He was born, like his parents, his grandparents, and his brother Honorio, in the town of a.s.sare, in the state of Ceara, where the herds of cattle that were being driven to Jaguaribe and those headed for the Vale do Cariri parted company. The townspeople were all either fanners or cowhands, but from a very early age Antonio gave proof of a calling as a merchant. He began to make business deals in the catechism cla.s.ses held by Father Matias (who also taught him his letters and numbers). Antonio and Honorio Vilanova were very close, and addressed each other, very seriously, as compadre compadre, like adults who have been lifelong cronies.

One morning Adelinha Alencar, the daughter of the carpenter of a.s.sare, woke up with a high fever. The herbs burned by Dona Camuncha to exorcise the evil had no effect, and a few days later Adeinha's body broke out in pustules so ugly they turned the prettiest girl in town into its most repugnant creature. A week later half a dozen townspeople were delirious with fever and covered with pustules. Father Tobias managed to say a Ma.s.s asking G.o.d to put an end to the dread disease, before he, too, came down with it. Those who were ill began to die almost at once, as the epidemic spread uncontrollably. As the terrified inhabitants prepared to flee the town, they came up against Colonel Miguel Fernandes Vieira, the political boss of the town and the owner of the lands they cultivated and the cattle they took out to graze, who forbade them to leave, so that they would not spread the smallpox throughout the countryside. Colonel Vieira posted capangas capangas at the exits of the town with orders to shoot anyone who disobeyed his edict. at the exits of the town with orders to shoot anyone who disobeyed his edict.

Among the few who managed to flee the town were the two Vilanova brothers. Their parents, their sister Luz Maria, a brother-in-law, and three nephews in the family were carried off by the epidemic.

After burying all these kinfolk, Antonio and Honorio, strong youngsters, both of them fifteen, with curly hair and blue eyes, made up their minds to escape from the town. But instead of confronting the capangas capangas with knives and bullets, as others had, Antonio, faithful to his vocation, persuaded them to look the other way-in exchange for a young bull, a twenty-five-pound sack of refined sugar, and another of raw brown sugar. They left by night, taking with them two girl cousins of theirs-Antonio and a.s.suncao Sardelinha-and the family's worldly goods: two cows, a pack mule, a valise full of clothes, and a little purse containing ten milreis. Antonio and a.s.suncao were double first cousins of the Vilanova boys, and Antonio and Honorio took them along out of pity for their helplessness, for the smallpox epidemic had left them orphans. The girls were scarcely more than children and their presence made their escape across country difficult; they did not know how to make their way through scrub forest and found thirst hard to bear. The little expeditionary force nonetheless managed to cross the Serra do Araripe, left Santo Antonio, Ouricuri, Petrolina behind them, and crossed the Rio Sao Francisco. When they entered Juazeiro and Antonio decided that they would try their luck in that town in the state of Bahia, the two sisters were pregnant: Antonio by Antonio, and a.s.suncao by Honorio. with knives and bullets, as others had, Antonio, faithful to his vocation, persuaded them to look the other way-in exchange for a young bull, a twenty-five-pound sack of refined sugar, and another of raw brown sugar. They left by night, taking with them two girl cousins of theirs-Antonio and a.s.suncao Sardelinha-and the family's worldly goods: two cows, a pack mule, a valise full of clothes, and a little purse containing ten milreis. Antonio and a.s.suncao were double first cousins of the Vilanova boys, and Antonio and Honorio took them along out of pity for their helplessness, for the smallpox epidemic had left them orphans. The girls were scarcely more than children and their presence made their escape across country difficult; they did not know how to make their way through scrub forest and found thirst hard to bear. The little expeditionary force nonetheless managed to cross the Serra do Araripe, left Santo Antonio, Ouricuri, Petrolina behind them, and crossed the Rio Sao Francisco. When they entered Juazeiro and Antonio decided that they would try their luck in that town in the state of Bahia, the two sisters were pregnant: Antonio by Antonio, and a.s.suncao by Honorio.

The very next day Antonio began working for money, while Honorio, with the help of the Sardelinha girls, built a hut. They had sold on the way the cows they had taken with them from a.s.sare, but they still had the pack mule left, and Antonio loaded a containerful of brandy on its back and went about the city selling it by the drink. He was to load on the back of that mule, and then on another, and later on others still, the goods that, in the months and years that followed, he peddled, at first from house to house and after that in the outlying settlements, and finally throughout the length and breadth of the backhands, which he came to know like the palm of his hand. He dealt in salted codfish, rice, beans, sugar, pepper, brown sugar, lengths of doth, alcohol, and whatever else people asked him to supply them with. He became the purveyor to vast haciendas and to poor sharecroppers, and his mule trains became as familiar a sight as the Gypsy's Circus in the villages, the missions, and the camps of the backhands. The general store in Juazeiro, in the Praca da Misericordia, was run by Honorio and the Sardelinha sisters. Before ten years had gone by, people were saying that the Vilanovas were well on their way to becoming rich.

At this point the disaster that was to ruin the family for the second time overtook them. In good years, the rains began in December; in bad ones, in February or March. That year, by the time May came round, not a single drop of rain had fallen. The volume of water in the Sao Francisco diminished by two-thirds and barely sufficed to meet the needs of Juazeiro, whose population quadrupled with the influx of migrants from the interior.

That year Antonio Vilanova did not collect a single debt owed him, and all his customers, both the owners of large haciendas and poor people of the region, canceled their orders for goods. Even Calumbi, the Baron de Canabrava's choicest estate, informed him that it would not buy so much as a handful of salt from him. Thinking to profit from bad times, Antonio had buried seed grain in wooden boxes wrapped in canvas in order to sell it when scarcity drove the price sky-high. But the disaster took on proportions that exceeded even his calculations. He soon realized that if he didn't sell the seed he had h.o.a.rded immediately, there wouldn't be a single customer for it, for people were spending what little money they had left on Ma.s.ses, processions, and offerings (and everyone was eager to join the Brotherhood of Penitents, who wore hoods and flagellated themselves) so that G.o.d would send rain. He unearthed his boxes then: despite the canvas wrapping, the seeds had rotted. But Antonio never admitted defeat. He, Honorio, the Sardelinha sisters, and even the children-one of his own and three of his brother's-cleaned the seed as best they could and the following morning the town crier announced in the main square that through force majeure force majeure the Vilanova general store was selling its seed on hand at bargain prices. Antonio and Honorio armed themselves and posted four servants with clubs in plain sight outside the store to keep buyers from getting out of hand. For the first hour, everything went well. The Sardelinha sisters handed out the seed at the counter while the six men held people back at the door, allowing only ten people at a time to enter the store. But soon it was impossible to control the mob, for people finally climbed over the barrier, tore down the doors and windows, and invaded the place. In a few minutes' time, they had made off with everything inside, including the money in the cashbox. What they were unable to carry off with them they reduced to dust. the Vilanova general store was selling its seed on hand at bargain prices. Antonio and Honorio armed themselves and posted four servants with clubs in plain sight outside the store to keep buyers from getting out of hand. For the first hour, everything went well. The Sardelinha sisters handed out the seed at the counter while the six men held people back at the door, allowing only ten people at a time to enter the store. But soon it was impossible to control the mob, for people finally climbed over the barrier, tore down the doors and windows, and invaded the place. In a few minutes' time, they had made off with everything inside, including the money in the cashbox. What they were unable to carry off with them they reduced to dust.

