Dona Evarista, although an easy prey to emotions of pleasure, was reasonably steadfast in adversity. She did not faint. She ran to the inside room where her husband was studying. At the moment of her precipitate entrance, the doctor was examining a passage in Averroës. His eyes, blind to external reality but highly perceptive in the realm of the inner life, rose from the book to the ceiling and returned to the book. Twice, Dona Evarista called him loudly by name without his paying her the least attention. The third time, he heard and asked what was troubling her.

“Can’t you hear the shouting?”

The alienist listened. The shouts were coming closer and closer, threatening, terrifying. He understood. Rising from the armchair, he shut the book and, with firm, calm step, walked over to the bookcase and put the volume back in its place. The insertion of the volume caused the books on either side of it to be slightly out of line. Simão Bacamarte carefully straightened them. Then he asked his wife to go to her room.

“No, no,” begged his worthy helpmeet. “I want to die at your side where I belong.”

Simão Bacamarte insisted that she go. He assured her that it was not a matter of life and death and told her that, even if it were, it would be her duty to remain alive. The unhappy lady bowed her head, tearful and obedient.

“Down with the Green House!” shouted the Stewed Corners.

The alienist went out on the front balcony and faced the rebel mob, whose three hundred heads were radiant with civism and somber with fury. When they saw him they shouted: “Die! Die!” Simão Bacamarte indicated that he wished to speak, but they only shouted the louder. Then the barber waved his hat as a signal to his followers to be silent and told the alienist that he might speak, provided his words did not abuse the patience of the people.

“I shall say little and, if possible, nothing at all. It depends on what it is that you have come to request.”

“We aren’t requesting anything,” replied the barber, trembling with rage. “We are demanding that the Green House be destroyed or at least that all the prisoners in it be freed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You understand all right, tyrant. We want you to release the victims of your hatred, your whims, your greed. . . .”

The alienist smiled, but the smile of this great man was not perceptible to the eyes of the multitude: it was a slight contraction of two or three muscles, nothing
more.