"GEBO AND THE SHADOW based on the play by" "Adapted and directed by" "It wasn't me!" "It wasn't me!" "Poor old man, he'll be freezing." "It's been raining all day." "A lifetime of bad weather." "It's difficult to see anything out there." "Mother, could you give us a bit more light?" "Ah!" "His old rug and slippers!" "Or he'll complain..." "It's been so many years!" " Father's late." "Could he have taken ill?" " He'll be chatting with the neighbours." " Is everything ready?" " Yes." "Call me when he arrives!" "He'll have news today." "News from who?" "From Joéo, your husband, my son." "You're always the same!" "Don't forget the old rug and the shoes..." "On the chair." "I've got them, didn't you see?" "Everything's ready." "Except the books." "He doesn't like us touching them." "Good." "It's already so dark!" "Always this illusion!" "We can't even weep..." "so that she can keep her illusion." "She gets on with life, forgets, while we spend hours mulling, fretting..." "That's his voice, his footsteps." "He's coughing." "He's talking to someone." "Mother, he's here!" "I'm coming!" "I'm coming!" "Who's he talking to?" "Father's coming!" "He's knocking." "I'm coming!" "I'm coming!" "How he talks!" "I'm coming..." " Come in." "No need to knock." " "Ladies... "" "I didn't know, Doroteia." "Won't you come in, Chamigo?" "Not now, Gebo." "The orchestra is giving me a lot of work." "Nothing but the bass drum!" "How the bass drum annoys me..." "No one cares about art any more!" "Goodbye." "Goodbye." "See you later, or tomorrow." "Come early so we can talk." " I'm chilled to the bone!" " I know, I know..." "I could feel you coming..." "Sit here behind the kitchen door." "You'll be warmer there." "It's been so cold this year!" "The last time I remember a year like this was..." " Take off your boots." "Here are your slippers..." " Thank you!" "So did you see him?" "Did you see him?" "See him?" "Who?" "The fellow who writes to our son!" "Did you speak to him?" "Didn't you say that you'd bring news of our son today?" "I saw him, yes!" "You bring this up out of the blue!" "You don't give me time to think." "Of course I saw him." "He sends his regards." " Is he well?" " He's fine!" "You used to talk such a lot, too much, even." "Now it's like getting blood out of a stone." "I'll go and see if the coffee's ready." "Then I want all the details." "Don't upset yourself, father." "It's my fault." "I'm so forgetful..." "You should have reminded me." "Poor thing..." "If she knew!" "If she had any idea!" "Do you have any news?" "Yes, I do." "News, yes..." " I think I saw him." " You saw Joéo?" "I saw a shadow in the night." "If she hears of it!" "She's already suffered enough." "Lie, Gebo, deceive her." "Lie today, tomorrow, always, spend your whole life lying, Just don't let her suspect." "Not ever!" "Let her live her last days happy..." "Yes, happy..." "And you..." "We left everything behind, went far away, moved to another part of the country so she wouldn't find out..." "Always telling her... always..." "Yes." "Always lying to her." "If you knew how hard that's been!" "Worse than writing a serial every evening." "I don't even know what to say any more." "Stick it out, old man, stick it out..." "so she doesn't ever find out." "So you saw him?" "If he ever comes round here, father..." "Round here?" "No." "If ever..." "No, it can't have been him." "Just a shadow that vanished into the night..." "It's been eight years..." "The wretch!" "Forget him, lass." "A terrible life." "A different life..." "A quite different life..." "Yes, a wretched life..." "Say it, father... say it..." "He won't come." "Don't worry." "I'd already seen him..." "Did you speak to him?" "It was over a year ago, in a street far from here..." "It was evening and..." "I felt myself being pulled into a dark corner..." "Was it him?" "He didn't speak." "I could only see his eyes." "But I recognised him right away." "Perhaps it was the hands." "They were frozen..." "I recognised him right away" "I gave him all the money I had on me" "We didn't say anything to each other." "But I understood even without speaking..." "He's been gone many years." "But recently I sense I'm being followed like being engulfed by a shadow..." "A shadow?" "A shadow, father?" "It can't have been him..." "But it was