"THE NORTHERN LAND" "Listen to my voice and follow it." "So you will not be lost." "Because here we have an enigma and its adornments." "If you are now listening to an aria by Verdi, it is because La Traviata was Sissi's favourite opera and she listened to it countless times." "And it also has to do with Camille and thus with the story I now tell you." "When in the winter of 1860 Empress Elisabeth came to the island" "Funchal society locked itself at home, between distrust and prudence." "Sissi, who as yet was not considered to be the most beautiful woman in Europe, was preceded by a devilish legend." "The nobility detested her seditious showiness, her taste for standing out, her breaking of protocol, her petit-bourgeois insolence, in short, her manias." "And Elisabeth, liberal, independent, individualistic like no one else, returned this in kind, showing her scorn for the monarchy, which she called a disaster." "Sissi was truly unwell." "Her feet were swollen, she coughed a lot and her voice was almost inaudible." "No!" "I'll come down on my own." "Yet her disembarkation was at once a small scandal." "She wasn't wearing anything." "You could see everything." "Rosamund, manners please!" "This only confirmed the depressing rumour that was heard in Vienna." "The Empress never wore underwear." "It's terrible." "I'll never be able to tell them apart." "Were they so alike?" "As you can see." "Grandma Rosalina!" "She was so pretty." "Why would she kill herself?" "Don't be silly, Rosamund." "Why go over an enigma that is a hundred years old?" "Everyone who has tried it has faired badly." "At your age you should have other concerns." "At my age?" "What does my age have to do with it?" "I'm going to find out everything." "I want to know it all." "Margot, the enigma does not exist." "And you, my cute little girl, are even prettier than your great-great-grandmother." "Oh, father..." "Rosamund!" "You are going to have to think about getting a husband." "All of your sisters are married and married well, they all have children and they are very happy." "And they don't waste time thinking about mysteries." "And how do you know I'm not happy, mother?" "I hate men, I'll never get married." "Don't say senseless things." "Mother, senseless were the radishes you made us eat and nonsense were the plays by Brecht you made us perform for the servants." "Brecht for servants!" "A real scandal!" "Mr João de Barros, you must put a stop this!" "Rosamund is a woman now!" "And if it bothers you, you should go to London, to see your other daughters and your grandchildren." "I'm going to the "Northern Land"." " The "Northern Land"?" " Tomorrow!" "Leopoldina." "You know perfectly well that I never touched her." "I don't know anything anymore!" "Ah, if only I were a man!" "A hundred years earlier, Rosamund's great-great-grandmother looked at the same painting in the same way." "Sumptuous." "Judith and Holphernes." "He asleep, offering his bare throat." "She with an asphyxiating smile and a sinister pain in her gaze." "Judith was not going to behead a tyrant having for this the approval of the entire tribe." "She was going to destroy the first work of creation, she was going to exclude man from earth." "To cut off his head with a superficial and brilliant pleasure, finally freeing herself from the caress that fertilises and feeds men's earth." "Ah, if only I were a man." "I have loved you, you cannot survive." "Rosalina, what are you on about?" "Nothing." "Absolutely nothing." "Madam, we are late." "Let's go, Rosalina." "I'm going to introduce you to his majesty, Prince Dom Luis, and the Empress Elisabeth." "Sissi." "Your Highness, I present Baroness Madalena do Mar." "I haven't the slightest idea who Madalena do Mar might be." "What's the matter, cousin?" "A disaster." "She showed no interest at all in me." "A disaster." "But I Will..." "Emilia..." "Never speak that name again." "Come, cousin." "Invite me to dance." "Here is Emilia de Sousa in the hydrangea garden in her house in Funchal in 1861." "Married to the wealthy Madeiran Gaspar de Barros, she is 26 and changes her name to forget her past." "She is now called Rosalina de Sousa or Rosalina de Barros by marriage, or Baroness Madalena do Mar through a title of property." "She is the mother of two children." "Lopo, 5, and Francisco, 4." "Sissi's visit to Madeira Island between November 1860 and March 1861 violently transformed Rosalina's life and decided her strange future." "Aren't you ready yet, cousin?" "But is it so late?" "Conde Carvalhal's gardens will not move elsewhere." "But the Empress will." "Sissi..." "Red Rose..." "Here's a handkerchief, cousin." "Do you want it as well?" "Why did she do that?" "Nothing is the same!" "The Empress's hair falls much more freely." "I'm sorry, Madam Baroness, but I think it is practically the same." "From where do you know the Empress?" "I don't know her." "I just saw her pass by twice." "Idiot!" "You didn't look very well." "It is time." "The Empress looks much better." "A fresh and joyful face." "She's totally different!" "The fame the island gained for the first time has brought the sick to it." "Tuberculous laryngitis was suspected, which could never have been the case." "Something like that does not get cured so quickly, and most of the time it leads to death." "Only if the winds from Africa bring miracles!" "The Count of Carvalhal told me that His Highness Dom Pedro had told him that the Empress was anaemic and suffered from conjugal maladjustment;" "she felt serious repugnance as to sex." "On her first night to fulfill her conjugal duty, the Emperor Franz Josef had to rape her." "Since then she has refused to sleep with him;" "now they sleep in separate rooms." "Better the eye of the schemer than the doctor's lens." "You know that Sissi has bought eight ponies." "She has had a big Airedale