Return of the Native - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 268

Ana and Her Cadet
After da Cunha departed on his expedition, Ana had left the house leased for her and,
as I noted, had decamped, first to the Pension Monat and then to another house where
shelivedwithheryoungestchildren,herlover,hisaunts,andsomeservants.Hersilence
for the duration of his expedition, her removal to a new address without bothering to in-
form him, and her isolation from friends and family suggest that she was ready to end
their marriage. In an extensive airing of historical dirty laundry, her family has argued
that Euclides left his household with little money while he was on expedition and that
Anamoved tothe Pension Monat outoffiscal desperation. 7 The daCunha side points to
theaccountsofthetradinghouseBazaarAmericaasproofofagenerousallowance 8 and
paints her as a cynical and frustrated schemer. Perhaps it was some of both: she loved
Dilermando and she needed money.
Dilermando described their passion this way:
Livingtogethersoonledtocloseness,andthelackofexperienceorgoodjudgmentpermittedthemost
intimate proximity. A life no longer cloistered opened up new horizons, the reading we did together
awakened fantasies, adolescence sparkled with its own enchantments . . . our isolation eased the play
of the empire of the senses. I lacked the protective and well-considered advice that could warn me
away from this godless path that would soon convert into a passion . . . and then, there were so many
other circumstances, material and moral, too many to number, for good or for ill, and all conspired to
awaken new, delirious sentiments. And thus hidden away, in this unbounded intoxication, my crime
was consummated. Because it is only this way I can view it, the transgression of the Law: for having
loved at seventeen a married woman whose husband I didn't know, and who was absent in the most
distant outposts, who was not even being remembered by so much as an lifeless photograph. It was
fate, it had to be like that, and thus did it transpire that fall of 1905. 9
This amorous prose certainly trumps Euclides's banal billet-doux upon falling in love
with Ana: “That evening I entered with the vision of the Republic, and left with yours.”
Ana had now given up contact with most of her and Euclides' family members and fled
to the delirium of first love and profound sexual awakening for both her and her teen-
age lover. With the Ratto sisters as confidantes, and with kinship links to Dilermando
glossingoverthereality ofthedomestic arrangement, shereveled inthepleasures ofher
romance.
The telegram from the Tennyson ended the serene phase of their affair. Dilermando
initially stayed at the house so as not to arouse suspicion, but within hours of Euclides's
arrival the domestic explosion was well on its way. Dilermando states that a letter from
Ana had informed Euclides of her infidelity but not with whom, nor of its carnal nature.
Euclides became aware of their romance but perhaps not of the fact that Ana was three
monthspregnant. 10 Alongwithanonymousrevelationsandwidespreadgossip,therewas
a story given by Ana herself in 1909 at a police deposition: she stated that she wrote a
letter to her husband where she affirmed that she was unworthy of him, had “betrayed