Online Flip Book / Download   Back to our Information Page

HAMLET TELLS HORATIO that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. This was the same explanation that the lovely Rita gave to young Camilo, one Friday in November of 1869, when he scoffed at her for having gone to consult a fortune-teller the previous day, although she put it rather differently.

“Go on, then, laugh. You men are all the same; you don’t believe in anything. But just so you know, when I went there, the woman knew exactly why I’d come even before I told her. As soon as she started laying down the cards, she said to me: “You love someone . . .” I confessed that I did, and then she carried on laying down the cards, and when she’d finished, she told me I was afraid you would forget me, but that this wasn’t true . . .”

“Well, she was wrong there!” said Camilo, laughing.

“Oh, don’t say that, Camilo. If you knew what I’ve been going through because of you, but then you do know; I’ve already told you, so don’t laugh at me . . .”

Camilo clasped her hands and gazed earnestly into her eyes. He swore that he loved her deeply and that her fears were pure childishness; in any event, if she had any fears, he was the best fortune-teller to come to. Then he scolded her, telling her it was unwise to visit such places. Vilela might find out, and then . . .

“Oh, he won’t find out. I made sure no one saw me going into the house.”

“Where is the house?”

“Not far from here, on Rua da Guarda Velha. There was no one around. Don’t worry: I’m not a complete fool.”

Camilo laughed again:

“So you really believe in such things?” he asked.

It was then that she, not knowing she was translating Hamlet into everyday language, told him that there were many things in this world that are both mysterious and true. So what if he didn’t believe her—the truth was that the fortune-teller had foreseen everything. What more did he want? Now she felt perfectly calm and contented, and that was the proof.

I think Camilo was about to say something, but stopped himself. He didn’t want to destroy her illusions. He had been superstitious as a child and even for some time afterward, full of a whole arsenal of irrational beliefs that his mother had instilled in him, and which disappeared when he turned twenty. On the day he stripped away all this parasitical vegetation to reveal the bare trunk of religion, he, since he had learned both lessons from his mother, wrapped them in the same newfound skepticism and, soon afterward, discarded them both. Camilo didn’t believe in anything. Why? He couldn’t say; he had no one reason, and so contented himself with rejecting everything. But even that isn’t quite right, since rejection is itself a form of affirmation and he could not put his disbelief into words; in the face of such mysteries, he merely shrugged his shoulders and carried on regardless.

They parted in good spirits, he even more than she. Rita was sure of being loved; Camilo was not only sure of that, but also saw how she trembled and ran risks for him, for example, by resorting to visiting fortune-tellers. Though he scolded her, he couldn’t help feeling flattered. Their meeting place was a house on the old Rua dos Barbonos, where a woman from Rita’s home province was living. Rita walked down Rua das Mangueiras toward Botafogo, where she lived, and Camilo set off down Rua da Guarda Velha, glancing on his way at the fortune-teller’s house.

Vilela, Camilo, and Rita: three names, one adventure, and no explanation whatsoever as to how we got there. So let me explain. The first two were childhood friends. Vilela took up a career as a local magistrate, while Camilo went into the civil service, much against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to be a doctor. However, his father died, and Camilo preferred doing nothing at all, until his mother found him a government position. At the beginning of 1869, Vilela returned from the provinces, where he’d married a very beautiful, but empty-headed young woman. He had given up the magistracy and come back to the city to set up a law firm. Camilo found him a house near Botafogo, and boarded the steamer to welcome him home.

“Is it you, sir?” exclaimed Rita, holding out her hand to Camilo. “You cannot imagine how highly my husband values your friendship, for he is always talking about you.”

Camilo and Vilela gazed warmly at each other. They were friends indeed.

Afterward, Camilo had to admit that Vilela’s wife entirely lived up to her husband’s letters. She really was both graceful and vivacious, with warm eyes and a delicate, inquisitive mouth. She was a little older than both of them: she was thirty, Vilela twenty-nine, and Camilo twenty-six. Vilela’s grave demeanor, however, made him appear older than his wife, whereas Camilo was an innocent in all things practical and moral. He had acquired none of the knowledge that normally comes with the years, nor had nature endowed him with the “spectacles” it bestows on some almost at birth, giving them wisdom beyond their years; in short, he lacked both experience and intuition.