him, it was!" "Oh, if she ever finds out that the son she raised..." "Father, tell me everything..." "No." "We have plenty of time to talk." "I'd rather enter these accounts in my book..." "This is a great business, Ramires 8." "Ramires!" "Just look at the balance for August, ten contos and seven hundred and fifty thousand reis." "Not bad, huh?" "Twenty thousand reis a month and I still have to work at night so we don't starve to death." "What do you say to that?" "Nothing." "I'm just thinking." "Brooding about our misfortune." "about that other life he leads..." "Why does he lead such a wretched life, such pain and hunger?" "There's so much I'd like to know." " Come on." "0, 0, 5..." "Band 7..." "15." "And 6 makes 21..." "The light is good today." "Was it you that did the lamp?" "It was me!" "Here's your coffee." "We depend on your eyes." "Would you go and look at the stove?" "Here I am, every day, waiting to hear you.." "I've got a lot to do this evening." "Don't get irritable." "Age tans the hide." "Let me cover your feet." "You can tell me everything over coffee." "Don't write." "So, you went into his house, that fellow that writes to our son..." "I did." " And he read you the letter from our son?" " He did." "What did it say?" "It said... it said..." "He sends greetings." "As usual..." "And he asked after his mother." "He did?" "Why didn't you say right away?" "You know I live for that..." "I love to hear you so much!" "Go on, talk." "And next?" "Next?" "Goodness!" "Next..." "Well, we talked about this and that, etc, etc." "Etc?" "You treat me so harshly!" "Here I am waiting every day just to hear you." "For years that's all I've had..." "And then you come home and don't say a word to make me suffer." "Doroteia!" "What do you want me to say?" "I don't know what else to invent..." "I don't know..." "I can't..." "In the business world, we don't usually discuss family matters." "You always say the same, half a dozen words." "And God knows, I have no joy whatsoever in my life." "We live in this terrible poverty, which gets more unbearable by the year." "But I don't have anything to say..." "What there is I know very well!" "Perhaps you don't even know yourself..." "And you've not noticed that gradually I've changed into someone else... someone full of pain and despair." "I've become another person, without you even noticing, in the silence of someone that can't take any more." "Speak!" "Speak!" "For years I've been waiting for you to tell me what I want to know!" "Oh, Doroteia, know what?" "What do you want to know?" "Always misery, misfortune!" "And me here waiting..." "Leave me alone..." "Could you get me some more coffee?" "Yes, of course." "If you don't speak, I'll die." "If I didn't know you were my friend, I would doubt you." "You know this is the only happiness I have... you are taking it from me!" "Don't torment me, listen..." "You and Sophia, nothing affects you!" "But me!" "Oh, how I've wept!" "Poor thing!" "She's suffered a lot too, we have to spare her." "Just like me." "She's his wife and she hasn't seen him again." "Think what that must be like, suffering in silence never complaining." "Have you ever heard her complain?" "What about me?" "All I've been through!" "Eight years!" "For what it's worth, I've swallowed so many tears." "And when I want to talk about our son, you go dumb." "You plunge into your books so she won't go without." "It's as if she were our daughter..." "What wouldn't we give to see them both happy?" "We gave them everything." "With life this hard, I've often thought about dying!" " About what?" " Dying, yes!" "We almost want to die." "It was you and her that bound me to life." "Listen to you!" "I like talking about our daughter." "I remember when she arrived, still little, after my brother died." "Then she grew up and we married them..." "But you never talk about our son, you don't say a word about him." "You've always loved her more than him." "Because he went away, didn't want to put up with this life we lead, because he's ambitious." "He takes that after me." "A double-edged sword..." "You think it's better to be like you, doing nothing to get on in life?" "They laugh at you." "You're pitiful." "Everyone despises you." "Your friends all got rich, while you're a bill-collector for a