They got up and went into the drawing room. The “ladies” were five neighbors who came every evening after supper to have coffee with Sinhá Rita and stayed until nightfall.

Once the pupils had finished their supper, they returned to their lace-making pillows. Sinhá Rita presided over this gaggle of women, some of whom were resident and others not. The whisper of bobbins and the chatter of the ladies were such worldly sounds, so far removed from theology and Latin, that the boy let himself be carried along by them and forgot about everything else. At first the ladies were a little shy, but soon recovered. One of them sang a popular ballad accompanied on the guitar by Sinhá Rita, and the evening passed quickly. Before the soirée ended, Sinhá Rita asked Damião to tell them the story she had particularly liked. The same one that had made Lucrécia laugh.

“Come on, Senhor Damião, don’t play hard to get. Our guests are just about to leave. You’ll really love this one, ladies.”

Damião had no option but to obey. Despite the expectation created by Sinhá Rita’s words—which rather diminished the joke and its effect—the story did nevertheless make the ladies laugh. Pleased with himself, Damião glanced over at Lucrécia to see if she had laughed as well, but she had her head bent over her work, intent now on finishing her task. She certainly wasn’t laughing, or perhaps only to herself, in the same way she kept her cough to herself.

The ladies left, and darkness fell. Damião’s heart also grew blacker with the onset of night. What would be happening at his father’s house? Every few minutes he went over to peer out of the window, but returned each time feeling more discouraged. No sign of his godfather. His father had doubtless sent him packing, then summoned a couple of slaves and gone to the police station to demand that a constable come with him to arrest his son and take him back to the seminary. Damião asked Sinhá Rita if there was a back entrance to the house and ran out into the garden to see if he could climb over the wall. He also asked if there was an escape route down Rua da Vala or if she could perhaps speak to one of her neighbors, who might be kind enough to take him in. The problem was his cassock: could Sinhá Rita lend him a jacket or an old overcoat? Sinhá Rita did indeed have a jacket, left behind by João Carneiro, either as a souvenir or out of sheer absentmindedness.

“I have an old jacket of my husband’s,” she said, laughing, “but why are you so frightened? It will all work out, don’t you worry.”