terrier sent here from England." "She has fierce discipline." "She walks ten kilometers every day And rides fifty." "Well!" "She only eats raw vegetables and fruit." "And always in a great hurry." "She's always going to the bathroom!" "It must be easier without underwear." "Dog] ..." "Waterloo, an 1815 vintage." "The glasses are very large." "Ah, the glasses are too large." "Perhaps next time it will be better to have the wine sewed by one of your raffinées mistresses." "I've no idea why you married me, sir." "Mistresses?" "Here comes the Count of Carvalhal and the Empress!" "Oh, dash it!" "They're an hour early." "I don't want the Empress to see me." "She can't see me like this." "Madam Baroness, I haven't finished!" "It doesn't matter." "I'll be back in two days." "Rosalina saw the Empress's solid and perfect body, and that she weighted than 50 kilos and that her waist was less than 50 centimeters." "And she noticed that Sissi smelled of flowers and was a higher sentimental force that demanded a love without illusions, a sort of wild deliverance to the vocation of love without art, judgment, creative importance or divinity, only love." "Empress..." "Rosalina?" "What the devil!" "The same, the same, the same." "Don't overdo it, my dear count, she is a princess." "And you, my dear friend, a queen." "She must be his mistress!" "Rosalina?" "What are you doing stood there like a statue?" "Are you crying?" "What is the matter?" "You're frozen!" "This girl is sick." "You should come with me to the continent, Rosalina." "We would go shopping and relax and clear our heads." "I love Gaspar." "I love him." "Oh, my daughter!" "There are squalls at sea as there are squalls in the heart." "You have grown weary of your husband, haven't you?" "Now be patient." "Everything will be fine." "Time will sort everything out." "I love my husband." "I love him!" " Instead of..." " Cripes, mother!" "Instead of looking at your rubbishy books so much, you should pay more attention to what is going on with your wife." "What is going on with my wife?" "She talks too much; she says everything." "She is becoming completely separated from what were her habit and likings." "And you don't notice anything." "She talks and talks until she's got nothing to say and then she withdraws to cry." "She spends the day praying and saying nonsense:" ""for me sadness is dearer than life!"" "Now praying is bad?" "How foolish, mother!" "The one who prays a lot is because they have the devil inside." "She is much thinner, she only eats unripe lemons." "She is very different It is like she has been changed." "I hope she is not "out of herself"" "She is ill." "I don't believe at all in her illnesses." "She is purely and simply an anarchist." "You should have married your cousin Dozy." "She is much more joyful and much more sensible." "I have never heard her say nonsense like your wife does." ""This island is killing me!" "This island is killing me..."" "Mother!" "Leave me alone!" "And all this time playing at Sissi." "As if I didn't know where she came from." "What do you know, mother?" "I know much more than Mr Gaspar de Barros imagines." "Oh, mother!" "I'm so tired of your insinuations." "Your good fortune is that the Empress leaves tomorrow for Austria." "God help us!" "Perhaps this unbearable madness will end for once and for all." "Mother, let me read!" "That's it." "Close your eyes in books." "Books about great islanders and none of them was mean-spirited." "They left the islands to shatter the world, to split it down the middle, to take from it the proof that belonged to them the right to the whole earth." "Oh!" "You're even crazier than she is." "My God!" "She goes away." "This island is killing me..." "This island is killing me" "God help us!" "Madame Baroness!" "Well, doctor." "Is it serious?" "How is her spirit?" "Spirit?" "Before we treat her soul, we need to strengthen her body." "A lot of raw meat, papaya juice and when she is a little stronger, perhaps a change of scenery might do her good." "It's all play acting." "For Rosalina married at sixteen, to a man she loved, like a novice loves Jesus, the Empress's departure was a terrible fact." "With a remarkable appetite the little Baroness grew into a determined woman, even cruel in her willfulness." "Gaspar de Barros was afraid." "How do you feel?" "Can I talk to you?" "His Highness has made me a kind invitation." "He wants me to occupy a diplomatic position in Rio de Janeiro." "But with you in this condition, I think I must refuse." "I am perfectly well." "And you may do as you please." "You are no longer my husband nor am I your wife." "Excuse me?" "I must tell you that next week, I am going to the Northern Land." "But we are still months away from the season." "I am going!" "I wish to be alone." "What about your children?" "And me?" "You are all in the good care of your virtuous mother and your joyful cousin." "I do not wish to know of you." "You are not in your right mind." "I assure you I am." "You can totally devote yourself to your books, to your king and to your mistresses." " It makes no difference at all to me." " Mistresses?" "I'll go crazy!" "Gaspar de Barros accompanied his wife in that state of half madness on a dangerous journey that lasted over half a day, crossing the whole island through sinister peaks and murderous paths." "He didn't say a word; he was terrified." "Different to this was Rosalina's state of being, different were her disconnected and turbulent thoughts." "This mountain does not need honours, kneeling before it is not a favour." "And for the first time Rosalina felt repugnance at the behaviour of the old, devoted servants." "They were accustomed to greeting their masters on their knees, hugging them around the waist." "And they would never stand up until their heads were touched as a sign of blessing." "Horrified