company, always the same salary and the same problems." "In the office, everyone says:" ""Poor Gebo"..." "And you take it!" " What else can I do?" ""But Gebo is honest"." "You never took the chance to get rich when you could..." "I always did my duty." "I did what I could." "I did everything for you." "Yes, I've done my part!" "I'm an honest man." "Look at the others!" "They got rich, they're happy..." "Only God knows that!" "While we, poor wretches..." "Did you leave the stove on?" "We need to make more coffee." "I'll make some more later so we don't have to heat it up." "Very well." "I've got to work till late." "And it's bitterly cold." "My son..." "What?" "What?" "I can't get him out of my mind." "Sometimes I feel like running away, like leaving everything and going out into the world." "And 7 makes 14..." "Going off just like that?" "And 7 makes 21" "So do I. Life is always the same." "Like the rain falling outside onto the eaves, drop by drop." "Always that monotonous sound of the rain..." "Life is always the same thing." "Our life, yes." "We wear the same old clothes, darn them, wear them again." " 'What if something happens to us?" " 'What kind of thing?" "Good fortune in life is when nothing happens." "So good fortune is routine?" "!" "Perhaps." "Good fortune is always doing the same work, saying the same words." "Like the rain." "Not thinking about it." "Not thinking about it!" "I think all the time." "Even when I'm in my grave I'll be thinking!" "Is there just this one kind of life?" "Just one?" "All lives are like this." "My life is so monotonous, so cold it's unbearable!" "Sometimes, I wonder if I'm alive or dead." "Not even my dreams matter any more:" "they're all spent." "And is there no other life but this?" "For me, when I finish work, and sit down here, with my books at my side," "listening to the rain..." "How it falls, this rain!" "..." "... I'm not unhappy." "Quite the opposite." "I feel fine with you both near me..." "We've been doing the same thing for the last forty years, in poverty, humility." "And my dreams have all worn out, spoilt by life..." "Is there no other life for us?" "We have lived our lives, done our duty." "I don't know if we were put into this world to be happy..." "If this is all there was to life, the same actions, the same words," "I would die." "I couldn't live." "All that saves me is my dreams, what remains of them." "Closed-in, alone, the more alone the better," "I can dream of my son." "For you, your son is less than a stranger." "God help me!" "It's true!" "He changed towards me the moment he married." "Doroteia!" "That's enough!" "I need to talk." "I need to get it off my chest!" "As if that weren't enough, it was her that turned you against him." "Mother!" "Mother!" "You're ungrateful, Doroteia." "If only you knew how ungrateful..." " What?" " Nothing!" "I know!" "I know!" "We took her in, looked after her." "Without us she would have starved." "No one wanted anything to do with her." "And in exchange, she took our son's affection away from us." "For God's sake, shut up now!" "But it doesn't matter." "I love him enough for both of you." "And the less you love him, the more I do." "Ah!" "So you heard?" "All the better." "I'm going to bed, But I won't sleep." "I'll be thinking about him." "I spend my nights thinking." "Aren't you going to say anything?" "Aren't you going to say anything?" "Don't cry, lass." "Don't cry." "Let her cry." "I've also shed a great many tears." "My son only has me." "Are you crying?" "Serves you right." "It's the unhappiness that has made her so bitter." "She's worn herself out thinking, suffering." "'What's wrong with you?" "'What's the matter?" "Nothing, father." "I'm afraid!" "So aml!" "We're living under a shadow." "I can't take it." "I'm afraid." "It's my son, he's a miserable wretch!" "Maybe the police are after him." "Maybe he has nowhere to sleep." "The day before yesterday, I thought I saw him at the corner of the road." "I wondered if he had food..." "If he was hungry!" "If she hears of this, she'll die." "Listen..." "That's her." "She's in the bedroom..." "talking to herself... mulling it over." "Now go to bed." "I'm going to stay up working till late." " All right." "Good night, father." " Good night." "Poor thing..." "So silent and so sad." "Always in this hole, embroidering." "I know you so well." "You get worked up!" "So worked up!" "But you never say a word." "Pray for me, do you hear?" "For all of us and for him most of all." "For him, yes." "Don't forget." "Good night." "Come on, now Gebo..." "you've got a bit of peace." "Peace?" "As I remember, I only have that when I'm asleep." "Only then can I forget!" "There are people in this world that are so happy!" "8 and 7... 