Such were João das Mercês’s thoughts, although he didn’t have much time to think. The cabriolet stopped outside a two-story house, which was indeed the house of the comendador, José Martins de Brito. There were already a few people waiting outside, holding candles. The priest and the sacristan stepped out of the cabriolet and went up the stairs, accompanied by the comendador. On the landing above, his wife kissed the priest’s ring. Grown-ups, children, slaves, a murmur of voices, dim light, and the two people who were dying, each waiting in their respective rooms at the back.

Everything happened as it always does on such occasions, according to rules and customs. Senhor Pedrinho was absolved and anointed, as was Senhora Anunciada, and the priest left the house to return to the church with the sacristan. The latter just had time to ask the comendador discreetly if the two were relatives of his. No, they weren’t, said Brito; they were friends of his nephew, who lived in Campinas; a terrible story. João de Mercês’s wide eyes drank in those three words and said, without actually speaking, that they would return to hear the rest—perhaps that same night. All this happened very quickly, because the priest was already going down the stairs, and he had to follow.

The fashion for the cabriolet was so short-lived that this one probably never took another priest to administer the last rites to anyone else. All that remained was this brief, insubstantial tale, a mere bagatelle that I’ll have finished in no time. Not that its substance or lack of it mattered to the sacristan, for whom it was another welcome slice of life. He had to help the priest put away the Communion wafers, take off his surplice, and do various other things, before they could say good night and go their separate ways. When he was finally able to get away, he walked along by the shore as far as the comendador’s house.