Killing Dr. da Cunha - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 365

abused my resistance and now I must stop.” 45 He had little to lose in seeking vengeance
and his reputation to gain, no matter what the outcome.
On Saturday August 14, Euclides made his way back to dona Tulia's house to find
Ana. Augusta informed him that Ana had not spent the night there. In rage and despair,
Euclides went to pick up the ailing Quidinho and took him home for the weekend. Back
at home, Euclides informed his children, Euclides Jr., Solon, and Manoel Afonso, that
their mother would no longer be living with them. 46
Solon had been party to the entire affair without exactly realizing it, although some,
like the police reviewer 47 and the Ratto sisters, believed that he was not innocent of the
nature of the relations between Ana and Dilermando. He spent too much time with the
couple not to have been aware of affections that went well beyond customary cousinly
exchanges, but the romance itself was perhaps too much of a transgression for him to
evenacknowledge. 48 Givenhistemperament,heprobablypreferredtheheartymasculin-
ityofDilermandotohisfather'sneurasthenicintellectualism, butwhenitcametodecid-
ing which “father” he preferred, Solon was caught, naive if not ingenuous, in a tangle of
silencesandpublicsecrets.Hisunwittingrolehadbeentodivertattentionandlegitimize
the illicit.
That night Solon had a bitter fight with Euclides. In the early evening, Euclides had
called him into the study and said, according to Solon's later testimony, “Your mother is
an adulteress; she's no longer at her mother's house, that is to say, she didn't sleep there,
and since she didn't sleep here, she has to be somewhere else.” 49 In a fury of anguished
loyaltyandadolescentrage,SolonsworehewouldneverstepfootinthedaCunhahouse
again,thatheandhisfatherwerecompletelydifferenttypesofpeopleandcompletelyin-
compatible. 50 Thetwohadnevergottenalongthatwell;thestudiouslittle Quidinhowas
understoodtobehisfather'sfavorite,whileAnadotedonherhandsomeboys,Solonand
Luis. Solon said that he would go and look for Ana. He knew, of course, exactly where
she was. In his deposition he reported that Neném had told Euclides that Ana was at the
de Assis home that night. 51 The Rattos were in a position to know, since they had meant
to go shopping with Ana that afternoon but had left messages with Dinorah and Solon
at the Piedade household that they would be unable to join her. In Quidinho's version
of that evening, he reported that he thought that Solon was going to avenge the family
honor, and that was why he took da Cunha's revolver with him when he left the house
for Piedade. 52
Earlier in the evening, Ana had urged Dinorah to go to the da Cunha house and see to
her other young son, Manoel Afonso, also ailing (and under the care of the Ratto sisters)
in the midst of this crisis. Dinorah carried out this charge, but when he heard Euclides's
angryvoice inthedaCunha houseinsulting Anainthemost explicit terms, hechose not