15, and 6 makes 21..." "Carry 2... 7... 15... 90..." "Cast out the nines, zero." "No, that won't work." "So 1... 2... 3..." "Carry 5... carry 5... carry 5..." "Half past nine already!" "Time passes..." "So 1... 2... 3..." "You!" "Hello, father!" "I hear footsteps in the courtyard." "It must be Chamigo." "It must be him." "He never misses his coffee." "Sometimes you can see in his eyes that he's dying for coffee." "If I didn't give him any, he'd cry." "He's not doing too well, the old man." "God knows how he gets by." "Sometimes it pains me." "Here he is." " Would you allow an artist...?" " Please come in." "You're a little late." "Come in and sit down." " Sit down." " Madam..." "Well, Mr Chamigo... what do think about this cold weather?" "It's bitter." "I'll get you a coffee." "And how's business going, Chamigo?" "So-so." "Could be better." "But now the management has decided to put on another play, a fairy tale.." "Oh, yes..." "Is it well staged?" "You can imagine... with Torres." "Ah, Torres!" "So 7 and 8 makes 15 and 6, 21..." "Torres, yes..." "And have you had big audiences?" "The fairground tent does us a disservice." "And the weather doesn't help..." "Rain..." "And a shortage of money." "Everyone's complaining about the same thing, my friend." "But why don't they put the show on at night?" "Too expensive..." "The lighting alone..." " Guess how much the lighting costs?" " I've no idea." "For the oil alone, 820." "Imagine!" "You see." "Torres can't." "Ah!" "... 8 and 8 makes 16, and 1... 8 and 8, 16, carry 1." "May I?" "What a surprise!" "Today was the Sousas' day." "But the Sousas are away." "Their uncle's ill..." "So here am I!" " Very good!" "Good evening, my dear!" "Hello, Candidinha." "Sit down!" "Coffee's almost ready." "Do you want a drop?" " Ah, yes!" "With pleasure." " Ah!" "Here's the coffee..." "Coffee gives me palpitations." "It'll take me to an early grave." "The cups, Sofia?" " I've got no illusions." "Only yesterday I said to the Teles:" ""My grave is dug..." "My burial clothes are all laid out ready." "I don't want to put anyone out. "" "Ruthless, eh?" "Yes, dear, that's a bit ruthless." "Here's your coffee." "It smells so good!" "The smell is not bad for you..." "Quite the reverse." "It's boiling!" "Do you mind if I drink it like this?" " Go on, drink up, drink up." "Give him a bit more coffee." "So your son's finally arrived?" "Coffee always warms me up." "Sorry to be rude, but before I devoted myself to the arts, I was a soldier..." "Goon... goon..." "Who's the lucky fellow that will receive that, eh?" "It's got no owner yet." "And 7 makes 49..." "Oh, Chamigo, such manners!" "Madam!" "I don't believe it!" "In my time, that token would've been for me." "You wouldn't have got away..." "Did you have a secret?" "Don't laugh," "I was very successful." "Yes, I had a secret." "I played the flute!" "That was how I seduced them!" "Playing the flute!" "That's right, my dear man." "That was how I won over my dead missus." "There's nothing that expresses love better than music!" "And you didn't whisper sweet nothings to each other?" "And at the end, I'd get up, and I'd say:" ""Good night, Serafina"." "Nothing more?" "I didn't have to." "She'd already taken the bait..." "Do you hear?" "How the rain beats against the glass!" " There's thunder again..." " The sky was all black when I got here." "Hark how it rumbles!" "So long as I'm warm..." "But it reminds me..." "Of what, my love?" "The great flood." "Here's more coffee." "Nice and hot, with this cold weather." "So, my dear, you're all pleased now your son's here?" "Yes, I am!" "Give me some." "Your husband's brought a lot of money, it seems!" "I think so." "Another drop, father?" "Yes, fill it up!" "What a winter!" "Is this how you spend your evenings?" "Every night?" "Always?" "We talk, we work..." "Yes, we talk and we work." "Do you hear?" "A