The War Of The End Of The World Part 14

"We'll see how she feels when she wakes up in the morning." The baron had sat back down and synchronized the swaying of his rocking chair with that of his host.

"Burning down Calumbi! People who owe you so much!" Murau again traced one of his circles in the air and scratched his chin. "I hope that Moreira Cesar makes them pay dearly for it. I'd like to be there when he starts slitting throats."

"Isn't there any news of him yet?" Gumucio interrupted him. "He should have finished off Canudos some time ago."

"Yes, I've been making calculations," the baron said, nodding. "Even with lead in his feet, he must have reached Canudos many days ago. Unless..." He noted that his friends were looking at him, intrigued. "I mean to say, another attack, like the one that forced him to seek refuge in Calumbi. Perhaps he's had yet another one."

"That's all we need-to have Moreira Cesar die of illness before he's put an end to this iniquity," Jose Bernardo Murau growled.

"It's also possible that there aren't any telegraph lines left in the region," Gumucio said. "If the jaguncos jaguncos burn the fields so as to let them have a little nap, they doubtless destroy the telegraph wires and the poles so as to keep them from having headaches. The colonel may have no way of getting a message out." burn the fields so as to let them have a little nap, they doubtless destroy the telegraph wires and the poles so as to keep them from having headaches. The colonel may have no way of getting a message out."

The baron gave a labored smile. The last time they had been gathered together here, Moreira Cesar's arrival had seemed like the death announcement of the Bahia Autonomist Party.

And now they were consumed with impatience to learn the details of the colonel's victory against those whom he was trying his best to pa.s.s off as restorationists and agents of the English Crown. The baron reflected on all this without taking his eyes off the sleeping baroness: she was pale, but the expression on her face was calm.

"Agents of the English Crown?" he suddenly exclaimed. "Hors.e.m.e.n who burn down haciendas so that the earth may have a rest! I heard it and still don't believe it. A cangaceiro cangaceiro like Pajeu, a murderer, a rapist, a thief, a man who cuts off people's ears, who sacks towns, suddenly become a religious crusader! I saw him with my own eyes. It's hard to believe I was born in these parts, and spent a good many years of my life here. It's a strange land to me now. These people aren't the same ones I've known as long as I can remember. Maybe that Scottish anarchist understands them better than I do. Or the Counselor. It's quite possible that only madmen understand other madmen..." He gestured in despair and left his sentence unfinished. like Pajeu, a murderer, a rapist, a thief, a man who cuts off people's ears, who sacks towns, suddenly become a religious crusader! I saw him with my own eyes. It's hard to believe I was born in these parts, and spent a good many years of my life here. It's a strange land to me now. These people aren't the same ones I've known as long as I can remember. Maybe that Scottish anarchist understands them better than I do. Or the Counselor. It's quite possible that only madmen understand other madmen..." He gestured in despair and left his sentence unfinished.

"Speaking of the Scottish anarchist," Gumucio said. The baron felt intensely uneasy: he knew the question would be asked, and had been expecting it for two hours now. "You surely know that I have never doubted your good judgment when it comes to politics. But I fail to understand why you would let the Scotsman go like that. He was a valuable prisoner, the best weapon we had against our number-one enemy." He looked at the baron, his eyes blinking. "Isn't that so?"

"Our number-one enemy is no longer Epaminondas, or any other Jacobin," the baron murmured dispiritedly. "It's the jaguncos jaguncos. The economic breakdown of Bahia. That's what's going to happen if there's not a stop put to this madness. The lands will remain uncultivatable, and everything's going to go to h.e.l.l. The livestock is being eaten, the cattle are disappearing. And what's worse still, a region where the lack of manpower has always been a problem is going to be depopulated. People are leaving in droves and we aren't going to be able to bring them back. We must halt at any price the ruin that Canudos is bringing down upon our heads."

He saw Gumucio's and Jose Bernardo's surprised and reproving looks and felt uncomfortable. "I know I haven't answered your question about Galileo Gall," he murmured. "By the way, that isn't even his real name. Why did I let him go? Perhaps it's another sign of the madness of the times, my contribution to the general folly." Without noticing, he traced a circle like Murau's with his hand. "I doubt that he would have been of any use to us, even if our war with Epaminondas goes on..."

"Goes on?" Gumucio growled. "It hasn't let up for a second, as far as I know. With the arrival of Moreira Cesar, the Jacobins in Salvador have become more arrogant than ever. The Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias is demanding that parliament try Viana and appoint a special tribunal to judge our conspiracies and shady deals." is demanding that parliament try Viana and appoint a special tribunal to judge our conspiracies and shady deals."

"I haven't forgotten the harm done us by the Progressivist Republicans," the baron interrupted him. "But at the moment things have taken a different turn."

"You're mistaken," Gumucio said. "They're just waiting for Moreira Cesar and the Seventh Regiment to enter Bahia with the Counselor's head to turn Viana out of office, close down parliament, and begin the witch-hunt against us."

"Has Epaminondas Goncalves lost anything at the hands of the monarchist restorationists?" The baron smiled. "In addition to Canudos, I for my part have lost Calumbi, the oldest and most prosperous hacienda in the interior. I have more reasons than he does to welcome Moreira Cesar as our savior."

"Nonetheless, none of this explains why you allowed the English corpse to escape your grasp in such cavalier fas.h.i.+on," Jose Bernardo said. The baron realized what a great effort it was costing the old man to utter these phrases. "Wasn't he living proof of Epaminondas's lack of scruples? Wasn't he a prize witness to bring forward to testify to that ambitious man's scorn for Brazil?"

"In theory, yes," the baron agreed. "In the realm of hypotheses."

"We would have paraded him in the same places that they paraded his famous mop of red hair," Gumucio murmured in an equally severe, hurt tone of voice.

"But not in practice," the baron went on. "Gall is not a normal madman. No, don't laugh. He's a special type of madman: a fanatic. He would not have testified in our favor but against us. He would have confirmed Epaminondas's accusations, and made us appear utterly ridiculous."

"I must contradict you again, I regret to say," Gumucio said. "There are any number of ways to get the truth out of both sane men and madmen."

"Not out of fanatics," the baron shot back. "Not out of those whose beliefs are stronger than their fear of dying. Torture would have no effect on Gall; it would merely reinforce his convictions. The history of religion provides many examples..."