The devastation had lasted no more than half an hour, and although their losses were great, n.o.body in the family was injured. Honorio, Antonio, the Sardelinha sisters, and the children sat in the street watching as the looters withdrew from what had been the best-stocked store in the city. The women had tears in their eyes and the children, sitting scattered about on the ground, looked numbly at the remains of the beds they had slept in, the clothes they had worn, the toys they had played with. Antonio's face was pale. "We have to start all over again," Honorio murmured. "Not in this city, though," his brother answered.

Antonio was not yet thirty. But the ravages of overwork, his exhausting travels, the obsessive way in which he ran his business, made him look older. He had lost a lot of hair, and his broad forehead, his little chin beard, and his mustache gave him the air of an intellectual. He was a strong man, somewhat stoop-shouldered, with a bowlegged walk like a cowhand's. He never showed any interest in anything but business. While Honorio went to fiestas and was not unwilling to down a little gla.s.s of anisette as he listened to a cantador cantador or chatted with friends plying the Sao Francisco at the helm of boats on which bright-colored figureheads were beginning to appear, Antonio had no social life. When he wasn't off somewhere on his travels, he stayed behind the counter of the store, checking the account books or thinking up new lines of business to go into. He had many customers but few friends, and though he turned up on Sundays at the Church of Our Lady of the Grottoes and occasionally was present at the processions in which the flagellants of the Brotherhood mortified their flesh in order to aid souls in purgatory, he was not thought of as someone possessed of extraordinary religious fervor. He was a serious, serene, stubborn man, well equipped to confront adversity. or chatted with friends plying the Sao Francisco at the helm of boats on which bright-colored figureheads were beginning to appear, Antonio had no social life. When he wasn't off somewhere on his travels, he stayed behind the counter of the store, checking the account books or thinking up new lines of business to go into. He had many customers but few friends, and though he turned up on Sundays at the Church of Our Lady of the Grottoes and occasionally was present at the processions in which the flagellants of the Brotherhood mortified their flesh in order to aid souls in purgatory, he was not thought of as someone possessed of extraordinary religious fervor. He was a serious, serene, stubborn man, well equipped to confront adversity.

This time the Vilanova family's peregrination through a region brought low by hunger and thirst was longer than the one they had undertaken a decade before as they fled from the smallpox epidemic. They soon were left without animals. After an encounter with a band of migrants that the two brothers had to drive off with their rifles, Antonio decided that their five pack mules were too great a temptation for the starving human hordes wandering about the backlands. He therefore sold four of them in Barro Vermelho for a handful of precious stones. They butchered the last remaining one, had themselves a banquet, and salted down the meat left over, which kept them alive for a number of days. One of Honorio's sons died of dysentery and they buried him in Borracha, where they had set up a shelter, in which the Sardelinha sisters offered soup made from Spanish plums, rock cavy, and yellow lupine. But they were unable to hold out very long there either, and wandered off again toward Patamute and Mato Verde, where Honorio was stung by a scorpion. When he was better, they continued on south, a harrowing journey of weeks and weeks during which the only things they came upon were ghost towns, deserted haciendas, caravans of skeletons drifting aimlessly, as though hallucinated.

In Pedra Grande, another of Honorio and a.s.suncao's sons died of nothing more serious than a head cold. They were in the midst of burying him, wrapped in a blanket, when, enveloped in a cloud of red-colored dust, some twenty men and women entered the village-among them a creature with the face of a man who crawled about on all fours and a half-naked black-most of them nothing but skin and bones, wearing threadbare tunics and sandals that looked as though they had trod all the paths of this world. Their leader was a tall, dark man with hair that fell down to his shoulders and quicksilver eyes. He strode straight over to the Vilanova family, and with a gesture of his hand stopped the brothers, who were already lowering the corpse into the grave. "Your son?" he asked Honorio in a grave voice. The latter nodded. "You can't bury him like that," the dark-skinned, dark-haired man said in an authoritative tone of voice. "He must be properly interred and sent upon his way so that he will be received at heaven's eternal feast of rejoicing." And before Honorio could answer, he turned to those accompanying him: "Let us give him a decent burial, so that the Father will receive him in exaltation." The Vilanovas then saw the pilgrims come to life, run to the trees, cut them down, nail them together, fashion a coffin and a cross with a skill that was proof of long practice. The dark man took the child in his arms and laid him in the coffin. As the Vilanovas filled the grave with earth, the man prayed aloud and the others sang hymns of blessing and recited litanies, kneeling round about the cross. Later, as the pilgrims were about to leave after resting beneath the trees, Antonio Vilanova took out a coin and offered it to the saint. "As a token of our thanks," he insisted, on seeing that the man was refusing to accept it and contemplating him with a mocking look in his eyes. "You have nothing to thank me for," he said finally. "But you would be unable to pay the Father what you owe him even with a thousand coins such as this one." He paused, and then added gently: "You haven't learned to count, my son."

For a long time after the pilgrims had departed, the Vilanovas remained there, sitting lost in thought around a campfire they had built to drive away the insects. "Was he a madman, compadre compadre?" Honorio asked. "I've seen many a madman on my travels and that man seemed like something more than that," Antonio answered.

When the rains came again, after two years of drought and disasters, the Vilanovas had settled in Caatinga do Moura, a hamlet near which there was a salt pit that Antonio began to work. All the rest of the family-the Sardelinha sisters and the two children-had survived, but Antonio and Antonia's little boy, after suffering from gummy secretions round his eyes that made him rub them for days on end, had gradually lost his sight and though he could still distinguish light from dark he was unable to make out people's faces or tell what things around him looked like. The salt pit turned out to be a good business. Honorio, the women, and the children spent their days drying the salt and preparing sacks of it, which Antonio then went out to sell. He had made himself a cart, and went about armed with a double-barreled shotgun to defend himself in case he was attacked by bandits.