lovely march." "I like it..." "What I'd like is to have the time to invent my own things." "But the rehearsals, and days busy playing:" "Put your little foot here" "It's disheartening." "That's all the public wants." "No one has any taste any more." "We're heading towards the abyss." "Oh, art!" "When I think about art..." "When I think about art..." "I suffocate." "I've felt a great weight on me since I came in here." "I start thinking about art and I get sad." "Who doesn't feel that?" "So I start playing all on my own, any old thing..." "In front of my window is a blank wall, a massive blank wall with no openings in it." "I look at that blank wall and I play... and the darkness goes away..." "Art is a great consolation." "To me, everyone looks deformed..." "Like different people..." " Different people?" "Those with petty useless lives..." "There's nothing like art." "I was born for it..." "to live from my art." "I feel that, if they let me, I would create, write..." "Write what?" "What, my dear friend?" "Why, a march!" "I'll just say this:" "perhaps I'll write a march." "Bravo!" "Would you have any biscuits, by any chance?" "I'm feeling a little weak." "I think the palpitations might be coming on." "I'll go and get them." "What a dark night!" "With all these crimes you see in the papers..." "You must have read about them..." "I'm always afraid when I go home." "And you're just down the road." " Crimes, eh?" "Yes," "Horrible crimes." "Sends a shiver down your spine." "Everyone commits crimes." "Now this!" "At least in their thoughts..." "Everything you say here is useless." "You don't know what life is!" "Life..." " Shut up!" "Not everyone can live the same life." "You have to be soulless to commit a crime." "But there are some that refuse to be trampled on..." "Some are like sheep, others rebel..." "They see the world in a different way." "Bravo!" "Some, like my father, were born to kiss the hand that feeds them." "That's what I've always said!" " Others..." " Others?" "It was for them that jails were made." "But there's a time before jail!" "And in jail you also eat bread." ""Better dead than be buried alive!"" "Son!" "Let me talk..." "Everyone commits crimes." "Serious crimes are committed every day, crimes of lying, servility." "Serious crimes, and sometimes there's nothing stopping us from killing." "Shut up!" "One night... a night like this" "I was wet through to the bone and I was hungry." "It was after midnight." "I saw the street all deserted and I decided that I wasn't going to die of hunger." "Hunger!" "A moment of anguish and despair..." "Blackness all around me..." "Not just the blackness of the night and of the huge wall next to me... but bigger, thicker." "It was the blackness of my soul." "I felt there was no one in the world more wretched than me." "I stuck close to the wall." "I was alone, or at least I thought I was that night..." "Just me and despair, just me and the blackness." "The first man that passed, I would grab him round the neck with my hands..." "I heard footsteps at the end of the deserted street and I hid in the darkness ready to attack..." "The figure approached." "Then I saw at my side two huge disembodied hands, in the lamplight." "And they suddenly clenched in the air, squeezed, suffocating..." "Then there was a thud as a body fell..." "I ran off into the night crying:" "It wasn't me!" "It wasn't me!" "How horrible!" "How horrible!" "Horrible?" "That soul that everyone despised, that being that was once a man, and who had been brought to crime by others, through their selfishness and indifference," "a man like other men who was hungry and wanted to live..." "A soul..." "Wasn't it you that was just talking about a soul?" "Something that knows no limits to its pain and its dreams..." "You've no idea what it is!" "My Soul!" "I don't know what my soul is." "It's very deep!" "If I look carefully..." "Have you thought about that?" "You that live to repeat the same things over and over again?" "If I look carefully, I see in the depths shadows that scare me... the soul of a creature that can't stand life, this life that you all put up with so well!" "A soul that cries out and dreams and can't stand this world of terror, wretchedness and pain!" "Don't you know there are criminals with a soul and