by these gestures, not by repudiating of a custom coming from the time of the slaves, but because she thought her hands should rather be touching crafted furniture and delicate French porcelain, she violently pushed the servants away." "I hand you over to my cousin João Sanha in whom I have the greatest trust." "Your cousin can be trusted?" "Nothing will happen, I am sure." "And if it does happen it is not a betrayal, it is a precaution." "It is late;" "I wish to return to Funchal today." "Then have a good journey." "Enjoy yourself." "You always abandon the ship!" "I've got used to forgiving you;" "I was convinced that deep down you had an ethic." "Nebulous and disconcerting, but an ethic nonetheless." "All these years I wished to imitate you, to redo your path" "Rosamund!" "Don't be childish." "You are a man without feelings." "You smell of a corpse, you disgust me." "Well..." "I must go." "If you go to England, give my greetings to your daughters." "And don't bother me with letters and much less with visits." "João de Barros is a tragic figure." "He lived little over sixty years," "He went from poverty to untold fortune, back to poverty and finally to miserly wealth." "Now almost at the sunset of his life, he felt an overwhelming desire to be isolated, to once again find that sort of celibacy, which men greatly prize because they are either inclined to vice or virtue." "Alice, João de Barros's mother, a former lying, mean and arrogant servant, never managed to rise to the level of the Barros family." "As a very young and scorned widow, she was forced to emigrate to the continent, where she carried on lying about the luxury and abundance she had known." "But she made great sacrifices to raise her son as well as possible." "And when he, a graduate in Mathematics, returned to the island," "Alice accompanied him to guarantee the position to which she had a right:" "a place in the family, money and well-being." "This is nonsense." "I won't stay here, ever." "I wish I could die" "Grandmother, don't say silly things." "Where do you want to go?" "I prefer a horrible boarding house, to having a horde of tourists invading my bedroom." "Haven't you done anything sensible?" "One can see who you take after." "And who might that be?" "João de Barros, your father." "I've never seen anyone so stupid nor such a maniac." "Instead of earning money, he spends his life in books and writing useless idiocies." "Now he is not doing so well." "But a man who started out from nothing, who became rich and powerful, can't be just a white elephant, a motive for veneration and a means of transportation." "He must have had some merit." "Through dealings that were so dark that there is no sun nor moon that might shed light on them." "If it were not for the help of Dr Sebastião." "He, indeed, was a gentleman." "A person of value." "His collar was never dirty." "Compared to him, your father is a nobody and he still is a nobody." "Your father had a lot of money, but now he has nothing!" "Nothing!" "Nothing!" "Nothing!" "Grandmother." "Why do you hate your son so much?" "Hate him?" "No." "My son is the one who hates me." "He never forgave me for being a maid's son and not being the child of Agueda, your grandfather's own sister." "God forgive them." "And how Agueda loved her brother." "Mother!" "You are talking too much!" "Margot never wanted to know about anything." "She always closed her eyes to what was going on in this house." "Of course it is much more comfortable to go to England and live off his well-married daughters, instead of staying here and prohibiting this brainless woman from behaving so crazily." "You know the financial situation we are in perfectly well, mother." "Flee... flee, Margot!" "She doesn't even care about what her husband went to do in the Northern Land." "Remember, Leopoldina is still a handsome woman." "Shut up, mother!" "That's enough." "One more mystery in this family." "I would just like to understand the reason for this collapse." "Your father was nothing special when he was young, but he had energy and enthusiasm." "Over the last years he grew tired of business, he got tired of everything." "The curse of Rosalina." "Now he is old and he is different." "Miserly, evil." "Oh, mother." "Old people are all alike." "The casinos stopped paying." "They are more modern and sophisticated." "Was father a gambler?" "No, my daughter." "The casinos paid him not to play." "He had an infallible mathematical system." "And they also paid him not to ever reveal it." "And grandmother says father was stupid." "Grandmother never liked him." "Mother." "Go and pack." "You don't have much time and I also have to finish clearing out my room." "Margot flew to England to be with her other daughters, taking the opportunity to flee from her problems." "Rosamund travelled the narrow and dangerous tracks that went round the island, between Funchal and the Northern Land;" "she was going to face the difficulties that had been created for her by her father's withdrawal." "What are you doing here?" "I don't want you here." "To spend a few days." "To rest." "I don't know whether you know, but I'm fed up working." "Selling lies to tourists." "Someone has to take care of the house." "Mother spends all day travelling." "You, father, locked up in here." "I need to fix the roof." "It rains indoors as much as outside." "I don't care about that." "I said I don't want you here." "Why?" "Because I want to be in peace." "I don't want to be disturbed." "Peace?" "You aren't the father I had anymore." "And have you seen what you are wearing." "You look like a beggar." "Everyone knows me here, and I don't have any money for extravagances." "And what if you have to leave, for the continent or to go abroad?" "There I can also say:" "No one knows me here!" "Has anyone seen my book?" "You have obviously