The War Of The End Of The World Part 19

"I would like to hear you recite it sometime," the Street Commander says in a rea.s.suring tone of voice. And he breaks into a run to make up for lost time. Here and there, there are sh.e.l.l holes along Campo Grande. The facade of the former steward's house of Canudos is riddled with bullet holes.

"Praised be the Blessed Jesus," Abbot Joao murmurs, sitting down on top of a barrel next to Pajeu. The expression on the caboclo caboclo's face is inscrutable, but he notes that Antonio and Honorio Vilanova, old Macambira, Big Joao, and Pedrao are all scowling. Father Joaquim is standing in the middle of them, covered with mud from head to foot, his hair disheveled, and with a growth of beard.

"Did you find out anything in Juazeiro, Father?" he asks him. "Are there more troops coming?"

"As he offered to, Father Maximiliano came from Queimadas and brought me the complete list," Father Joaquim replies in a hoa.r.s.e voice. He takes a paper out of his pocket and reads out, panting for breath: "First Brigade: Seventh, Fourteenth, and Third Infantry Battalions, under the command of Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros. Second Brigade: Sixteenth, Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-seventh Infantry Battalions, under the command of Colonel Inacio Maria Gouveia. Third Brigade: Fifth Artillery Regiment and Fifth and Ninth Infantry Battalions, under the command of Colonel Olimpio da Silveira. Chief of Division: General Joao da Silva Barboza. Field Commander: General Artur Oscar."

He stops reading, exhausted and in a daze, and looks at Abbot Joao. "How many soldiers does that add up to, Father?" the former cangaceiro cangaceiro asks. asks.

"Some five thousand men, it would appear," the little priest stammers. "But those are only the ones that are in Queimadas and Monte Santo. Others are coming from the North, via Sergipe." He begins reading again, in a quavering voice. "Column under the command of General Claudio da Amaral Savaget. Three brigades: Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. Made up of the Twelfth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-third Infantry Battalions, one artillery division, and the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, Fortieth, Twenty-sixth, Thirty-second Battalions, and another artillery division. Four thousand more men, approximately. They disembarked in Aracaju and are advancing on Jeremoabo. Father Maximiliano was unable to obtain the names of the officers in command. I told him it didn't matter. It really doesn't matter, does it, Joao?"

"Of course not, Father Joaquim," Abbot Joao answers. "You've managed to obtain excellent information. G.o.d will repay you."

"Father Maximiliano is a good believer," the little priest murmurs. "He confessed to me that it scared him to do that. I told him that I was more scared than he was." He gives a forced laugh and immediately adds: "They have a great many problems there in Queimadas, he told me. Too many mouths to feed. They haven't organized their train yet. They don't have the wagons, the mule teams to transport the enormous amount of materiel they have. He says it may be weeks before they're ready to move."

Abbot Joao nods. No one speaks. They all appear to be concentrating on the buzzing of the flies and the acrobatics of a wasp that finally lands on Big Joao's knee. The black removes it with a flick of his finger. Abbot Jo$$$o is surprised all of a sudden at the chatter of the Vilanovas' parrot.

"I also met with Dr. aguiar do Nascimento," Father Joaquim adds. "He said to tell you that the only thing you could do was to disperse people and send them back to their villages before all that armory gets here." He pauses and takes a fearful sidelong glance at the seven men looking at him respectfully and attentively. "But that if, despite everything, you are going to fight it out with the soldiers, then, yes, he has something to offer you." He lowers his head, as though fatigue or fear will permit him to say no more.

"A hundred Comblain rifles and twenty-five cases of ammunition," Antonio Vilanova says. "From the army, brand-new and in their factory cases. They can be brought via Uaua and Bendengo, the road is clear." He is sweating heavily and wipes his forehead as he speaks. "But there aren't enough hides or oxen or goats in Canudos to pay the price he's asking."

"There are silver and gold jewels," Abbot Joao says, reading in the merchant's eyes what he must have said or thought already, before he arrived.

"They belong to the Virgin and her Son," Father Joaquim says in an almost inaudible voice. "Isn't that sacrilege?"

"The Counselor will know whether it is or not," Abbot Joao says. "We must ask him."

