Page:Brazilian short stories.djvu/17

Rh them rise up again in front of him on his return. He must do them and undo them. Penelope's web, rock of Sisyphus, and between the going and coming, the bad digestion of a warmed-up dinner and a bad night; and thus it continues for a month, a year, two, three, five, as long as he still has buttocks and his horse has loins.

When he meets a traveler on his way he becomes green with envy: that one will soon "arrive," whereas, for the postman, this verb is an ironical derision. He dismounts with difficulty, worn out, his flesh on fire at the end of the thirty-six thousand metres of the weary way. He eats a plate of badly cooked beans, and takes a wretched little nap. The dawn of the next day stretches out before him and by way of good-morning, the same accursed thirty-six thousand meters of the evening before, now lengthened out the other way. …

Soon the sore animal weakens and gives out. Now the rider must climb the hills on foot. He has no means with which to buy another nag. His salary is spent for corn and a closely cropped pasture for the horse, and brine for the baths and other remedies for the bruises of both rider and ridden. There is nothing left for clothes.

The State awards—the same State that maintains fat bureaucratic caterpillars at a conto and Congressional parrots at a hundred mil reis per day,—awards him, this generous and wealthy State one hundred mil reis per month. That is, one real for every nine yards of torment. Twenty reis they pay him for