The three of them became inseparable. Proximity led to intimacy. Then Camilo’s mother died, and in this disaster (for so it was) both Vilela and Rita gave proof of their great friendship for him. Vilela dealt with all the arrangements for the funeral, the mass, and the inventory of the deceased’s belongings, while Rita took special care of his emotional needs, and no one could have done it better.

How they went from that to love, he never quite knew. He certainly enjoyed spending hours at her side; she was his spiritual nurse, almost his sister, but most of all she was a beautiful woman. Odor di femmina, the scent of a woman: that is what he breathed in from her and from the air about her, until it became part of his own self. They read the same books and went on walks together and to the theater. Camilo taught her chess and draughts, and they played every night, she badly, and he, wishing to make himself agreeable, not much better. I think you get the picture. Then came effects of a more physical nature: there were Rita’s willful eyes persistently seeking his and consulting his even before her husband’s; her strangely cold hands; the occasional unexpected exchange of glances. On his birthday, he received from Vilela the gift of a magnificent walking cane, and from Rita only a card with the plainest of greetings written in pencil. It was then that Camilo learned to read his own heart, for he could not tear his eyes away from that little scrap of paper. Banal words, but some banalities are sublime, or at least delectable. The decrepit old hansom cab in which you and your ladylove first rode together entirely alone is as fine a thing as Apollo’s chariot. Such is man, and such are the things that surround him.

Camilo genuinely wanted to escape, but it was too late. Rita, serpentlike, had encircled him, embraced him, squeezed him until his bones cracked and dripped venom in his mouth. He was dazed and defeated. Shame, fear, remorse, desire—he felt all of them, but the battle was brief and the victory divine. Farewell, scruples! It did not take long for the shoe to mold itself to the foot, and off they went on their merry way, arm in arm, skipping lightly over grass and pebbles, suffering nothing more than a few pangs of regret, for the moments when they were apart. Meanwhile, Vilela’s trust and affection remained unchanged.

One day, however, Camilo received an anonymous letter calling him immoral and perfidious, and saying that the affair was public knowledge. Camilo was afraid and, hoping to divert suspicion, he began to visit Vilela’s house less frequently. His friend commented on his absence. Camilo gave as his reason a frivolous youthful passion. Innocence bred ingenuity. Camilo’s absences grew longer and longer, until his visits ceased completely. A little amour propre may have played its part too; a desire to escape the husband’s kindnesses and thus alleviate the burden of his treachery.

It was around this time that Rita, feeling fearful and suspicious, went off to consult the fortune-teller about the real reason for Camilo’s behavior. As we have seen, the fortune-teller entirely restored Rita’s faith in Camilo, and Camilo scolded her for going there in the first place. Several weeks went by. Camilo received two or three more anonymous letters, so passionate that they could not be considered mere sanctimonious warnings, but rather the bitter outpourings of a rival. That was Rita’s view, and she, somewhat less succinctly, formulated the following thought: “Virtue is niggardly and lazy, wasting neither paper nor time; only self-interest is spendthrift and diligent.”

Not that this was of any comfort to Camilo; he feared the anonymous letter-writer would go to Vilela, and then catastrophe would be inevitable. Rita agreed that this was a possibility.

“Very well, then,” she said, “I will take the envelopes home with me and compare them to the handwriting on every letter that arrives. If any arrive bearing the same handwriting, I’ll tear them up.”

No such letters appeared, but shortly afterward, Vilela grew suddenly somber and taciturn, as if he suspected something. Rita rushed to tell Camilo, and they pondered what to do. Rita felt that Camilo should begin visiting their house again and sound out her husband: it might well be that Vilela would confide in him some business matter that was troubling him. Camilo disagreed: appearing suddenly after so many months would only confirm any suspicion or accusation. Better to lie low and forgo each other’s company for a few weeks. They agreed on how they would communicate in case of necessity, and separated tearfully.

The following day, at the department, Camilo received the following note from Vilela: “Come to our house immediately; I need to speak to you at once.” It was already after midday. Camilo did not hesitate, but once in the street, it occurred to him that it would have been more natural for Vilela to summon him to his office—why to his house? Everything indicated that something grave had happened, and, although he may have been imagining it, the handwriting did look shaky. He put all this together with what Rita had told him the previous day.

“Come to our house immediately; I need to speak to you at once,” he repeated to himself, his eyes fixed on the piece of paper.

