As I said, I am an unlucky fellow, if not the unluckiest of all men. There is even an old proverb that I have quite literally fulfilled. It happened in Corumbá, when I was nearly eight years old. I was swinging back and forth in my hammock during siesta time, in a little room directly under the roof tiles. Now, either because the hook was loose, or because I was swinging too vigorously, the hammock came away from one of the walls and I found myself flat on the floor. I had fallen on my back, but even so I managed to break my nose, because a loose piece of roof tile, which was just waiting for an opportunity to fall, took advantage of the commotion to come crashing down as well. The wound inflicted was neither serious nor of long duration; indeed, my father teased me mercilessly about it. When Canon Brito came to sip a cool glass of guaraná with us that evening and was told all about the episode, he cited the proverb, saying that I was the first person actually to achieve the absurd feat of falling flat on my back and breaking my nose. Neither the canon nor my father could have imagined that the incident was simply a sign of things to come.

I won’t dwell on the other misfortunes that blighted my childhood and youth. I want to die at noon, and it is already eleven o’clock. Besides, I’ve sent my manservant out, and he might come back early and interrupt the execution of my deadly project. If I had time, I would recount in detail several painful episodes, including a beating I received by mistake. It concerned the rival of a friend of mine—a rival in love and, naturally, one who had been defeated. My friend and the lady in question were most indignant when they found out about the beating I had received, but secretly they were rather pleased that I had been beaten and not him. Nor will I speak of certain illnesses I have suffered. I will hasten to the point when my father, having been poor all his life, died in extreme poverty, and my mother survived him by less than two months. Canon Brito, who had just been elected to the Chamber of Deputies, proposed taking me with him to Rio de Janeiro with the idea of making a priest of me; however, five days after we arrived, he died. You see what I mean when I say I have always been unlucky.