Rubião managed to get him to drink milk. It was his only nourishment for some time. Later on he would pass the hours in silence, sad, rolled up into a ball or with his body stretched out and his head between his paws.

When the doctor returned he was astounded at his patient’s temerity. They should have tried to stop him. It was certain death.

“Certain?”

“Sooner or later. Did he take that dog with him?”

“No, sir, he’s with me. He asked me to take care of him and he cried. You should have seen him. I thought he’d never stop. The truth is,” Rubião then said as a defense of the sick man, “the truth is that the dog deserves his master’s esteem. He’s just like a person.”

The doctor took off his broad–brimmed straw hat to adjust the band, then he smiled. “A person? So he’s just like a person, eh?” Rubião repeated it and then explained. He wasn’t a person like other persons, but he had touches of feeling, even intelligence. Look, he was going to tell him a ...

“No, old man, not now, later, later, I’ve got to go see a patient with erysipelas . . . If any letters come from him and they’re not private, I’d like to see them, hear? And give my regards to the dog,” he concluded as he left.

Some people began to make fun of Rubião and the strange duty of guarding a dog when the dog should be guarding him. The mockery began, the nicknames. Look how the teacher had ended up! Sentry for a dog! Rubião was afraid of public opinion. It did, in fact, look ridiculous to him. He would avoid other people’s eyes, look at the dog with annoyance, curse him, curse life. If it weren’t for the hope of a legacy, small as it might be. It was impossible that Quincas Borba wouldn’t leave him some remembrance.

X

 

Seven weeks later this letter postmarked Rio de Janeiro arrived in Barbacena, all in Quincas Borba’s handwriting:

My dear friend,

You must be puzzled by my silence. I have not written you because of some very special reasons, etc. I shall return soon, but I wish to pass on to you right now a private matter, most private.

Who am I, Rubião? Saint Augustine. I know that you’ll smile at that because you’re an ignoramus, Rubião. Our intimacy allows me to use a crueler word, but I make you this concession, which is the last. Ignoramus!

Listen, ignoramus. I’m Saint Augustine. I discovered that the day before yesterday.