"In that case, it would have been preferable to put a bullet through him and deliver his dead body," Murau muttered. "But simply to let him go..."

"I'm curious to know what happened to him," the baron said. "To know who killed him. The guide, so as not to take him to Canudos? The jaguncos jaguncos, so as to rob him? Or Moreira Cesar?"

"The guide?" Gumucio's eyes opened wide in surprise. "In addition to everything else, you gave him a guide?"

"And a horse." The baron nodded. "I had a weak spot in my heart for him. I felt compa.s.sion, sympathy for him."

"Compa.s.sion? Sympathy?" Jose Bernardo Murau repeated, rocking furiously in his chair. "For an anarchist who dreams of setting the world on fire, of wholesale bloodshed?"

"One who's already left a number of dead bodies in his wake, to judge from his papers," the baron said. "Unless they're fake, which is also possible. The poor fellow was convinced that Canudos represents universal brotherhood, a materialist paradise. He spoke of the jaguncos jaguncos as though they were his political comrades, fellow believers. It was impossible not to feel affection for him." as though they were his political comrades, fellow believers. It was impossible not to feel affection for him."

He noted that his friends were staring at him in greater and greater stupefaction.

"I have his testament," he told them. "Difficult reading, full of all sorts of nonsense, but interesting. It includes a detailed account of the plot cooked up by Epaminondas: how the latter hired him, then tried to kill him, and so on."

"It would have been better if he'd told his story publicly, in person," Adalberto de Gumucio said indignantly.

"n.o.body would have believed him," the baron replied. "The story dreamed up by Epaminondas Goncalves, with its secret agents and arms smugglers, is more believable than the real one. I'll translate a few paragraphs from it for you, after dinner. It's in English, naturally." He paused for a few seconds as he looked over at the baroness, who had sighed in her sleep. "Do you know why he gave me that testament? So I'd send it on to some anarchist rag in Lyons. Just think, I'm no longer conspiring with the British Crown but with French terrorists fighting for world revolution."

He laughed as he watched his friends' rage mounting by the second.

"As you see, we are unable to share your good humor," Gumucio said.

"I find that amusing, too, since it's my property that's been burned down."

"Never mind your bad jokes, and explain to us once and for all what you're up to," Murau said reprovingly.

"It's no longer important to do Epaminondas any harm whatsoever. He's a boor, a country b.u.mpkin," the Baron de Canabrava said. "What's important now is to reach an accommodation with the republicans. The war between us is over; circ.u.mstances have put an end to it. It's not possible to wage two wars at the same time. The Scotsman was of no use to us, and in the long run he would only have complicated matters."

"An accommodation with the Progressivist Republicans, you said?" Gumucio stared at him in stupefaction.

"I said accommodation, but what I was thinking of was an alliance, a pact," the baron answered. "It's difficult to understand, and even more difficult to bring off, but there's no other way. Well then, I think we may carry Estela to her room now."

[VI].

Drenched to the skin, curled up on a blanket indistinguishable from the mud, the nearsighted correspondent from the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias hears the cannons roar. Partly because of the rain and partly because battle is imminent, no one is asleep. He p.r.i.c.ks up his ears: are the bells of Canudos still pealing in the darkness? All he can hear is the cannons firing at intervals and bugles blowing the call to charge and slit throats. Have the hears the cannons roar. Partly because of the rain and partly because battle is imminent, no one is asleep. He p.r.i.c.ks up his ears: are the bells of Canudos still pealing in the darkness? All he can hear is the cannons firing at intervals and bugles blowing the call to charge and slit throats. Have the jaguncos jaguncos also given a name to the symphony of whistles with which they have tortured the Seventh Regiment ever since Monte Santo? He is overcome with anxiety, frightened, s.h.i.+vering from the cold. He is soaked to his very bones from the rain. He thinks of his colleague, the elderly journalist who feels the cold so badly; on being left in the rear with the half-naked soldier boys, he said to him: "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, my young friend." Is he dead? Have he and those youngsters met the same fate as the fair-haired sergeant and the soldiers of his patrol whose corpses they came upon late yesterday afternoon in the foothills of this mountain range? At that very moment the bells down below answer the bugles of the regiment, a dialogue in the dark, rainy shadows that are a prelude to the one that will take place between shotguns and rifles as soon as day breaks. also given a name to the symphony of whistles with which they have tortured the Seventh Regiment ever since Monte Santo? He is overcome with anxiety, frightened, s.h.i.+vering from the cold. He is soaked to his very bones from the rain. He thinks of his colleague, the elderly journalist who feels the cold so badly; on being left in the rear with the half-naked soldier boys, he said to him: "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, my young friend." Is he dead? Have he and those youngsters met the same fate as the fair-haired sergeant and the soldiers of his patrol whose corpses they came upon late yesterday afternoon in the foothills of this mountain range? At that very moment the bells down below answer the bugles of the regiment, a dialogue in the dark, rainy shadows that are a prelude to the one that will take place between shotguns and rifles as soon as day breaks.

He might well have shared the fate that befell the fair-haired sergeant and his patrol: he had been about to agree when Moreira Cesar suggested that he accompany them. Was it his fatigue that had saved him? A presentiment? Chance? That was just yesterday, but in his memory it seems a very long time ago, because all during the day just past, Canudos seemed like somewhere they would never reach. The head of the column stops and the nearsighted journalist remembers that his ears were ringing, that his legs were trembling, that his lips were chapped. The colonel is leading his horse by the reins and the officers are indistinguishable from the soldiers and the guides, for they all look the same on foot. He notes the fatigue, the dirt, the deprivation all around him. A dozen soldiers break ranks, step swiftly forward, and stand at attention before the colonel and Major Cunha Matos. The one who is to lead the patrol is the young sergeant who brought the parish priest of c.u.mbe in as a prisoner.

He hears him click his heels, repeat his orders. "Take up a commanding position at Caracata close off the ravine with cross fire once the a.s.sault has begun." The sergeant has the same resolute, healthy, optimistic spirit that he has noted in him at all times during the march. "Have no fear, sir, no outlaw is going to escape by way of Caracata."

