Killing Dr. da Cunha - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 364

Young Euclides Jr.—Quidinho—who was residing in a local boarding school, was
also ill (most of the various personages in the drama seem to have been afflicted with
fevers of one sort and another). On Saturday August 14, Ana proceeded to visit him and
then went back to her mother's house. There, during a heart-to-heart discussion with her
sister-in-law,Augusta,shewroteDilermando'snameonaslipofpapersoasnottospeak
it out loud (one has the impression of servants, family members, everyone lurking in
corners to catch snippets of the next conversation and figure out how to enlarge on this
extremely juicy gossip). Augusta, seeing the name, said there was already a great deal
of talk about him and that learning the truth fueled her and Adroaldo's growing sense
that Ana should not return to the family hearth, where her disgrace would fall on every-
one, but neither should she live in the company of Dilermando, as that would only bring
further humiliation upon her and the Ribeiro clan. Ana, in her view, should seek some
kindofasylum,ajobsomewherewhereshecouldsupportherselfandlittleLuis,perhaps
among nuns. 41
All these events as recounted by their protagonists have the air of gothic melodrama,
and certainly a scandal of this type was riveting to households, friends, and acquaint-
ances. And it was quite a small world that was chattering about the da Cunha domestic
arrangements. Infidelity was hardly unheard of in Brazil's upper classes, but such overt
passions between a very handsome young man and a matron seventeen (or twenty-one)
years his senior would raise eyebrows (and maybe envy among the female cohort), even
among the most libertine of Rio's cosmopolitan salonistes . For men, such dalliances
would hardly merit comment, but bourgeois ideologies of virtuous womanhood made
Ana's trespass socially intolerable. 42 Moreover, at the margins of the elite, among those
without large fortunes like the Ribeiros and da Cunhas, who depended on patronage,
reputation was everything. This kind of scandal could have serious repercussions, not
justforAna(whowouldhavebeensociallydeadinanycase)butalsofortheothermem-
bers of the family, for their vocational and social prospects.
Euclides was famous, well connected to the national elites. Divorce at the time could
be achieved only through papal annulment, a difficult strategy in this case given that
Euclides and Ana had three children between them, in addition to Dilermando's Luis
and the dead Mauro. 43 But Euclides was also cornudo , a cuckold publicly betrayed by
his wife, and his name was at stake. The general view at the time was that tarnished
honor could be cleansed only by blood. Given Euclides's own concern with correctness,
the profoundly incorrect circumstances of his intimate relations must have become per-
sonally and professionally unbearable. One of his last letters to Otaviano describes his
frustration at the rising “mediocracy,” social and political hypocrisy. 44 He also felt that
he was dying, and probably actually was—as he wrote to his father. “The truth is I've