MANY SUICIDES HAVE the excellent custom of not departing this life without setting out the reason and circumstances that have turned them against it. Those who go silently rarely do so out of pride; in most cases they either lack time or don’t know how to write. It is an excellent custom for two reasons: first, it is an act of courtesy, for this world is not a ball from which a man can sneak away before dancing the cotillion; second, the newspapers collect and publish these posthumous scribbles, and thus the deceased lives on for a day or two, sometimes even a week.

Notwithstanding the excellence of the custom, it was originally my intention to go silently, because, having been unlucky my whole life, I feared that any final words might cause complications in the hereafter. But a recent incident made me change my plans, and I am leaving behind not one document, but two. The first is my will, which I have just finished drafting and sealing; it’s here on the table, beside the loaded pistol. The second is this outline of an autobiography. Note that I am leaving the second document only because it is needed to clarify the first, which would seem absurd or unintelligible without some commentary. In my will I state that my few books, old clothes, and the little house I own in Catumbi, which I rent out to a carpenter, should be sold and the proceeds used to buy new boots and shoes to be distributed in the manner indicated, which, I confess, is rather extraordinary. Without an explanation for such a legacy, I risk doubt being cast on the will’s validity. The reason behind the legacy stems from a recent incident, and the incident, in turn, is connected to my entire life.

My name is Matias Deodato de Castro e Melo, son of Sergeant-Major Salvador Deodato de Castro e Melo and Dona Maria da Soledade Pereira, both deceased. I come from Corumbá, in the state of Mato Grosso; I was born on March 3, 1820, and am, therefore, fifty-one years of age today, March 3, 1871.