Reading Note: Baixa
Staying at the table after dinner, indulging myself with a book instead of cleaning up, I came upon a relatively brief passage from The Maias that captures Eça de Queirós’s wonderfully light hand.
All you need to know is that the young hero, Carlos (a handsome young man of birth and position, and they used to say, and also a doctor with a “weekend” practice) has been seized by a desire, new for him, to hunt down a beautiful woman. Having learned that she has gone to Sintra, he resolves to follow her. From among the circle of men at his grandfather’s house, Ramalhete, he engages Cruges to accompany him on the junket — without telling him its objective.
The following morning, at eight o’clock sharp, Carlos drew up in Rua das Flores, outside Cruges’ familiar front door. However, the footman he sent to ring the bell of the third-floor apartment returned with the puzzling news that Senhor Cruges no longer lived there. Where the devil did he live then? The maid had said that he now lived in Rua de São Francisco, four doors along from the Grémio. In a moment of despair, Carlos considered going to Sintra alone. Then he set off for Rua de São Francisco, cursing the ever vague, ever secretive Cruges for having moved without telling him! It was so typical — Carlos, for example, knew nothing about his past, about his inner life, his affections, or his habits. The Marquis had simply arrived with him at Ramalhete one night, whispering to Carlos that he had brought him a genius. And Cruges had immediately charmed them all with his modest manner and his marvellous piano-playing, and everyone at Ramalhete began to address him as “maestro,” to speak of him as a genius, and to declare that Chopin had never written anything to compare with Cruges’ “Meditation on Autumn.” And no one knew anything more about him! It was only through Dâmaso that Carlos had found out Cruges’ address and the fact that he lived with his mother, who was a still relatively youthful widow and the owner of several buildings in the Baixa.
Carlos had to wait a quarter of an hour outside the house in Rua de São Francisco. First, a maid, her head bare, made a furtive appearance at the bottom of the stairs, took one look at the break and the liveried servants and immediately fled upstairs again. Then, a shirt-sleeved manservant arrived, bringing the master’s suitcase and travelling rug. Finally, the maestro himself came running, almost tumbling down the stairs, a silk scarf in one hand, an umbrella under his arm, and fumbling with his overcoat buttons.
As he came bounding down the last few steps, a shrill female voice called from up above: “Don’t forget the cheese pastries!”
And with that, Cruges clambered hurriedly into the seat beside Carlos, grumbling that he had been so worried about having to get up so early that he’d barely slept at all.
“What’s the idea of moving without telling anyone?” exclaimed Carlos, who, seeing that Cruges was shivering, arranged some of his own rug over the maestro’s knees.
“This is one of our houses too,” he said simply.
“Oh, well, that would be the reason then,” murmured Carlos with an amused shrug.
I would judge any film adaptation of this novel by the fresh beauty of this scene — vel non.
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