin-Fú and return the power of his money to China.
At times, my own plan seemed vague, childish and idealistic. Even so, the desire for adventure already ruled me. I prepared for the journey, spending a great deal of gold, and went to Marseille. I hired the Ceylão for myself. The next morning, the ship set out for the East.