Return of the Native - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 270

Euclides wrote this to his father:

As to the other, very delicate point in your letter: there are no, absolutely no, grounds for what you
believe. How everyone exaggerates my intentions. . . . I am not falling, thank God, into those repug-
nant and ridiculous jealousies that are completely unjustifiable; I wouldn't even be here, writing this
letter, if I doubted for a moment the honesty and harmony that surrounds me.
It is just an old issue. Considering the complete moral collapse of this country, where the smallest
acts are subjected to the falsest interpretations, where I oppose myself to things that everyone else
allows—frivolities permitted by everyone—but which “everyone” then usually turns into the most
grotesque thoughts. In sum, the discord in my home derives only from my audacity in hammering on
thatoldsaw“It'snotenoughthatwebeupstanding;itisalsonecessarythatwe appear upstanding.” 15
Ana's pregnancy would rupture the figment of appearances.

. . .

The events of that time left little by way of documentation, and the principals who have
opined on the death of the baby have axes to grind with each other. The Ana de Assis
faction viewed da Cunha as a temperamental, vindictive brute who maintained appear-
ancesbuttormentedherpsychologically innumerousdiabolical ways.Dilermando,who
would later produce topics on the subject,viewed daCunhaasacomplacenthusbandbut
also given to verbally abusing and humiliating his wife. 16 The da Cunha relatives have,
insofar as possible, sought to polish his domestic image in addition to his reputation as
one of Brazil's leading intellectuals. 17
Keeping up appearances must have been straining for everyone. In this general exer-
cise in falsity, Dilermando visited the da Cunha household regularly each Saturday until
March 1906, when he left to continue his training in Porto Alegre, far south of Rio. A
sense of how odd these visits must have been for all involved is suggested by a now lost
letterthatthedistraughtseventeen-year-oldcadetsenttoEuclides,whoinadditiontohis
other glories was now an aide to the Baron of Rio Branco. Euclides had probably insul-
ted Dilermando in some way, an act not unimaginable in the circumstances, especially
given Euclides's famously short temper at home and the circumstances. Euclides wrote
back:
My response is simple: there is an enormous, absolute error in what you think. The question is very
much other and you are completely extraneous to it. See what happens when one makes deductions
from isolated facts and words? Anyway, in spite of being exasperated by innumerable irritations, I
don't think I treated you badly. At your age, one is never a low person. Do not believe that I did you
such an injustice. Myhouse continues to be open to those whoare worthy and good.Icould not close
it to you. When you know the reason for my annoyance you can evaluate the injustice that you did to
yourself and to me. See you Saturday. Study, and continue to be the same youth of noble sentiments
. . . etc. etc.

Euclides da Cunha. 18