They stayed in Caatinga do Moura about three years. With the return of the rains, the villagers came back to work the land and the cowhands to take care of the decimated herds. For Antonio, all this meant the return of prosperity. In addition to the salt pit, he soon had a store and began to deal in riding animals, which he bought and sold with a good profit margin. When the torrential rains of that December-a decisive moment in his life-turned the little stream that ran through the settlement into a river in flood that carried off the huts of the village and drowned poultry and goats and inundated the salt pit and buried it beneath a sea of mud in a single night, Antonio was at the Nordestina fair, to which he had gone with a load of salt and the intention of buying some mules.

He returned a week later. The floodwaters had begun to recede. Honorio, the Sardelinha sisters, and the half-dozen laborers who now worked for them were dejected, but Antonio took this latest catastrophe calmly. He inventoried what had been salvaged, made calculations in a little notebook, and raised their spirits by telling them that he still had many debts to collect and that like a cat he had too many lives to live to feel defeated by one flood.

But he didn't sleep a wink that night. They had been given shelter by a villager who was a friend of his, on the hill where all the people who lived on lower ground had taken refuge. His wife could feel him tossing and turning in the hammock and see by the light of the moon falling on her husband's face that he was consumed with anxiety. The next morning Antonio informed them that they must make ready for a journey, for they were leaving Caatinga do Moura for good. His tone was so peremptory that neither his brother nor the womenfolk dared ask him why. After selling off everything that they were not able to take with them, they took to the road once more, in the cart loaded down with bundles, and plunged yet again into the unknown. One day they heard Antonio say something that bewildered them. "That was the third warning," he murmured, with a shadow in the depths of his bright blue eyes. "We were sent that flood so we'd do something, but I don't know what." As though embarra.s.sed to ask, Honorio said to him: "A warning from G.o.d, compadre compadre?"

"Could be from the Devil," Antonio replied.

They continued to knock about from place to place, a week here, a month there, and every time the family thought that they were about to settle down, Antonio would impulsively decide to leave. This vague search for something or someone disturbed them, but none of them protested against this constant moving about.

Finally, after nearly eight months of wandering up and down the backlands, they ended up settling on a hacienda belonging to the Baron de Canabrava that had been abandoned ever since the drought. The baron had taken all his cattle away and only a few families had stayed on, living here and there in the surrounding countryside, cultivating little plots of land on the banks of the Vaza-Barris and taking their goats up to graze in the Serra de Canabrava, green the year round. In view of its spa.r.s.e population and the fact that it was surrounded by mountains, Canudos seemed like the worst possible place for a merchant to set up in business. Nonetheless, the moment they had taken over what had once been the steward's house, now in ruins, Antonio acted as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He immediately began to think up new lines of business that he could go into and set about organizing the family's life with the same high spirits as in days gone by. And a year later, thanks to his perseverance and determination, the Vilanovas' general store was buying up and selling merchandise for ten leagues around. Again, Antonio was constantly out on the road.

But the day that the pilgrims appeared on the hillside of O Cambaio and entered Canudos by its one and only street, singing hymns of praise to the Blessed Jesus at the top of their lungs, he happened to be home. From the veranda of the former steward's quarters, now converted into a combination house and store, he watched as these fervent creatures drew closer and closer. His brother, his wife, his sister-in-law saw him turn pale when the man in dark purple who was heading the procession came over to him. They recognized those burning eyes, that deep voice, that gaunt body. "Have you learned to count yet?" the saint asked with a smile, holding out his hand to the merchant. Antonio Vilanova fell on his knees to kiss the newcomer's fingers.

In my last letter I told you, comrades, of a popular rebellion in the interior of Brazil, that I learned of through a prejudiced witness (a Capuchin friar). I can now pa.s.s on to you more reliable testimony regarding Canudos, that of a man who is himself one of the rebels, sent out to journey all through the backlands, his mission doubtless to make converts to their cause. But I can also tell you something exciting: there has been an armed encounter, and the jaguncos jaguncos defeated a hundred soldiers headed for Canudos. Are there not clearer and clearer signs that these rebels are fellow revolutionaries? There is an element of truth in that, but only relatively speaking, to judge from this man, who gives a contradictory impression of these brothers of ours: sharp insights and normal behavior exist in them side by side with unbelievable superst.i.tions. defeated a hundred soldiers headed for Canudos. Are there not clearer and clearer signs that these rebels are fellow revolutionaries? There is an element of truth in that, but only relatively speaking, to judge from this man, who gives a contradictory impression of these brothers of ours: sharp insights and normal behavior exist in them side by side with unbelievable superst.i.tions.

I am writing to you from a town whose name you no doubt would not recognize, a region where the moral and physical servitude of women is extreme, for they are oppressed by landowner, father, brothers, and husband alike. In these parts, the landowner chooses the wives for his relations and the womenfolk are beaten right on the street by their irascible fathers or their drunken husbands, a matter of complete indifference to those who witness such scenes. Food for thought, comrades: we must make certain that the revolution will not only do away with the exploitation of man by man, but also that of women by men, and will establish, along with the equality of cla.s.ses, that of the s.e.xes.

I learned that the emissary from Canudos had been brought here by a guide who is also a tigreiro tigreiro, a hunter of jaguars (fine occupations: exploring the world and killing the predators preying on the flocks), thanks to whom I managed to see him. Our meeting took place in a tannery, amid hides drying in the sun and children playing with lizards. My heart began to pound when I laid eyes on the man: short and heavyset, with that pale complexion somewhere between yellow and gray that half-breeds inherit from their Indian forebears, and a scar on his face that told me at a glance that he had been a bandit or a criminal in the past (in any event, a victim, since, as Bakunin explained, society lays the groundwork for crimes and criminals are merely the instruments for carrying them out). His clothes were made of leather-the usual dress of cowherds, I might add, enabling them to ride through th.o.r.n.y brush country. He kept his sombrero on his head and his shotgun at his side all during our interview. His eyes were deep-set and sullen and his manner shifty and evasive, as is often the case here. He did not want the two of us to talk together by ourselves. We had to do so in the presence of the owner of the tannery and his family, who were sitting on the floor eating without looking at us. I told him that I was a revolutionary and had many comrades in the world who applauded what the people in Canudos had done, that is to say, occupying lands belonging to a feudal owner, establishing free love, and vanquishing a company of soldiers. I don't know if he understood me. The people in the interior are not like those in Bahia, who thanks to the African influence are loquacious and outgoing. Here people's faces are expressionless, masks whose function would seem to be to hide their feelings and their thoughts.

