5 - Human Determination

Summary

Rubião stared at the bay.… Anyone who saw him standing at the window of his home in Botafogo, his thumbs hitched under the belt of his robe, would have supposed he was admiring that little piece of calm water; but I tell you he was thinking something else entirely: he was comparing the past to the present. What had he been but a year ago? A teacher. What was he now! A capitalist. He looks at himself, at his slippers (slippers from Tunis, a gift from his new friend Cristiano Palha), he looks at the house, at the garden, at the bay, at the hills, and at the sky. Everything, from the slippers to the sky, gave him the gathering sensation of property.

Joaquin Maria Machado de Assis, one of our great novelists, grew tired of showing foreign acquaintances around Rio de Janeiro, his much loved home city. In fact, he despised the outings. He wanted visitors, foreigners in particular, to recognize his birthplace as the South American Paris, a place of culture, refinement, and progress, not a mere human enclave ensconced in an overpowering, flowered jungle. Invariably, however, his guests were so enchanted by nature, by the bay, the peaks, and the forests, they failed to see what man had done. On one occasion, a European guest asked to be shown something old and beautiful, so with some hope, Machado de Assis accompanied him to the top of Castelo hill to see the ancient church and former cathedral.