Cotrim, who was present, said:
“Those came who had a genuine interest in you and in us. The eighty would have come only as a formality, would have talked about the inertia of the government, about patent medicines, about the price of real estate, or about each other…”
Damasceno listened in silence, shook his head again, and sighed:
“But they should have at least come.

Autor: Machado de Assis