Mrs. Benedita E-Book

Machado de Assis

• Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 38

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

"Mrs. Benedita" is an elegant lady with discreet habits, who lives surrounded by social conventions and subtle observations of life around her. Narrated with Machado de Assis' characteristic subtle humor, the story follows the protagonist's reflections and attitudes towards themes such as reputation, appearances, and desire, gradually revealing unexpected layers of her personality.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Mrs. Benedita

SYNOPSIS

NOTICE

Mrs. Benedita - A portrait

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Mrs. Benedita

Machado de Assis

SYNOPSIS

“Mrs. Benedita” is an elegant lady with discreet habits, who lives surrounded by social conventions and subtle observations of life around her. Narrated with Machado de Assis' characteristic subtle humor, the story follows the protagonist's reflections and attitudes towards themes such as reputation, appearances, and desire, gradually revealing unexpected layers of her personality.

Keywords

Distinction, Conventions, Ambiguity

NOTICE

This text is a work in the public domain and reflects the norms, values and perspectives of its time. Some readers may find parts of this content offensive or disturbing, given the evolution in social norms and in our collective understanding of issues of equality, human rights and mutual respect. We ask readers to approach this material with an understanding of the historical era in which it was written, recognizing that it may contain language, ideas or descriptions that are incompatible with today's ethical and moral standards.

Names from foreign languages will be preserved in their original form, with no translation.

Mrs. Benedita - A portrait

Chapter I

The hardest thing in the world, after the task of governing, would be to say the exact age of Mrs. Benedita. Some gave her forty years, others forty-five, some thirty-six. A stockbroker put her at twenty-nine, but this opinion, tinged with ulterior motives, lacked the sincerity we all like to find in human judgments. I mention it only to say that Mrs.  Benedita had always been a model of good manners. The broker's cunning did nothing more than outrage her, albeit momentarily; I say momentarily. As for the other conjectures, ranging from thirty-six to forty-five, they were not out of keeping with Mrs. Benedita's features, which were maturely serious and youthfully graceful. But if anything is surprising, it is that there were any assumptions in this matter, when all that was needed was to ask her to find out the real truth. Mrs.  Benedita turned forty-two on Sunday, September 19, 1869. It is six o'clock in the afternoon; the family table is surrounded by relatives and friends, numbering twenty or twenty-five people.

Many of them had been at the dinners in 1868, 1867, and 1866, and had always heard frank references to the age of the lady of the house. In addition, there are a young woman and a young man at the table, her children; the boy is certainly still a child in size and manner, but the girl, Eulália, who is eighteen, looks twenty-one, such is the severity of her manner and features.

The joy of the guests, the excellence of the dinner, certain marriage negotiations entrusted to Canon Roxo, who is present here, and of which more will be said below, the good qualities of the lady of the house, all this gives the party an intimate and happy character. The canon rises to carve the turkey. Mrs. Benedita accepted this national custom of modest households of entrusting the turkey to one of the guests, rather than having it carved away from the table by servants, and the canon was the pianist on such solemn occasions. No one knew the anatomy of the animal better, nor knew how to operate with greater dexterity. Perhaps—and this phenomenon is left to the experts—perhaps the circumstance of the canonry added to the carver, in the minds of the guests, a certain amount of prestige that he would not have had, for example, if he had been a simple mathematics student or a clerk in an office. But, on the other hand, could a student or a clerk, without the lessons of long practice, have possessed the consummate art of the canon? That is another important question.

Let us turn, however, to the other guests, who are standing around, chatting; the murmur of half-full stomachs reigns, the laughter of nature moving toward satiety; it is a moment of rest.