The person who consoled me in my despair was Gonçalves, who was to have been the child’s godfather, and was our friend, companion, and confidant. “Be patient,” he said, “I’ll be godfather to the next one.” And he comforted me, and talked to me about other things with the tenderness of a true friend. Time did the rest. Gonçalves himself told me later on that if the child was destined to be unlucky, as I was convinced he would be, then he was better off stillborn.

“What makes you think he wouldn’t have been born unlucky?” I retorted.

Gonçalves smiled; he didn’t believe in my rotten luck. In fact he had no time to believe in anything; he devoted himself entirely to being happy. He had finally begun to apply himself to the law; he was now pleading cases, presenting petitions, attending court, all because, as he used to say, he needed to live. And he was always happy. My wife found him very amusing; she would laugh at his little stories and jokes, which at times were somewhat risqué. At first I reprimanded him privately, but eventually I grew used to them. After all, who wouldn’t pardon the talents of a friend, and such a jovial friend at that? I must say that, eventually, he began to rein himself in, and, from then on, I began to find him a far more serious companion. “You’re in love,” I said to him one day, and he, turning pale, replied that he was, and added with a smile, albeit weakly, that he, too, must marry. Over supper that evening, I returned to the subject.

“Rufina, did you know that Gonçalves is getting married?”

“It’s just his little joke,” Gonçalves said, interrupting me.

I cursed my indiscretion, and neither he nor I mentioned it again. Five months later . . .—you must excuse the rapid transition, but there is no means of lengthening it out—five months later, Rufina fell seriously ill and, within a week, she had died of a rampant fever.