The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil (15 page)

“How can it be?” exclaimed the apothecary, throwing up his hands.

He found the notion of radically expanding the definition of insanity farfetched, but modesty, his finest quality, prevented him from saying so. Instead, he declared the idea sublime and self-evident, and he even called it “something for the noisemaker.”

This last phrase cannot be translated into a modern idiom and will have to be explained. Itaguaí, like the other localities of colonial Brazil, had no newspaper, and there were only two ways of publicizing anything. The first method was posting a hand-lettered announcement on the door of the church or the town hall, and the second was by means of the noise-maker. Here is how the second method functioned. A man was hired to walk up and down through the streets for one or more days getting people’s attention with a wooden noise-making device. When a crowd had gathered to hear him, he announced whatever he had been paid to announce: a cure for fevers, a house for rent, whatever. He might even recite a sonnet or read an oration. In truth, the noisemaker could be a nuisance, but it was also highly effective. For example, one of the town councilmen of Itaguaí—the very one who had opposed the construction of the Casa Verde—periodically hired the noisemaker to publicize his skill as a snake charmer. The reputation was entirely undeserved; he had, in fact, never charmed any sort of reptile. And, yet, many townspeople did not hesitate to affirm that they had seen rattlesnakes dance on the councilman’s chest. Truth be told, the past can still teach our modern age a thing or two.

“Putting my idea into practice will be better than publicity,” said the alienist, in response to the apothecary’s suggestion.

And the apothecary, declining to differ from that view, agreed that, yes, it was better to put the idea into practice first.

“There will always be time later for the noisemaker,” he concluded.

Simão Bacamarte reflected for a moment, and said:

“Let us suppose, my good Soares, that the collective human spirit resembles a great oyster. My goal is to extract the pearl. The pearl is reason itself, pure sanity. I must therefore define the precise boundaries of what is reasonable; anything else is madness, madness pure and simple. And here is the definition. Sanity is the perfect equilibrium of all the faculties, neither more, nor less.”

Father Lopes, another to whom the alienist confided the basic principles of his theory, declared flatly that he failed to understand it, or, rather, that he found it absurd, and if not absurd, then at least unrealistic, and he recommended against any attempt to implement it.

“The current definition has always served to distinguish sanity from insanity well enough. One knows who is mad and who isn’t,” he said. “Why open up a new box of worms?”

The slightest hint of a smile curled across the thin lips of the alienist, suggesting a mix of disdain and pity. He was far too tactful to make the other feel his superiority, however. Instead, he simply let Science inform Theology with such supreme self-assurance that Theology did not know what to believe. Itaguaí, and the whole world, stood on the brink of revolution.

V
The Terror

Four days later, the people of Itaguaí were shocked by the news that a certain Costa had been interned in the Casa Verde.

“Impossible!”

“Impossible? It happened this morning.”

“But … the truth is that he didn’t deserve it. On top of everything else?”

Costa was among the most highly esteemed fellows in town. Once he had inherited a princely sum, four hundred thousand Portuguese cruzados, a sum that, invested at interest, would produce “enough,” according to the uncle who left it to him in his will, “to live on for the rest of his life, and then some.” But no sooner did the money come into Costa’s hands than he started to lend it, without interest, to anyone who asked. After five years he had practically nothing left. Had it happened all at once, the population of Itaguaí would have been dismayed, but it happened little by little. Costa slipped from opulence to affluence, from affluence to sufficiency, from sufficiency to difficulty, from difficulty to poverty, and from there to utter indigence, ever so gradually. At the end of those five years, people who had once taken off their hats when within a block of meeting Costa on the street, now clapped him familiarly on the shoulder, pinched his nose, and made brazen remarks. And Costa, ever simple and good-humored, said nothing. He even pretended not to notice that the least courteous were precisely those who still owed him money. To the contrary, when one of them made a rude joke that Costa merely laughed off and a bystander, who disliked Costa, asked scornfully whether he had no pride or suffered insults in the hopes of finally being paid back, why, Costa responded by canceling the debt on the spot. The ungrateful ex-debtor jeered at him: “How noble of Costa to cancel a debt that he couldn’t collect!” This slur at his generosity finally wounded Costa’s pride and spurred him to action. Two hours later, he laid hands on a few coins and sent them to the ungrateful ex-debtor.