"It is always possible to feel even more afraid," the nearsighted journalist thought. That was the great lesson of these days without hours, of figures without faces, of lights veiled with clouds that his eyes struggled to penetrate until they burned so badly that it was necessary for him to close them and remain in the dark for a while, overcome with despair: discovering what a coward he was. What would his colleagues on the staff of the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias, the Diario da Bahia, O Republicano Diario da Bahia, O Republicano say if they knew that? He had won the reputation among them of being a fearless reporter, ever in search of new experiences: he had been one of the first to attend say if they knew that? He had won the reputation among them of being a fearless reporter, ever in search of new experiences: he had been one of the first to attend candomble candomble rites-voodoo ceremonies-in whatever out-of-the-way back street or hamlet they might be held, in an era in which the religious practices of blacks aroused only fear or disgust among the whites of Bahia, a dogged frequenter of sorcerers and witches, and one of the first to take up smoking opium. Had it not been his spirit of adventure that had led him to volunteer to go to Juazeiro to interview the survivors of Lieutenant Pires Ferreira's military expedition, was it not he himself who had proposed to Epaminondas Goncalves that he accompany Moreira Cesar? "I'm the greatest coward in the whole world," he thought. The Dwarf went on recounting the adventures, the misadventures, the gallant deeds of Olivier and Fierabras. The vague shapes-he was unable to make out whether they were men or women-stood there, not moving, and it was evident that the recital of the tale held them spellbound, outside of time and outside of Canudos. How was it possible that here, at the very end of the world, he was hearing, recited by a dwarf who no doubt did not know how to read, a romance from the Round Table cycle brought here centuries before by some sailor or some young graduate of Coimbra? What other surprises did the rites-voodoo ceremonies-in whatever out-of-the-way back street or hamlet they might be held, in an era in which the religious practices of blacks aroused only fear or disgust among the whites of Bahia, a dogged frequenter of sorcerers and witches, and one of the first to take up smoking opium. Had it not been his spirit of adventure that had led him to volunteer to go to Juazeiro to interview the survivors of Lieutenant Pires Ferreira's military expedition, was it not he himself who had proposed to Epaminondas Goncalves that he accompany Moreira Cesar? "I'm the greatest coward in the whole world," he thought. The Dwarf went on recounting the adventures, the misadventures, the gallant deeds of Olivier and Fierabras. The vague shapes-he was unable to make out whether they were men or women-stood there, not moving, and it was evident that the recital of the tale held them spellbound, outside of time and outside of Canudos. How was it possible that here, at the very end of the world, he was hearing, recited by a dwarf who no doubt did not know how to read, a romance from the Round Table cycle brought here centuries before by some sailor or some young graduate of Coimbra? What other surprises did the sertao sertao hold in store for him? hold in store for him?

His stomach growled and he wondered whether the audience would give them enough money for a meal. That was another discovery he had made in these days that had taught him so many lessons: the fact that food could be a primary concern, capable of occupying all his thoughts for hours on end, and at times a greater source of anxiety than the semi-blindness in which the breaking of his gla.s.ses had plunged him, that state in which he stumbled over everything and everyone, which left his body full of bruises from cras.h.i.+ng into indiscernible objects and shapes that got in his way and obliged him to continually apologize, saying I'm sorry, I can't see, I beg your pardon, to appease any possible anger that might be forthcoming.

The Dwarf interrupted his recital and indicated that in order to go on with the story-the journalist pictured in his mind his imploring gestures, the pleading expressions on his face-he required nourishment. The journalist's entire body went into action. His right hand moved toward Jurema and touched her. He did this many times a day, every time something new happened, since it was on the threshold of the novel and unpredictable that his fear-always lurking-would again take possession of him. It was merely a quick brush of his fingertips, to rea.s.sure him, for this woman was his only hope now that Father Joaquim seemed to be definitely out of reach; she was the one who looked after him and made him feel less helpless. He and the Dwarf were a bother to Jurema. Why didn't she go off and leave them? Out of generosity? No, out of apathy doubtless, out of that terrible indolence into which she seemed to have sunk. But with his clowning the Dwarf at least managed to obtain for them those handfuls of maize flour or sun-dried goat meat that kept them alive. He himself was the only totally useless one, whom sooner or later the woman would get rid of.

