There seemed to be in him a great desire to recount something, the “terrible story” he had mentioned to the sacristan shortly before, but the sacristan did not dare ask him and the comendador, not daring to tell the sacristan, resumed his pacing.

João das Mercês sat down. He knew that, in the circumstances, the polite thing would be to leave, proffering a few kind, hopeful, comforting words, and then to return the following day. He, however, preferred to sit and wait, and saw no sign of disapproval on the other man’s face; indeed, the comendador stopped pacing for a moment and stood before him, uttering a weary sigh.

“Yes, it’s a very sad business,” said João das Mercês. “And they’re good people, too, I imagine.”

“They were going to be married.”

“What, to each other?”

Brito nodded in a melancholy way, but there was still no sign of the promised terrible story, for which the sacristan continued to wait. It occurred to him that this was the first time he had heard about the lives of people unknown to him. All he had seen of these people, shortly before, were their faces, but his curiosity was no less intense for that. They were going to be married. Perhaps that was the terrible story; to have fallen mortally ill on the eve of a new life, that was terrible indeed. About to be wed and about to die.

Someone came to summon the comendador, and he excused himself so hurriedly that the sacristan had no time to take his leave. The comendador disappeared for about fifty minutes, at the end of which time the sacristan heard something like muffled sobbing coming from the next room. The comendador returned shortly afterward.

“What was I saying just now? That she, at least, would die. Well, she’s dead.”

Brito said this unemotionally, almost indifferently. He had not known the dead woman very long. The sobbing the sacristan had heard came from Brito’s nephew from Campinas and a relative of the dead woman who lived here in Mata-porcos. It took only an instant for the sacristan to imagine that the comendador’s nephew must have been in love with the dying man’s bride, but this idea proved short-lived, for the nephew had, after all, traveled to Rio with both of them. Perhaps he was to have been the best man. As was only natural and polite, he asked the name of the dead woman. However, either because he preferred not to say or because his thoughts were elsewhere—or perhaps for both those reasons—the comendador did not give her name, nor that of her fiancé.

“They were to be married . . .”

“May God receive her and keep her safe, and him, too, if he should die,” said the sacristan sadly.