There he is, bent over the page, with a monocle in his right eye, wholly devoted to the noble but rugged task of ferreting out the error. He has already promised himself to write a little monograph in which he will relate the finding of the book and the discovery of the error, if there really is one hidden there. In the end, he discovers nothing and contents himself with possession of the book. He closes it, gazes at it, gazes at it again, goes to the window and holds it in the sun. The only copy! At this moment a Caesar or a Cromwell passes beneath his window, on the road to power and glory. He turns his back, closes the window, stretches in his hammock, and fingers the leaves of the book slowly, lovingly, tasting it sip by sip...An only copy!
Machado de AssisAs it is my practice here to conceal nothing, I shall relate on this page the episode of the wall. Virigilia and Lobo Neves were soon to sail. Entering Dona Placida’s house, I saw on the table a folded piece of paper. It was a note from Virgilia. It said that she would be waiting for me in the garden at sundown, without fail. It concluded, “The wall is low on the side toward the little path.”
I made a gesture of displeasure. The letter seemed to me extraordinary audacious, ill-considered, and even ridiculous. It not only invited scandal, it invited it together with laughter and sneers. I pictured myself leaping over the wall and caught in the act by an officer of the law, who led me off to jail. “The wall is low…” And what if it was low? Obviously Virgilia did not know what she was doing; perhaps by now she wished she had not sent the note. I looked at it, a small piece of paper, wrinkled by inflexible. I felt an urge to tear it in thirty thousand pieces and to throw it to the wind as the last vestige of my adventure; but I did not do so. Self-love, shame at the thought of fleeing from danger…There was no way out; I would have to go.
“Tell her I’ll go.”
“Where?” asked Dona Placida.
“Where she said she would wait for me.”
“She said nothing to me.”
“In this note.”
Dona Placida stared. “But this paper, I found it this morning in your drawer, and I thought that…”
I felt a queer sensation. I reread the paper and looked at it a long time; it was, indeed an old note that Virgilia had sent me in the early days of our love, and I had leaped the cooperatively low wall and had met her in the garden. I had put the note away and…I felt a queer sensation.
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.
To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for someone to unfasten them. someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores
Machado de AssisA loucura, objeto dos meus estudos, era até agora uma ilha perdida no oceano da razão; começo a suspeitar que é um continente.
Machado de AssisAfficher la citation en allemand
Montrer la citation en français
Montrer la citation en italien
Não se luta contra o destino; o melhor é deixar que nos pegue pelos cabelos e nos arraste até onde queira alçar-nos ou despenhar-nos.
Machado de AssisA future priest, I faced her as before an altar: one of her cheeks was the Epistle and the other the Gospel. Her mouth might have been the chalice, her lips the paten. All I needed to do was to say a new mass, according to a Latin that no one learns at school, and is the catholic language of mankind. Don’t think me sacrilegious, devout lady reader; the purity of the intention cleanses anything unorthodox in the style. We stood there with heaven within us. Our hands, their nerve ends touching, made two creatures one: a single, seraphic being. Our eyes went on saying infinite things, and the words did not even try to pass our lips: they went back to the heart as silently as they had come…
Machado de Assisولأن كل شيء لابدّ له من أن يغدو قديمًا, حاولتْ أن تجعل نفسها قديمة.
Machado de Assisالطبيعة بسيطة. الفن ثقيل.
Machado de Assis« ; premier précédent
Page 8 de 8.
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.