In that battle, I felt rather like Stendhal’s hero at the Battle of Waterloo, the difference being that it was a much smaller arena. For this reason—and also because I don’t wish to linger over facile memories—I will say only that I did succeed in killing João da Fonseca in person. It’s true, too, that I escaped being killed by him. I still bear the scar on my head from the wound he inflicted on me. The fight between us was short-lived. If it doesn’t seem too much like something out of a novel, I would say that João da Fonseca understood my motives and foresaw the result.

After a few minutes of hand-to-hand combat in one corner of the town, João da Fonseca fell prostrate to the ground. He tried to and did fight on for a while; I gave him no opportunity to retaliate, as this, I reasoned, would lead to my own defeat, if “reason” is the right term to use, for I was not thinking rationally at all. I was blinded by the blood in which I had bathed him, and deafened by the clamor and tumult of battle. Amid the killing and screaming, our side quickly became masters of the field.

When I saw that João da Fonseca was well and truly dead, I returned briefly to the fray; my intoxicated state had somewhat diminished, and my primary motivation came back to me, as if it were the one and only. Maria Cora’s face appeared before me like an approving, forgiving smile; it all happened very fast.

You have probably read about the three or four women who were captured too. One of them was Prazeres. When battle was done, Prazeres saw her lover’s body, and her reaction filled me with a mixture of loathing and envy. She lay down on the ground and put her arms around him; the tears she shed, the words she spoke, made some of those present laugh; others, if not moved, were surprised. As I say, I was filled at first with both envy and loathing, but that dual feeling also disappeared, leaving not even surprise, and I, too, ended up laughing. After honoring her lover’s death with her grief, Prazeres remained the Federalist she was; she had not put on a soldier’s uniform, as she had said she would when she challenged João da Fonseca, but she wanted to be taken prisoner along with the other rebels and to remain with them.