men that don't have one?" "You are all buried alive..." "I'll tell you something else..." "If each one of us committed the murders we've dreamed about, out of hatred, ambition or for gain," "it'd be a bloodbath." "That's true!" "Any one of us could commit a crime tomorrow." "Yes, it's funny!" "That's a funny thing..." "Joéo, shut up!" "Shut up!" "As you wish!" "Are you intending to kill her?" "Kill us?" "Oh, you always make such a fuss!" "I'm getting palpitations now." "Do you think he's been to jail?" "He could have been, judging by his demeanour." "What are you saying?" "Did I miss something?" "Nothing, a joke." "That's all." "Whew!" "It's hot." "Hot!" "With this cold!" "I wouldn't call it hot." "So-so." "So what's new?" "In politics, it just gets worse." "We need a man with a firm hand." "Another Marquis of Pombal." "A biscuit?" "No, thanks." "Well, then..." "79 and 9, that's 88, carry... and carry..." "Now I don't know how much it was!" "A great shortage of money!" "But this... this is a lot of money." "Yes!" "Almost one come." "Seven thousand reis." " At the end of the year, there's a lot to collect." " There's no more coffee!" "And it's heavy!" "One come'.!" "I've got no idea what it would be like to have so much money." "A thousand reis is a lot." "So seven thousand reis!" "Joéo?" "Are you coming?" "Imagine everything that's in here!" "Silk dresses, sweets, everything." "It must be marvellous to have so much money." "It even gives off heat!" "Able to order everyone about:" ""Do this!" "Don't do that!" "Get out!" "Get out of my sight!"" "I wish I had someone I could order about!" "I wouldn't think twice." "To say that here inside..." "I don't know!" "Everything!" "It must be really nice to have a lot of money!" "Seven hundred reis right under our noses!" "Think what's inside!" "So much money right under our noses!" "I'm used to it." "I don't even remember that it's money!" "Zero..." "Do you hear?" "Half past nine." "Already?" "It's the clock on the tower." "Right, old friend." "Time to go." "Goodbye." "Thank you!" "I'll go too." "The rain's cleared a bit." "Thanks!" "So much money!" "Careful with the step." " Yes, thanks." " Thanks!" "Just down here." "Goodbye" "Good night." "They've gone." "I'm feeling worn out tonight." "Are you going to bed?" "Yes." "I'm going now." "Are you coming, Doroteia?" "No, I'm going to stay here talking to my son." "Son..." "Yes?" "There are some things I'd like to ask you." "You should tell me everything." "I'm your mother." "Yes?" "Wait." "Let me look at you." "If you knew how much I've suffered!" "Don't get annoyed." "I wanted to ask you..." "I have to say... there's something I don't know about you..." "Just now." "I was almost afraid." "It was difficult for me to find your other face..." "My other face?" "The one you had when you were little." "There's something I want you to tell me." "Leave me alone..." "Leave me alone..." "now leave me alone..." "I need to be alone." "I've got used to solitude." "There are times when people all seem monstrous, different." "You can't understand." "You upset me!" "It's also hard for me to find my other face, the one I always knew, the one I've always dealt with." "Son!" "But wait." "You love me..." "So speak!" "You're my dear mama after all." "Son, I can feel something..." "I don't know what, but I can feel it." "You're miserable." "Yesterday I dreamt that I saw you all ragged and thin in a road with no end." "You were hungry and you were looking at me." "I stretched out my arms with a cry but I couldn't hold you back." "You went off down that road with no end to a destiny full of pain." "Pain?" "Despair." "You have to tell me about your life..." "My life..." "Many times I believed you dead, many times I was cold" "when I thought you were cold." "Tell me everything..." "In those wretched days you always appeared to me as you did when I was small." "And then..." " Then..." "The night came again." "Talk." "I don't get tired listening to you." "We can stay here the whole night talking..." " I never forgot you." " I never forgot you either." "Even on the darkest days I saw you and heard you." "Sometimes you spoke to me as if from the bottom of a grave..." "But it was me that was dead." "Poor wretch!" "Poor wretch!" "Maybe I know more than you think." "Maybe I