Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

XXX - The Holy One

You will have understood that this memory of the emperor near medicine was nothing more than the suggestion of my unwillingness to leave Rio de Janeiro. The dreams of the accordion are like other dreams, woven by the design of our inclinations and our memories. Go to S. Paulo, but Europe ... It was very far, very sea and long. Long live the medicine! I would tell Capitú about these hopes.

"Looks like the Holy One is coming," someone said in the bus. I hear a bell; Yes, I believe it's in Santo Antonio dos Pobres. Stop, Mr. Receiver!

The receiver of the tickets pulled the strap to the coachman's arm, the bus stopped, and the man went down. Jose Dias gave two quick turns to the head, took me by the arm and made me go down with him. We would also accompany the Blessed One. Effectively, the bell called the faithful to the service of the last hour. There were already some people in the sacristy. It was the first time that I was in such a serious moment; I obeyed, at first embarrassed, but soon thereafter satisfied, less by the charity of the service than by giving me a man's office. When the sacristan began to distribute the opas, a bloated fellow entered; it was my neighbor Padua, who was also going to accompany the Blessed One. He came with us, he came to please us. Jose Dias made a gesture of annoyance, and only answered him with a dry word, looking at the priest, who was washing his hands. Then, as Padua spoke to the sacristan, he approached them quietly; I did the same thing. Padova asked the sacristan for one of the pallio's sticks. José Dias asked for one for himself.

"There's only one available," said the sacristan.

"That's it," said Jose Dias.

"But I had asked for it first," said Padua.

"He asked first, but he was late," said Jose Dias; I was already here. Take a torch.

Padua, in spite of his fear of the other, insisted on wanting the stick, all this in a low, deaf voice. The sacristan found a way to reconcile the rivalry, taking himself to obtain from one of the other insurers of the pallio to yield the rod to Padua, known in the parochia, as Jose Dias. He did so; but José Dias overthrew this combination. No, since we had another staff available, I would ask it for me, a young seminarian, to whom this distinction was most correct. Padua was pallid, like the torches. It was to test a father's heart. The sacristan, who knew me from seeing me there with my mother on Sundays, asked curiously if I was a seminarian.

"Not yet, but I'll seal it," Jose Dias replied, winking at my left eye, which, despite the warning, made me angry.

"Well, early to our Bentinho," sighed Capitú's mother.

For my part, I wanted to give him the rod; reminded me that he used to accompany the Holy Sacrament to the dying, carrying a torch, but the last time he had obtained a stick from the pallio. The special distinction of the pallio came from covering the vicar and the sacrament; torch anyone served. It was he himself that told me and explained this, full of a pious and laughing glory. Thus is understood the excitement with which he had entered the church; it was Pallio's second time, so much so that he soon took care of him. It's nothing! And he returned to the torch commum, again the interrupted interim; the administrator was returning to the old post. the man who had been imprisoned forbade this act of generosity, and asked the sexton to bring him and me with the two front sticks, breaking the march of the pallio.

Opas threaded, torches distributed and accesses, priest and ciborio promptos, the sacristan of hyssope and bell in the hands, left the prestito to the street. When I saw myself with one of the rods, passing by the faithful, who knelt, I was moved. Padua gnawed the torch bitterly. It is a metaphor, I do not find another more lively way of saying the pain and humiliation of my neighbor. Moreover, I could not look at him for a long time, nor at the aggregate, who, parallel to me, raised his head with the air of being himself the God of the army. With little, I felt sore; the arms fell to me, fortunately the house was near, in the street of the Senate.

The sick woman was a widowed, tisic lady, she had a daughter of fifteen or sixteen years, who was crying at the bedroom door. The girl was not beautiful, she might not even have any fun; her hair was disheveled, and the tears made her eyes twitch. Nevertheless, the total spoke and captured the heart. The vicar confessed to the sick, gave him the communion and the holy oils. The girl's sobbing redoubled so much that I felt my eyes wet and ran away. I came to the port of a jannela. Poor creature! The pain was communicative in itself; complicated with the memory of my mother, it hurt me more, and when at last I thought of Capitú, I felt an urge to sob too, I went down the corridor, and I heard someone say to me:

"Do not cry like that!"

The image of Capitú was with me, and my imagination, just as he had given him tears, has only recently filled his mouth with laughter; I saw her writing on the wall, talking to me, walking around with her arms in the air; I distinctly heard my name, a sweetness that made me drunk, and the voice was of her. The torches, so lugubrious at the time, had the air of a nuptial luster. What was a wedding luster? Do not know; was something contrary to death, and I see no other than weddings. This new sensation overwhelmed me so much that Jose Dias came to me and whispered in my ear,

"Do not laugh like that!"

I got serious quickly. It was the moment of departure. I took it from my rod; and as we already knew the distance, and now we returned to the church, which was the smallest distance, -the weight of the rod was very small. Besides, the sun outside, the excitement of the street, the young men of my age who looked at me with envy, the devotees who came to the windows or entered the corridors and kneeled our passage, everything filled my soul with new lepidity.

Padovan, on the contrary, was more humiliated. Despite being replaced by me, I could not finish consoling myself with the torch, the miserable torch. And yet there were others who also carried a torch, and only showed the composure of the act; they were not gaudy, but they were not sad either. One saw that they walked with honor.