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A month passed. Meanwhile I, routine-bound and sad, continued to place my cursive hand at the service of the public authorities and, on Sundays, to admire the touching skill with which D. Augusta washed Couceiro's dandruff.
It now seemed evident to me that, on that night, I had fallen asleep over the folio and dreamt a Temptation on the Mountain in familiar forms. Instinctively, however, I began to concern myself with China. I went to read the telegrams at the Havaneza, always searching the news for something about the Middle Kingdom. Nothing seemed to be happening in that region then, and the Havas Agency merely chattered about Herzegovina, Bosnia, Bulgaria and other barbarous curiosities.
Little by little I forgot the phantasmagorical episode. As my mind grew calm, the old ambitions began to stir again: a director-general's salary, Lola's loving breast and steaks more tender than D. Augusta's. But such delights seemed as inaccessible and as much the stuff of dreams as the Mandarin's millions. And across the monotonous desert of life the caravan of my melancholy continued its slow march.
On a Sunday morning in August, I was dozing stretched out on the bed in my shirtsleeves, an unlit cigarette on my lip, when the door creaked slowly and I saw a respectful bald head bending beside me. At once a troubled voice murmured: - Mr Teodoro?... Mr Teodoro of the Ministry of the Realm?... I slowly raised myself on one elbow and answered through a yawn: - I am, sir. The individual bent his spine like a courtier before the majesty of King Bobeche.
He was small and obese; the tips of his white side-whiskers brushed the lapels of his alpaca frock coat, venerable gold spectacles gleamed on his chubby face, and the whole prosperous personification of Order trembled from bald head to calfskin boots. After clearing his throat, spluttering and stammering, he announced momentous news, introduced himself as Silvestre of Silvestre, Juliano and Company, and declared himself Your Excellency's servant. The news had arrived on the Southampton packet: his firm corresponded with Brito, Alves and Company of Macau, which in turn corresponded with Craig and Company of Hong Kong. The drafts came from Hong Kong, and the messenger's plump hand shook a bulging envelope sealed with black wax. Silvestre choked out apologies for the firm's natural confusion and pleas that I should continue to show it my favour.
The firm, he said, had always respected my character; I was a flower of virtue in that land and a mirror of the good. There were the first drafts on Bhering and Brothers of London and thirty-day bills on Rothschild. At the name Rothschild, ringing like gold itself, I leapt greedily from the bed and cried: - What is it, sir? Silvestre, raised on the tips of his boots and brandishing the envelope, shouted even louder: - It is one hundred and six thousand contos, Your Excellency, drawn in your favour on London, Paris, Hamburg and Amsterdam by the houses of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Canton, from the estate of the Mandarin Ti-Chin-Fú!
I felt the globe tremble beneath my feet and closed my eyes for a moment. In a flash I understood that, from that hour onwards, I was an incarnation of the Supernatural, receiving my strength from it and possessing its attributes. I could not behave like a man or demean myself through human effusions; I therefore refrained from going to sob, as my soul demanded, upon Madame Marques's ample breast. From then on, the impassibility of a God or a Demon was required of me.
So as not to break the hieratic line, I casually gave my trousers a tug and said: - Very well; that Mandarin behaved like a gentleman, and I know what this is about, for it is a family matter. I told him to leave the papers and dismissed him; Silvestre backed out, his back bent and his brow turned towards the floor. I then flung the window wide and, with my head tilted back, breathed the warm air in relief like a weary hind.
I looked down at the street, where an entire bourgeoisie was flowing peacefully out of Mass between two rows of carriages, and absent-mindedly noticed several ladies' chignons and some gleaming harness fittings. Suddenly I was struck by the triumphant certainty that I could hire every one of those carriages by the hour or by the year. Not one of the women I saw would fail to offer me her bare breast at a signal from my desire, and all the men in their Sunday frock coats would prostrate themselves before me as before Christ, Muhammad or Buddha if I shook one hundred and six thousand contos drawn on the markets of Europe in their faces. Leaning on the balcony, I gave a bored laugh at the fleeting bustle of that subordinate humanity, for in a black-sealed envelope I held the very principle of its weakness and enslavement.
In an instant and at a single draught, I enjoyed in imagination every satisfaction of Luxury, every delight of Love and every pride of Power. Yet a great satiety soon invaded my soul and, feeling the world at my feet, I yawned like a sated lion. What use, after all, would so many millions be except to bring me, day after day, the desolating affirmation of human baseness? At the impact of so much gold, the moral beauty of the Universe was about to dissolve before me like smoke; a mystical sadness seized me, I sank into a chair and wept copiously with my face in my hands.
A little later, Madame Marques opened the door, resplendent in her black silks, and called: - They are waiting for you at dinner, Enguiço! I emerged from my bitterness to answer curtly that I would not dine, and she merely said: - More for us!