After making a few jokes that no one laughed at, the Dwarf went back to reciting the story of Olivier. The nearsighted journalist felt the touch of Jurema's hand and instantly opened his. He immediately put the vague shape that appeared to be a hard crust of bread in his mouth. He chewed stubbornly, greedily, his entire mind concentrated on that pap that gradually formed in his mouth, that he swallowed with difficulty and with a happy heart. He thought: "If I survive, I shall hate her, I shall curse even the flowers that have the same name she does." Because Jurema knew the extent of his cowardice, the extremes to which it could drive him. As he chewed, slowly, avidly, happily, fearfully, he remembered the first night in Canudos, the half-blind, exhausted person with legs of sawdust that he had been, stumbling, falling, dazed and deafened by the tumult of voices shouting "Long live the Counselor." He had suddenly been caught up in a swirling confusion of smells, sputtering, oily points of light, and the swelling chorus of litanies. Then, just as suddenly, complete silence fell. "It's him, it's the Counselor." He gripped that hand he had not let go of all day so tightly that the woman said: "Let go of me, let me go." Later, when the hoa.r.s.e voice stopped speaking and the crowd began to disperse, he, Jurema, and the Dwarf collapsed right in the middle of the open square between the churches. They had lost the cure of c.u.mbe, who had been joyously swept along by the crowd as they entered Canudos. During his sermon, the Counselor thanked heaven for bringing him back to Canudos, for restoring him to life, and the nearsighted journalist presumed that Father Joaquim was there at the saint's side on the dais, platform, or tower from which he was preaching. Moreira Cesar was right, after all: the little priest was a jagunco jagunco, he was one of them. It had been at that moment that he had begun to cry. He had sobbed his heart out, as he could not even imagine himself having done as a child, begging the woman to help him get out of Canudos. He offered her clothes, a house, anything if she would promise not to abandon him, half blind and half dead from hunger. Yes, she knew that fear turned him into a despicable creature capable of anything in order to arouse her compa.s.sion.

The Dwarf had finished the story. The journalist heard scattered applause and the audience began to wander off. Tensely, he tried to make out whether people stretched out a hand, left them a little something before going off, but he had the distressing impression that no one did so.

"Nothing?" he murmured, when he sensed that they were alone.

"Nothing," the woman answered with her usual indifference, rising to her feet.

The nearsighted journalist stood up too, and on noting that she had begun walking-a slight little figure, with her hair hanging and her blouse in tatters, whom he could see in his mind's eye-he followed along after her. The Dwarf came scrambling along at his side, his head at the height of his elbow.

"They're scrawnier than we are," he heard the Dwarf mutter. "Do you remember Cipo, Jurema? There are even more human wrecks here. Have you ever seen so many people who are one-armed, blind, crippled, palsied, albinos, so many who are missing ears, a nose, hair, so full of scabs and blotches? You haven't noticed, Jurema. But I have. Because here I feel normal."

He laughed merrily, and the nearsighted journalist heard him whistle a happy tune for some time as they walked along.

"Will they give us maize flour again today?" he asked all of a sudden in an anxious voice. But he was thinking of something else, and added bitterly: "If it's true that Father Joaquim has gone off somewhere, we don't have anybody who'll help us now. Why did he do that to us? Why did he abandon us?"

"Why wouldn't he abandon us?" the Dwarf said. "What are we to him? Did he know us? Be grateful that we have a roof over our heads at night to sleep under, thanks to him."

It was true, he had helped them; thanks to him, they had a roof over their heads. It was surely thanks to his intercession that the morning after they had slept out in the open all night, as they were waking up with all their bones and muscles aching, a powerful, efficient-sounding voice, which appeared to belong to the solid bulk, the bearded face above them, had said: "Come on, you can sleep in the storehouse. But don't leave Belo Monte."

Were they prisoners? Neither he nor Jurema nor the Dwarf asked any questions of this man with the commanding air who, with a simple phrase, took over their lives. Without another word he took them to a place the nearsighted journalist sensed was vast, dark, warm, and chock-full of things, and before disappearing-without questioning them as to who they were, or what they were doing there, or what they wanted to do-told them once more that they could not leave Canudos and warned them not to touch the arms. The Dwarf and Jurema explained to him that they were surrounded by rifles, powder, mortars, sticks of dynamite. He realized that these were the arms that had been seized from the Seventh Regiment. Wasn't it absurd that they were going to sleep there in the middle of all these spoils of war? No, life had ceased to be logical, and therefore nothing was absurd. It was life: one had to accept it as it was or kill oneself.