Was the guide who lined up alongside the sergeant the same one who accompanied the patrols that went out to search for water? It was their guide at any rate who led the sergeant and his men into the ambush, and the nearsighted journalist thinks to himself that it is only by a sheer miracle that he is here, his mind in a daze. Colonel Moreira Cesar spies him sitting on the ground, completely worn out, stiff and aching all over, with his portable writing desk on his knees. "Do you want to go with the patrol? You'll be safer in Caracata than you will be with us."

What had made him say no, after a few seconds' hesitation? He remembers that the young sergeant and he had talked together a number of times: he had asked him questions about the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias and his work; Colonel Moreira Cesar was the person he admired most in the world-"even more than Marshal Floriano"-and like the colonel, he believed that civilian politicians were a catastrophe for the Republic, a source of corruption and divisiveness, and that only men bearing swords and uniforms were capable of regenerating the Fatherland debased by monarchical rule. and his work; Colonel Moreira Cesar was the person he admired most in the world-"even more than Marshal Floriano"-and like the colonel, he believed that civilian politicians were a catastrophe for the Republic, a source of corruption and divisiveness, and that only men bearing swords and uniforms were capable of regenerating the Fatherland debased by monarchical rule.

Has it stopped raining? The nearsighted journalist turns over onto his back, without opening his eyes. Yes, it is no longer pouring; that fine penetrating mist is being driven their way by the wind sweeping down the hillside. The cannon fire has also stopped and his mental image of the young sergeant is replaced by that of the elderly journalist who suffers from the cold: his straw-colored hair that had turned almost white, his kindly face that had taken on a sickly cast, his m.u.f.fler, his fingernails that he so often contemplated as though they were an aid to meditation. Was he, too, hanging dead from a tree? Not long after the patrol has left, a messenger has come to tell the colonel that something is happening among the youngsters. The company of youngsters! he thinks. It's all written down, it's in the bottom of the pouch he's lying on top of so as to protect it from the rain, four or five pages telling the story of those adolescents, barely past childhood, that the Seventh Regiment recruits without asking them how old they are. Why does it do that? Because, according to Moreira Cesar, youngsters have a surer aim, steadier nerves than adults. He has seen, has spoken with these soldiers fourteen or fifteen years old who are known as the youngsters. Hence, when he hears the messenger say that something is happening among them, the nearsighted journalist follows the colonel to the rear guard. Half an hour later they come upon them.

In the rain-drenched shadows, a s.h.i.+ver runs down his body from head to foot. The bugles and the bells ring out again, very loud now, but in the late-afternoon sun he continues to see the eight or nine soldier boys, squatting on their heels or lying exhausted on the gravelstrewn ground. The companies of the rear guard are leaving them behind. They are the youngest ones, they seem to be wearing masks, and are obviously dying of hunger and exhaustion. Dumfounded, the nearsighted journalist spies his colleague among them. A captain with a luxuriant mustache, who appears to be the victim of warring feelings-pity, anger, hesitation-greets the colonel: they refused to go any farther, sir. What should I do? The journalist does his best to spur his colleague on, to persuade him to get up, to pull himself together. "I needn't have tried to reason with him," he thinks. "If he'd had an ounce of strength left, he'd have gone on." He remembers how his legs were all sprawled out, how pale his face was, how he lay there panting like a dog. One of the boys is whimpering: they'd rather you ordered them killed, sir, the blisters on their feet are infected, their heads are buzzing, they can't go a single step farther. The youngster is sobbing, his hands joined as though in prayer, and little by little those who are not weeping also burst into tears, hiding their faces in their hands and curling up in a ball at the colonel's feet.

He remembers the look in Moreira Cesar's cold little eyes as they sweep back and forth over the group. "I thought that it would make real men of you sooner if I put you in the ranks. You're going to miss out on the best part of all. You boys have disappointed me. To keep you from being carried on the rolls as deserters, I'm giving you your discharge. Hand over your rifles and your uniforms."

The nearsighted journalist gives half his water ration to his colleague, who immediately thanks him with a smile, as the youngsters, leaning weakly on each other, take off their high-b.u.t.toned tunics and kepis and hand their rifles over to the armorers.

"Don't stay here, it's too open," Moreira Cesar says to them. "Try to get back to the rocky hilltop where we halted to rest this morning. Hide there till a patrol comes past. There isn't much chance of that, however."

He turns on his heels and returns to the head of the column. As his farewell words to him, his colleague whispers to the journalist: "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, my young friend." With his absurd m.u.f.fler wound around his neck, the old man stays behind, sitting there like a cla.s.s monitor amid half-naked, bawling kids. He thinks: "It rained back there, too." He imagines the surprise, the happiness, the resurrection that this sudden downpour, sent by heaven seconds after it was hidden from sight by dark, lowering clouds, must have been for the old man and the youngsters. He imagines their disbelief, their smiles, their mouths opening greedily, joyously, their hands cupping to catch the drops; he imagines the boys rising to their feet, hugging each other, refreshed, encouraged, restored body and soul. Have they begun marching again, perhaps catching up with the rear guard? Hunching over till his chin is touching his knees, the nearsighted journalist tells himself that this isn't so: their mental and physical states were such that not even the rain would have been capable of getting them on their feet again.

How many hours has it been raining now? It began at nightfall, as the vanguard was starting to take up positions on the heights of Canudos. There is an indescribable explosion of joy throughout the regiment; men from the ranks and officers leap about, clap each other on the back, drink out of their kepis, stand with outstretched arms beneath the deluge from the sky; the colonel's white horse whinnies, shakes its mane, stamps its hoofs in the mud that is beginning to form. The nearsighted journalist manages only to raise his head, close his eyes, open his mouth, his nostrils, incredulous, sent into ecstasies by these drops that are pelting his very bones. He is so absorbed, so overjoyed that he hears neither the shots nor the cries of the soldier rolling about on the ground alongside him, moaning with pain and clutching his face. When he finally becomes aware of the chaos round about him, he stoops over, picks up the portable writing desk and the leather pouch, and puts them over his head. From this miserable refuge he sees Captain Olimpio de Castro shooting his revolver and soldiers running for shelter or flinging themselves face down in the mud. And between the muddy legs scissoring back and forth he sees-the image is frozen in his memory like a daguerreotype-Colonel Moreira Cesar grabbing the reins of his horse, leaping into the saddle, and with saber unsheathed charging, not knowing if any of his men are following him, toward the patch of scrub from which the shots have come. "He was shouting 'Long live the Republic,' 'Long live Brazil,'" he thinks to himself. In the lead-colored light, amid the pouring rain and the wind whipping the trees back and forth, officers and men break into a run, echoing the colonel's shouts, and-forgetting the cold and his panic for a moment, the correspondent from the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias laughs to himself, remembering-he suddenly finds himself running, too, right alongside them, toward the thicket, to confront the invisible enemy, too. He remembers thinking as he stumbled along how stupid he was to be running toward a battle that he was not going to fight. What would he have fought it with? His portable writing desk? The leather pouch containing his changes of clothes and his papers? His empty inkwell? But the enemy, naturally, never appears. laughs to himself, remembering-he suddenly finds himself running, too, right alongside them, toward the thicket, to confront the invisible enemy, too. He remembers thinking as he stumbled along how stupid he was to be running toward a battle that he was not going to fight. What would he have fought it with? His portable writing desk? The leather pouch containing his changes of clothes and his papers? His empty inkwell? But the enemy, naturally, never appears.