I asked him if they were prepared for more attacks, since the bourgeoisie reacts like a wild beast when the sacrosanct right of private ownership of property is violated. He left me dumfounded by murmuring that all land belongs to the Good Lord Jesus, and that the Counselor is building the largest church in the world in Canudos. I tried to explain to him that it was not because they were building churches that the powers that be had sent soldiers to do battle with them, but he answered that it was precisely for that reason, since the Republic is trying to wipe out religion. I then heard, comrades, a strange diatribe against the Republic, delivered with quiet self-a.s.surance, without a trace of pa.s.sion. The Republic is bent on oppressing the Church and the faithful, doing away with all the religious orders as it has already suppressed the Society of Jesus, and the most notorious proof of its intentions is its having inst.i.tuted civil marriage, a scandalous act of impiety when the sacrament of marriage created by G.o.d already exists.

I can imagine the disappointment of many of my readers, and their suspicions on reading the foregoing, that Canudos, like the Vendee uprising at the time of the French Revolution, is a reactionary movement, inspired by priests. It is not as simple as that, comrades. As you know from my last letter, the Church condemns the Counselor and Canudos, and the jaguncos jaguncos have seized the lands of a baron. I asked the man with the scar on his face if the poor of Brazil were better off during the monarchy. He immediately answered yes, since it was the monarchy that had abolished slavery. And he explained to me that the Devil, using Freemasons and Protestants as his tools, overthrew the Emperor Dom Pedro II, in order to restore slavery. Those were his very words: the Counselor has inculcated upon his followers the belief that the republicans are advocates of slavery. (A subtle way of teaching the truth, is it not? For the exploitation of man by money owners, the foundation of the republican system, is no less a slavery than the feudal form.) The emissary was categorical. "The poor have suffered a great deal but we shall put an end to that: we will not answer the census questions because the purpose of them is to enable the government to identify the freedmen so as to put them in chains again and return them to their masters." have seized the lands of a baron. I asked the man with the scar on his face if the poor of Brazil were better off during the monarchy. He immediately answered yes, since it was the monarchy that had abolished slavery. And he explained to me that the Devil, using Freemasons and Protestants as his tools, overthrew the Emperor Dom Pedro II, in order to restore slavery. Those were his very words: the Counselor has inculcated upon his followers the belief that the republicans are advocates of slavery. (A subtle way of teaching the truth, is it not? For the exploitation of man by money owners, the foundation of the republican system, is no less a slavery than the feudal form.) The emissary was categorical. "The poor have suffered a great deal but we shall put an end to that: we will not answer the census questions because the purpose of them is to enable the government to identify the freedmen so as to put them in chains again and return them to their masters."

"In Canudos no one pays the tribute exacted by the Republic because we do not recognize it or acknowledge its right to arrogate to itself functions and powers that belong to G.o.d." What functions and powers, for example? "Marrying couples and collecting t.i.thes." I asked what they used for money in Canudos and was informed that they allowed only coins with the effigy of Princess Isabel, that is to say, the coin of the Empire, but as this latter scarcely exists any more, in reality the use of money is gradually disappearing. "There is no need for it, since in Canudos those who have give to those who do not, and those who are able to work do so for those who are not."

I told him that doing away with private property and money and establishing communal ownership of all things, in whatever name it be done, even in that of nebulous abstractions, is a daring and courageous act on behalf of the disinherited of this earth, a first step toward redemption for all. I also pointed out that such measures would sooner or later bring down upon them the harshest sort of repression, since the ruling cla.s.s will never allow such an example to spread: there are more than enough poor in this country to seize all the haciendas. Are the Counselor and his followers aware of the forces that they are arousing? Looking me straight in the eye, without blinking, the man recited a string of absurd phrases to me, of which I give you a sample: soldiers are not the strength but the weakness of the government; when the need arises, the waters of the Vaza-Barris will turn to milk and its gorges to maize couscous; and jaguncos jaguncos killed in battle will be resurrected so that they will be alive when the army of Dom Sebastiao (a Portuguese king who died in Africa in the sixteenth century) appears. killed in battle will be resurrected so that they will be alive when the army of Dom Sebastiao (a Portuguese king who died in Africa in the sixteenth century) appears.

Are these devils, emperors, and religious fetishes the elements of a strategy that the Counselor is using to launch the humble on the path of rebellion, a strategy which, in the realm of facts-unlike that of words-is a most effective one, since it has impelled them to rise up in arms against the economic, social, and military foundation of cla.s.s society? Are religious, mythical, dynastic symbols the only ones capable of rousing from their inertia ma.s.ses subjected for centuries to the superst.i.tious tyranny of the Church, and is this the reason why the Counselor makes use of them? Or is all this sheer happenstance? We know, comrades, that there is no such thing as chance in history, that however fortuitous its course may seem, there is always a rationality lying hidden behind even the most puzzling outward appearances. Does the Counselor have any idea of the historical upheaval he is provoking? Is he an intuitive type or a clever one? No hypothesis is to be rejected, and, even less than others, that of a spontaneous, unpremeditated, popular movement. Rationality is engraved within the head of every man, however uncultured he may be, and given certain circ.u.mstances, it can guide him, amid the clouds of dogma that veil his eyes or the prejudices that limit his vocabulary, to act in the direction of the march of history. A man who was not one of us, Montesquieu, wrote that fortune or misfortune is simply a certain inborn tendency of our organs. Revolutionary action, too, can be born of this same propensity of the organs that govern us, even before science educates the minds of the poor. Is this what is happening in the backlands of Bahia? The answer can only be come by in Canudos itself. Till my next letter or never.

[VI].

The victory of Uaua was celebrated in Canudos with two days of festivities. There were skyrockets and fireworks displays prepared by Antonio the Pyrotechnist and the Little Blessed One organized processions that wound in and out amid the labyrinth of huts that had sprung up on the hacienda. The Counselor preached every evening from a scaffolding of the Temple. Worse trials still awaited them in Canudos; they must not allow fear to overcome them, the Blessed Jesus would aid those who had faith. The end of the world continued to be a subject he very often spoke of. The earth, worn out after so many centuries of giving forth plants and animals and sheltering man, would ask the Father if it might rest. G.o.d would give His consent, and the acts of destruction would commence. That was what was meant by the words of the Bible: "I bring not peace, but a sword!"