“I certainly hope that settles it,” he thought.

This gesture convinced both credulous and incredulous. Who could thereafter doubt the generosity of such a worthy citizen? The most timid paupers in Itaguaí now knocked on his door asking for handouts. But the slur still rang in Costa’s ears and something gnawed at his spirit: the idea that someone didn’t like him. Fortunately, after three months the man who disliked Costa reappeared, asking for a loan of 120 cruzados, which he promised to repay in two days. Costa seized the opportunity to demonstrate his lack of avarice. The amount was all that remained of his inheritance, but he did not hesitate an instant and lent it without interest. Sadly, he did not have time to be repaid, because he was interned in the Casa Verde five months later.

Imagine the consternation of Itaguaí when people found out. They talked of nothing else, some saying he’d lost his mind at lunch, some, in the wee hours of the morning, and they described the onset of his fits: dark, violent, and terrible—or mild, and even amusing—according to the teller. A lot of people ran to the Casa Verde, and they found poor Costa calm, a bit startled, perfectly lucid, and asking repeatedly why he had been taken there. A few went to speak with the alienist. Bacamarte applauded their expressions of concern, but he made clear that Science was Science. He could not let a madman go around loose. The last person who tried to intercede (because, after what I am about to relate, nobody else dared) was Costa’s cousin. The fearsome doctor explained confidentially to the unfortunate woman that the way her cousin had squandered the family fortune betrayed a disequilibrium of his mental faculties.

“No, no, you are wrong!” interrupted the good woman. “It’s not his fault that he spent his inheritance so quickly.”

“No?”

“No, sir. I’ll tell you how it happened. My late uncle was not a bad man, but when he got mad, he was capable of anything—why, he wouldn’t take off his hat for a religious procession if it passed right in front of him! Now, just before he died he discovered that a slave had stolen his ox, and he about had a fit. He started trembling and foaming at the mouth, and his face turned as red as a tomato. I can see him now. And then up comes an ugly, long-haired fellow in shirt sleeves and asks him for a glass of water. My uncle, God rest his soul, told him to go drink from the river or go to hell. And the man raises his hand and says ‘Curse you, and may all your wealth vanish in seven years and one day, by this Star of David!’ and he pointed to a tattoo on his arm. A Jew’s curse, Dr. Bacamarte. That’s what happened to my poor cousin’s inheritance.”

Bacamarte skewered the unfortunate woman with his piercing gaze. When she had finished her story, he extended his hand to her as courteously as he might to the viceroy’s wife, and invited her to come talk to her cousin. The unhappy lady suspected nothing, and she never left the Casa Verde.

The attitude of our illustrious alienist terrified everyone in town. No one could believe that he would lock up a perfectly rational woman for no reason at all, a woman whose only crime was attempting to intercede for her cousin. People discussed the incident on street corners and in barbershops. The rumor mill went to work. There had been an unhappy love affair, it seems, years ago. The doctor had made certain overtures to Costa’s cousin, which she had spurned, leading to the doctor’s insistence, Costa’s indignation, hard feelings, and so on … leading to this act of revenge. It was obvious. The alienist’s apparent dignity and studiousness were a mere façade. And someone reported knowing much, much more—things that he wouldn’t say because he couldn’t prove them. But he could almost swear for sure.

“You’re his friend. Can’t you tell us what’s going on, what his motives are?”

Crispim Soares melted with contentment. The rush of people to his shop and the curiosity of all his acquaintances amounted to a public tribute, a recognition that he, Crispim the apothecary, was the confidant and collaborator of the great man. The apothecary’s glowing countenance and discreet smile said it all, his smile and his silence, because he hardly opened his mouth. At most he uttered a few oracular monosyllables that possessed nothing of the eloquence of that ever-present little half-smile, so suggestive of scientific mysteries that the apothecary could not reveal to any living person without danger or dishonor.

“Something is going on,” suspected the townsfolk.