"What did appear was worse," he thinks, and another s.h.i.+ver runs down his spine, like a lizard. Once again he sees the landscape, in the ashen afternoon that is beginning to turn to dusk, become a phantasmagoria, with strange human fruit hanging from the umburanas umburanas and the thornbushes, and boots, scabbards, tunics, kepis dangling from the branches. Some of the corpses are already skeletons picked clean of eyes, bellies, b.u.t.tocks, muscles, privates by vultures or rodents, and their nakedness stands out sharply against the spectral greenish-gray of the trees and the dark-colored earth. Standing rooted to the spot for an instant by the incredible sight, he then walks in a daze amid these remains of men and uniforms adorning the and the thornbushes, and boots, scabbards, tunics, kepis dangling from the branches. Some of the corpses are already skeletons picked clean of eyes, bellies, b.u.t.tocks, muscles, privates by vultures or rodents, and their nakedness stands out sharply against the spectral greenish-gray of the trees and the dark-colored earth. Standing rooted to the spot for an instant by the incredible sight, he then walks in a daze amid these remains of men and uniforms adorning the caatinga caatinga. Moreira Cesar has dismounted and is surrounded by the officers and men who have followed him as he charged. They are petrified. The shouts and the mad dashes of a moment before have been succeeded by a deep silence, a tense motionlessness. They are all standing staring at the sight before them, and on their faces stupefaction, fear gradually give way to sadness, anger. The young fair-haired sergeant's head is still intact-though the eyes are gone-and his body a ma.s.s of dark purple bruises and protruding bones, with swollen wounds that seem to be bleeding as the rain streams down. He sways back and forth, very slowly. From that moment on, even before being overcome with pity and horror, the nearsighted journalist has thought about what he cannot help thinking about, what is gnawing at him this minute and preventing him from sleeping: the stroke of luck, the miracle that kept him from being there too, naked, hacked to pieces, castrated by the knives of the jaguncos jaguncos or the beaks of the vultures, hanging amid the cacti. Someone breaks into sobs. It is Captain Olimpio de Castro, who raises his arms to his face, his pistol still in his hand. In the half shadow, the nearsighted journalist sees that other officers and men are also weeping for the fair-haired sergeant and his patrol, whom they have begun taking down. Moreira Cesar remains there, witnessing this operation that is taking place in the gathering dark, his face set in a stony expression he has never seen on it before. Wrapped in blankets, the corpses are buried immediately, side by side, by soldiers who present arms in the darkness and fire a rifle volley in their honor.6 or the beaks of the vultures, hanging amid the cacti. Someone breaks into sobs. It is Captain Olimpio de Castro, who raises his arms to his face, his pistol still in his hand. In the half shadow, the nearsighted journalist sees that other officers and men are also weeping for the fair-haired sergeant and his patrol, whom they have begun taking down. Moreira Cesar remains there, witnessing this operation that is taking place in the gathering dark, his face set in a stony expression he has never seen on it before. Wrapped in blankets, the corpses are buried immediately, side by side, by soldiers who present arms in the darkness and fire a rifle volley in their honor.6 After the bugler has blown taps, Moreira Cesar points with his sword at the mountainside before them and delivers a very short speech. "The murderers have not fled, men. They are there, awaiting punishment. I say no more now, in order that bayonets and rifles may speak."

He hears the roar of the cannon again, closer this time, and gives a start, wide awake now. He remembers that in the last few days he has hardly sneezed once, not even in this rainy dampness, and he tells himself that the expedition will have been worthwhile to him for one reason at least: the nightmare of his life, the fits of sneezing that drove his fellow workers at the newspaper mad and often kept him awake all night long, have become less frequent, have perhaps disappeared altogether. He remembers that he began to smoke opium, not so much because he wanted to have the dreams it brings as because he wanted to sleep without sneezing, and he says to himself: "What a dull clod I am." He turns over on his side and looks up at the sky: a black expanse without a spark of light. It is so dark he cannot make out the faces of the soldiers lying next to him, to his right and to his left. But he can hear their heavy breathing, the words that escape their lips. Every so often, some of them get up and others lie down as the former climb up to the top of the mountain to take their places. He thinks: "It's going to be terrible." Something that can never be faithfully reproduced in writing. He thinks: "They are filled with hatred, intoxicated by their desire for vengeance, the desire to make someone pay for their exhaustion, hunger, thirst, the horses and animals lost, and above all for the mutilated, outraged dead bodies of the comrades they saw leave a few short hours before to take Caracata." He thinks: "It was what they needed to reach a fever pitch. That hatred is what has enabled them to scale the rocky mountainsides at a frenetic pace, clenching their teeth, and what must be causing them to lie there unable to sleep now, clutching their weapons, looking down obsessively from the crest at the shadows below where their prey awaits them, hated in the beginning out of duty but hated intimately and personally now, like enemies from whom it is their duty to collect a debt of honor owed them."

