Since I had a little time to spare (slightly less than thirty minutes), I started following Maria Cora. I’m not saying I was already in the grip of some violent force, but I cannot deny giving in to an impulse of curiosity and desire, a remnant from my lost youth. Watching her walking along, wearing the same somber colors she had worn the night before, I found her even more impressive. She kept up a pace that was neither fast nor slow, but certainly one that allowed me to admire her lovely figure, which was more perfect than her face. She walked up Rua do Hospício to an optician’s, where she went inside, remaining there for ten minutes or so. I kept a safe distance, furtively watching the doorway. Then she left and set off briskly, turning down Rua dos Ourives toward Rua do Rosário, then up to Largo da Sé; from there, she walked on to Largo de São Francisco de Paula. You will think all these details unnecessary, not to say tedious, but they fill me with a particularly intense feeling, as the first steps on a long and painful road. You’ll have noticed that she avoided walking up Rua do Ouvidor, which is the route everyone and anyone would take at that or any other hour in order to go to Largo de São Francisco de Paula. She crossed the square in the direction of the Escola Politécnica, but, halfway there, was met by a carriage, which was waiting for her outside the college; she got in, and the carriage left.

Like other earthly paths, life has its crossroads. At that moment, I found myself at a particularly complicated one, except that I didn’t have time to choose a direction—neither time nor opportunity. I still don’t know how it was that I found myself in a cab, telling the driver to follow her carriage.

Maria Cora lived in a part of Rio called Engenho Velho, in a good, solid, fairly old house surrounded by a garden. I could tell that she lived there, because her aunt was looking out of one of the windows. When she stepped from the carriage, Maria Cora told the driver (my cab happened to be passing hers at that point) that she would not be going out again that week, but asked him to come for her on Monday at noon. Then she walked straight into the garden, as if she were the mistress of the house, and paused to talk to the gardener, who began earnestly explaining something to her.

I turned back once she had gone into the house, and only farther down the hill did I think to look at my watch; it was almost half-past one. I reached Rua da Quitanda at a trot, and got out at the door to my lawyer’s office.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said.