Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

fingers.
    “Go ahead,” he said, “but first…”
    He leaned over to kiss her hand when a voice a few steps away woke him up completely.

XLII
     
    “H ello there! Admiring the moon? It really is delightful. It’s a night made for lovers . . . Yes, delightful… It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a night like this … Just look down below there, the gaslights … Delightful! For lovers … Lovers always like the moon. In my time, in Icarai…”
    It was Siqueira, the awful major. Rubião didn’t know what tosay. Sofia, after the first few moments, got hold of herself. She replied that the night really was beautiful. Then she said that Rubião insisted in saying that Rio nights couldn’t compare with those in Barbacena, and in line with that he’d told an anecdote by a Father Mendes … “It was Mendes, wasn’t it?”
    “Mendes, yes, Father Mendes,” Rubião murmured. The major had trouble holding back his surprise. He’d seen the two hands together, Rubião’s head leaning over, the quick movement of them both when he came into the garden. And out of all that he got a Father Mendes … He looked at Sofia, saw she was smiling, tranquil, impenetrable. No fright, no fluster, she spoke so simply that the major thought his eyes had deceived him. But Rubião ruined everything. Annoyed, silent, all he could do was take out his watch to see what time it was, holding it up to his ear as if he thought it wasn’t running, then cleaning it with his handkerchief slowly, slowly, without looking at one or the other …
    “Well, you two have a talk. I’m going to see to the ladies, who shouldn’t be left alone. Have the men finished their dreadful card game yet?”
    “Just now,” the major replied, looking at Sofia curiously. “Just now, and they were asking about this gentleman. That’s why I came out, to see if I could find him in the garden. But have you been out here long?”
    “We just came out,” Sofia said.
    Then, patting the major lovingly on the back, she left the garden and went into the house. She didn’t go in through the parlor door but through another that opened into the dining room, so that when she reached the parlor from inside it was as if she’d just given orders for tea.
    Rubião, coming to, still couldn’t find anything to say and yet it was most urgent that he say something. That story about Father Mendes was a good idea. The worst of it was that there was no priest and no anecdote, and he was incapable of inventing anything. It seemed to him sufficient to say this:
    “The priest! Mendes! A very amusing person, Father Mendes!”
    “I knew him,” the major said, smiling. “Father Mendes? I knew him. He died a canon. Was he in Minas a long time?”
    “I think he was,” the other murmured, horrified.
    “He was from here, from Saquarema. He was missing this eye,” the major went on, raising his finger to his left eye. “I knew him well, if it’s the same one. It might be a different one.”
    “It might be.”
    “He died a canon. He was a man of good habits, but he had an eye for pretty girls, the way you look at a masterpiece. Is there any greater master painter than God? This Dona Sofia, for example, he never saw her on the street but what he’d say to me: ‘I saw the pretty Mrs. Palha today …’ He died a canon. He was from Saquarema … He really did have good taste … Our Palha’s wife really is a beauty, beautiful in face and in figure. Although I find her more well put together than pretty … What do you think?”
    “I think you’re right…”
    “She’s a fine person, an excellent lady of the house,” the major continued, lighting a cigar.
    The light from the match gave the major’s face a mocking expression, or something less harsh but no less adverse. Rubião felt a chill run up his spine. Could he have heard? Seen? Guessed? Was he an indiscreet person, a busybody? The man’s face didn’t clarify that point. In any case, it was safer to believe the