Because of the mad cadence at which the Seventh Regiment stormed up the hillsides, he was unable to remain at the head of the column with the colonel, his staff officers, and his escort. He was prevented from doing so by the fading light, his constant stumbling and falling, his swollen feet, his heart that seemed to be about to burst, his pounding temples. What made him hold out, struggle back to his feet again and again, go on climbing? He thinks: fear of being left all by myself, curiosity as to what is going to happen. In one of his many falls he lost track of his portable writing desk, but a soldier with a bare scalp-they shave all the hair off those infested with lice-hands it to him a few minutes later. He has no use for it any more; his ink is all gone and his last goose-quill got broken the evening before. Now that the rain has stopped, he hears various sounds, a rattling of stones, and wonders if the companies are continuing to deploy in all directions during the night, if the cannons and machine guns are being hauled to a new emplacement, or if the vanguard has dashed down the mountainside without waiting for daybreak.

He has not been left behind all by himself; he has arrived before many of the troops. He feels a childish joy, the elation of having won a wager. The featureless silhouettes are no longer advancing now; they are eagerly opening bundles of supplies, slipping off their knapsacks. Their fatigue, their anxiety disappear. He asks where the command post is, goes from one group of men to another, wanders back and forth till he comes upon a canvas shelter stretched between poles, lighted by a feeble oil lamp. It is now pitch-dark, it is still raining buckets, and the nearsighted journalist remembers the feeling of safety, of relief that came over him as he crawled to the tent and spied Moreira Cesar. The latter is receiving reports, giving orders; an atmosphere of feverish activity reigns around the little table on which the oil lamp sputters. The nearsighted journalist collapses on the ground at the entrance, as he has on previous occasions, thinking that his position, his presence there are akin to a dog's, and doubtless Colonel Moreira Cesar a.s.sociates him in his mind, first and foremost, with a dog. He sees mud-spattered officers go in and out, he hears Colonel Tamarindo discussing the situation with Major Cunha Matos, and Colonel Moreira Cesar giving orders. The colonel is enveloped in a black cape and in the smoky light he looks strangely deformed. Has he had another attack of his mysterious malady? For at his side is Dr. Souza Ferreiro.

"Order the artillery to open fire," he hears him say. "Have the Krupps send them our visiting cards, so as to soften them up before we launch our attack."

As the officers begin to leave the tent, he is obliged to move aside to keep from being trampled underfoot.

"Have the regimental call sounded," the colonel says to Captain Olimpio de Castro.

Shortly thereafter, the nearsighted journalist hears the long, lugubrious, macabre bugle call that he heard as the column marched off from Queimadas. Moreira Cesar has risen to his feet and walks toward the door of the tent, half buried in his cape. He shakes hands with the officers who are leaving and wishes them good luck.

"Well, well! So you managed to get to Canudos," the colonel says as he catches sight of him. "I confess that I'm surprised. I never thought you'd be the only correspondent to accompany us this far."

And then, immediately losing all interest in him, he turns to Colonel Tamarindo. The call to charge and slit throats echoes back in the rain from different directions. As a silence falls, the nearsighted journalist suddenly hears bells pealing wildly. He remembers thinking what all the others were no doubt thinking: "The jaguncos jaguncos' answer."

"Tomorrow we will lunch in Canudos," he hears the colonel say. He feels his heart skip a beat, for tomorrow is already today.

He was awakened by a painful burning sensation: lines of ants were running up both his arms, leaving a trail of red marks on his skin. He slapped them dead with his hand as he shook his drowsy head. Studying the gray sky, the light growing fainter and fainter, Galileo Gall tried to guess what time it was. He had always envied Rufino, Jurema, the Bearded Lady, all the people in these parts for the certainty with which, after a mere glance at the sun or the stars, they could tell precisely what hour of the day or night it was. How long had he slept? Not long, since Ulpino hadn't come back yet. When he saw the first stars appear he gave a start. Could something have happened? Could Ulpino have lighted out, afraid to take him all the way to Canudos? He suddenly felt cold, a sensation it seemed to him he hadn't felt for ages.

A few hours later, in the clear night, he was certain that Ulpino was not going to come back. He rose to his feet and, with no idea where he was heading, started off in the direction indicated on a wooden sign that said Caracata. The little trail disappeared amid a labyrinth of th.o.r.n.y bushes that scratched him. He went back to the clearing. He managed to fall asleep, overcome with anxiety, and had nightmares that he remembered vaguely on awaking the next morning. He was so hungry that he forgot all about the guide for a good while and spent a fair time chewing on gra.s.ses till he had calmed the empty feeling in his belly. Then he explored his surroundings, convinced that the only solution was to find his own way. After all, it should not be all that difficult: all he needed to do was find a group of pilgrims and follow them. But where were they to be found? The thought that Ulpino had deliberately gotten him lost upset him so much that the moment this suspicion crossed his mind he instantly rejected it. In order to clear a path through the vegetation he had a stout branch; his double saddlebag was slung over his shoulder. Suddenly it began to rain. Drunk with elation, he was licking the drops falling on his face when he caught sight of figures amid the trees. He shouted to them and ran toward them, splas.h.i.+ng through the water, muttering "At last" to himself, when he recognized Jurema. And Rufino. He stopped dead in his tracks. Through a curtain of water, he saw the calm expression on the tracker's face and noted that he was leading Jurema along by a rope tied around her neck, like an animal. He saw him let go of the rope and spied the terrified face of the Dwarf. The three of them looked at him and he suddenly felt totally disconcerted, unreal. Rufino had a knife in his hand; his eyes were gleaming like burning coals.

"If it had been you, you wouldn't have come to defend your wife," he heard him say to him, with more scorn than rage. "You have no honor, Gall."

His feeling of unreality grew even more intense. He raised his free hand and made a peaceable, friendly gesture. "There's no time for this, Rufino. I can explain to you what happened. There's something that's much more urgent now. There are thousands of men and women who risk being killed because of a handful of ambitious politicians. It's your duty..."

But he realized he was speaking in English. Rufino was coming toward him and Galileo began to step back. The ground between them was a sea of mud. Behind Rufino, the Dwarf was trying to untie Jurema. "I'm not going to kill you yet," he thought he heard Rufino say, and apparently he added that he was going to slap him full in the face to dishonor him. Galileo felt like laughing. The distance between the two of them was growing shorter by the moment and he thought: "He's deaf to reason and he always will be." Hatred, like desire, canceled out intelligence and reduced man to a creature of sheer instinct. Was he about to die on account of such a stupid thing as a woman's c.u.n.t? He continued to make pacifying gestures and a.s.sumed a fearful, pleading expression. At the same time, he calculated the distance, and when Rufino was almost upon him, he suddenly lashed out at him with the stout stick he was clutching in his fist. The guide fell to the ground. He heard Jurema scream, but by the time she reached his side, he had already hit Rufino over the head twice more; the latter, stunned, had let go of his knife, which Gall picked up. He held Jurema off, indicating with a wave of his hand that he was not going to kill Rufino.

