This story, hailed as one of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s best, involves a seemingly innocent but sexually charged conversation between a seventeen-year-old boy and the thirty-year-old wife of his landlord. The boy is staying up to attend midnight mass, the woman’s husband is away for the night with his mistress, and the woman, who has not slept, appears in her nightgown. Interpretation of the conversation is made all the more difficult because it is related by the boy many years afterwards. Themes include coming of age (sexual stirrings) and ambiguity (as to what might be implied or is unsaid).
The common interpretation of the story is that the woman is “lonely” (it is Christmas Eve after all!), and is seeking company, companionship or more. An interesting alternative is that the “saintly” woman has no interest at all in the boy. Instead, she is toying with him and has a later assignation of her own, perhaps with her husband’s clerk who she marries after he conveniently dies shortly afterwards.
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