He had had the thought that, here, something different from reason governed things, men, time, death, something that it would be unfair to call madness and too general to call faith, superst.i.tion, ever since the night on which he had first heard the Counselor, immersed in that mult.i.tude which, as it listened to the deep, booming, strangely impersonal voice, had taken on a granite immobility, amid a silence one could touch. More than by the man's words and his majestic voice, the journalist was struck, stunned, overwhelmed by that stillness, that silence in which they listened to him. It was like...it was like...He searched desperately for that similarity with something that he knew lay stored in the depths of his memory, because, he was sure, once it came to the surface it would explain what he was feeling. Yes: the candombles candombles. Sometimes, in those humble huts of the blacks of Salvador, or in the narrow streets behind the Calcada Railroad Station, attending the frenetic rites of those sects that sang in forgotten African languages, he had caught a glimpse of an organization of life, a collusion of things and men, of time, s.p.a.ce, and human experience as totally devoid of logic, of common sense, of reason, as the one which, in that rapidly falling darkness that was beginning to blur people's silhouettes, he perceived in these creatures who were being given comfort, strength, and a sense of roots by that deep, cavernous hoa.r.s.e voice, so contemptuous of material necessities, so proudly centered on the spirit, on everything that could not be eaten or worn or used: thoughts, emotions, feelings, virtues. As he listened to that voice, the nearsighted journalist thought he had a sudden intuitive understanding of the why why of Canudos, the of Canudos, the why why of the continued existence of that aberration, Canudos. But when the voice ceased and the crowd emerged from its ecstasy, his bewilderment was again as great as it had been before. of the continued existence of that aberration, Canudos. But when the voice ceased and the crowd emerged from its ecstasy, his bewilderment was again as great as it had been before.

"Here's a little flour for you," he heard the wife of either Antonio or Honorio Vilanova saying: their voices were identical. "And some milk."

He stopped thinking, letting his mind wander, and was nothing but a ravenous creature who raised little mouthfuls of maize flour to his lips with his fingertips, wet them with saliva, and kept them between his palate and his tongue for a long time before swallowing them, an organism that felt grat.i.tude each time a sip of goat's milk brought this feeling of well-being to his insides.

When they finished, the Dwarf belched and the nearsighted journalist heard him give a happy laugh. "If he eats he's happy, and if he doesn't he's sad," he thought. It was the same with him: his happiness or unhappiness now largely depended on his gut. That elemental truth reigned in Canudos, and yet could these people be called materialists? Because another persistent idea of his in recent days was that this society had come, by way of obscure paths and perhaps through simple error or accident, to rid itself of concerns about bodily needs, about economics, about everyday life, and everything that was primordial in the world he had come from. Would this sorry paradise of spirituality and wretchedness be his grave? During his first days in Canudos he had had illusions, had imagined that the little cure of c.u.mbe would remember him, would secure him guides, a horse, and that he would be able to get back to Salvador. But Father Joaquim had not come back to see them, and people now said that he was away on a journey. He no longer appeared at dusk on the scaffolding of the Temple under construction, and no longer celebrated Ma.s.s in the mornings. He had never been able to get close to him, to make his way through the group of armed men and women with blue headcloths standing shoulder to shoulder to guard the Counselor and his most intimate disciples, and now n.o.body knew if Father Joaquim would be back. Would his lot have been different if he had managed to speak with him? What would he have said to him? "Father Joaquim, I'm afraid of staying here amid jaguncos jaguncos, get me out of here, take me where there are soldiers and police who will offer me some security"? He could almost hear the little cure's answer: "And what security do they offer me me, senhor journalist? Have you forgotten that only a miracle kept me from losing my life at the hands of Throat-Slitter? Do you really imagine that I could go back where there are soldiers and police?" He burst out laughing uncontrollably, hysterically. He heard his laughter, and immediately took fright, thinking that it might offend those blurred beings who lived in this place. Finding his laughter infectious, the Dwarf, too, burst into a loud guffaw. He could see him in his mind, a tiny, deformed creature, contorted with merriment. It irritated him that Jurema remained as sober as ever.

"Well, it's a small world! We meet again," a rasping male voice said, and the nearsighted journalist was aware that dim silhouettes were approaching. One of them, the shorter of the two, with a red patch that must be a neckerchief, planted himself in front of Jurema. "I thought the dogs had killed you up there on the mountain."

"They didn't kill me," Jurema answered.

"I'm glad," the man said. "That would have been too bad."

"He wants her for himself. He's going to take her off with him," the nearsighted journalist thought instantly. The palms of his hands began to sweat. He would take her away with him and the Dwarf would tag along after them. He started to tremble: he imagined how it would be all by himself, totally helpless in his semi-blindness, dying of starvation, of cras.h.i.+ng into things, of terror.

"I see you've gotten yourself another escort besides the dwarf," he heard the man say in a half-fawning, half-mocking tone of voice. "Well, see you later. Praised be the Blessed Jesus."

