Hamlet’s Lament - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 376

Inreference towhat youwrote about coming tovisit me—I was veryhappyabout it butIhave anob-
jectiontomake:asyouknowtonguescanbetreacherousandhurtful.Yourcomingherecouldprompt
the meaner spirits to scandal. They'll say that I'm partial to the murderer of my father, because you
are married to him.
I don't want to meet you here in Juiz da Fora, *1 because as you know, I won't have very much
freedom.AndasIalreadysaid,inthistown(asinallofthem)therearemanypeoplewholikeonlyto
gossip. In any case, set the date, the place, and which train to take and indicate [to the school author-
ities] that I must go . . . 8
Manoel Afonso, meanwhile, was probably not having such a wonderful time either.
HewasbeingeducatedinaSilesianschoolinSãoPauloandwasveryunhappy,themost
orphaned of all the da Cunha boys. He wrote to his mother about his extreme dejection
andsaidhewaslosinghismindindespair,asituationalsonotedbytheschool'sdirector.
The de Assis household tried to contact Ana's sister for help, but apparently they lacked
an address for her. At fifteen, Manoel Afonso fled his boarding school, determined to go
back to Rio de Janeiro, where he was returned to the care of his uncle Nestor. 9
Anawasintheeighth monthofherlatest pregnancy whenonJune13Manoel Afonso
arrived at the farm where she and Dilermando resided. He stated that he no longer cared
to live with Nestor, nor did he want him as his tutor, because during a meal Nestor had
accused Ana of “murdering his father and his brother Solon,” apparently now a regu-
lar topic at that da Cunha table. 10 The young runaway precipitated a series of disastrous
events.
Born in 1901, Manoel Afonso had been very young during the pre-Amazon times
and had been largely superseded in Ana's affections by the much-doted-upon Luis. The
catastrophic last few years of the da Cunha marriage could hardly have been a recipe
for childhood happiness. Now the new de Assis family was growing by a new member
almost every year: João (1910), Laura (1912), Judith (1913), and Carlos (1914)—and
Manoel Afonso's mother was again in late pregnancy in June 1916. Who knows what
yearnings for family normality animated him? The de Assis farm with its babies, rural
pleasures, and general fecundity must have seemed like an idyll compared with the as-
cetic dormitories of religious boarding schools in São Paulo, where probably the same
taunts that plagued Quidinho haunted him. And his da Cunha relatives were austere and
accusing.
What transpired in the following weeks is less clear. Nestor was adamant that Manoel
Afonso must not continue in the de Assis household, since Ana and Dilermando had ini-
tially shoved the child into foster care with his aunt and Nestor for his education and
welfare. He was their ward. The couple had been largely out of contact with all the boys
for years. The de Assises actually retained few legal rights over the teenager, whatever
moral or emotional privileges might be invoked. Clearly the boy did want to stay in a
more domestic setting, but soon he was part of a larger vendetta.