Eatables and Drinkables.
Artur Azevedo.
From Contos Escolhidos, O Globo or www.dominiopublico.gov.br .
Translation from Brazilian Portuguese language to English language by.
Herculano de Lima Einloft Neto.
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil, 2015.

A while before entering definitely, in the practical life, the bachelor[1] Sesostris, which today is father of family and magistrate, had his literary velleities, and was up for everything; poetry, short story, feuilleton, novel and theater.

It was the manuscript of his first and only play which introduced him in the backstage of a theater, and approximated him of Rosalina, which from our actresses was at that time the first one in beauty and the last one in talent. This Rosalina, which the impresario conserved in the cast of the company in attention uniquely to her plastic virtues, had married an actor on his turn there conserved so only for being her husband.

Saying that she was a second Penelope in what touches conjugal fidelity would be to fail shamelessly to the truth that I owe to the readers of my storiettes; at least the bad tongues, and even the good ones, did not spare her; more than one habitual frequenter of the theater where she exhibited herself was appointed as having solicited, and obtained her most intimate favours.

The bachelor Sesostris was invited by the impresario to make the reading of the play one afternoon, on the stage, after the rehearsal and the set hour, sat before a small table circled by almost all the company, and opened a manuscript.

He was in the midst of the first act, heard in silence with a retirement digne of a tragedy, when the comediographer felt that from the knee of Rosalina, sat to his right, exhaled a communicative warmth which perturbated him. Knows God how could the young man conclude the reading of that first act!

During the second, continued the equivocal manifestations, or rather, inequivocal, and the bachelor, sweating cold, trembling, jesting, let be lost all the comical effects of the situations and the dialogue. The listeners, each time colder and more reserved, attributed the indisposition of the reader to the terrible impression of finding himself there submitted to the opinion and to the judgment of so many artistic summities.

During the third act, Rosalina completed with the foot - a small foot, admirably shoed - the opus of seduction which she had started with the knee.

Finished the reading, the impresario, which during the two first acts had interrupted it with significative and irreverent yawns, and now slept to loose sleep, woke up as soon as he heard the consolating words: "falls the cloth", and said to the comediographer:

- Yes, sir, it is a nice comedy... but it is not for my theater... it is too fine, it has little mockery... However, I don't say that I don't represent it... I shall represent it, but when the theater is more on track[2]. The doctor has much talent: write another comedy, but with thicker salt, with kitchen salt.

- Kitchen?!

- Kitchen, yes sir! This of fine salt does not bring ten réis to the ticket office!

The bachelor Sesostris, which had the inestimable fortune of counting merely twenty-two years, let himself illude; but, when even he received, as a dramaturge, a formal disillusionment, what did it matter to him, if Rosalina, the delightful[3] Rosalina, so greeded[4] by all the men, was there to consolate him of the dreadful struggles of incipient author?

When the impresario finished recommending to him the bay salt, he turned and looked for her with the eyes; she had disappeared, without even saying good-bye...

From then on, the bachelor started frequenting the backstage of the theater, and especially the dressing room of Rosalina; the latter, however, did not renew the manifestations of the knee and the foot, as if resolved she were to showing the young man that he could not go up higher...

Figurated in the company an old actor which said himself very friend of Sesostris, and had captured his trust; the latter chose him for confident of his loves, and told him the provocations of the actress.

The old actor smiled maliciously.

- How is it explained - asked the bachelor - that that woman would quickly change of feeling in regard to me?

- It is explained perfectly: you were going to read a comedy and she wanted to catch the first role. Since the moment she realized the play would not be represented, she made as much case of you as of the first shirt she has worn.

- So if the comedy were accepted...?

- If the comedy were accepted, Rosalina would be yours! And only thus could you have her for free - that is woman of money.

Three months went by, and the theater far from directing[2] as expected the impresario, entered one of those crises so common to the life of our theaters. After five or six disasters, the public went away[5] and the impresario refrained from paying regularly to the artists. The situation was desperate.

Rosalina and the husband suffered as the others, considering themselves happy when they caught ten or twenty thousand réis on account of the late wages.

It was in these circumstances that the foot and the knee of the actress went back to perturbating the tranquility of the bachelor Sesostris.

The opinion of the old actor had not ceased her to be deserving in the spirit of the young man; at twenty-two the heart is blind for the defects of the woman for whom it palpitates, and when by chance it resolves to analyse them, ends up verifying that they're qualities and not defects.

One night, Sesostris, in saying good-bye to her, left her in the hands a note asking her for an interview, and saying to her that the next night, during the spectacle, he would go pick the answer up to the dressing room.

And went.

The actress let leave the hairdresser who combed her, and told the boyfriend:

- Be prudent! Not one word about the subject of your note.

- But... the answer?

- Disguise... It is there on the window... below the small plate of the clay jug[6]... Make believe that you're going to drink water... Look that the door of the dressing room is open, and there is around a lot of people suspicious of your assiduity.

Sesostris disguised, went to the place of the clay jug, lifted the small plate, found the note, put it in the pocket, conversed still for some moments, in sound voice, about the heat, the lack of audience, etc... and left, impatient to read the wished answer.

In order to flee from any indiscreet looks, he put himself in the public urinal of the theater and it was there, half suffocated by the ammoniacal exhalations, that he read the following:

"Doctor. - Before answering to your lovely note, I want to deserve from you a great obsequy. As you know, the enterprise is owing us three fifteen-day periods[7], day 15 is at the door, and it is probable that still this time we stay holding the bag[8], because the theater hasn't done nothing. We are in the misery. Although this costs me much, I ask to you that you send us, tomorrow, to our house, which the doctor knows where it is, the supplies noted[9] of the included list , and which are for our pantry. I apologize for the discomfort and you believe in the friendship of your - Rosalina."

To this improbable letter, it was, effectively annexed, a list of dry and wet goods - so many liters of beans, so many kilograms of dry-meat, etc.. Nothing was missing: olive oil, pasta, olives, wine, packages of candles, lamps, butter, the devil!

The next day it stopped a cart at the door of Rosalina, taking all those eatables and drinkables[10]; but the bachelor Sesostris, despite his twenty-two years, understood that he never again should appear to that stupid one.

Translation Notes:

[1] bacharel, graduate, bachelor, etc..
[2] encarreirado, on the right track; directed, etc..
[3] formosa, formous, delightful, etc..
[4] cobiçada, coveted, longed for, lusted after, greeded [neologism], etc..
[5] afastou-se, went away, etc..
[6] moringa, clay jug for water, etc..
[7] quinzena, fifteen-day period, etc..
[8] ficar a ver navios, stay seeing ships, stay holding the bag, etc..
[9] constantes, noted, listed, etc..
[10] comes e bebes, food and drink, eatables and drinkables, etc..

Cf. Houaiss; Avery, Barsa.
Cf. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide].
Cf. http://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/Default.aspx, norma brasileira.