Jurema didn't answer and the nearsighted journalist stood there, his body tense, on the alert, expecting-he didn't know why-a kick, a slap, spit in his face.

"These aren't all," said a voice different from the one that had been speaking, and after a second he realized that it was Abbot Joao. "There are more in the storeroom where the hides are."

"These are enough," the first man said, his tone of voice neutral now.

"No, they're not," Abbot Joao replied. "They're not enough if eight or nine thousand men are coming. Even two or three times as many wouldn't be enough."

"That's true," the first voice said.

He heard them moving about in front of them and behind them, and guessed that they were fingering the rifles, hefting them, handling them, raising them to their eyes to see if the sights were properly lined up and the bores clean. Eight, nine thousand troops were coming?

"And besides, some of these can't even be used, Pajeu," Abbot Joao said. "See this one? The barrel's twisted, the trigger's broken, the breech is split."

Pajeu? So the one who was there moving about, having a conversation with Abbot Joao, the one who had been talking to Jurema, was Pajeu. The two men were saying something about the Virgin's jewels, speaking of someone named Dr. aguiar do Nascimento; their voices came and went along with their footsteps. All the bandits of the sertao sertao were here; they'd all turned into fervent believers. How could that be explained? They walked past him and the nearsighted journalist could see two pairs of legs within reach of his hand. were here; they'd all turned into fervent believers. How could that be explained? They walked past him and the nearsighted journalist could see two pairs of legs within reach of his hand.

"Do you want to hear the Terrible and Exemplary Story of Robert the Devil?" he heard the Dwarf ask. "I know it, I've told it a thousand times. Shall I recite it to you, sir?"

"Not now," Abbot Joao answered. "But I'd be pleased to hear it some other day. Why do you call me sir, though? Don't you know my name?"

"Yes, I know it," the Dwarf murmured. "I beg your pardon..."

The sound of the men's footsteps died away. The nearsighted journalist had been set to thinking: "The man who cut off ears and noses, the one who castrated his enemies and tattooed them with his initials. The one that murdered everyone in a village to prove he was Satan. And Pajeu, the butcher, the cattle rustler, the killer, the rogue." They'd been right there next to him. He was dumfounded, and wanted badly to write.

"Did you see how he talked to you, how he looked at you?" he heard the Dwarf say. "How lucky you are, Jurema. He'll take you to live with him and you'll have a house and food on the table. Because Pajeu is one of those in charge here."

But what was going to happen to him? him?

"There aren't ten flies per inhabitant-there are a thousand," Lieutenant Pires Ferreira thinks. "They know n.o.body can kill them all. That's why they don't budge when the naive newcomer tries to shoo them away." They were the only flies in the world that didn't move when a hand waved past within millimeters of them, trying to chase them away. Their multiple eyes looked at the miserable wretch, defying him. He could easily squash them, without the least bit of trouble. But what would be gained by such a disgusting act? Ten, twenty of them inevitably materialized in the place of the one crushed to death. It was better to resign oneself to their company, the way the sertanejos sertanejos did. They allowed them to walk all over their clothing and dishes, leave their houses and food black with flyspecks, live on the bodies of their newborn babes, confining themselves to brus.h.i.+ng them off the raw sugar lump they were about to bite into or spitting them out if they got into their mouths. They were bigger than the ones in Salvador, the only fat creatures in this country where men and beasts appeared to be reduced to their minimal expression. did. They allowed them to walk all over their clothing and dishes, leave their houses and food black with flyspecks, live on the bodies of their newborn babes, confining themselves to brus.h.i.+ng them off the raw sugar lump they were about to bite into or spitting them out if they got into their mouths. They were bigger than the ones in Salvador, the only fat creatures in this country where men and beasts appeared to be reduced to their minimal expression.