Hence, while in Bahia the authorities, mercilessly pilloried by the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias and the Progressivist Republican Party for what had happened in Uaua, organized a second expedition with seven times as many troops as the first and equipped it with two Krupp 7.5 caliber cannons and two Nordenfelt machine guns and sent it off by train, under the command of Major Febronio de Brito, to Queimadas, with orders to proceed immediately on foot from there to punish the and the Progressivist Republican Party for what had happened in Uaua, organized a second expedition with seven times as many troops as the first and equipped it with two Krupp 7.5 caliber cannons and two Nordenfelt machine guns and sent it off by train, under the command of Major Febronio de Brito, to Queimadas, with orders to proceed immediately on foot from there to punish the jaguncos jaguncos, the latter were readying themselves in Canudos for Judgment Day. A number of the more impatient of them, eager to hasten that day or to give the earth the rest it deserved, went out to sow desolation. In a furious excess of love they set fire to buildings on the mountain plateaus and in the scrub forests that isolated Canudos from the world. To save their lands, many owners of haciendas and peasants presented them with gifts, but they nonetheless burned down a goodly number of farmhouses, animal pens, abandoned dwellings, shepherds' huts, and hideouts of outlaws. It was necessary for Jose Venancio, Pajeu, Abbot Joao, Big Joao, the Macambiras to go out and stop these zealous visionaries eager to bring rest to nature by reducing it to ashes, and for the Little Blessed One, the Mother of Men, the Lion of Natuba to explain to them that they had misunderstood the saint's sermons.

Not even in these days, despite the many new pilgrims who arrived, did Canudos suffer from hunger. Maria Quadrado took a group of women-which the Little Blessed One named the Sacred Choir-off to live with her in the Sanctuary so that they could help her support the Counselor when he was so weak from fasting that his legs gave way, feed him the few crumbs he ate, and serve as his protective armor so that he would not be crushed by the pilgrims who wanted to touch him and hounded him to beg for his intercession with the Blessed Jesus for a blind daughter, an invalid son, or a husband who had pa.s.sed on. Meanwhile, other jaguncos jaguncos took on the responsibility of providing food for the city and defending it. They had once been runaway slaves-Big Joao, for instance-or took on the responsibility of providing food for the city and defending it. They had once been runaway slaves-Big Joao, for instance-or cangaceiros cangaceiros with a past that included many murders-as was the case with Pajeu or Abbot Joao-and now they were men of G.o.d. But they nonetheless continued to be practical men, alert to earthly concerns, aware of the threat of hunger and war, and as in Uaua, they were the ones who took the situation in hand. As they reined in the hordes of arsonists, they also herded to Canudos the heads of cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, goats that the haciendas round about resigned themselves to donating to the Blessed Jesus, and sent off to the Vilanova brothers' warehouses the flour, the seed grain, the clothing, and most importantly the arms they collected in their raids. In just a few days, Canudos was filled to overflowing with resources. At the same time, solitary envoys wandered about the backlands, like biblical prophets, and went down as far as the coast, urging people to come to Canudos and join the elect to fight against that invention of the Dog: the Republic. They were odd-looking emissaries from heaven, dressed not in tunics but in leather pants and shirts, whose mouths spat out the coa.r.s.e obscenities of ruffians and whom everybody knew because once upon a time they had shared their misery and a roof overhead with them, till one day, brushed by the wings of the angel, they had gone off to Canudos. They were the same as ever, armed with the same knives, carbines, machetes, and yet they were different now, since all they talked about, with a contagious conviction and pride, was the Counselor, G.o.d, or the community that they had come from. People extended them their hospitality, listened to them, and many of them, feeling hope stir for the first time, bundled up all their possessions and took off for Canudos. with a past that included many murders-as was the case with Pajeu or Abbot Joao-and now they were men of G.o.d. But they nonetheless continued to be practical men, alert to earthly concerns, aware of the threat of hunger and war, and as in Uaua, they were the ones who took the situation in hand. As they reined in the hordes of arsonists, they also herded to Canudos the heads of cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, goats that the haciendas round about resigned themselves to donating to the Blessed Jesus, and sent off to the Vilanova brothers' warehouses the flour, the seed grain, the clothing, and most importantly the arms they collected in their raids. In just a few days, Canudos was filled to overflowing with resources. At the same time, solitary envoys wandered about the backlands, like biblical prophets, and went down as far as the coast, urging people to come to Canudos and join the elect to fight against that invention of the Dog: the Republic. They were odd-looking emissaries from heaven, dressed not in tunics but in leather pants and shirts, whose mouths spat out the coa.r.s.e obscenities of ruffians and whom everybody knew because once upon a time they had shared their misery and a roof overhead with them, till one day, brushed by the wings of the angel, they had gone off to Canudos. They were the same as ever, armed with the same knives, carbines, machetes, and yet they were different now, since all they talked about, with a contagious conviction and pride, was the Counselor, G.o.d, or the community that they had come from. People extended them their hospitality, listened to them, and many of them, feeling hope stir for the first time, bundled up all their possessions and took off for Canudos.

Major Febronio de Brito's forces had already arrived in Queimadas. They numbered five hundred and forty-three soldiers, fourteen officers, and three doctors chosen from among the three infantry battalions of Bahia-the Ninth, Twenty-sixth, and Thirty-third-whom the little town welcomed with a speech by the mayor, a Ma.s.s in the Church of Santo Antonio, a meeting with the town council, and a day that was proclaimed a holiday so that the townspeople could take in the parade, complete with drumrolls and bugle fanfares, around the main square. Before the parade began, volunteer messengers had already taken off north to inform Canudos of the number of soldiers and arms in the expeditionary force and the line of march it was planning to follow. The news came as no surprise. What cause for surprise was there if reality confirmed what G.o.d had announced to them through the words spoken by the Counselor? The one real piece of news was that the soldiers would come this time by way of Cariaca, the Serra de Acari, and the Vale de Ipueiras. Abbot Joao suggested to the others that they dig trenches, bring gunpowder and projectiles, and post men on the slopes of Monte Cambaio, for the Protestants would be obliged to come that way.

For the moment, the Counselor's mind appeared to be more occupied with getting on with the building of the Temple of the Blessed Jesus as quickly as possible than with the war. He still appeared at dawn every day to supervise the construction work, but it kept falling behind because of the building stones; they had to be hauled from quarries located farther and farther away as time went by, and hoisting them up to the towers was hazardous since the ropes sometimes broke and as they fell the huge stones brought scaffoldings and workers crashing down with them. And sometimes the saint would order a wall that had already been built to be torn down and built again somewhere else or would order windows done over because an inspiration had told him that they were not oriented in the direction of love. He could be seen circulating among the people, accompanied by the Lion of Natuba, the Little Blessed One, Maria Quadrado, and the women of the Sacred Choir, who kept constantly clapping their hands to keep the flies from bothering him. Every day three, five, ten families or groups of pilgrims arrived in Canudos with their carts and their tiny herds of goats, and Antonio Vilanova would a.s.sign them an empty spot in the labyrinth of dwellings so that they could build one for themselves. Every evening, before giving his counsel, the saint received the newcomers inside the Temple that as yet was without a roof. They were led through the crowd of faithful and ushered into his presence by the Little Blessed One, and even though the Counselor tried to keep them from falling to their knees at his feet to kiss them or touching his tunic by saying to them "G.o.d is other," they did so nonetheless, whereupon he blessed them, gazing at them with eyes that gave the impression that they were continually fixed on the beyond. At a given moment, he would interrupt the welcoming ceremony by rising to his feet, and everyone would stand aside as he made his way toward the little ladder leading to the scaffolding up above. He preached in a hoa.r.s.e voice, without moving, on the usual subjects: the superior nature of the spirit, the advantages of being poor and frugal, hatred toward the impious, the need to save Canudos so that it would be a refuge of the just.

