He was a wealthy and educated man. He had qualified as a lawyer in 1842. Now he did nothing, but read a great deal. There were no women in his house. Widowed after the first outbreak of yellow fever, he refused to countenance a second marriage, to the great sorrow of three or four ladies, who for some time had hopes in that regard. One of them perfidiously managed to make her beautiful 1845 ringlets last until well after her second grandchild was born; another younger woman, also a widow, thought she could hold on to him with concessions that were as generous as they were irretrievable. “My dear Leocádia,” he would say whenever she hinted at a marital solution, “why don’t we carry on just as we are? Mystery is what gives life its charm.” He lived with a nephew called Benjamin, the orphaned son of one of his sisters who had died when the child was still very young. Joaquim Fidélis brought him up and made him study hard, so much so that the boy graduated with a law degree in the year of 1877.

Benjamin was utterly dumbfounded. He could not bring himself to believe that his uncle was dead. He rushed to his bedroom, found the corpse lying in bed, cold, eyes wide open, and a faintly ironic curl to the left-hand corner of his mouth. He wept profusely. He was losing not just a relative but a father, a tenderhearted, dedicated father, one of a kind. Finally, Benjamin wiped away his tears and, since it upset him to see the dead man’s eyes open and his lip curled, he rectified both defects. Thus death took on a more tragic but less original expression.

“No! I don’t believe it!” cried Diogo Vilares, one of the neighbors, shortly after hearing the news.

Diogo Vilares was one of Joaquim Fidélis’s five closest friends. He owed to him the job he had held since 1857. Diogo was followed by the four others in quick succession, all speechless and unable to believe what had happened. The first was Elias Xavier, who had obtained a knighthood, thanks, it was said, to the deceased’s timely intervention; then came João Brás, another deputy who, under the rather peculiar rules of the time, had been elected to the Chamber thanks to Joaquim Fidélis’s influence. Last of all came Fragoso and Galdino, who, in lieu of diplomas, knighthoods, or jobs, owed him other favors instead. Fidélis had advanced Galdino a small amount of capital, and had arranged a good marriage for Fragoso. And now he was dead! Gone forever! Standing around the bed, they gazed at his serene face and recalled their last get-together the previous Sunday, so intimate and yet so jolly! And, even more recently, the night before last, when their customary game of ombre had lasted until eleven o’clock.