touched it!" "What book?" "You leave them lying around everywhere." "The one by Walter Benjamin." "With the green cover, dash it!" "Where do you want to stay?" "In grandmother Agueda's room." "It isn't ready." "Get it ready." "That is where I want to stay." "Are you staying for many days?" "I don't know yet." "Help me with my bags." "I had never looked at my father as a rich man." "Now I know what it is like." "The rich are different from everything." "What are you saying?" "Nothing, nothing." "What was Rosalina de Sousa's background and where was she born?" "How did my great-grandfather, Gaspar de Barros, meet her and make her Baroness Madalena do Mar?" "Was Rosalina a close follower of Empress Elisabeth?" "Why did the Empress's gloves and handkerchief become her possessions?" "Why were they so alike?" "Was Rosalina a madwoman or a woman who was ahead of her time?" "Why did she abandon her husband and her children and flee to the Northern Land?" "Did she commit suicide or was she murdered on the orders of my great-grandfather because she was pregnant by cousin João Afonso Sanha?" "Did she die of cholera or typhus and was buried in secret?" "Might Rosalina de Sousa have gone to Vienna in the Empress's retinue under a false name?" "This is all no more than a hoax." "Did she go back to the continent to become transformed into a different woman?" "Why did João Sanha, who knew her better than anyone, always confirm the tragic accident?" "The enigma does not exist." "What are you doing there?" "Your father does not allow anyone to touch his things." "Go to your room immediately." "Who are you to give me orders?" "I'm going to wake your father and you will see what happens." "I won't discover anything you don't know, and you're not his daughter." "Parents have a right to have secrets." "What do you want?" "Money?" "Don't be stupid." "I could never steal from anyone, and least of all my father." "So what do you want?" "Rosalina de Sousa, my great-great-grandmother." "Another one to get her fingers burnt." "That's enough about Rosalina." "She fell off a cliff on a very windy day." "Or she threw herself off." "What does it matter after a hundred years?" "You can't understand." "Your father spent months around the Baroness and found nothing." "An old pair of gloves and an old worn out cambric handkerchief, with a two-headed eagle on it." "Where is it all?" "Don't tell your father I showed you them." "Be careful, you'll rip them!" "They fit me perfectly." "Leopoldina, tell me something." " Are you my father's mistress?" " Oh, miss!" "Or were you once?" "Tell me the truth." "We are both grown women now." "Never, miss." "Honestly." "Not because of my wishes." "Let us go to the kitchen." "We will talk there." "I am João de Barros." "I wrote to you." "I don't wish to cause any bother." "Feel at home, sir." "What is your name?" "Leopoldina, sir." "As soon as you want dinner" "You needn't lay the table in the dining room." "I shall dine in the kitchen." "As you wish, sir" "It is Jacquet wine." "Emidio!" "Do you need anything, sir?" "Do you know where this came from?" "I don't know..." "They have always been there." "But I love him." "Oh, my God!" "I love him" "Joan..." "Joan..." "João, my love" "Here comes the little goat!" "Goatie!" "Smelly Boal!" "Sneaky grapes!" "Girls, quiet!" "Oh, miss?" "You look like you've seen a ghost!" "They called me "goatie", "smelly Boal"." "They insulted me." "I was expecting this, miss." "I'll tell you everything." "When, a hundred years ago, your great-great-grandmother Rosalina came to the Northern Land" "Madame Baroness, Mr João Sanha wishes to speak to you." "The robins are still flying in flocks." "Mr João Sanha!" ".." "Let cousin João Sanha wait." "Send him in to the office." "I'll be there in five minutes." "Go on!" "When the Sanha heir made his bow, a little awkwardly due to his small feet shod in yellow calfskin that attracted all attention," "Rosalina had a curious thought:" ""if this man loves me I'll bury myself underground." "His tie looks like a plaster, all of him looks like a plaster."" "Your plaster is very nice, cousin." "Do you find it amusing, Madam?" "Rosalina's judgment upset João Sanha and gave crafty and common ideas." "Who was she to treat him like that?" "She was from ruined people, almost poor and unmannered." ""I don't know why cousin Gaspar married her", he thought." "I enjoyed the pigeons you sent me." "You have my thanks." "I caught them on the rocks, where not even the devil with goat's feet can climb." "You caught them in the nest, I see." "It was not the family nest, cousin." "It was their Northern Land." "In the afternoon light João Sanha noticed that Rosalina was extremely beautiful." "Her opaque, milky skin, a tall porcelain figure ready to fly." "But he also discovered in her a certain vigour made of cruelty, in which nature recognises its children." "If this was love, then love was starting with a hostility, or rather, with a declaration of war." "Come on, cousin!" "Even when cut up in pieces this woman is worth it!" "I've found it, cousin!" "I've found it." "The smelly Boal is invading men's land." "This will end badly." "But why is she called 'Boal'?" "Because the baroness is as sneaky as the grape!" "Madam Baroness, come and drink with us!" "There goes goatie!" "She climbs like a goat and is a bitch when she comes on to men." "I hope she slips one day and breaks her legs." "Madam!" "Don't you think you've had too much to drink, cousin?" "Shouldn't we go back home?" "Drinking is an auspicious act, it allows one to cheat the drama of inhibition and the earthly punishment where everything is rather more confined to limits." "Drinking is a symbol of leaving, it produces my own misfortune and my heroic nature." "I know you never lose your lucidity, but become bold, capable of killing yourself" "If I died