In a fury, shaking his fist at the man lying on the ground, he roared: "You blind, selfish, petty traitor to your cla.s.s-can't you see beyond your vainglorious little world? Men's honor doesn't lie in faces or in women's c.u.n.ts, you idiot. There are thousands of innocents in Canudos. The fate of your brothers is at stake: can't you understand?"

Rufino shook his head as he came to.

"You try to make him understand," Gall shouted to Jurema before he walked off. She stared at him as though he were mad, or someone she had never seen in her life before. Again he had the feeling that everything was absurd and unreal. Why hadn't he killed Rufino? The imbecile would pursue him to the end of the earth, he was certain. He ran, panting, through the scrub, raked by the thorns, amid torrents of rain, getting covered with mud, with no idea where he was going. He still had the stick and his double saddlebag, but he had lost his sombrero and could feel the drops bouncing off his skull. A while later-it might have been a few minutes or an hour-he stopped, then went on again, at a slow walk. There was no sort of trail, no reference point amid the brambles and the cacti, and his feet sank into the mud, holding him back. He could feel that he was sweating beneath the pouring rain. He silently cursed his luck. The light was fading and he could scarcely believe that it was already dusk. He finally realized that he was looking all around as though he were about to plead with those gray, barren trees, with barbs instead of leaves, to help him. He gestured, half in pity and half in desperation, and broke into a run again. But after just a few meters he stopped dead in his tracks, utterly unnerved by his helplessness. A sob escaped his lips.

"Rufinoooo, Rufinoooo!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Come on, come on, I'm here, I need you! Help me, take me to Canudos, let's do something useful, let's not be stupid. You can take your revenge, kill me, slap my face afterward. Rufinoooo!"

He heard his shouts echoing amid the splash of the raindrops. He was soaked to the skin, dying of cold. He went on walking aimlessly, his mouth working, slapping his legs with the stick. It was dusk, night would soon be falling, all this was perhaps just a nightmare-and suddenly the earth gave way beneath his feet. Before he hit bottom, he realized that he had stepped on a mat of branches concealing a deep pit. The fall did not knock him senseless: the earth at the bottom of the pit was soft from the rain. He stood up, felt his arms, his legs, his aching shoulder. He fumbled about for Rufino's knife, which had fallen out of his belt, and the thought occurred to him that he had had a chance to plunge it into Rufino. He tried to climb out of the hole, but his feet slipped and he fell back in. He sat down on the wet dirt, leaned back against the wall, and, with a feeling of something like relief, dropped off to sleep. He was awakened by a faint rustling of branches and leaves being trampled underfoot. He was about to give a shout when he felt a puff of air go past his shoulder and in the semidarkness saw a wooden dart bury itself in the dirt.

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" he yelled. "I'm a friend, a friend."

There were murmurs, voices, and he went on shouting till a lighted length of wood was thrust into the hole and he dimly made out human heads behind the flame. They were armed men, camouflaged in long cloaks made of woven gra.s.s. Several hands reached down and pulled him to the surface. There was a look of rapturous excitement on Galileo Gall's face as the jaguncos jaguncos examined him from head to foot by the light of torches sputtering in the dampness left by the recent rain. With their caparisons of gra.s.s, their cane whistles around their necks, their carbines, their machetes, their crossbows, their bandoleers, their rags, their scapulars and medals with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, they looked as though they were in disguise. As they peered at him, sniffed at him, with expressions that betrayed their surprise at coming upon this creature whom they were unable to cla.s.sify as belonging to any of the varieties of humans known to them, Galileo Gall asked insistently to be taken to Canudos: he could be of service to them, help the Counselor, explain to them the machinations of corrupt bourgeois politicians and military officers of which they were victims. He gesticulated violently so as to lend emphasis and eloquence to his words and fill in the gaps in his faltering Portuguese, looking first at one and then at another, wild-eyed with excitement; he had had long experience as a revolutionary, comrades, he had fought many a time at the side of the people, he wanted to share their destiny. examined him from head to foot by the light of torches sputtering in the dampness left by the recent rain. With their caparisons of gra.s.s, their cane whistles around their necks, their carbines, their machetes, their crossbows, their bandoleers, their rags, their scapulars and medals with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, they looked as though they were in disguise. As they peered at him, sniffed at him, with expressions that betrayed their surprise at coming upon this creature whom they were unable to cla.s.sify as belonging to any of the varieties of humans known to them, Galileo Gall asked insistently to be taken to Canudos: he could be of service to them, help the Counselor, explain to them the machinations of corrupt bourgeois politicians and military officers of which they were victims. He gesticulated violently so as to lend emphasis and eloquence to his words and fill in the gaps in his faltering Portuguese, looking first at one and then at another, wild-eyed with excitement; he had had long experience as a revolutionary, comrades, he had fought many a time at the side of the people, he wanted to share their destiny.

"Praised be the Blessed Jesus," he seemed to hear someone say.