Mateus the outfitter, for one, had his suspicions, but he shrugged, said nothing, and went about his affairs. He had recently built a sumptuous residence. The house itself was enough to get people’s attention, but there was more: the fine furniture imported from Holland and Hungary (as he explained, and as people could see from outside, because he always had the windows open) and the magnificent garden, a masterpiece of artistry and good taste. Mateus lost himself in contemplation of his house. He had always dreamed of having it, and when he grew rich enough making the rough saddles used for pack animals such as mules and donkeys, he got what he wanted, the grandest residence in Itaguaí, more elegant than the town hall, grander, even, than the Casa Grande. The town’s most illustrious citizens were mortified at the very thought of the outfitter’s house. A mule outfitter, and such a house! Good heavens!

“He never gets tired of looking at it,” said passersby in the morning.

Mateus had the habit of planting himself in the garden and gazing at his house for a good hour every morning, until the servants called him to lunch. The neighbors greeted him respectfully to his face, but they laughed at him behind his back. One neighbor liked to joke that if Mateus made saddles for himself, he’d be a millionaire, which, while it made no sense strictly speaking, produced gales of laughter.

“There’s Mateus, again, showing himself,” they said in the evening.

Because at the hour when the neighbors went out for their after-dinner stroll, Mateus stationed himself in an open window, dressed in white, against a dark background, and struck a noble pose for two or three hours, until night fell. One might assume that his intention was to be admired and envied, although he never confessed it in so many words to the apothecary or Father Lopes, his great friends. The apothecary inferred that intention, nonetheless, on the day when the alienist told him that Mateus the outfitter appeared to suffer from petromania, a mania that he, Bacamarte, had recently discovered, because of the way Mateus was observed to stare every morning in rapt contemplation of the stone walls of his house.

“No, sir!” Crispim Soares hurriedly corrected him.

“No?”

“Excuse me, but perhaps it has escaped your attention that he isn’t
contemplating
the stonework every morning, he is
inspecting
it. Then, in the afternoon, it’s his neighbors who inspect him
and
the stonework.” And he told the alienist what Mateus did every evening for two or three hours.

The sheer pleasure of Science shone in the eyes of Simão Bacamarte. Perhaps he had known nothing of the outfitter’s habit in the evenings. Perhaps he now interrogated Crispim merely in order to confirm a preexisting hunch or hypothesis. Whatever the case may be, the apothecary’s explanation satisfied him, because he expressed happiness, but as a sage does, imperceptibly, and the other noticed nothing that might lead him to suspect the alienist had any ill intention. Far from it. And as it was evening, the alienist offered his arm, an invitation to go for a stroll. My Lord! It was the first time that Simão Bacamarte had bestowed such an honor on his friend and confidant. The invitation left Crispim Soares stunned and tremulous; yes, he said, he was ready. At that point two or three people knocked on the door. Crispim mentally sent the lot of them to the devil. They might stop the stroll before it started, or worse, displace him from it. He couldn’t wait to leave. How awful! At last they set out. The alienist directed their steps to the vicinity of the mule outfitter’s house, spotted him in the window, walked back and forth in front of the house five or six times, slowly, stopping to observe his pose and facial expressions. And poor Mateus, seeing that he had awakened the curiosity or admiration of the most prominent figure of Itaguaí, struck a yet more noble pose and intensified his facial expressions. Poor man, poor man, he only sealed his fate. The next day they took him to the Casa Verde.

“The Casa Verde is nothing but a private prison,” said a failed physician.

And the phrase spread like wildfire in Itaguaí: “a private prison,” they repeated, from north to south and east to west. The talk was driven by fear. In the week following the arrest of poor Mateus, more than twenty people, two or three of them leading citizens, had been taken forcibly to the Casa Verde. The alienist said that they were all pathological cases, but few people were inclined to believe him. The rumor mill rumbled on. Revenge, greed, divine punishment, the monomania of the alienist, a plot hatched in the viceregal capital Rio de Janeiro to hinder the progress of the provincial cities throughout Brazil, and a thousand other explanations that explained nothing—such was the stuff that the popular imagination produced daily during that week.