I will not describe the apothecary’s terror upon hearing that the barber was on his way to the alienist’s house. “He’s going to arrest him,” he thought, his anxieties redoubling. Indeed the apothecary’s moral torment during those revolutionary days exceeds all description. Never had a man found himself in a tighter spot: his close acquaintance with the alienist urged him to join his side, while the barber’s victory inclined him toward the other. News of the uprising itself had already shaken him to the core, for he knew how universally the alienist was hated, and the victorious rebellion was the last straw. Soares’s wife, a redoubtable woman and close friend of Dona Evarista, told him in no uncertain terms that his place was at Simão Bacamarte’s side; meanwhile, his heart was screaming that this was a lost cause and that no one, of his own free will, shackles himself to a corpse. “True enough, Cato did it, sed victa Catoni,” he thought, remembering one of Father Lopes’s favorite phrases. “But Cato did not attach himself to a lost cause: he himself had been the lost cause, he and his republic; moreover, his act was that of an egotist, a miserable egotist; my situation is entirely different.” His wife, however, would not give in, so Crispim Soares was left with no other option than to declare himself ill and take to his bed.

“There goes Porfírio, off to Dr. Bacamarte’s house,” said his wife to him the following day, at his bedside. “He’s got people with him.”

“They’re going to arrest the doctor,” thought the apothecary.

One thought leads to another; the apothecary was convinced that once they’d arrested the alienist, they would come after him as an accomplice. This thought proved to be a more effective remedy than any caustic lotion. Crispim Soares sat up, pronounced himself better, and said that he was going out. Despite all his wife’s efforts and protestations, he got dressed and left the house. The chroniclers are unanimous in recording that her certainty that the apothecary was about to place himself nobly at the alienist’s side was a great consolation to her; they go on to note very shrewdly just how powerful our illusions can be; for the apothecary resolutely made his way not to the alienist’s house, but to the government palace. On arrival, he expressed surprise on finding that the barber was not there, explaining that he had come to pledge his allegiance, having been unable to do so the previous day due to illness. With some effort he managed a cough. The functionaries who heard his declaration, knowing full well the apothecary’s close links with the alienist, understood the significance of this new declaration of allegiance, and treated Crispim Soares with punctilious kindness. They assured him that the barber would return shortly; His Lordship had gone to the Casa Verde on important business, but would not be long. They offered him a chair, refreshments, and compliments; they told him that the cause of the illustrious Porfírio was the cause of every patriot, to which the apothecary responded that, yes, indeed, he had never doubted it for a minute, and would be sure to have it brought to His Majesty’s attention.