Were they making fun of him? He began to stammer, to trip over his words, to struggle against the feeling of helplessness that was coming over him little by little as he realized that the things he was saying were not exactly the ones he wanted to say, the ones that they might have been able to understand. He was demoralized, above all, on seeing by the flickering light of the torches that the jaguncos jaguncos were exchanging knowing glances and gestures, and smiling at him pityingly, revealing mouths with either teeth missing or a tooth or two too many. Yes, what he was saying sounded like nonsense, but they had to believe him! He had had incredible difficulties getting to Canudos, but was here now to help them. Thanks to them, a fire that the oppressor believed to have been extinguished in the world had been rekindled. He fell silent again, disconcerted, disheartened by the complacent att.i.tude of the men in the gra.s.s cloaks, who showed no signs of anything save curiosity and compa.s.sion. He stood there with outstretched hands and felt tears well up in his eyes. What was he doing here? How had he managed to fall into this trap, from which there was no escape, believing the while that he was contributing his mite to the great undertaking of making the world a less barbarous place? Someone said helpfully that he mustn't be afraid: those people he spoke of were nothing but Freemasons, Protestants, servants of the Antichrist, and the Counselor and the Blessed Jesus had more power than they did. The man who was speaking had a long, narrow face and beady eyes, and p.r.o.nounced each word slowly and distinctly: when the time came, a king called Sebastiao would rise up out of the sea and ascend to Belo Monte. He mustn't weep, the innocents had been brushed by the wings of the angel and the Father would bring him back to life if the heretics killed him. He would have liked to answer that they were right, that beneath the deceptive verbal formulas they used to express themselves, he was able to hear the overwhelmingly evident truth of a battle under way, between good, represented by the poor, the long-suffering, the despoiled, and evil, championed by the rich and their armies, and that once this battle had ended, an era of universal brotherhood would begin. But he was unable to find the right words and could feel them sympathetically patting him on the back now to console him, for they could see that he was sobbing. He half understood a few words and bits of phrases: the kiss of the elect, someday he'd be rich, he should pray. were exchanging knowing glances and gestures, and smiling at him pityingly, revealing mouths with either teeth missing or a tooth or two too many. Yes, what he was saying sounded like nonsense, but they had to believe him! He had had incredible difficulties getting to Canudos, but was here now to help them. Thanks to them, a fire that the oppressor believed to have been extinguished in the world had been rekindled. He fell silent again, disconcerted, disheartened by the complacent att.i.tude of the men in the gra.s.s cloaks, who showed no signs of anything save curiosity and compa.s.sion. He stood there with outstretched hands and felt tears well up in his eyes. What was he doing here? How had he managed to fall into this trap, from which there was no escape, believing the while that he was contributing his mite to the great undertaking of making the world a less barbarous place? Someone said helpfully that he mustn't be afraid: those people he spoke of were nothing but Freemasons, Protestants, servants of the Antichrist, and the Counselor and the Blessed Jesus had more power than they did. The man who was speaking had a long, narrow face and beady eyes, and p.r.o.nounced each word slowly and distinctly: when the time came, a king called Sebastiao would rise up out of the sea and ascend to Belo Monte. He mustn't weep, the innocents had been brushed by the wings of the angel and the Father would bring him back to life if the heretics killed him. He would have liked to answer that they were right, that beneath the deceptive verbal formulas they used to express themselves, he was able to hear the overwhelmingly evident truth of a battle under way, between good, represented by the poor, the long-suffering, the despoiled, and evil, championed by the rich and their armies, and that once this battle had ended, an era of universal brotherhood would begin. But he was unable to find the right words and could feel them sympathetically patting him on the back now to console him, for they could see that he was sobbing. He half understood a few words and bits of phrases: the kiss of the elect, someday he'd be rich, he should pray.

"I want to go to Canudos," he managed to say, grabbing the arm of the man who was speaking. "Take me with you. May I follow you?"

"That's not possible," one of the jaguncos jaguncos answered, pointing in the direction of the mountaintop. "The dogs are up there. They'd slit your throat. Hide somewhere. You can come to Canudos later, when they're dead." answered, pointing in the direction of the mountaintop. "The dogs are up there. They'd slit your throat. Hide somewhere. You can come to Canudos later, when they're dead."

With rea.s.suring gestures, they vanished round about him, leaving him in the dark of night, bewildered, with a phrase echoing in his ears like a mocking joke: "Praised be the Blessed Jesus." He took a few steps, trying to follow them, but all of a sudden a meteor blocked his path and knocked him to the ground. He realized it was Rufino only after he was already fighting with him, and as he hit out and was. .h.i.t back, the thought came to him that the little bright spots gleaming like quicksilver that he had glimpsed behind the jaguncos jaguncos had been the tracker's eyes. Had he been waiting until the men from Canudos left, so as to attack him? They did not exchange insults as they struck each other, panting in the mire of the had been the tracker's eyes. Had he been waiting until the men from Canudos left, so as to attack him? They did not exchange insults as they struck each other, panting in the mire of the caatinga caatinga. It was raining again and Gall heard the thunder, the splas.h.i.+ng drops, and for some reason the animal violence of the two of them freed him of his despair and for the moment gave his life meaning. As he bit, kicked, scratched, b.u.t.ted, he heard a woman screaming, doubtless Jurema calling to Rufino, and mingled with her cries the Dwarf's shrill voice, calling to Jurema. But soon all these sounds were drowned out by the repeated blare of bugles coming from the heights and a pealing of church bells in answer. It was as though those bugles and bells, whose meaning he sensed, were of help to him; he was fighting with more energy now, feeling neither pain nor fatigue. He kept falling and getting up again, not knowing whether what he felt trickling over his skin was sweat, rain, or blood. All of a sudden, Rufino slipped out of his hands, sunk from sight, and he heard the dull thud of the body hitting the bottom of the hole. Gall lay there panting, feeling with his hand the edge of the pit that had decided the fight, thinking that this was the first good thing that had happened to him in several days.

"Opinionated fool! Madman! Conceited, pigheaded b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he shouted, choking with rage. "I'm not your enemy, your enemies are the men who are blowing those bugles. Can't you hear them? That's more important than my s.e.m.e.n, than your wife's c.u.n.t, where you've placed your honor, like a stupid bourgeois."

He realized that, once again, he'd spoken in English. With an effort he rose to his feet. It was raining buckets and the water that fell into his open mouth felt good. Limping because he'd hurt his leg, perhaps when he fell into the pit, perhaps in the fight, he walked on through the caatinga caatinga, feeling his way through the branches and sharp thorns of the trees, stumbling. He tried to take his bearings from the slow, sad, funereal call of the bugles or the solemn peal of the bells, but the sounds seemed to keep s.h.i.+fting direction. And at that moment something grabbed his feet and sent him rolling on the ground, feeling mud between his teeth. He kicked, trying to free himself, and heard the Dwarf moan.

Clinging to him in terror, the Dwarf cried in his shrill voice: "Don't abandon me, Gall, don't leave me by myself. Don't you hear those whoos.h.i.+ng sounds? Don't you see what they are, Gall?"

