A sudden misgiving pierced Dona Evarista’s heart. She concealed her anxiety, however, and merely told her husband that, if he did not go, neither would she, for of course she could not travel alone.

“Your aunt will go with you,” replied the alienist.

It should be noted that this expedient had occurred to Dona Evarista. She had not suggested it, for it would impose great expense on her husband. Besides, it was better for the suggestion to come from him.

“Oh, but the money it will cost!” she sighed.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “Have you any idea of our income?”

He brought her the books of account. Dona Evarista, although impressed by the quantity of the figures, was not quite sure what they signified, so her husband took her to the chest where the money was kept.

Good heavens! There were mountains of gold, thousands upon thousands of cruzados and doubloons. A fortune! While she was drinking it in with her black eyes, the alienist placed his mouth close to her and whispered mischievously:

“‘Who would ever have thought that a bunch of lunatics . . . ’”

Dona Evarista understood, smiled, and replied with infinite resignation:

“God knows what he is doing.”

Three months later she left for Rio in the company of her aunt, the druggist’s wife, one of the druggist’s cousins, a priest whom Bacamarte had known in Lisbon and who happened to be in Itaguai, four maidservants, and five or six male attendants. A small crowd had come to see them off. The farewells were sad for everyone but the alienist, for he was troubled by nothing outside the realm of science. Even Dona Evarista’s tears, sincere and abundant as they were, did not affect him. If anything concerned him on that occasion, if he cast a restless and police-like eye over the crowd, it was only because he suspected the presence of one or two candidates for commitment to the Green House.

After the departure the druggist and the alienist mounted their horses and rode homeward. Crispim Soares stared at the road, between the ears of his roan. Simão Bacamarte swept the horizon with his eyes, surveyed the distant mountains, and let his horse find the way home. Perfect symbols of the common man and of the genius! One fixes his gaze upon the present with all its tears and privations; the other looks beyond to the glorious dawns of a future that he himself will shape.

IV. A New Theory

As his horse jogged along, a new and daring hypothesis occurred to Simão Bacamarte. It was so daring, indeed, that, if substantiated, it would revolutionize the bases of psychopathology. During the next few days he mulled it over. Then, in his spare time, he began to go from house to house, talking with the towns-people about a thousand and one things and punctuating the conversations with a penetrating look that terrified even the bravest.