“When you were here the other night, you gave me this letter. Could you tell me what it says?”

“Can you not guess?”

“I might guess wrongly.”

“No, you have guessed correctly.”

“Yes, but, even though I’m separated from my husband, I’m still a married woman. You love me, don’t you? Well, you may assume that I love you, too, but, as I say, I’m still a married woman.”

Having said this, she returned the letter to me unopened. Had we been alone, I might have read it out to her, but the presence of the other guests stopped me. Besides, there was no need. Maria Cora’s answer was definitive, or so it seemed to me. I took the letter and, before I put it away, asked:

“So you don’t want to read it?”

“No.”

“Not even to see what I said?”

“No.”

“What if I were to go and fight your husband, kill him, and then come back?” I said, growing ever more frantic.

“Would you actually do such a thing?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t believe anyone could ever love me that much,” she concluded with a smile. “But, be careful, people are looking at us.”

With that, she moved away and joined her aunt and the poet. I stood there for a few seconds with the book in my hand, as if I really were studying it, then I put it down and went and sat opposite them. They were talking about what was happening in Rio Grande, about the battles between Federalists and Legalists and their varying fates. What I felt then cannot be put into words, not, that is, by me, for I am no novelist. It was a kind of vertigo, a delirium, a horrible, lucid image, a battle followed by victory. I imagined myself on the battlefield, alongside other men, fighting the Federalists and finally killing João da Fonseca, before returning to Rio and marrying his widow. Maria Cora had contributed to this seductive thought. After her refusal to read my letter, she seemed to me more beautiful than ever, especially as she did not seem annoyed or offended, but treated me as affectionately as before, possibly even more so. I could have drawn from this a double and contradictory impression—either tacit acquiescence or complete indifference—but I saw only the first of these and left the house in a state of utter madness.

What I decided to do then really was the act of a madman. Maria Cora’s words—“I don’t believe anyone could ever love me that much”—were still ringing in my ears like a challenge. I thought about them all night and the following day, I went back to Engenho Velho. As soon as the opportunity arose to tell her of my resolve, I did so.