guess..." " I'm not like other people!" "I'm different." "Dominated by something much stronger." "Maybe I don't even command myself." "I am..." "Go and sleep now." "Heading for misery?" "Pitilessly." "I am he that causes suffering and laughs." "Listen." "Maybe I know more than you think." "Talk to me!" " Later." "Go to bed." "I've waited years." "Now leave me alone." "Leave me alone." "They won't hear." "I understand if you don't tell them anything, but I'm your mother..." "Are you cold?" "I've put my shawl on your bed." "Good night." "I've got to tidy up the kitchen." "Do you want to come?" "No, thanks." "All right." "I won't be long." "This drains my strength away." "I don't know why, even the night upsets me..." "I knew an old man, who when night came, would go to the bars to breathe in deeply..." "Deep down those that kill are the ones with the biggest hearts..." "'What's the matter?" "Almost ten..." "Aren't you going to bed?" " Let me breathe!" "'What's the matter?" "When night comes, another life comes over me." "On some nights, the deepest ones, I feel that I've become someone else." "If you could see me!" "A being so different from what you know!" "A stranger whose name I don't know who takes control of me and takes me by force." "By force." "Shut up!" "And please, could you close the window?" "I can't." "I surprise even myself." "A living being, not a dead man..." "When others cry, I laugh." "Now we have found each other again." "Wretch..." "Wretch!" "Wretch, she called me that too." "It's you that are the wretches." "Do you really think this is living?" "Spending your days here always starting over in the same way in this hole?" " And dying?" "Dying?" " And then dying." "You live like blind men." "But there are other things... other living beings." "To work like Gebo!" "Be him!" "I'd rather rebel and then die." "Look how my hands are cold..." "Let the night in." "Now go." "Shut up and go." "What are you doing?" "I can't take it any more, Joéo." "I'm going to scream!" "Just as well." "What are doing?" "You know I'm a thief, you know" " Yes." " A thief." "Do you want to run away with me?" "Shouldn't you be by my side for better or for worse?" "I'm your wife." "I'm alone in the world but I know things you don't." "I know what hunger is, what it is to kill and to die." "There are nights when I flee like a hunted animal, and there are times when I feel in myself something else, something immense..." "I can see people cry, see them scream..." "Thief!" "Being a thief!" "You're our curse." "Are you going to kill them both?" "Is that what you want?" "Old father and mother?" "I have no father or mother, I have no one." "What are you saying?" "What are you doing?" " I'm stealing." " Joéo..." "Joéo!" "Speak more quietly!" "You'll lose yourself and you'll lose us!" "You'll be the end of the old man!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "Father!" "Father!" "Come!" "Help!" "Kill me!" "You're not getting through!" "Son!" "Stealing!" "If she finds out..." "What's going on?" "What's that noise?" "Nothing, it's nothing." "An argument between them." "So don't cry." "It's not worth it." "I give you my word of honour!" "They're arguing... that's all." "These things happen..." "Nothing more..." " And Sofia?" " She's gone after him." "Here he comes." "Finally..." "No one has seen him, no one." "This umbrella was so good!" "How quickly things spoil!" "It didn't used to be like this." "Don't worry about the umbrella." "Tell me if you found him?" "I've told you, no one's seen him." "I asked everyone." "You see this tear!" "How can you go to work with this weather?" "I think the papers are forecasting good weather..." "Has my director sent a message?" " No." "They'll be around soon And then... either he or I..." "Who?" "No one." "I'm talking about the weather." "It's going to change." "We're going to have a very dry winter, you'll see." "As for going to work..." "It's been three days!" " What are we going to do?" " I don't know..." "And the money, father?" "The money?" "Is she crying?" "Yes..." "She's crying." "She who kept saying" ""When my son comes, you'll see!" "Our misery will be over"." ""It'll all be over", yes..." "Her whole life living this illusion." "For me, I don't mind, We can get used to anything." "But her..." "Is