Candinho would have much preferred to do something else, although not for the same reasons, but simply for the sake of variety; it would be a way of changing skins or personality. Alas, he could find no job that could be learned quickly.

Nature continued to take its course, the fetus was growing and was soon a weight in its mother’s belly. The eighth month came, a month of anxieties and privations, then the ninth, but I won’t go into that. It would be best simply to describe its effects, which could not have been crueler.

“No, Aunt Mônica!” roared Candinho, rejecting a piece of advice I find painful even to write down, although not as painful as it was for Candinho to hear. “Never!”

It was in the last week of the final month when Aunt Mônica advised the couple that, as soon as the baby was born, they should take it to the foundling wheel at the convent on Rua dos Barbonos, where they took in abandoned babies. Abandoned. There could have been no crueler word for those two young parents expecting their first child, looking forward to kissing and caring for it, watching it laugh and grow and prosper and play . . . In what sense would that child be abandoned? Candinho stared wild-eyed at the aunt and ended up thumping the table hard with his fist, so hard that the rickety old table almost collapsed. Clara intervened.

“Auntie doesn’t mean any harm, Candinho.”

“Of course I don’t,” retorted Aunt Mônica. “I’m just saying what I think would be best for you. You owe money for everything; you’ve no meat in the house, not even any beans. If you’re not bringing in a wage, how is the family to grow? After all, there’s still time. Later on, when you’ve found some steadier job, any future children will receive as much care and attention as this one, possibly more. He’ll be well cared for, he’ll lack for nothing. Giving him to the foundling hospital isn’t like abandoning him on the shore or on a dung heap. They don’t kill children there, no child dies of neglect, whereas here, living in poverty, he’s sure to die . . .”

With a shrug, Aunt Mônica turned and went to her room. She had hinted at such a solution before, but this was the first time she had spoken with such candor and such passion, or so callously, if you like. Clara reached out her hand to her husband, as if to comfort him; Cândido Neves pulled a face and muttered something about her aunt being mad. This tender scene was interrupted by someone banging on the street door.

“Who is it?” asked Cândido.

It was the landlord, to whom they owed three months’ rent, and who had come in person to threaten his tenant. His tenant invited him in.

“That won’t be necessary . . .”