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- Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Emília, a charming and experienced widow, tries to seduce Tito, a cold young man incapable of love, who remains indifferent to her amorous advances. Used to exerting fascination over men, Emília is frustrated by the impassivity of Tito, who seems immune to her game of seduction. In the end, Machado de Assis reflects on the different paths that each person can choose to follow in life and in love.
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Seitenzahl: 69
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Straight Line and Curved Line
Machado de Assis
SYNOPSIS
Emília, a charming and experienced widow, tries to seduce Tito, a cold young man incapable of love, who remains indifferent to her amorous advances. Used to exerting fascination over men, Emília is frustrated by the impassivity of Tito, who seems immune to her game of seduction. In the end, Machado de Assis reflects on the different paths that each person can choose to follow in life and in love.
Keywords
Seduction, Impassibility, Frustration in love
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.
I
It was in Petrópolis, in the year 186... You can see that my story doesn't date back very far. It's taken from contemporary annals and current customs. Perhaps some of the readers even know the characters who will appear in this little picture. It won't be unusual for one of my readers, meeting one of them tomorrow, Azevedo, for example, to exclaim:
"Ah, I've seen a story about you. The author didn't treat you badly. But the resemblance was so great, there was so little care taken to disguise the physiognomy, that as I turned the page, I said to myself: It's Azevedo, there's no doubt about it."
Happy Azevedo! At the time this story begins, he is a happy husband, entirely happy. Freshly married, with the most beautiful lady in society as his wife, and the best soul that has yet been incarnated in the American sun, the owner of some well-placed and perfectly profitable properties, respectable, beloved, rested, such is our Azevedo, whose most beautiful twenty-six years have crowned him with fortune.
Fortune has given him a soft job: doing nothing. He has a bachelor's degree in law, but it's never worked for him; it's kept at the bottom of the classic tin can in which he brought it from the Faculty of São Paulo. From time to time Azevedo pays a visit to the diploma, which he has earned legitimately, but he never sees it again until a long time later. It's not a diploma, it's a relic.
When Azevedo left university in São Paulo and returned to his farm in the province of Minas Gerais, he had a plan: to go to Europe. After a few months, his father agreed to the trip, and Azevedo prepared to make it happen. He arrived at court with the firm intention of taking a seat on the first ship that left; but not everything depends on the will of the man. Azevedo went to a ball before leaving; there was a net set up for him to be caught in. What a net! Twenty years old, a delicate, slender, slight figure, one of those vaporous figures that seem to fall apart at the first ray of sunshine. Azevedo was no master of himself: he fell in love; a month later he got married, and eight days later he left for Petrópolis.
What house would house such a beautiful, loving and happy couple? The house they chose couldn't have been more appropriate; it was a light, slender, elegant building, more for recreation than for living in; a real nest for those two fugitive doves.
Our story begins exactly three months after the departure for Petrópolis. Azevedo and his wife still loved each other as they had on the first day. Love then took on a new and greater strength. I must say, three-month-old couples, the first child was on the horizon. The earth and the sky also rejoice when the first ray of the sun appears on the horizon. The figure doesn't come here simply for the sake of style; it's a logical deduction: Azevedo's wife was called Adelaide.
It was in Petrópolis, on a December afternoon in 186... Azevedo and Adelaide were in the garden in front of the house where they hid their happiness. Azevedo was reading aloud; Adelaide was listening to him read, but as one hears an echo from the heart, both her husband's voice and the words of the work corresponded to the girl's inner feelings.
After a while, Azevedo stopped and asked:
"Do you want us to stop here?"
"As you wish," said Adelaide.
"It's better," said Azevedo, closing the book. "Good things can't be enjoyed in one sitting. Let's save some for the evening. Besides, it's about time I moved on from the written idyll to the living idyll. Let me look at you."
Adelaide looked at him and said:
"It looks like we've started our honeymoon."
"It seems and it is," Azevedo added. "And if marriage wasn't eternally this, what could it be? The linking of two existences in order to discreetly meditate on the best way to eat maxixe and cabbage? For heaven's sake! I think marriage should be an eternal courtship. Don't you think like me?"
"I do," said Adelaide.
"You feel it, that's all it takes."
"But it's natural for women to feel; men..."
"Men are men."
"What in women is sentiment, in men is cheesiness; I've been told that since I was a little girl."
"They've been fooling you since you were little," said Azevedo, laughing.
"Rather that!"
"It's the truth. And always be wary of those who talk the most, whether they're men or women. You have an example nearby. Emília talks a lot about her exemption. How many times has she been married? Two so far, and she's in her 25th year. It would be better to shut up more and marry less."
"But with her it’s a joke," said Adelaide.
"No, it's not. What's not a joke is that the three months of our marriage seem like three minutes to me..."
"Three months!" exclaimed Adelaide.
"How time slips away!" said Azevedo.
"Will you always say the same thing?" asked Adelaide with a gesture of incredulity.
Azevedo hugged her and asked:
"Do you doubt it?"
"I'm afraid so. It's so good to be happy!"
"You'll always be the same. I don't understand any other way."
Just then, they both heard a voice coming from the garden door.
"What don't you understand?" said the voice.
They looked around.
At the garden door stood a tall, good-looking man, dressed elegantly, with straw-colored gloves and a whip in his hand.
Azevedo didn't seem to know him at first. Adelaide looked at one and the other without understanding anything. All this, however, lasted no more than a minute; at the end of it Azevedo exclaimed:
"I's Tito! Come in, Tito!"
Tito gallantly entered the garden, embraced Azevedo and graciously greeted Adelaide.
"She's my wife," said Azevedo, introducing Adelaide to the newcomer.
"I suspected as much," replied Tito, "and I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate you."
"Did you get our letter of participation?"
"In Valparaiso."
"Come and sit down and tell me about your trip."
"That's long," said Tito, sitting down. "What I can tell you is that I landed in Rio yesterday. I tried to find out your address. They told me you were temporarily in Petrópolis. I rested, but then today I took the Prainha ferry and here I am. I already suspected that with your poet's spirit you would hide your happiness in some corner of the world. Indeed, this is truly a slice of paradise. A garden, bower beds, a light and elegant house, a book. Bravo! Marília de Dirceu... It's complete! Tityre, tu patulae. I fall into the middle of an idyll. Shepherdess, where's your staff?"
Adelaide laughs.
Tito continues:
"She really does laugh like a happy little shepherdess. And what are you doing, Theocritus? Do you let the days flow like the waters of the Paraíba? Happy creature!"
"Always the same!" said Azevedo.
"The same madman? Do you think he's right, ma'am?"
"Yes, if I don't offend him..."
"What offense! I'm a harmless weirdo, that's true. But you really are happy like few others. How many months have you been married?"
"Three months ago Sunday," Adelaide replied.
"I said earlier that it seemed like three minutes," added Azevedo.
Tito looked at them both and smiled:
"Three months, three minutes! That's the whole truth of life. If you put them on a grid, like Saint Lawrence, five minutes would be five months. And people still talk about time! There is time! Time is in our impressions. There are months for the unfortunate and minutes for the fortunate!"
"What a fortune!" exclaims Azevedo.
"Complete, isn't it? I can imagine! Husband of a seraphim, in grace and in heart, I didn't notice you were here... but there's no need to blush... You'll hear me say this twenty times a day; what I think, I say. How our friends won't envy you!"
"I don't know."