He is lying naked on his bed at the Hotel Continental. Through the window he can see the station and the sign: Vila Bela de Santo Antonio das Queimadas. Which does he hate more: the flies or Queimadas, where he has the feeling that he is going to spend the rest of his days, bored to death, disillusioned, whiling away the hours philosophizing about flies? This is one of those moments in which bitterness makes him forget that he is a privileged man, for he has a little room all to himself here in the Hotel Continental which is the envy of thousands of officers and men who are squeezed in together, by twos, by fours, in houses requisitioned or rented by the army, and of those-the great majority-quartered in huts erected on the banks of the Itapicuru. He has the good fortune to occupy a room in the Hotel Continental by right of seniority. He has been here ever since the Seventh Regiment pa.s.sed through Queimadas and Colonel Moreira Cesar limited his responsibilities to the humiliating duty of taking care of the sick, in the rear guard. From this window he has witnessed the events that have convulsed the backlands, Bahia, Brazil in the last three months: Moreira Cesar's departure in the direction of Monte Santo and the sudden return of the survivors from the disaster, still wide-eyed with panic or stupefaction; since then he has seen the train from Salvador spew out, week after week, professional soldiers, brigades of police, and regiments of volunteers come from every part of the country to this town held in thrall by flies, to avenge the dead patriots, vindicate the honor of humiliated inst.i.tutions, and restore the sovereignty of the Republic. And, from this same Hotel Continental, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira has seen how those dozens and dozens of companies, so high-spirited, so eager for action, have been caught in a spiderweb that is keeping them inactive, immobilized, distracted by nagging problems that have nothing to do with the generous ideals that have brought them here: incidents, thefts, the lack of lodging, food, transport, enemies, women. The evening before, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira attended a staff meeting of officers of the Third Infantry Battalion, called because of a major scandal-the disappearance of a hundred Comblain rifles and twenty-five cases of ammunition-and Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros, after reading an order warning that unless they were returned immediately those found responsible for this robbery would be summarily executed, has told them that the great problem-transporting to Canudos the tremendous amount of materiel accompanying the expeditionary force-has still not been resolved and that therefore no definite date has been set for departure.

There is a knock at the door and Lieutenant Pires Ferreira says: "Come in." It is his orderly, come to remind him that Private Queluz is awaiting punishment. As he dresses, yawning, he tries to remember the face of this infantryman whom he has already flogged once, he is sure, a week or a month or so before, perhaps for the same offense. Which one? He knows them all: petty thefts from the regiment or the families that have not yet cleared out of Queimadas, fights with soldiers from other corps, attempted desertion. The captain of the company often orders him to administer the floggings with which he tries to preserve discipline, which is deteriorating by the day because of the boredom and the privations his men are suffering. Giving a man a las.h.i.+ng is not something that Lieutenant Pires Ferreira ordinarily likes doing. But now it is something that he does not dislike doing, either. It has become part of the daily routine here in Queimadas, along with sleeping, dressing and undressing, eating, teaching the men the nomenclature of a Mannlicher or a Comblain, explaining what a defensive or offensive square is, or philosophizing about flies.

On leaving the Hotel Continental, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira takes the Avenida de Itapicuru, the name of the stony incline that leads up to the Church of Santo Antonio, his eyes surveying, above the rooftops of the little houses painted green, white, or blue, the hillsides covered with bone-dry brush surrounding Queimadas, and pitying the poor infantry companies being drilled on those burning-hot slopes. He has taken recruits out there a hundred times to practice digging in, and has seen them run with sweat and sometimes faint dead away. Most often it is the volunteers from cold country who topple over like tenpins after just a few hours of marching through this desert terrain with their knapsacks on their backs and their rifles slung over their shoulders.

At this time of day the streets of Queimadas are not the teeming anthill of uniforms, the sample collection of all the accents of Brazil that they turn into at night, when officers and men pour out into them to chat together, to strum guitars, to listen to songs from their villages, to enjoy a few sips of cane brandy that they have managed to come by at exorbitant prices. Here and there he comes across knots of soldiers with their blouses unb.u.t.toned, but he does not spy a single townsman as he makes his way to the main square, with towering ouricuri ouricuri palms that are always swarming with birds. There are hardly any townspeople around. Except for a handful of cowhands here and there, too elderly, ailing, or apathetic to have left, who stand looking out with undisguised hatred from the doorways of the houses they are forced to share with the intruders, everyone else in Queimadas has gradually taken off. palms that are always swarming with birds. There are hardly any townspeople around. Except for a handful of cowhands here and there, too elderly, ailing, or apathetic to have left, who stand looking out with undisguised hatred from the doorways of the houses they are forced to share with the intruders, everyone else in Queimadas has gradually taken off.

At the corner on which there stands the boarding house of Our Lady of Grace-on the fac$$$de of which is a sign that reads: "Entry forbidden unless s.h.i.+rts are worn"-Lieutenant Pires Ferreira recognizes, his face a blur in the blinding sunlight, Lieutenant Pinto Souza, an officer attached to his battalion, coming his way. He has been here only a week, and still has the high spirits of those recently arrived in town. They have made friends with each other and fallen into the habit of whiling away their evenings together.