now I wouldn't care at all" "There is a handkerchief." "It is her handkerchief!" "It is a seagull." "Oh, the shame." "Burying a coffin with nothing in it." "May God forgive them!" "May God forgive them." "When the Baroness disappeared, above the conjectures that rose up everyday, with the sun that was no longer the pride of men, but a suffocating road, painful to the skin, there remained the sensation of an immense loss." "What fertile plant had the Baroness sown that a love with a touch of the lethal had fallen into the hearts and devoured them?" "Suddenly, the Northern Land was a disturbing place, voluptuous and aimless." "Then Gaspar de Barros decided never to return to the north of the island." "He ordered the main house to be closed, he gave the land to the housekeepers and returned definitively to Funchal." "To Dona Matilde's happiness, cousin Dozy finally took Rosalina's place." "However, this second marriage for Gaspar de Barros did not bring him any happiness." "Second marriages are always an allusion to the first ones, whether out of conviction or out of spite." "Lopo and Francisco, from now on cousin Dozy will look after you." "In a short space of time," "Rosamund was forced to go several times to the Northern Land to dissuade her old father from his absurd ideas or to wrest some money from his miserly hands." "There is no reason to be alarmed." "It is just a gesture, the mask of aggression." "I need money to fix up the Quinta do Monte estate." "There are many visitors." "It might be good business." "I am afraid that all of this is still a superstition." "What?" "Getting money to put windows in and repair the roof?" "Leopoldina!" "When he came back to Madeira Island, the Emperor was very ill." "He ended up dying in 1922." "He is buried very close to the church." "Excuse me" "I have excellent news." "A buyer for the house has turned up and your father gave me carte blanche to deal with the sale." "We have to arrange everything today." "Everyone knows this house cannot be sold without my consent." "Which means it can never be sold." "If you want, go and talk to your father." "I just do what he tells me to." "My father knows very well that I don't have the time to cross the island every time he wishes to decide my life for me." "He should come to Funchal, as he's got nothing to do." "Miss, miss!" "Come quickly." "Oh my God, your father!" "I'm going to call a doctor, miss." "I don't think it's any use." "Oh my God!" "What a misfortune!" "I think it's completely foolish of you to stay here." "It smells of dead people and filth." "I have to stay." "I have business to sort out." "Otherwise I will suffocate." "There you go with your mysteries." "You are a grown woman now, your sisters" "Stop talking about my sisters!" "Cancel visits for a few days." "I will be back next week and I will return to my tourists and to our bread-winning." "I'd better be going, I want to get back to Funchal today." "The road is no joke." "Leopoldina..." "The fruit baskets?" "They're already in the car, madam." "Have a good journey, mother." "Goodbye, my daughter." "Take care." "The one you are looking for is not there." "That is Agueda's grave..." "Your great-aunt." "You know everything." "How do you know?" "I know." "And I also know that your great-aunt's end was much more tragic than the other one's." "What about the golden cross?" "It disappeared." "No one knows anything about it, miss." "It is said that your grandfather Tristão lost it gambling." "I know that my grandfather Tristão was not a good sort and that he gambled everything away." "Grandmother Alice told me." "I'm sorry, miss, but she's the one who's no good." "She always lived off other people's misfortunes." "A maid with so much luck and always, always, always, always speaking ill of everything." "Aunt Agueda died when she was very young, of a sudden illness, soon after grandfather got married." "It wasn't exactly like that, miss." "Her father, your grandfather Lopo was a very wealthy doctor." "He was only interested in his patients, not in his properties and much less in his children." "He was ruined and never realised what was going on between Tristão and Agueda." "As soon as they grew up they came here." "In 1905, Rosalina's grandchildren, Tristão and Agueda, spend more time at the Northern Land, than in the island's capital, Funchal." "Being the heirs to the family fortune, they decide not to have any profession or useful activity." "Tristão was called 'ladies', because he was a inveterate gambler and at the same time was loved by almost all women in an unpredictable way." "The 'ladies' were his harem of fifty-two cards, and the most honoured lady, but difficult to live with, was luck, his greatest passion." "Agueda's passion was without any doubt her brother." "She was his escort and squire." "In the morning she would calm him from his tension and his losses." "This perversion, this incestuous passion without coitus to sort it out, could not last long." "Tristão slept during the day and gambled at night." "Agueda only slept a couple of hours." "What suit do you want me to get you?" "I don't know." "You choose." "My choice would be black." "We are still in mourning." "Mourning is for priests and widows." "I'll wear the velvet one." "These people from Lisbon are coming here to have fun." "These people from Lisbon are coming after cousin João Sanha because they live off his money, starting with his mistress." "Don't be silly." "Emilia de Sousa doesn't need to live off anyone's money." "I don't like mixing with those people." "Forget it." "He sent us an invitation." "Almost at the end of his life and to his pride," "João Sanha built on his property in the Northern Land, a house of pleasure." "A pavilion in which he kept everything that had to do with Emilia de Sousa." "Despite being far beyond the age of