The crowd of people listened to him with bated breath, convinced. Religion filled their days now. As they came into being, each narrow winding street was named after a saint, in a procession. In every corner there were niches and statues of the Virgin, of the Christ Child, of the Blessed Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, and each neighborhood, each occupation erected altars to its patron saint. Many of the newcomers took new names, thereby symbolizing that a new life was beginning for them. But sometimes dubious customs were grafted upon Catholic practices, like parasitic plants. Thus, certain mulattoes began to dance as they prayed, and it was said that they believed that by stamping their feet on the ground in a frenzy they were flushing out sins from their bodies with their sweat. The blacks gradually grouped together in the northern section of Canudos, a block of mud and straw huts that later became known as the Mocambo-the Slave Refuge. Indians from Mirandela, who unexpectedly came to live in Canudos, prepared in full view of everyone herb concoctions that gave off a heady odor and sent them into ecstasy. In addition to pilgrims, there arrived, naturally, miracle workers, peddlers, curiosity seekers. In the huts that grew like cysts on each other, there could be found women who read palms, rogues who boasted of being able to speak with the dead, and cantadores cantadores who, like those in the Gypsy's Circus, earned their daily bread by singing ballads or sticking pins into themselves. Certain healers claimed to be able to cure any sort of sickness with potions of acacia and nightshade, and a number of pious believers, overcome by an excess of contrition, recited their sins at the tops of their voices and asked their listeners to impose penance on them. On settling in Canudos, a group of people from Juazeiro began to practice the rites of the Brotherhood of Penitents in that city: fasting, s.e.xual abstinence, public flagellations. Although the Counselor encouraged the mortification of the flesh and asceticism-suffering, he would say, strengthens faith-he finally became alarmed and asked the Little Blessed One to examine the pilgrims as they arrived in order to keep superst.i.tion, fetishism, or any sort of impiety disguised as devotion from entering with them. who, like those in the Gypsy's Circus, earned their daily bread by singing ballads or sticking pins into themselves. Certain healers claimed to be able to cure any sort of sickness with potions of acacia and nightshade, and a number of pious believers, overcome by an excess of contrition, recited their sins at the tops of their voices and asked their listeners to impose penance on them. On settling in Canudos, a group of people from Juazeiro began to practice the rites of the Brotherhood of Penitents in that city: fasting, s.e.xual abstinence, public flagellations. Although the Counselor encouraged the mortification of the flesh and asceticism-suffering, he would say, strengthens faith-he finally became alarmed and asked the Little Blessed One to examine the pilgrims as they arrived in order to keep superst.i.tion, fetishism, or any sort of impiety disguised as devotion from entering with them.

This motley collection of human beings lived side by side in Canudos without violence, amid a fraternal solidarity and a climate of exaltation that the elect had not known before. They felt truly rich because they were poor, sons of G.o.d, privileged, just as the man in the mantle full of holes told them each evening. In their love for him, moreover, all differences that might have separated them came to an end: when it was anything to do with the Counselor, these men and women who had numbered in the hundreds and were beginning to number in the thousands became a single, reverent, obedient being, ready to do anything and everything for the one who had been able to reach past their abjection, their hunger, their lice, to fill them with hope and make them proud of their fate. Though the population kept multiplying, life was not chaotic. The men set out from Canudos on missions, the pilgrims brought cattle and supplies in, the animal pens were full, as were the storehouses, and the Vaza-Barris fortunately had enough water in it to irrigate the small farms. As Abbot Joao, Pajeu, Jose Venancio, Big Joao, Pedrao, and others prepared for war, Honorio and Antonio Vilanova managed the city: they received the pilgrims' offerings, distributed plots of land, food, and clothes, and supervised the Health Houses for the sick, the old, and the orphaned. And it was they who heard out the contending parties when there were quarrels over property rights in the community.

Each day there arrived news of the Antichrist. Major Febronio de Brito's expedition had proceeded from Queimadas to Monte Santo, a place it profaned on the evening of the twenty-ninth of December, its strength lessened by one infantry corporal, who had been fatally bitten by a rattlesnake. The Counselor explained, without ill will, what was happening. Was it not a blasphemy, an abomination, for men with firearms, bound on destruction, to camp in a sanctuary that drew pilgrims from all over the world? But the unG.o.dly must not be allowed to set foot in Canudos, which that night he called Belo Monte. Working himself into a frenzy, he urged them not to bow down to the enemies of religion, whose aims were to send the slaves to the stocks once again, to impoverish people by making them pay taxes, to prevent them from being married and buried by the Church, and to confuse them with such clever hocus-pocus as the metric system, the statistical map, and the census, whose real purpose was to deceive them and lead them into sin. They all stayed up the whole night, with whatever weapons they had within reach of their hands. The Freemasons did not come. They were in Monte Santo, repairing the two Krupp cannons knocked out of alignment as they were being hauled over the rough terrain, and awaiting reinforcements. When they marched off in columns two weeks later, heading up the Cariac' Valley in the direction of Canudos, the entire route that they would be following was teeming with spies, apostates hiding in refuges for goats, in the tangled underbrush of the scrub forest, or in dugouts concealed beneath the carca.s.s of a cow, with the eyeholes in its skull serving as peepholes. Swift messengers brought news to Canudos of the enemy's advance each day and the obstacles that had held them up.

When he learned that the expeditionary force had finally arrived in Mulungu, despite its tremendous difficulties in hauling the cannons and the machine guns, and that, faced with near-starvation, it had been obliged to sacrifice its last head of beef cattle and two dray mules, the Counselor commented that the Father must not be unhappy with Canudos since He was beginning to defeat the soldiers of the Republic before the battle had even begun.

"Do you know the word for what your husband's done?" Galileo Gall says slowly, emphasizing each syllable, his voice breaking in outrage. "A betrayal. No, two betrayals. Of me, with whom he had an agreement. And of his brothers in Canudos. A betrayal of his cla.s.s."

