“Impressions completely new to me” - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 189

Figure 12.2. “A nossa flotilla”—our flotilla (in da Cunha's hand). The Brazilian fleet for the Purús:
small boats for such a great quest.
He ended this letter on this note: “A favor, a sacrosanct brotherly favor: please visit
my four darlings—my saudades —in Larangeiras: 20 my wife and the three little ones.
Visit them and give them my news . . .” 21 Even six weeks later, in May, well into his
travels, he had heard nothing. By telegram he begged Domício to send him domestic
reports, but no one would find the family he missed so at the home where he had left
them. Da Cunha's correspondence and telegrams became increasingly desperate. When
he eventually returned to Rio, he had to cable the trading house to locate her.
Life at the Pension Monat
Da Cunha's family had moved to a boarding house, Pension Monat, and later to a beach
house. What had transpired in Ana's life? It is difficult to say: perhaps she tired of lan-
guishing with just her children and servants for company. Her other social option, her
family,wassorifewithconflictandsoobnoxiousaboutEuclidesthattheyprovidedlittle
by way of pleasant company. Euclides's attempts to fob her off on his own relatives had
also been unsuccessful.
Anahadtraveled toSãoPaulo toputherchildren SolonandEuclides Jr.inanEnglish
boardingschool,andthereshehiredJoãoRattotobetheirtutor.ShestayedinSãoPaulo
for a month to settle the boys in their new school; during that time she stayed with An-
gelica and Lucinda Ratto, sisters of the tutor, young women in their early twenties. The
company of these lively and musical young women apparently agreed with Ana. After
returning to Rio, she and her youngest son, Manoel Afonso, moved to the Pension Mon-
at, a kind of boarding house that let suites to families, where Lucinda and Angelica
(whose nickname was Neném) also had moved.
Lucinda and Neném were aunts of the orphaned teenaged boys Dinorah and Diler-
mandodeAssis,mililtarycadetswhowereconnectedtothedaCunhahouseholdthrough
kinship with Euclides's friend Veríssimo and, on Ana's side, through their mother. The
two de Assis youngsters visited their aunts bringing gifts, and they quickly struck up a