sixty," "Emilia dressed like a queen and with gold dust in her hair." "Emilia de Sousa's regular retreats should bring feelings as ambiguous as they were powerful." "It was not just the memories that were stirred up, it was above all the blood ties that flowed there, in front of her eyes, from her heart and her soul." "If actors should have a soul." " Seven of spades." " I double." " Pass." " Pass." " I double it." " Pass." " Pass." " Pass." " Can I start?" " Please." "I only found out yesterday about your situation and it was almost by chance." "A creditor spoke to me." "So I insisted with your brother for you to come to dine here today." "I knew of your difficulties, but I didn't imagine that the whole Barros fortune was threatened." "As you know, I have no children and Tristão is my godson." "It's natural for me to want to help him;" "here there is only gambling." "You could take him to Lisbon." "There are many opportunities for a young man like him on the continent." "Let me finish." "I know that Tristão is indigent, and that you deal with the family affairs." "And you came to the Northern Land to try to save this." "I can lend you money, to keep the vineyards and the mill." "In Lisbon, if I look after Tristão, he will stop getting in debt." "Say no more, cousin João Sanha." "I thank you for your interest but keep your money." "Let no one interfere between myself and my brother." "We will be able to look after ourselves." "Nothing and no one can separate us." "Don't distract me." "I'm winning." "Are you going to be long?" "I want to go home." "I told you that I'm winning." "Why can't you have fun like other people?" "I'm not in the mood." "I'm leaving." "Hearts." "Don't be late." "It's so late, Tristão..." "Don't say a word!" "I can't feel the ground under my feet." "And my head is exploding." "I'm an idiot." "I lost everything I was winning and some." "Don't think about it." "Everything will be fine." "I'll put you to bed." "Alice!" "Jack of hearts." "For Tristão, gambling had the eroticism of final realities." "The desire to live, the certainty of death." "What desire has the spark of the effect of winning a trick?" "What ambition in politics, an order or pretext of being useful, can compare to a small movement that leads to the temptation of playing?" "When a great vice takes over a man it is certain that women will protect him." "Because castration is consummated in that total commitment." "A woman can do no more than admire the work she sees as her own." "In her blind passion for her brother," "Agueda sacrificed morality, chastity and several hopes." "For her Tristão was the frill of the chaos that resolves in the private female regime, the crazy forms of anarchy and destruction." "And at cards, Tristão was losing everything they had." "Queen." "And ace." ""For my little pussycat who will one day find glory on the stage."" "Almeida Garrett, Viscount... consecrated a false anthem from the land of the oppressors." "As soon as there is the minstrel who will sit at the door of the wealthy man who pays for his own infamy with another a praise of that which was bought." "Let us go, Viscount." "They're all waiting." "I am not ready yet." "Now I'm ready." "I have never made ring my poor song in the palaces of gentlemen." "I have never consecrated a false anthem from the land of the oppressors." "As soon as there is the minstrel who will sit at the door of the wealthy man who pays for his own infamy with another a praise of that which was bought." "I have never made ring my poor song in the palaces of gentlemen." "I have never consecrated a false anthem from the land of the oppressors." "As soon as there is the minstrel who will sit at the door of the wealthy man who pays for his own infamy with another a praise of that which was bought." "While old, perverse Almeida Garrett enjoyed himself over the triumph of his discovery, the young Madeiran João Afonso Sanha was in raptures over the beauty, rather than the talent, of the little prostitute." "A whore, whore." "Come." "I will take you to my house." "I hope you don't find this irregular, Viscount." "Emilia, Emilia!" "He has left, to be of another, he has the courage to tell me this, to leave in front of me and go to save his father, the wretch." "Oh, now I know what I want for him." "Now I recognise that I love him, Good God." "Oh, now I know what I want for him." "Now I recognise that I love him, Good God." "And soon I too, will do my part to help, to raise between us, a wall of eternal separation." "I too." "And soon I too, will do my part to help to raise between us a wall of eternal separation." "I too." "Oh, my uncle, my uncle!" "What do your greatness, your plans and your fortune matter to me?" "Oh, my uncle, my uncle!" "What do your greatness, your plans and your fortune matter to me?" "And how much better would it not be for you to leave me in my obscurity?" "And how much better would it not be... for you to leave me in my obscurity?" "For you to leave me in my obscurity?" "It's so sad not to be able to read!" "In 1853, the islander Gaspar de Barros was a very rich, big and round man;" "he had talent, but was as lazy as a setter and as vain as a cuckoo." "He had too much money." "He liked women and they returned this with malice." "A man like this was a way of moving up in life." "But Gaspar de Barros was inconstant and his main hobby was to go to Lisbon or London and dine with actresses." "Until one day he saw and was dazzled by the delicate beauty of Emilia de Sousa, the young prostitute that Garrett had turned into an actress." "The he decided to steal his fleeting mistress from his cousin Sanha." "Please." "Take it." "I assure you it will make you happy." "You can't be speaking seriously, Baron." "I have never been so serious in my whole life." "And your cousin Dozy, who has been waiting for you for so