Once again he experienced that sensation that it was all a nightmare, unreal, absurd. He remembered that the Dwarf could see in the dark and that sometimes the Bearded Lady called him "cat" and "owl." He was so exhausted that he continued to lie there, letting the Dwarf cling to him, listening to him whimper over and over that he didn't want to die. He raised a hand to his shoulder and rubbed it as he strained his ears to hear. There was no doubt about it: they were cannon reports. He had been hearing them at intervals for some time now, thinking that they were deep drumrolls, but now he was certain that they were artillery fire. From cannons, no doubt small ones, or perhaps only mortars, but even so they were enough to blow Canudos sky-high. He was so worn out that he either fainted or fell dead asleep.

The next thing he knew, he was trembling with cold in the feeblest of first light. He heard the Dwarf's teeth chattering and saw his big eyes rolling in terror. The little fellow must have slept propped up on Gall's right leg, for it had gone numb. He gradually roused himself, blinked, looked around: hanging from the trees were bits and pieces of uniforms, kepis, field boots, greatcoats, canteens, knapsacks, saber and bayonet scabbards, and a few crude crosses. It was these tattered objects hanging from the trees that the Dwarf was staring at spellbound, as though he were not seeing these belongings but the ghosts of those who had worn them. "At least they defeated these men," he thought.

He listened. Yes, more cannon fire. It had stopped raining a good many hours before, since everything around him was dry by now, but the cold gnawed his very bones. Weak and aching all over, he managed to struggle to his feet. He spied the knife in his belt and thought to himself that it had never crossed his mind to use it as he was fighting with Rufino. Why had he not tried to kill him this second time either? He heard yet another cannonade, very distinctly now, and a din of bugles, that lugubrious call that sounded like funeral taps. As though in a dream, he saw Rufino and Jurema appear from between the trees. The tracker was badly hurt, or exhausted, for he was leaning on her for support, and Gall knew intuitively that Rufino had spent the night tirelessly searching for him in the darkness of the thicket. He felt hatred for the man's obstinacy, for his single-minded, unshakable determination to kill him.

They looked each other straight in the eye and Gall felt himself tremble. He pulled the knife out of his belt and pointed in the direction from which the bugle calls were coming. "Do you hear that?" he said in a slow, deliberate voice. "Your brothers are under artillery fire, they're dying like flies. You kept me from going to join them and dying with them. You've made a stupid clown of me..."

Rufino had a sort of wooden dagger in his hand. He saw him let go of Jurema, push her away, crouch down to attack. "What a wretched b.a.s.t.a.r.d you are, Gall," he heard him say. "You talk a lot about the poor, but you betray a friend and dishonor the house where you're given hospitality."

He shut him up by throwing himself on him, blind with rage. They began hacking each other to pieces as Jurema watched in a daze, overcome with anguish and fatigue. The Dwarf doubled over in terror.

"I won't die for my own wretchedness, Rufino," Gall roared. "My life is worth more than a little s.e.m.e.n, you miserable creature."

They were rolling over and over together on the ground when the two soldiers appeared, running hard. On catching sight of them, they stopped short. Their uniforms were half torn away, and one of them had lost his boots, but they were holding their rifles at the ready.

The Dwarf hid his head. Jurema ran to them, stepped in their line of fire, and begged: "Don't shoot! They're not jaguncos... jaguncos..."

But the soldiers fired point blank at the two adversaries and then threw themselves upon her, grunting, and dragged her into the dry underbrush. Badly wounded, the tracker and the phrenologist went on fighting.

"I should be happy, since this means that my bodily suffering will be over, that I shall see the Father and the Blessed Virgin," Maria Quadrado thought. But she was transfixed with fear, though she tried her best not to let the women of the Sacred Choir see that she was. If they noticed, they, too, would be paralyzed by fear and the entire structure devoted to caring for the Counselor would collapse. And in the hours to come, she was certain, the Sacred Choir would be needed more than ever. She asked G.o.d's forgiveness for her cowardice and tried to pray as she always had, and had taught the women to do, as the Counselor met with the apostles. But she found herself unable to concentrate on the Credo. Abbot Joao and Big Joao were no longer insisting on taking the Counselor to the refuge, but the Street Commander was endeavoring to dissuade him from making the rounds of the trenches: the battle might take you by surprise, out in the open, with no protection, Father.

The Counselor never argued, and he did not do so now. He gently removed the head of the Lion of Natuba from his knees and placed it on the floor without disturbing the Lion's sleep. He rose to his feet and Abbot Joao and Big Joao also stood up. He had become thinner still in recent days and looked even taller now. A s.h.i.+ver ran down Maria Quadrado's spine as she saw how greatly troubled he was: his eyes narrowed in a deep frown, his mouth half open in a grimace that was like a terrible premonition.

She decided then and there to accompany him. She did not always do so, especially in recent weeks when, because of the press of the crowds in the narrow streets, the Catholic Guard was obliged to form such an unyielding wall around the Counselor that it had been difficult for her and the women of the Choir to stay close to him. But now she suddenly felt it absolutely necessary to go with him. She gestured and the women of the Choir flocked to her side. They followed the men out, leaving the Lion of Natuba fast asleep in the Sanctuary.

The appearance of the Counselor in the doorway of the Sanctuary took the crowd gathered there by surprise, so much so that they did not have time to block his path. At a signal from Big Joao, the men with blue armbands stationed in the open s.p.a.ce between the small Chapel of Santo Antonio and the Temple under construction, to keep order among the pilgrims who had just arrived, ran to surround the saint, who was already striding down the little Street of the Martyrs toward the path leading to As Umburanas. As she trotted after the Counselor, surrounded by the women of the Choir, Maria Quadrado remembered her journey from Salvador to Monte Santo, and the young sertanejo sertanejo who had raped her, for whom she had felt compa.s.sion. It was a bad sign: she remembered the greatest sin of her life only when she was greatly dejected. She had repented of this sin countless times, had confessed it publicly and whispered it in the ears of parish priests, and done every manner of penance for it. But her grievous fault still lay there in the depths of her memory, rising periodically to the surface to torture her. who had raped her, for whom she had felt compa.s.sion. It was a bad sign: she remembered the greatest sin of her life only when she was greatly dejected. She had repented of this sin countless times, had confessed it publicly and whispered it in the ears of parish priests, and done every manner of penance for it. But her grievous fault still lay there in the depths of her memory, rising periodically to the surface to torture her.