"I've read the report you wrote about Uaua," Pinto Souza says, falling in step with him as he heads for the camp. "What a terrifying experience."

Lieutenant Pires Ferreira looks at him, s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the sun's glare with one hand. "For those of us who survived it, yes, no doubt. For poor Dr. Antonio Alves dos Santos especially," he says. "But what happened in Uaua is nothing by comparison with what happened to Major Febronio and Colonel Moreira Cesar."

"I don't mean the dead, but what you report about the uniforms and the arms," Lieutenant Pinto Souza explains.

"Oh, I see," Lieutenant Pires Ferreira murmurs.

"I don't understand it," his friend exclaims in consternation. "The officers of the General Staff haven't done anything."

"The same thing happened to the second and third expeditionary forces as happened to us," Pires Ferreira says. "They, too, were defeated not so much by the jaguncos jaguncos as by the heat, the thorns, and the dust." as by the heat, the thorns, and the dust."

He shrugs. He wrote that report just after his arrival in Juazeiro following the defeat, with tears in his eyes, hoping that the account of his experiences would prove useful to his comrades-at-arms. He explained, with a wealth of detail, how the uniforms had been reduced to tatters by the sun, the rain, and the dust, how flannel jackets and woolen trousers had turned into poultices and been torn to ribbons by the branches of the caatinga caatinga. He told how the soldiers lost their forage caps and boots and had to go barefoot most of the time. But above all he was explicit, scrupulous, insistent with regard to the subject of weapons: "Despite its magnificent precision, the Mannlicher very frequently misfires; a few grains of sand in the magazine are enough to prevent the bolt from functioning. Moreover, if many shots are fired in rapid succession, the heat expands the barrel and the magazine then shrinks in size and the six-cartridge chargers cannot be introduced into it. The extractor jams from the effect of the heat and spent cartridges must be removed by hand. And finally, the breech is so delicate that it breaks apart at the first blow." He not only has written this; he has reported it all to the investigating commissions that have questioned him and has repeated it in dozens of private conversations. And what good has all that done?

"In the beginning I thought that they didn't believe me," he says. "That they were convinced I'd written that to excuse my defeat. I know now, though, why the officers of the General Staff aren't doing anything."

"Why is that?" Lieutenant Pinto Souza asks.

"Are they going to change the uniforms of every last corps of the Brazilian Army? Aren't all of them made of flannel and wool? Are they going to throw all the boots on the dump heap? Toss all the Mannlichers we have in the sea? We have to go on using them, whether they're any good or not."

They have arrived at the camp of the Third Infantry Battalion, on the right bank of the Itapicuru. It is close by the town, whereas the other camps are farther away from Queimadas, upriver. The huts are lined up facing the hillsides of reddish earth, strewn with great dark rocks, at the bottom of which the blackish-green waters of the river flow. The soldiers of the company are waiting for him; floggings are always well attended since they are one of the battalion's very few diversions. Private Queluz is all ready for his punishment, standing with his back bared in the middle of a circle of soldiers who are teasing him. He wisecracks back, laughing. As the two officers walk up to them, their faces grow serious, and in the eyes of the man about to be disciplined Pires Ferreira sees a sudden fear, which he tries his best to hide beneath his insolent, mocking manner.

"Thirty blows," he reads in the daily report. "That's a lot. Who put you on report?"

"Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros, sir," Queluz mutters.

"What did you do?" Pires Ferreira asks. He is putting on the leather glove so that the friction of the cane will not raise blisters on his palm as he whips the man. Queluz blinks in embarra.s.sment, looking right and left out of the corner of his eye. There are snickers, murmurs from the hundred soldiers standing in a circle watching.

"Nothing, sir," he answers, swallowing hard.

Pires Ferreira eyes the bystanders questioningly.

"He tried to rape a bugler from the Fifth Regiment," Lieutenant Pinto Souza says disgustedly. "A kid who's not yet fifteen. It was the colonel himself who caught him. You're a pervert, Queluz."

"That's not true, sir, that's not true," the soldier says, shaking his head. "The colonel misunderstood my intentions. We were just innocently bathing in the river. I swear to you."

"And was that why the bugler started yelling for help?" Pinto Souza says. "Don't be impudent."

"The fact is, the bugler also misunderstood my intentions, sir," the soldier says, looking very earnest. But as these words are greeted by a general guffaw, he, too, finally bursts out laughing.