she crying?" "Yes." "But... she's not the only one that suffers." "What will become of us all now?" "She can't find out!" "It's her last hope." "It looks like I'm wet..." "On my face, on my face too." "It must be from the rain." "Look, you've got me crying now!" "Such a good umbrella!" "Everything's so expensive, and the money's gone..." "Where's this all going to end?" "That's what I wonder too..." "But..." "Maybe she knows everything..." "No!" "If she knew everything, she would have died." ""I wish to..." ""inform you..." ""that the money..." ""collected..." ""seven hundred and fifty escudos..." ""and seventy five reis..." ""belonging to the Auxiliary Company..." ""Limited..." ""was stolen..." ""the night before last..." ""in my house." ""The thief" "is unknown"." ""The thief is unknown"." "But they're so rich!" "Wouldn't they forgive you?" "Forgive?" "When money's involved, no one ever forgives." "I was forgetting the date!" " But father..." " Yes." "So our duty is to be poor to be miserable our whole lives?" "It's better to confess everything." " No!" "Let's go and bang on the door and shout: "Your son... "" "No, no." "Never!" "Speak quietly." "Inside, all I do is scream and yet I speak softly so she doesn't hear," "so no one hears." "The more I say "Don't upset yourself"" "she says "If you take him from me, now that I've seen him..." "I'll die. "" "It's my fault the house was mortgaged and sold." "She's got lost in a bitter useless dream..." "If everything we do is useless, if we die deluded, there'll be no future life!" "But what do you want me to do, lass?" "I can't be anything else." "If you knew how much I've suffered!" "Who's going to give me work after what's happened?" "For a long time the Company had me there out of pity..." "Charity?" "Out of charity, father?" " Yes." "We've been silent, for eight years!" "You should shout out the truth." "That would be killing her with my own hands." "I'd rather die than tell her the truth." "My duty is something else." "Always duty..." "Can you hear her?" "Yes." "She's crying." "Just crying." "A man should be just and honest above all else." "Or... should he want to get rich?" "So you have doubts too?" "None of us knows himself." "I can't take any more!" "Daughter!" "I'm afraid of him!" "I'm afraid of him!" "I'd rather not see him again!" "If you had seen what I saw!" "If you'd heard!" "But he's your husband." "In another life, which isn't even his nor ours." "Another bigger life..." "Maybe the truth!" "In heaven?" "In this world many people suffer, and does anyone hear their cries?" "Wait..." "Evil?" "Evil is impossible!" "Wait while I try to understand..." "See!" "If we could see!" "In this horrible world it's natural that those that reach a poor old age..." "Old and poor..." "Old and poor... are trodden on by those they most love." "No, father, no!" "See..." "Yes, see!" "Yes, I want to see!" "I want to see!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "This hurts so much!" "Run away..." "could we run away?" "Run where?" "No one can escape misery." "We'd be better off dead!" "I've always lied to her, we've spent our whole lives like this, me lying, her crying and dreaming." "Don't cry, daughter." "Don't cry..." "Go to her and tell her." " No." "I'll never leave you." "What's needed on these occasions is for each one to know his duty." "That's the truth." "I hear it but I don't understand it." "If we run away and abandon our principles, we'll be in his hands." "Now I'm in the way, that's all there is to it." "Maybe he'll repent and remember his duty." "Go to your mother." "If it wasn't for duty, I wouldn't even have raised you." "You were one more mouth to feed..." "Can you hear her?" "Yes." "She's still crying." "Just crying." "The most important thing is that she doesn't find out anything." "Ever!" "My duty is something else." "Don't cry, please, it's all sorted out." "Father!" "Yes, it's all sorted out." "Don't cry any more, do you hear me?" "But how, father?" "Now leave me." "Go and calm her." "Go and calm her." "How this hurts me." "How this hurts me." "It's them!" "Don't open it!" "Wife!" "Daughter!" "Wait!" "Here they are!" "Here they are!" "No!" "Father!" " It's him!" "It's him!" " It's the thief!" "It's the thief!" "Yes, I'm the thief." "It was me that stole it."