To confirm his hypothesis, he recalled his uncle’s customary good manners, the happy hours he had spent alone with him or in conversation with his friends. He tried to summon up his uncle’s face, the kindly, amused look in his eyes, and his rather solemn sense of humor; but instead of those innocent, friendly features, all he could see was his uncle lying dead, stretched out on the bed, his eyes open and his lip curled. He tried to banish this image from his mind, but it refused to budge. Unable to drive it away, Benjamin tried mentally to close the man’s eyes and straighten his mouth; but no sooner had he done so than the eyelids would lift once again, and the lips resume that ironic sneer. It was no longer the man he had known, but the author of those portraits.

Benjamin ate and slept badly. The five friends returned the following afternoon to continue their reading. They arrived eager and impatient, asking many questions and insisting on seeing the notebooks. Benjamin, however, put them off, making one excuse after another; unfortunately for him, there in the room, behind the others, he could still see the dead man’s eternally curling lip, and this made him seem even more awkward and withdrawn. Benjamin’s demeanor toward the others turned chilly, for he wanted them to leave, and to see if that vision would disappear with them. Thirty or forty minutes went by. Eventually, the five friends looked at each other and decided to go; they bade him a ceremonious farewell, and returned to their houses deep in conversation:

“What a difference from his uncle! What a gulf separates them! Puffed up by his inheritance, no doubt! Well, we’ll leave him to it. Alas, poor Joaquim Fidélis!”

The Chapter on Hats

THE CHAPTER ON HATS

GÉRONTE: In which chapter, may I ask?

SGANARELLE: In the chapter on hats.

—MOLIÈRE

SING, O MUSE, of the dismay of Mariana, wife of the distinguished Conrado Seabra, on that April morning in 1879. What could be the cause of such upset? A simple hat, light and not inelegant; in short, a bowler hat. Conrado, a lawyer with offices on Rua da Quitanda, wore it to the city every day, and it went with him to all his court hearings; he only refrained from wearing it at receptions, the opera, funerals, and formal social visits. Otherwise, it was a constant feature, and had been so for the entire five or six years of his marriage. Until, on that particular April morning, after finishing their breakfast, Conrado began to roll a cigarette, and Mariana announced with a smile that she had something to ask him.

“What is it, my angel?”

“Would you be capable of making a sacrifice for me?”

“I could make ten or twenty of them!”

“Then stop wearing that hat to the city.”

“Why? Is it ugly?”