many years?" "She'll understand, she knows perfectly well that I have never liked her." "Say 'yes'." "A toast to the bride and groom." "Swapping glory for a bourgeois life." "And in Madeira, how foolish!" "Exiled, my little pussycat." "You don't know what you are saying, Viscount." "Ah, if I had an opportunity like this when I was young!" "Marrying into such a fortune!" "Madness!" "Madness." "The success that this girl could have." "No glory in the world is greater than the stage." "Nothing in the world is greater than a good marriage, Viscount." "Ah!" "My little pussycat, take care of these lace garments that are worth much more than the public finances." "You will see that they are much more useful to you when you are intelligent and give up this nonsense." "You'll see." "You will see..." " Oh, Viscount..." " Oh, my little pussycat..." "In a week I'll be in Madeira." "If you don't hurry you'll have nephews and nieces when you get there." " Money crushes art." " Oh, Viscount!" "Money will always be more powerful than love." "Agueda." "What are you doing there?" "Grandmother was a whore!" "Alice is a whore!" "They're all whores!" "Agueda, you don't know what you're saying." "Wait." "Wait." "Don't go, son." "Don't go!" "Agueda might be inside!" "Agueda!" "Oh, my God!" "Rosamund looked at the chapel in ruins, where little remained of aunt Agueda's time and much less of Rosalina's time." "She thought it was necessary to have a state outside all captivity, of the senses and of their symptoms to fell the enigma and enter into its house." "Like a state of virginity without anxiety, without appetite, without imminent praxis of coitus, without complicity and without pleasure, thus the mind would be a land sheltering the enigma and making it clear and transigent with reason." "Now I have come this far I must get to the end." "Let us go to Sanha's house." "I have to find that box." "But, miss, the pavilion has disappeared and the box must have gone with it." "You know that the house is in ruins." "There are only mice and filth." "Sometimes frightful gipsies sleep there." "I won't go in." " We'll both go in." " I'm not going, miss!" "Let us hurry, because I am hungry." "I don't understand." "You bring the hunger with you." "Oh, miss." "Be careful, miss." "The steps are not safe." "Poor wretch..." "Didn't I tell you, miss?" "We've frightened one ghost." "Now let's finish off the others." "Oh, miss." "It's all rotten." "Look at the cobwebs." "I found it." ""Yesterday the great actress Emilia de Sousa" ""was given a heartfelt and fitting homage in the National Theatre." ""Today she has acted in 217 plays, in a total of 851 acts." ""A true giant of the stage." ""The career of the great actress Emilia de Sousa" ""remains shrouded in controversy." ""Loved by some, hated by others," ""she is always the subject of great ovations and lots of hissing," ""a motive for many passions and no fewer calumnies." "It is said that her high salaries are the envy of many people" ""She was a queen and I sewed her;" "not out of love," ""but because that is what she wished." ""God free us from the desires of a woman!" ""Something that has no meaning, which we cannot accept" ""Her aim to reach an act that is so violent, as it is terrible, to return things to the way they were!"" "Leopoldina, what do you think of this?" "Honestly, miss, I can't understand it at all!" "Look here!" ""With Lopo there are no problems;" ""His scientific and rational mind stops him having doubts." ""But Francisco worries me." ""He insists more and more;" "he comes closer and closer." "I am afraid about what might happen."" "God, you give me a sign through thunder and lightning, like you gave your prophets on Sinai." "I no longer fear that the merciless storm might wake Holophernes," "I just hear it, and it infuriates me." "The hand that holds the sword does not shake anymore." "I move the heavy knife as if it were the fragile twig." "Do not let presumption dominate you, Judith." "God supported my gesture." "All covered in blood, but chaste." "Come, Abrahamia." "I now leave you." "Let no one follow my steps." "I am only returning to my empty house." "And because I have followed God's law, I have some right to homage." "Who better loves:" "the one who cares, or who sighs?" "João Afonso Sanha now loved Emilia, like a gambler loves a harlot." "Accomplices in knowledge and in mystery, they held a blessed conjugal love for each other for each other's solitude and for the vices that compromised it:" "gambling and the theatre." "They were happy;" "they calculated nothing, in love or in death." "They didn't think time went by." "That was the secret of their faithfullness." "But where can I rustle up money at this time, Emilia?" "At this time I don't know!" "I'm asking for what you have owed me for more than a month." "These are for you, madam." "Who are you?" "Who gave you permission?" "Please get out!" "Why do you need to cause scenes like this, Emilia?" "Fortunately you have no lack of money." "But I want to be paid for my work." "The theatre above all else, but my pride must be as big as my talent." "Do you know what I said to the Italian count who proposed to me?" "And he was truly in love." "I have no idea." "Count, what can you give me that I can't reject?" "Love is used; nothing is left over." "Only fidelity to illusions, which is a name we give to that which is no longer our business." "But are you sure that my mother did not flee the island?" "How many times have I told you she didn't?" "That's enough." "A woman can't go far like that, alone." "She fell off the cliff." "She died." "A tragic accident." "Forget about it." "Go on, if you want to see the play from the start." "But you never watch it." "No." "I like to feel it here." "When Rosalina disappeared on the striking cliffs in the north of the island, her children