The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell

When a man dies he is reintegrated into his most authentic respectability, even having committed the maddest acts when he was alive. Death, with its unseen hand, erases the stains of the past and leaves the dead mans memory gleaming like a new-cut diamond.

When a man dies he is reintegrated into his most authentic respectability, even having committed the maddest acts when he was alive. Death, with its unseen hand, erases the stains of the past and leaves the dead man’s memory gleaming like a new-cut diamond.

There they all were now, in silence: on one side the family of Joaquim Soares da Cunha—daughter, son-in-law, brother, and sister – and on the other side the friends of Quincas Water-Bray. Swifty put his hand into his pocket and felt the frightened frog, as though he wanted to show it to Quincas. With a movement that looked like ballet, the friends drew back from the coffin and the relatives drew closer. Vanda cast a glance of reproach at her father. Even in death he preferred the company of those ragamuffins.

the street noises came in through the open window, multiple and merry. the sea breeze put out the candles and drifted over to kiss quincas on the cheek. the light spread out over him, blue and festive. a victorious smile was on his lips as quincas settled himself better in the coffin.

Whenever he found himself the guest of honour on the poop of a skiff, looking over a sensational fish stew as the clay pot gave off its fragrant fumes and the bottle of cachaça went from hand to hand, there was always a moment, as the guitars began to be plucked, when his maritime instincts would awaken. He would stand up, his body swaying, the cachaça giving him that weaving roll of men of the sea, and he would declare his status of “old sailor.” An old sailor without a sea and without a ship, corrupted on land but through no fault of his own.

The dead man’s family—his respectable daughter and his proper son-in-law, a civil servant with a promising career; Aunt Marocas; and his younger brother, a merchant with modest credit in the bank—says that the whole tale is nothing but a gross bit of counterfeit goods, the inventions of inveterate drunkards and lowlifes on the margin of society and the law, rogues whose surroundings ought to be the bars of a jail cell and not the freedom of the streets, the waterfront of Bahia, its white sand beaches and its immense night.

We assume a special attitude towards the dead, something almost like admiration for one who has accomplished a very difficult feat. We suspend criticism of him, overlooking whatever wrongs he may have done, and issue the command, De mortuis nil nisi bene: we act as if we were justified in singing his praises at the funeral oration, and inscribe only what is to his advantage on the tombstone. This consideration for the dead, which he really no longer needs, is more important to us than the truth, and, to most of us, certainly, it is more important than consideration for the living.

She saw the smile. The cynical, immoral smile of someone who was enjoying himself. The smile hadn’t changed. […] She had forgotten to tell them, to ask for an expression more in keeping with the solemnity of the dead. That smile of Quincas Water-Bray’s was still there, and in the face of that smile of mockery and pleasure, what good were the new shoes, brand-new while poor Leonardo had to get his half-soled for a second time? What good were the dark suit, the white shirt, the shaved chin, the pomaded hair, the hands placed in prayer? Because Quincas was laughing at all that, a laugh that was growing louder and longer and in a short time would be echoing all over that filthy den. He was laughing with his lips and with his eyes, the eyes staring at the pile of dirty, ragged clothes, tossed in a corner and forgotten by the men from the funeral parlour. The laugh of Quincas Water-Bray.