THE DEATH OF Joaquim Fidélis caused indescribable consternation throughout the suburb of Engenho Velho, and particularly in the hearts of his dearest friends. It was so unexpected. He was in fine fettle, had an iron constitution, and, the very night before he passed away, had been attending a ball where he had been seen happily chatting away. He had even danced, at the request of a lady in her sixties, the widow of a friend of his, who took him by the arm and said:

“Come on, then, let’s show these youngsters that their elders still know a thing or two!”

Joaquim Fidélis protested with a smile, but did as he was told and danced. It was two o’clock in the morning when he left, wrapping his sixty years in a warm winter cape (for it was June 1879), covering his bald head with the hood, lighting a cigar, and hopping nimbly into his carriage.

He may well have nodded off in the carriage, but, once home, despite the late hour and his heavy eyelids, he went to his desk, opened a drawer, took out one of many notebooks, and, in three or four minutes, wrote some ten or eleven lines. His last words were these: “Altogether a vile ball; some aging reveler forced me to dance a quadrille with her; at the door, a dark-skinned country bumpkin asked me for a present. Simply vile!” He put the notebook back in the drawer, undressed, got into bed, fell asleep, and died.

Yes, indeed, the news dismayed the whole neighborhood. So beloved was he, with his fine manners and his ability to be able to talk to anyone; he could be educated with the educated, ignorant with the ignorant, boyish with the boys, even girlish with the girls. And then, most obligingly, he was always ready to write letters, speak to friends, patch up quarrels, or lend money. In the evenings, a handful of close acquaintances from Engenho Velho, and sometimes other parts of the city, would gather in his house to play ombre or whist and discuss politics. Joaquim Fidélis had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies until its dissolution by the Marquis of Olinda in 1863. Unable to get reelected, he abandoned public life. He was a conservative, a label he had difficulty in accepting because it sounded to him like a political Gallicism. He preferred to be called one of the “Saquarema Set.” But he gave it all up, and it seems that, in recent times, he detached himself first from the party, and, eventually, from the party’s politics. There are reasons to believe that, from a certain point onward, he was merely a profound skeptic.