In his imagination he sketched the climactic scene of a drama: Rita tearful and defeated, Vilela angrily grabbing his pen and scribbling the note, certain that Camilo would come, then sitting there waiting to kill him. Camilo shuddered. He felt afraid, but then he smiled through clenched teeth and carried on walking, for he found the idea of retreating utterly repugnant. On the way, it occurred to him to call in at home first—there might be a message from Rita explaining everything. There was no message and no messenger. Back in the street, the notion that they had been discovered seemed to him ever more plausible; the most likely thing was an anonymous informer, maybe even the same person who had threatened him previously. Perhaps Vilela knew everything. Calling off his visits, on only the flimsiest of pretexts, would only have confirmed what he now knew.

Camilo carried on walking, anxious and agitated. He didn’t read the note again, but he knew the words by heart, they were there before his eyes, or, worse still, he could hear them whispered in his ear, in Vilela’s own voice. “Come to our house immediately; I need to speak to you at once.” Spoken like that, in the other man’s voice, they had an air of mystery and menace. Come immediately—but why? It was nearly one o’clock. His agitation was growing by the minute. So vivid was his imagination of what would happen that he came to believe it and even see it there before him. By now he really was afraid. He began to think about taking a gun, since if it turned out there was no reason to worry he would still have nothing to lose, and it would be a sensible precaution. However, he quickly dismissed the idea, annoyed with himself for even thinking of it, and carried on, walking more quickly as he approached the cab rank in Largo da Carioca. He climbed in and told the driver to set off at full speed.

“The sooner I get it over with, the better,” he thought. “I can’t go on like this . . .”

But the horse’s steady trotting only served to discomfit him further. Time was flying and very soon he would find himself face-to-face with danger. Almost at the end of Rua da Guarda Velha, the cab came to a halt, because the street was blocked by an overturned cart. Camilo privately welcomed the obstruction and waited. After five minutes, he noticed that just a few steps away, on the left-hand side of the street, stood the house of the fortune-teller—the same one Rita had once consulted. Never before had he wished so fervently to believe in what the cards had said. He looked up at the windows of the house, all firmly shut, while every other window in the street was flung wide and crammed with curious onlookers. It appeared every bit the home of indifferent Fate.

Camilo leaned back in his seat, not wanting to see any more. He was by now extraordinarily agitated, and rising up from the innermost depths of his moral being came his old beliefs and superstitions, the ghosts of times gone by. The cabdriver suggested they turn around and take the first side street; he, however, said he would rather wait, and again leaned forward to look up at the house. Then he made an incredulous gesture, unable to believe the thought that had just occurred to him, namely, the idea of consulting the fortune-teller, an idea that flapped past him in the far distance on vast gray wings, disappearing, then reappearing, and once again fading from view; then, moments later, the wings flapped past him again, this time circling ever closer . . . In the street, men were shouting as they struggled to move the cart:

“Push! Push! Keep going!”

Soon the obstruction would be cleared. Camilo closed his eyes, his mind on other things, but the voice of Rita’s husband was whispering the words of the letter in his ear. “Come immediately . . .” And, trembling, he could see before him the twists and turns of the unfolding drama. The house was looking at him. His legs wanted to get out of the cab and go in. Camilo found himself confronted by a long, heavy veil; his mind rapidly reviewed the many things in life that defy explanation. His mother’s voice gave him a long litany of extraordinary events, and that same saying of the Prince of Denmark echoed inside him: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” What did he have to lose . . . ?

He found himself on the sidewalk, outside the street door. He told the cabdriver to wait, darted into the hallway and went up the stairs. There was little light, the steps were badly worn, and the handrail sticky, but he didn’t see or feel any of these things. He continued on up and knocked. When no one answered, he considered leaving, but it was too late, curiosity was beating in his veins, and his temples throbbed; he knocked again, once, twice, three times. A woman came; it was the fortune-teller. Camilo said he had come to consult her and she ushered him in. They went up to the attic, by way of a staircase even darker and more decrepit than the last. Upstairs there was a small room, poorly lit by a single window that looked out over the backs of the houses. The shabby furniture, stained walls, and the general air of poverty all served to increase rather than destroy the power and mystery of the place.

The fortune-teller told him to sit down at the table, while she sat on the other side with her back to the window, so that what little light entered the room fell on Camilo’s face. She opened a drawer and took out a deck of long, grubby, dog-eared cards. As she rapidly shuffled the cards, she was studying him, not directly, but furtively from beneath heavy eyelids. She was a woman of about forty, an Italian, thin and swarthy, with large, sly, astute eyes. She turned over three cards on the table and said:

“First, we shall see what has brought you here. You are very afraid . . .” Camilo nodded in amazement.