Lopo and Francisco were very young." "Lopo, with his rational mind and scientific mentality, who seemed old at the age of twelve, was certain that his mother was a mental patient who had committed suicide." "Francisco, who was romantic, given to poetry, introverted and insane, resolved to fall in love with his mother's memories." "He locked himself up for a whole year in the Northern Land, but discovered little." "He thought João Sanha knew a lot of serious things but said nothing to him." "Then he decided to move away from his brother and go to the continent, where his old cousin now spent long periods." "Francisco liked the easy life without prisons." "He tended towards women from the lower orders." "He met one who drove him mad:" "she was false, unfaithful, and common and repetitively lustful." "She was the mother of a grown-up daughter and her ignorance knew no bounds." "She loved the dancehalls:" ""I don't like dancers, I like dancing"." "Francisco didn't even realise that his love was superb and therefore condemned." "He loved that woman." "She had become his vice and his glory." "This beautiful woman with the feet of a child and remarkable eyes was a motive for covetousness, and impressed many men." "Her name was Olimpia." "And she looked like she had come out of a painting by Klimt." "No." "I don't want to." "I don't like bed." "You should get some mistresses" "But I have a mistress." "You." " Mother, mother, mother!" " Why are you always hitting her?" "Why is she always touching my things?" "Mother, mother." "Who is it?" "Is it your wife?" " Mother, mother, mother." " Shut your daughter up." "A queen who died a long time ago." "Tomorrow my brother is coming from Madeira." "I want to go to the theatre with him." "Make sure you behave yourself." "I'm going too." "What about the girl?" "She can stay at my sister's." "Why don't you leave her there?" "Forever." "Swine." "Don't talk to me like that, Marguerite." "You'll make me mad." "Don't tell me you're going to die." "Tell me the opposite, that it isn't possible, that you don't want to." "Even if I didn't want to, Armand, I would have to resign myself, because it is God who wants this." "If I were an honest girl, if everything in me were chaste," "I might lament the idea of leaving this world where you remain, because the future would be full of promises, to which my past would give me a right." "I prefer to live in your heart where the world cannot see me." "Dear Armand, everything God does is done well." "I am choking." "Then I will have to give you courage." "Come, obey me." "Open that drawer and take the medallion out." "It is my portrait, when I was still beautiful." "I had it made for you." "My good Marguerite, you wrote to me saying you were not well." "Fortunately I find you well." "Smiling." "I am so unhappy." "I am not well, my dear." "I am moribund, but I am so happy, that this happiness hides the sight of death from me." "You are married, aren't you?" "Now you will be even happier than up to now." "You will talk about me sometimes, won't you?" "Armand, give me your hand." "I swear to you that it is not difficult to die." "My good Gastão, you are coming to fetch me." "I am so pleased to see you." "Happiness is so ungrateful that I had forgotten you." "He was so good to me." "It's strange..." "What is it?" "I'm not suffering anymore." "One would say that life is returning." "I am feeling a well-being like I never had before." "I am going to live, Armand." "I feel so good." "Marguerite, Marguerite, Marguerite." "Dead." "Dead." "Oh, my God." "My God." "What will become of me?" "How she loved you." "Rest in peace, Marguerite." "All will be forgiven to you, no matter how much you loved." "Well?" "What do you think?" "Not bad." "A load of rubbish." "A whore with an attack of haemoptysis on stage!" "Good God!" "Call this theatre!" "Call that a great actress!" "What rubbish!" "Shut up!" "I'm not talking about the play." "Lopo, don't you think she is exactly the same as mother?" "Isn't she ...?" "What an idea, Francisco." "She doesn't even look like her." "Yes she does!" "Shall we have supper?" "I'm going to wait." "I have to give her the camellias." "Well I'm starving." "I'll go on with Olimpia." "Then I'll take you to your hotel." "Well behaved girls have to go to bed early." "A bad girl goes to bed whenever she wants, where she wants and with whomever she wants!" "These are for you." "They are pretty camellias." "Nothing is too much for an actress like you." "Thank you." "What do we care if some man sleeps with a woman?" "But when someone throws themselves into the sea, that raises several possibilities." "Might it be love, or just the ashamed gesture of the sublime?" "Now I know..." "If it is for the poor, you can throw more!" "Thank you." "Thank you." "Francisco abandoned Olimpia, her daughter, the mysteries without a solution and the life he led." "He considered sailing to local shores, such as Africa, but he ended up deciding to go to Brazil." "But he was not successful." "Sick and tired, he died on board far from the coast, and his body was wrapped in a shroud and buried at sea." "A servant stole his gold Patek watch as he was dying." "In the last flashes of light in his life he recalled marlins leaping on the September afternoons off the coast of Madeira." "He used to watch them play on the crests of the waves with a joy he considered feminine." "Rosamund married the son of a minister in the government of the dictator Salazar." "He was a dandy who never did anything useful in his life." "She was separated after a short time after an unhappy marriage that left her with three daughters." "One of them was extraordinarily similar to the great-great-grandmother," "Rosalina de Barros, or Baronesa Madalena do Mar, or "smelly Boal", the goatie, or Emilia de Sousa, the great actress." "THE END"