Hamlet’s Lament - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 377

At the behest of Nestor and his lawyer, the police were sent out to retrieve the boy,
who apparently did not want to return to school or his uncle. This first attempt at re-
moving him was thwarted, but a few days later a warrant, a scribe, and a policeman ar-
rived.Thisefforttotakeawaytheboywasalsounsuccessful.Finally,onceagainanother
scribe, warrant, and policeman, with some backup from the army, surrounded the house.
Once again Dilermando and Ana were embroiled in public scandal.
AnabeggedthisdelegationtowaitforthearrivalofDilermandoattheendofthatday.
When he finally appeared, the situation was reviewed, and the child was deemed of the
age of reason and thus able to decide on his own where he preferred to reside. But the
policeman insisted that Dilermando and Manoel Afonso appear the next day in front of
a judge of child services ( juiz de órfões ) and explain the situation. 11
To get in the middle of a da Cunha-de Assis controversy was asking for trouble.
Nestor's lawyer, Rodrigo São Paulo, appeared before the judge and argued that the child
had been more or less abducted and that the moral terrain of de Assis household was
questionableandunfitforhim.Otherallegationsweremadethatthecouplewasillegally
holding da Cunha estate materials that rightfully belonged elsewhere. 12
The judge, however, decided that for the time being the child should stay with the
de Assis household until another guardian could be arranged, in this case General Emí-
dio Dantas Barreto, in some ways a döppelganger for Euclides. He was a former war
minister under President Hermes Fonseca, former governor of Pernambuco, and veter-
an of the great Brazilian battles of Paraguay, Canudos and the 1910 millenarian revolt,
the Contestado in Santa Caterina. He was also a man of literature in his way. He had
written, like da Cunha, an account of the Canudos War 13 (Dantas Barreto's is largely
forgotten), and was an essayist of some repute. He held the chair previously occupied
by Joaquim Nabuco at the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Dantas Barreto was a person
of the military-political class rather than of the intelligentsia but had enough Euclides
“analogues” to act as the child's guardian. He was also an important behind-the-scenes
protector of de Assis. 14
At the meeting with the judge, Nestor's lawyer argued that Euclides II, for his part,
was extremely upset about the situation, the “ignominious” circumstances of his broth-
er's living under the roof of his father's assassin, the dishonor of the lack of revenge,
and so on. For Dilermando, the problem was the deeper social rancor against him, the
resentment about his release from prison, and the large da Cunha clan's longing for a
more active form of justice, given the absence of any harsh punishment by the military
tribunals. After leaving his boarding school, Euclides Jr. had returned to Rio for naval
training but had commanded his mother not to visit him or seek him out. He sent her a
letter denouncing her for “having infringed on the concept of Dignity, betrayed her filial