“And you want to know,” she continued, “whether or not something will happen to you . . .”

“To me and to her,” he explained enthusiastically.

The fortune-teller did not smile; she simply told him to wait. She scooped up the cards and shuffled them again with her long tapering fingers, their nails untrimmed and neglected. She shuffled the cards thoroughly and cut the pack once, twice, three times; then she began to lay them out. Camilo watched her with anxious, curious eyes

“The cards tell me . . .”

Camilo leaned forward to drink in her words one by one. She told him he had nothing to fear. Nothing would happen to either of them; the third party suspected nothing. It was nevertheless vital to exercise caution, for there was much simmering envy and resentment. She spoke of the love that bound them, of Rita’s beauty . . . Camilo was amazed. The fortune-teller finished, gathered up the cards, and locked them away in the drawer.

“You have restored my peace of mind,” he said, reaching across the table and grasping her hand in his.

She stood up and laughed.

“Off you go then,” she said, “ragazzo innamorato . . .”

Standing over him, she touched his forehead with her index finger. Camilo shuddered as if it were the hand of the Sibyl herself, then he, too, stood up. The fortune-teller went over to the chest of drawers, on which there stood a bowl of raisins. She picked up a handful and began eating the raisins, revealing two rows of white teeth in sharp contrast with the state of her nails. Even when doing something so ordinary, the woman had about her a most unusual air. Camilo was keen to leave, but had no idea how he should pay, or how much.

“Raisins cost money,” he said at last, taking out his wallet. “How many do you want to send for?”

“The answer is in your heart,” she replied.

Camilo took out a ten-mil-réis note and gave it to her. The fortune-teller’s eyes lit up. The usual fee was two mil-réis.

“I can see you love her very much . . . And you’re quite right, for she loves you very much too. Off you go, it will all be fine. Watch out on the stairs, though, it’s dark. And put your hat on . . .”

The fortune-teller had already slipped the money into her pocket. She accompanied him down the stairs, talking with a slight Italian accent. Camilo said goodbye to her on the landing and went down to the street, while the fortune-teller, delighted with the ten mil-réis, returned to the attic, humming a Venetian barcarola. Camilo found the cab waiting; the traffic was moving again. He climbed in and they set off at a fast trot.

Everything seemed better now. Things took on a different aspect: the sky was clear and the faces about him beamed. He even managed to laugh at his own fears, which he now found puerile; he remembered the words of Vilela’s letter and saw in them merely the familiarity of a close friend. What on earth had he found threatening about them? He also noticed the urgency of the message, and that he had been wrong to take so long: it could well be some terribly serious business matter.

“As fast as you can!” he said to the cabdriver, several times.

He thought up some story to explain the delay to his friend; it seems he also devised a plan to take advantage of the situation and resume his regular visits . . . Meanwhile, the fortune-teller’s words still echoed in his soul. After all, she had foreseen the reason for his visit, his current predicament, the existence of a third party; why wouldn’t she also be able to foresee everything else? After all, the unknown present is as much of an enigma as the future. And so, slowly but surely, his former beliefs and superstitions took hold of him once again, and mystery gripped him in its iron claws. At times he wanted to laugh, and he did laugh at himself, somewhat shamefacedly; but the woman, the cards, her brief yet reassuring words, her final exhortation—“Off you go then, ragazzo innamorato”—and finally, in the distance, her slow, lilting farewell barcarola, all these were the new elements which, combined with the old ones, formed the basis of a new and vigorous faith.

The truth is that his heart was cheerful and impatient, thinking about happy times gone by, and those to come. As he passed through Glória, Camilo gazed across the water, staring out to where sea and sky clasp each other in an infinite embrace, and he sensed before him a long, long unending future.

Shortly afterward, he arrived at Vilela’s house. He got out of the cab and pushed open the iron gate into the garden. The house was silent. He climbed the six stone steps and barely had time to knock when the door opened and Vilela appeared.

“Sorry, I couldn’t get here any sooner. What’s happened?”

Vilela did not reply; he looked almost deranged. He beckoned to Camilo, and led him to a small room off the parlor. When he entered, Camilo could not suppress a terrified scream: there, on the sofa, lay Rita, dead and drenched in blood. Vilela then grabbed Camilo by the throat and, with two shots from his revolver, laid him out dead on the floor.