Brazilian Tales | Page 9

which sometimes uproots tress and
sweeps away whole tracts of land.
If women, however, have enshrined themselves in the patriotic annals
of the Southern republics, they have shown that they are no less the
companions of man in the more or less agreeable arts of peace. When
one considers the great percentage of illiteracy that still prevails in
Southern America, and the inferior intellectual position which for years
has been the lot of woman particularly in the Spanish and Portuguese
nations, it is surprising that woman's prominence in the literary world
should be what it is.
The name of the original seventeenth century spirit known as Sor Inés
de la Cruz (Mexico) is part of Spanish literature. Only recently has she
been indicated as her nation's first folklorist and feminist! Her poems
have found their way into the anthologies of universal poesy. The most
distinguished Spanish poetess of the nineteenth century, Gertrudis
Gómez de Avellaneda, was a Cuban by birth, going later to Spain,
where she was readily received as one of the nation's leading literary
lights. Her poetry is remarkable for its virile passion; her novel "Sab"
has been called the Spanish "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for its stirring protest
against slavery and its idealization of the oppressed race. She was a
woman of striking beauty, yet so vigorous in her work and the
prosecution of it that one facetious critic was led to exclaim, "This
woman is a good deal of a man!"
But South America has its native candidate for the title of Spanish
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and this, too, is the work of a woman. Clorinda

Matto's "Aves Sin Nido" (Birds Without a Nest) is by one of Peru's
most talented women, and exposes the disgraceful exploitation of the
Indians by conscienceless citizens and priests who had sunk beneath
their holy calling. It seems, indeed, that fiction as a whole in Peru has
been left to the pens of the women. Such names as Joana Manuele
Girriti de Belzu, Clorinda Matto and Mercedes Cabello de Carbonero
stand for what is best in the South American novel. The epoch in which
these women wrote (late nineteenth century) and the natural feminine
tendency to put the house in order (whether it be the domestic or the
national variety) led to such stories as Carbonero's "Las
Consequencias," "El Conspirador" and "Blanca Sol." The first of these
is an indictment of the Peruvian vice of gambling; the second throws an
interesting light upon the origin of much of the internal strife of South
America, and portrays a revolution brought on by the personal
disappointment of a politician. "Blanca Sol" has been called a Peruvian
"Madame Bovary."
Although Brazil has not yet produced any Amazons of poetry or fiction
to stand beside such names as Sor Inés de la Cruz or Gertrudis Gómez
de Avallaneda, it has contributed some significant names to the women
writers of Latin America. Not least among these is Carmen Dolores
(Emilia Moncorvo Bandeira de Mello) who was born in 1852 at Rio de
Janeiro and died in 1910, after achieving a wide reputation in the field
of the short story, novel and feuilleton. In addition to these activities
she made herself favorably known in the press of Rio, Sao Paulo and
Pernambuco. Her career started with the novel Confession. Other works
are The Struggle, A Country Drama, and Brazilian Legends. The story
in this volume is taken from a collection entitled The Complex Soul.
* * * * * * *
The present selection of tales makes no pretense at completeness,
finality or infallibility of choice. This little book is, so to speak, merely
a modest sample-case. Some of the tales first appeared, in English, in
the Boston Evening Transcript and the Stratford Journal (Boston), to
which organs I am indebted for permission to reprint them.
ISAAC GOLDBERG.

Roxbury, Mass.

THE ATTENDANT'S CONFESSION
By Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
First President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
So it really seems to you that what happened to me in 1860 is worth
while writing down? Very well. I'll tell you the story, but on the
condition that you do not divulge it before my death. You'll not have to
wait long--a week at most; I am a marked man.
I could have told you the story of my whole life, which holds many
other interesting details: but for that there would be needed time,
courage and paper. There is plenty of paper, indeed, but my courage is
at low ebb, and as to the time that is yet left me, it may be compared to
the life of a candle-flame. Soon tomorrow's sun will rise--a demon sun
as impenetrable as life itself. So goodbye, my dear sir; read this and
bear me no ill will; pardon me those