Jurema smiles at him, as though she doesn't understand or isn't listening. She is leaning over the fire, boiling something. She is young, her hair worn loose, framing a face with smooth, l.u.s.trous skin. She is wearing a sleeveless tunic, her feet are bare, and her eyes are still heavy with the sleep from which she has been rudely awakened by Gall's arrival a few moments ago. A dim dawn light is filtering into the cabin through the palings. There is an oil lamp, and in one corner a row of chickens sleeping amid casks and jars, odds and ends of furniture, heaps of firewood, crates, and a devotional print of Our Lady of Lapa. A little woolly dog is foraging about at Jurema's feet, and though she kicks him away he comes straight back. Sitting in the hammock, panting from the effort of journeying all night long at the same pace as the ragged guide dressed in leather who has brought him back to Queimadas with the arms, Galileo watches her, still in a rage. Jurema walks over to him with a steaming bowl and hands it to him.

"He said he wasn't going to go off with the railroad men from Jacobina," Galileo mutters, cupping the bowl in his hands, his eyes seeking hers. "Why did he change his mind?"

"He wasn't going to go because they didn't want to give him as much money as he was asking them for," Jurema answers quietly, blowing on the bowl steaming in her hands. "He changed his mind because they came to tell him they'd pay him what he was asking. He went looking for you yesterday at the Our Lady of Grace boarding house and you'd taken off without leaving word where you were going or whether you'd be back. Rufino couldn't afford to pa.s.s up that work."

Galileo sighs in annoyance. He decides to take a sip from his bowl, burns his palate, makes a wry face. He blows on the bowl and takes another swallow. His forehead is furrowed with fatigue and irritation and there are dark circles under his eyes. Every so often he bites his lower lip. He is panting, sweating.

"How long is that d.a.m.ned trip going to take him?" he growls after a time, sipping from his bowl.

"Three or four days." Jurema has sat down facing him, on the edge of an old trunk with leather straps. "He said you could wait for him, and when he got back he'd take you to Canudos."

"Three or four days!" Gall groans, turning his eyes heavenward in exasperation. "Three or four centuries, you mean."

The sound of tinkling sheep bells is heard outside, and the woolly dog barks loudly and leaps against the door, wanting to go out. Galileo gets to his feet, walks over to the palings, and takes a look outside: the canvas-covered wagon is where he has left it, next to the enclosure alongside the cabin in which a few sheep are penned. The animals' eyes are open but they are still drowsy and their bells have stopped tinkling. The dwelling is on the top of a rise and on a sunny day one can see Queimadas; but not on this gray dawn with an overcast sky, when the only thing to be seen is the rolling, rocky stretch of desert below. Galileo walks back to the hammock. Jurema refills his bowl. The woolly dog barks and paws the dirt just inside the door.

"Three or four days," Gall thinks. Three or four centuries during which a thousand mishaps could happen. Should he look for another guide? Should he take off by himself to Monte Santo and hire someone else to show him the way to Canudos? Anything rather than stay here with the arms: his impatience would make the wait unbearable. Moreover, it was quite possible, as Epaminondas Goncalves feared, that Major Brito's expeditionary force would arrive in Queimadas before he could get away.

"Weren't you the one responsible for Rufino's going off with the railroad men from Jacobina?" Gall mutters. Jurema is putting the fire out with a stick. "You've never liked the idea of Rufino's taking me to Canudos."

"No, I've never liked the idea," she agrees with such bluntness that for a moment Galileo feels his anger evaporate and nearly bursts out laughing. But she has spoken these words in all seriousness and looks him straight in the eye without blinking. Her face is an elongated oval, with prominent cheek and chin bones beneath her taut skin. Can the bones hidden beneath her hair be as prominent, as sharp, as eloquent, as revealing? "They killed those soldiers in Uaua," Jurema adds. "Everybody says that more soldiers will march on Canudos. I don't want him to be killed or taken prisoner. He feels a need to be on the move all the time. 'You have Saint Vitus's dance,' his mother tells him."

"Saint Vitus's dance?" Gall says.

"People who can't stay still," Jurema explains. "People who go about dancing."

The dog begins barking furiously once more. Jurema goes to the door of the cabin, opens it, and pushes him outside with her feet. They hear him barking outside, and once again, the tinkling of sheep bells. With a gloomy expression on his face, Galileo follows Jurema with his eyes as she walks back to the fire and pokes at the embers with a stick. A wisp of smoke drifts away in spirals.

"And besides, Canudos belongs to the baron and he's always helped us," Jurema says. "This house, this land, these sheep are ours thanks to him. You're on the side of the jaguncos jaguncos, you want to help them. Taking you to Canudos is the same as helping them. Do you think the baron would like it if Rufino helps the thieves who stole his ranch from him?"

"I'm certain he wouldn't like it," Gall mutters sarcastically.

The sound of the sheep bells reaches their ears again, even louder now, and Gall rises to his feet and reaches the palings of the wall of the cabin in two strides. He takes a look outside: the trees, the clumps of underbrush, the patches of rock are beginning to stand out in the whitish expanse. The wagon is there outside, loaded with bundles wrapped in canvas the same color as the desert, and alongside it the mule, tethered to a stake.

"Do you believe that the Counselor has been sent by the Blessed Jesus?" Jurema says. "Do you believe the things he prophesies? That the sea will become backlands and the backlands a sea? That the waters of the Vaza-Barris will turn into milk and the ravines into maize couscous to feed the poor?"

There is not a trace of mockery in her words or in her eyes as Galileo Gall looks at her, trying to read in the expression on her face what she thinks of all the talk that she has heard secondhand. He is unable to tell: the thought crosses his mind that the long oval of her peaceful, burnished face is as inscrutable as that of a Hindustani or a Chinese. Or that of the emissary from Canudos with whom he talked in the tannery in Itapicuru. Then, too, it was impossible to know, by observing his face, what that taciturn man felt or thought.

"In people who are dying of hunger, instincts are ordinarily stronger than beliefs," he murmurs after drinking the last drop of liquid in the bowl as he carefully scrutinizes Jurema's reactions. "They may well believe nonsensical, ingenuous, stupid things. But that doesn't matter. What matters is what they do. They have done away with property, marriage, social hierarchies; they have refused to accept the authority of the Church and of the State, and wiped out an army company. They have fought against authority, money, uniforms, ca.s.socks."

Jurema's face is a blank; she does not move a muscle. Her dark, slightly slanted eyes gaze at him without a trace of curiosity, sympathy, surprise. She has moist lips that pucker at the corners.

"They have taken up the fight at the point where we abandoned it, though they are not aware that they have done so. They are bringing the Idea back to life," Gall goes on, wondering what Jurema can be thinking of the words that she is hearing. "That is why I'm here. That is why I want to help them."

