Not that the sacristan wasn’t curious. Indeed, he was more than curious. He knew the whole parish by heart; he knew the names of all the devout ladies, knew about their lives and those of their husbands and parents, their talents and resources, what they ate, drank, said, their clothes and their qualities, the dowries of the unmarried girls, the behavior of the married women, the sad longings of the widows. He poked his nose into everything, and, in between, helped at mass and so on. His name was João das Mercês, a man in his forties, thin, of medium height, and with a sparse, graying beard.

“Which Pedrinho and Anunciada does he mean?” he wondered, as he accompanied the priest.

He was burning to know, but the presence of the priest made any questions impossible. The priest walked to the door of the church so silently and piously that he felt obliged to be equally silent and pious. And off they went. The cabriolet was waiting for them; the driver doffed his hat, and the neighbors and a few passersby knelt down as priest and sacristan climbed into the vehicle and headed off down Rua da Misericórdia. The slave hurried back on foot.

Donkeys and people wander the streets, clouds wander the sky, if there are any clouds, and thoughts wander people’s minds, if those minds have thoughts. The sacristan’s mind was filled with various thoughts, all of them rather confused. He was not thinking about Our Holy Father, although the sacristan knew how He should be worshipped, nor about the holy water and the hyssop he was carrying; nor was he thinking about the lateness of the hour—a quarter past eight at night—and, besides, the sky was clear and the moon was coming up. The cabriolet itself—which was new in the town, and had replaced, in this case, the chaise—even that did not occupy the whole of João das Mercês’s mind, or only the part that was preoccupied with Senhor Pedrinho and Senhora Anunciada.

“They must be young people,” the sacristan was thinking, “staying as guests in someone’s house, because there are no empty houses to be had near the sea, and the number he gave us is Comendador Brito’s house. Relatives, perhaps? But I’ve never heard any mention of relatives. They could be friends or possibly mere acquaintances. But in that case why would they send a cabriolet? Even the slave is new to the house; he must belong to one of the two people who are dying, or to both.”