At that moment fireworks burst in the distance and I remembered that it was Sunday, the day of the bullfight. A vision glittered and flared, drawing me deliciously towards it: the bullfight seen from a box, then a dinner with champagne and, at night, an orgy as initiation. I ran to the table, stuffed my pockets with drafts on London and went down into the street with the fury of a vulture cleaving the air towards its prey.
An empty calèche was passing; I stopped it and bellowed: - To the bullfight! - Ten tostões, master! - the driver replied. I looked with disgust at that paltry piece of organised matter, which spoke of silver coins to a colossus of gold; but when I plunged my hand into the pocket laden with millions, I discovered that my cash amounted to only seven hundred and twenty réis. The driver struck the mare's flank and drove on, muttering. I stammered that I had drafts on London and Hamburg, but he merely replied: - No use. Bullfight, a lord's dinner and naked Andalusian women: the whole dream expired like a soap bubble touching the point of a nail.
I hated Humanity and abhorred Money; another carriage, moving at a trot and crowded with revellers, almost ran me down while I contemplated the seven hundred and twenty réis in my sweaty palm. With my head bowed and padded with millions drawn on Rothschild, I returned to the fourth floor, humbled myself before Madame Marques and accepted her horn-hard steak. I spent that first night of wealth yawning on my solitary bed, while outside the cheerful Couceiro, a paltry lieutenant on a salary of fifteen thousand réis, laughed with D. Augusta and picked out the Fado da Cotovia on his guitar.
Only the following morning, while shaving, did I reflect on the origin of my millions: it was evidently supernatural and suspect. My Rationalism prevented me from attributing the treasure to the whim of God or the Devil, scholastic fictions, and the fragments of Positivism that made up my Philosophy did not permit investigation into first causes; I therefore decided to accept the Phenomenon dryly and use it lavishly.
I ran, my coat-tails flying, to the London and Brazilian Bank, flung a thousand-pound draft drawn on the Bank of England onto the counter and uttered the delicious word: - Gold! A clerk gently suggested: - Perhaps banknotes would be more convenient for you... I repeated curtly: - Gold! I slowly stuffed my pockets by the handful and, once in the street, hoisted my laden body into a calèche.
I felt fat and obese, with a taste of gold in my mouth and the dryness of gold dust on the skin of my hands, while the walls seemed to flash like long golden blades. A dull rumble of metal ran through my brain, like the motion of an ocean rolling gold bars in its waves. Yielding to the sway of the springs, rolling like an unsteady wineskin, I let the cloudy, bored gaze of a replete being fall upon the street and its people. At last, with my hat pushed to the back of my head, one leg stretched out and my belly thrust forward, I gave a tremendous belch of rich man's flatulence.
For a long time I rolled through the city, stupefied by a nabob's pleasure, until a sudden appetite to spend and scatter gold swelled my chest like a gust swelling a sail. - Stop, you animal! - I bellowed at the driver, and the pair halted. With narrowed eyes I searched around for something expensive to buy, a queen's jewel or a statesman's conscience; seeing nothing, I rushed into a tobacconist's. I demanded cigars costing a tostão, a cruzado and ten tostões, each dearer than the last, and when the man asked how many, I answered brutally: - All of them!
At the door, a poor woman dressed in mourning, her child huddled against her breast, held out a transparent hand to me. It inconvenienced me to search for copper change among the handfuls of gold, and I thrust her away impatiently, my hat over one eye as I stared coldly at the crowd. It was then that I saw the weighty figure of my director-general and, at once, my back bent into an arch while my deferential hat brushed the paving stones. It was the habit of dependence: the millions had not yet given my spine an upright posture.
At home, I poured the gold over the bed and rolled upon it for a long time, grunting in mute pleasure. The neighbouring tower struck three, the sun was already carrying away my first day of opulence and I, armoured in sovereigns, ran at last to sate myself.
Ah, what a day: I dined alone and selfishly in a private room at the Hotel Central, the table spread with Bordeaux, Burgundy, champagne, Rhine wine and liqueurs from every religious community, as though I were quenching a thirst of thirty years. Yet only Colares truly sated me. Then, staggering, I dragged myself to the brothel; dawn brightened behind the blinds and I found myself sprawled on the carpet, exhausted and half-naked, feeling body and soul dissolve in the stifling air, where a smell of face powder, woman and punch drifted.
When I returned to Travessa da Conceição, the windows were closed and the candle was dying with livid flares in the brass candlestick. When I reached the bed, I saw this: lying across the coverlet was the paunchy figure of the stricken Mandarin, dressed in yellow silk, his long queue loose and, between his arms, as dead as he was, the paper kite. I desperately opened the window; everything vanished, and on the bed there was now only an old whitish overcoat.