He is panting for breath, as though he had been shouting at the top of his lungs. The fatigue of the last two days, and on top of it the disappointment that he has felt on discovering that Rufino is not in Queimadas, is beginning to overcome him again, and the thought of sleeping, stretching out, of closing his eyes is so irresistible that he decides to lie down under the cart for a few hours. Or could he perhaps sleep in here-in this hammock, for instance? Will Jurema think it shocking if he asks to do so?

"That man who came from there, the one the saint sent, the one you saw-do you know who he was?" he hears her say. "It was Pajeu." And as Gall does not appear to be impressed, she adds in a surprised voice: "Haven't you heard of Pajeu? The most evil man in all the sertao sertao. He lived by stealing and killing. He lopped off the noses and ears of people unlucky enough to run into him on the roads."

All at once the tinkling of the sheep bells can be heard again outside, along with anxious barks at the door of the cabin and the whinnying of the mule. Gall is remembering the emissary from Canudos, the scar etched into his face, his strange calm, his indifference. Was it a mistake not to have told him about the arms? No, since he couldn't show them to him at the time: he would not have believed it, he would have been even more mistrustful, it would have jeopardized the entire plan. The dog barks frantically outside, and Gall sees Jurema grab the stick that she has put the fire out with and walk quickly over to the door. His mind elsewhere, still thinking about the emissary from Canudos, telling himself that if he had known that the man was an ex-bandit it might have been easier to talk with him, he watches Jurema struggle with the heavy crossbar, lift it, and at that moment something subtle, a noise, an intuition, a sixth sense, chance, tells him what is about to happen. For when Jurema is suddenly thrown backward as the door is violently flung open-with a shove or a kick from outside-and the silhouette of the man armed with a carbine appears in the doorway, Galileo already has his revolver out and is pointing it at the intruder. The roar of the carbine awakens the chickens in the corner, which flutter about in terror as Jurema, who has not been hit by the bullet but falls to the floor nonetheless, lets out a scream. On seeing the woman at his feet, the a.s.sailant hesitates, and it takes him a few seconds to find Gall amid the panicked flutter of wings, so that by the time he trains the carbine on him, Galileo has already fired, looking at him with a stupid expression on his face. The intruder drops the carbine and reels back, snorting. Jurema screams again. Galileo finally reacts and runs toward the carbine. He leans over and grabs it, and then catches sight, through the doorway, of the wounded man writhing on the ground moaning, another man coming on the run with his carbine raised and shouting something to the wounded man, and beyond him a third man hitching the wagon with the arms to a horse. Barely taking aim, he shoots. The man who was coming running stumbles, rolls on the ground bellowing, and Galileo takes another shot at him. "There are two bullets left," he thinks. He sees Jurema at his side, pushing the door, sees her close it, lower the crossbar, and slip to the back of the shack. He gets to his feet, wondering when it was that she fell to the floor. He is covered with dirt and drenched with sweat, his teeth are chattering, and he is clutching the revolver so tightly that his fingers ache. He peeks out through the palings: the wagon with the arms is disappearing in the distance in a cloud of dust, and in front of the cabin the dog is barking frantically at the two wounded men, who are creeping toward the sheepfold. Taking aim at them, he shoots the last two bullets left in his revolver and hears what seems to him to be a human roar amid the barking and the tinkling sheep bells. Yes, he has. .h.i.t one of them: the two are lying motionless, halfway between the cabin and the animal pen. Jurema is screaming still and the chickens cackling madly as they fly about in all directions, overturn things, crash into the palings, collide with his body. He slaps them away and looks out again, to the right and the left. If it weren't for those two bodies lying practically one atop the other, it would seem as though nothing had happened. Breathing hard, he staggers amid the chickens to the door. Through the cracks he glimpses the lonely countryside, the sprawling bodies. "They made away with the rifles," he thinks. "I'd be worse off if I were dead," he thinks. He pants, his eyes opened wide. Finally he lifts the crossbar and pushes the door open. Nothing, n.o.body.

He runs, half hunched over, to where the wagon has been standing, hearing the tinkle of the sheep bells as the creatures run round and round and back and forth inside the palings of the pen. He feels a knot of anxiety in his stomach, at the nape of his neck: a trail of gunpowder leads to the horizon, where it disappears in the direction of Riacho da Onca. He takes a deep breath, runs his hand over his little reddish beard; his teeth continue to chatter. The mule, tied to the tree trunk, is contentedly lazing about. He slowly walks back toward the cabin. He stops in front of the bodies lying on the ground: they are corpses now. He scrutinizes their tanned, unknown faces, fixed in a rigid grimace. Suddenly his expression turns to one of bitter, uncontrollable rage. He begins to kick the inert forms, viciously, muttering insults. His fury is contagious: the dog begins to bark, leap about, nibble at the two men's sandals. Finally Galileo calms down. Dragging his feet, he goes back into the cabin. He is met by a flurry of hens that makes him raise his hands in front of his face to protect it. Jurema is standing in the middle of the room: a figure trembling all over, her tunic ripped, her mouth half open, her eyes full of tears, her hair disheveled. She is staring in bewilderment at the disorder that reigns all about her, as though unable to fathom what is happening in her house, and, on spying Gall, runs to him and throws her arms about his chest, stammering words he does not understand. He stands there rigid, his mind a blank. He feels the woman huddling against his chest; he looks, in consternation, in fear, at this body clinging to his, this neck palpitating beneath his eyes. He smells the odor of her, and the thought dimly crosses his mind: "It's the smell of a woman." His temples pound. With an effort he raises one arm, puts it around Jurema's shoulders. He lets go of the revolver that he is still holding and his fingers awkwardly smooth her ruffled hair. "They were trying to kill me," he whispers in Jurema's ear. "There's no more danger now. They've carried off what they were after." Little by little the woman calms down. Her sobs die away, her body stops trembling, her hands let go of Gall. But he is still holding her close, still stroking her hair, and when Jurema tries to step away, he will not let her go. "Don't be afraid," he says to her slowly, in English, blinking rapidly. "They're gone. They..." Something new, ambiguous, urgent, intense, has appeared in his face, something that grows by the moment, something that he is barely aware of. His lips are very close to Jurema's neck. She steps back, vehemently, covering her bosom as she does so. She begins struggling now to free herself from Gall's grasp, but he will not let her go, and as he holds her fast, he whispers over and over the same phrase that she is unable to understand: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid." Jurema lashes out at him with both fists, scratches his face, manages to free herself and makes her escape. But Galileo runs across the room after her, catches up with her, grabs her, stumbles over the old trunk, and falls to the floor with her. Jurema kicks at him, fi