Return of the Native - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 272

thelatestateofthepregnancy,butadvisedthatsheshouldgohome,havethebaby,andsenddaCunha
to speak with him after the birth, since he would point out to da Cunha the possibilities of having a
baby of six months' gestation. If he could convince da Cunha of this, she would be saved, otherwise,
she would see what destiny had in store for her. 24
Anaalsovisitedamidwife,EmiliaMovan,whoproposedtoherthatjustaboutatterm
Ana should suggest that the da Cunhas change households, and she could thus explain
the labor as premature induced by the fatigues of relocation. 25 This was in fact the route
Ana followed. The day that they moved, she waited for her husband to leave for the of-
fice so when the child was born she might find some way to hide it or “to make it disap-
pear.” But it happened that Euclides stayed at home that day, probably not by accident.
In the end, when she gave birth only her husband was in attendance. Seeing the flaxen-
haired child born alive, Euclides, according to Ana, exclaimed that the baby was “the
monstrous offspring of that monster who betrayed me” 26 and left for another part of the
house.
With the help of the cook, Ana began caring for the infant. About midnight, an en-
raged Euclides barged into the room, posing the central question in this way: “You slut,
you disgrace, daughter of that tarimbeiro *1 who has the shame of having put you on this
earth, swear on your father's ashes whether this child is or is not mine.” 27
On her knees, with the child at her breast, Ana confessed the child was Dilermando's.
Euclides, according to Ana's testimony, then stated “that he wouldn't kill her because
he didn't want to defile himself with the stains of her blood, but that he would have to
kill her lover. She would,” he said, “have to live a life of suffering,” and then he forbade
her to nurse her new baby and averred that the birth would not be noted; indeed it was
hidden until the death of the child some eight days later. 28
The position maintained by the Ana de Assis faction was that Euclides took the nurs-
ing child, locked Ana in her bedroom, simply let the child die of starvation, away from
the milk and care of his mother, and later buried the tiny corpse in the garden. 29 This
macabre account iscontested bythe daCunha faction, whopoint toagrave with ahead-
stone for little Mauro and suggest that there was some genetic problem; some specu-
late that the medicines Ana obtained from popular curers may have in fact damaged the
fetus. 30 Euclides did formally recognize the child as his own, even though, as Ana re-
ports, he treated her insultingly and cruelly. Dilermando, uncharacteristically, had little
to say on this point.
The baby was merely the first victim of this deadly triangle.
In his correspondence da Cunha maintained his public persona and was cheery about
his fatherhood, dissembling about the state of the relationship. For example, he wrote
apologetically to his friend Coelho, “I got your card and am convalescing from a painful
health crisis. Also, my wife has been gravely ill due to a premature birth, and I cannot
tell you the anxious days I have passed. Even greater torture, though, was to harmonize