"The sooner we begin, the sooner we'll be finished," Pires Ferreira says, seizing the first cane from among a number of them that his orderly is holding within reach of his hand. He tries it in the air, and as the flexible rod comes whistling down, the circle of soldiers steps back. "Shall we tie you up or will you take your punishment like a man?"

"Like a man, sir," Private Queluz says, turning pale.

"Like a man who b.u.g.g.e.rs buglers," someone adds, and there is another burst of laughter.

"Turn around, then, and grab your b.a.l.l.s," Lieutenant Pires Ferreira orders.

The first blows he gives him are hard ones, and he sees him stagger as the rod turns his back red; then, as the effort leaves him too drenched with sweat, he lets up a little. The group of soldiers sings out the number of strokes. Before they have reached twenty the purple welts on Queluz's back begin to bleed. With the last one, the soldier falls to his knees, but he rises to his feet immediately and turns toward the lieutenant, reeling. "Thank you very much, sir," he murmurs, his face dripping with sweat and his eyes bloodshot.

"You can console yourself with the thought that I'm as worn out as you are," Pires Ferreira pants. "Go to the infirmary and have them put a disinfectant on you. And leave buglers alone."

The group disperses. A few of the men walk off with Queluz, and one of them throws a towel over him, while others climb down the steep clay bank to cool off in the Itapicuru. Pires Ferreira rinses his face off in a bucket of water that his orderly brings over to him. He signs the report indicating that he has administered the punishment. Meanwhile, he answers Lieutenant Pinto Souza's questions; the latter is still obsessed by his report on Uaua. Were those rifles old ones or ones recently purchased?

"They weren't new ones," Pires Ferreira says. "They'd been used in 1884, in the Sao Paulo and Parana campaign. But it's not because they're old that they're defective. The problem is the way the Mannlicher is built. It was designed and developed in Europe, for a very different climate and combat conditions, for an army with a capability for maintaining them that ours doesn't have."

He is interrupted by the sound of many bugles blowing, in all the camps at once.

"Officers' a.s.sembly," Pinto Souza says. "That's not on the order of the day."

"It must be the theft of those hundred Comblain rifles. It's driving the senior officers mad," Pires Ferreira says. "Maybe they've discovered who the thieves are and are going to shoot them."

"Or maybe the Minister of War has arrived," Pinto Souza says. "His visit's been announced."

They head for the a.s.sembly area of the Third Battalion, but on arriving there they are informed that they will also be meeting with the officers of the Seventh and Fourteenth; in other words, the whole First Brigade. They run to the command post, set up in a tannery on the Itapicuru, a quarter of a league upstream. On their way there, they notice an unusual hustle and bustle in all the camps, and the bugles have set up such a din now that it is difficult to decipher what the calls are. In the tannery they find several dozen officers already a.s.sembled. Some of them must have been surprised in the middle of their afternoon siesta, for they are still putting on their blouses or b.u.t.toning their tunics. The commanding officer of the First Brigade, Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros, standing on top of a bench, is speaking, with many gestures, but Pires Ferreira and Pinto Souza are unable to hear what he is saying, for all around them are cheers, shouts of "Long live Brazil" and "Hurray for the Republic," and some of the officers are tossing their kepis in the air to show their joy.

"What's happening? What's happening?" Lieutenant Pinto Souza asks.

"We're leaving for Canudos within two hours!" an artillery captain shouts back at him euphorically.

[II].

"Madness? Misunderstandings? That's not enough. It doesn't explain everything," the Baron de Canabrava murmured. "There has also been stupidity and cruelty."

He had a sudden image of the kindly face of Gentil de Castro, with his pink cheeks and his blond sideburns, bending over to kiss Estela's hand on some festive occasion at the Palace, when he was a member of the Emperor's cabinet. He was as dainty as a lady, as naive as a child, good-hearted, obliging. What else besides imbecility and wickedness could explain what had happened to Gentil de Castro?

"I suppose they're what lies behind not only Canudos but all of history," he said aloud, grimacing in displeasure.

"Unless one believes in G.o.d," the nearsighted journalist interrupted him, his harsh voice reminding the baron of his existence. "As they did up there. Everything was crystal-clear. Famine, the bombardments, the men with their bellies ripped open, those who died of starvation. The Dog or the Father, the Antichrist or the Blessed Jesus. They knew immediately which of the two was responsible for any given event, whether it was a blessing or a curse. Don't you envy them? Everything becomes easy if one is capable of identifying the good or the evil behind each and every thing that happens."