Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
have expected with such a barrage of bullets on an early Sunday morning. But Hora's
mother, looking out her kitchen window, saw Dilermando standing on his porch covered
in blood; she yelled at the sleeping Mario to run over to help his hemorrhaging friend.
Mariolaterdescribedthesituationthisway:“Dilermandotoldmetogetadoctor:hehad
shot someone in order not to be killed.”
76
Mario returned with Dr. Capanema, only to find that Euclides had already expired.
When told that the corpse was Euclides da Cunha, of
Os Sertões
, the doctor glared at
Dilermando, who then opened his bloody shirt to reveal his own bullet wounds. Mario
reported,“ItwasonlyatthistimethatInoticedthewomansobbinguncontrollablyonthe
chest of Dilermando, even as he held a blood-soaked cloth to stanch the flowing wound.
And impressively immobile, with the pallor of death already on his strong features, with
his arms extended along his body, lay Euclides. It was only later that I realized the wo-
man, the daughter of the celebrated Solon Ribeiro, was the wife of the lifeless man.
Dilermando asked that I telegraph the Baron of Rio Branco and Coelho Neto. Piedade
had no telegraph at the time, so I ran to Cascadura to send the message to Itamaratí and
then over to the house of Coelho Neto.”
77
Figure 22.3.
Corpse of Euclides da Cunha at the police morgue.
Coelho Neto was the first of da Cunha's intimates to hear the news. The message
asked him to bring Afrânio Peixoto, a celebrated symbolist writer, who was also a med-
ical doctor, and the two men hurried to the crime scene, where the cadaver of da Cunha
was laid out on Dilermando's bed. Dilermando himself was already in custody, and a
woundedDinorahwascirculatingaroundthehouseinshock.AnanguishedSolonswore
vengeance. Of the two brothers, Dinorah was in better shape. Before she returned to
the da Cunha house in Copacabana, Ana asked him to send this telegram to Angelica
(Neném)Ratto:“Yourwillisdone:Euclidesisdead,Dilermandodeadorcondemned.”
78
Search WWH ::
Custom Search