Part 4

And Zilda? She floated along on the high seas of a fairy tale.

Let her float on.

Finally the day arrived for the amiable buyer to leave. Trancoso bid goodbye. He was sorry that he could not extend the delightful stay, but important affairs called him back. A rich man’s life is not as easy as it seems.... As to the business, it was all but closed; he would give a definite answer within the week.

Trancoso left carrying a parcel of eggs,--he had highly appreciated a breed of chickens raised there; and a little bag of yams,--a dainty of which he was very fond.

He also took with him a fine present, Moreira’s sorrel, the best horse on the farm. He had praised the animal so much during his rides that the planter had been obliged to refuse an exchange proposed and make him a present of it.

“Just see!” said Moreira, voicing the general opinion. “Young, very rich, straight as can be, learned as a doctor and, nevertheless, amiable, polite, incapable of turning up his nose at things like the idiots who have come here. That’s a gentleman for you!”

The old lady was specially pleased at the young man’s lack of ceremony. To take away eggs and yams! How nice of him!

They all agreed with her, each one praising him in his or her way. And thus, even absent, the amiable and wealthy youth was the talk of the household during the entire week.

The week passed, however, without the arrival of the much desired answer. And still another, and yet another. Moreira wrote him, already apprehensive; no answer. He remembered a friend who lived in the same town and sent him a letter asking him to obtain a definite decision from the capitalist. Regarding the price, he would lower it somewhat. He would sell the fazenda for fifty-five, fifty, or even forty, including live-stock and furniture.

His friend answered without delay. Upon opening the envelope the four hearts of the Espigão fazenda beat violently: that paper held the destiny of all four.

The letter read as follows: “Dear Moreira: Either I am very much mistaken or you are laboring under an illusion. There is no wealthy Trancoso Carvalhaes about here. There is little Trancoso, son of Nhá Béva, commonly called Rag-Picker. He is a swindler and lives off crooked deals and knows how to fool those who are not acquainted with him. Latterly he has travelled over the State of Minas, from fazenda to fazenda under divers pretexts. Sometimes he pretends to be a buyer and spends a week in the planter’s house, boring him with rides through the plantations and inspections of boundaries; eats and drinks of the best that’s to be had; flirts with the servant-girls or the daughter of the house or anyone he comes across, and at the best stage of the game, beats it. He has done this a hundred times, always choosing another neighbourhood. The rascal likes to change his diet! As the only Trancoso here is this one I shall not present your proposal to the rogue. Think of the Rag-Picker buying a farm!...”

Moreira dropped into a chair stupefied, with the letter on his knee. Then the blood rose to his face and his eyes flashed.

The hope of the household fell with a crash, accompanied by the girl’s tears, the old lady’s anger and the rage of the men. Zico proposed leaving immediately on the track of the bandit, so as to smash his face for him.

“Let it be, boy. The world rolls on. Some day I will run across him and square accounts with this thief.”

Poor castles! There is nothing sadder than the sudden tumbling down of illusions. The beautiful castles in Spain erected during a month with the wonderful pile of money turned into dingy ruins. Dona Izaura bewailed her cakes, her butter and chickens. As for Zilda, the disaster had the effect of an icy blast across a tender flower in bloom. She took to her bed in a fever. Her face became hollow. All the tragic episodes in the novels she had read fled through her memory; she saw in herself the victim of them all. And for days contemplated suicide. Finally she became used to the idea and continued to live. Thus she verified the fact that folks die of love only in fiction....

The story ends here--for the audience; for the gallery it still goes on a bit. The audience is accustomed to simulate some fine habits of good taste and tone, which are very laughable; it enters the theatre after the play has begun, and leaves when the epilogue has hardly commenced. Now the galleries want the whole thing so as to have their full money’s worth to the last penny. In the novels and stories they ask insistently for all the details of the plot and if the author, led by the teaching of his school, presents them with the half-finished sentence which he calls the impressionable note, at the most exciting point, they turn up their noses. They want to know and they are perfectly right, if So-and-so died, if the girl married happily, if the man finally sold the fazenda. To whom and for how much.

Healthy, human and highly respectable curiosity!

“Did poor Moreira sell the fazenda?”

I am sorry to say that he did not! And he did not sell it due to the most unconceivable of all the misunderstandings invented in the world by the devil,--yes, because besides the devil, who would be capable of tangling up the threads of the skein with such loops and knots just when the piece of crochet is about to be finished?

Chance conferred upon Trancoso fifty contos in the lottery. Don’t laugh. Why wouldn’t Trancoso be the chosen one if chance is blind and he had the ticket in his pocket? He won the fifty contos which to a poor beggar of that sort signified great wealth.

Once in possession of the pile of money, after weeks of dizziness he decided to buy a fazenda. He wanted to stop up people’s mouths doing something that had never entered his head: buy a plantation.

He passed in review all those that he had visited during the vagabond years, leaning finally towards the Espigão fazenda. Contributing to this were the memory of the girl, the old lady’s cakes and the idea of giving over the administration of the fazenda to his father-in-law in such a way as to leave him free to loaf, gently basking in Zilda’s love and the culinary perfections of his mother-in-law.

Therefore he wrote to Moreira announcing his return in order to close the deal.

Alas! when said letter reached the Espigão fazenda there were roars of anger mingled with howls of vengeance.

“Now’s our chance!” said the old man. “The rascal liked the fun and wants to repeat the dose; but this time I’ll fix you, see if I don’t!” he ended rubbing his hands together in anticipation of revenge.

In pale Zilda’s sinking heart, however, there flashed a ray of hope. The sombre night of her soul was lighted up by the moon-beam of a “who knows?” However, she did not dare to face her father’s and brother’s anger, for both had agreed upon a tremendous settling of accounts. She pinned her faith on a miracle and lit another little candle to Saint Anthony....

The great day arrived. Trancoso entered the fazenda dancing up on the sorrel. Moreira went down to meet him below with his hands behind his back. Even before reining up his horse, the amiable rogue had already begun to exclaim:

“How do you do, my dear Moreira! At last the great day has arrived. This time I’ve come to buy the fazenda.”

Moreira shook. He waited until the scoundrel had dismounted and hardly had Trancoso thrown aside the reins and turned towards him with open arms, all smiles, when the old man drew a whip from under his coat and belaboured him with the fury of a wild boar.

“You want a plantation, you great scoundrel! Take that and that, you thief!” and slash, slash, the whip fell in strong and angry strokes.

The poor fellow, dazed by the unexpected attack, fled to the horse and mounted blindly, while Zico, the aggrieved all-but-brother-in-law, fell upon him with another shower of whaling across his back.

Dona Izaura set the dogs on him:

“Catch him, Brinquinho! Hold tight, Joli!”

The unfortunate plantation-buyer, pursued like a fox on a run, spurred his horse and flew, followed by a hail of insults and stones. As he passed out of the gate he still managed to hear in the midst of the yelling, the insults of the old woman:

“You cake eater! You butter swallower! Take that, and you’ll never try it again, you robber of eggs and yams!”

And Zilda?

Back of the window-pane, her eyes swollen from crying, the sorrowful girl saw disappear forever, wrapped in a cloud of dust, the gentle knight of her golden dreams.

Unlucky Moreira thus lost on that day, the only chance Fortune had given him in his life to make a profitable deal: getting rid at a single stroke of his daughter and the Espigão fazenda....

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The translations are by a woman friend of Lobato’s, resident in Brazil.

A more extended account of Senhor Lobato may be found in my _Brazilian Literature_, pages 277 to 291. (New York, 1922).]

[Footnote 2: Supposed to be the windiest day of the year.]

[Footnote 3: A _mil réis_ is about 25 cents at par.]

[Footnote 4: An arroba equals 32 pounds.]

[Footnote 5: I. e. About 25 cents per 32 pounds.]

=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=

Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

In page 14, one real for nine yards means 20 réis for 180 yards or about 166 metres--330 metres would be 40 réis and not 60 réis as stated by the author.