Page:Brazilian short stories.djvu/18

14 three hundred and thirty meters of torture. That is, one kilometer of martyrdom for sixty reis. Cheaper pain would be impossible. …

The post-made-man begins to shrink from fatigue and hunger. He gets thin, his cheeks sink in, his legs become brackets within which dwells the belly of the wretched horse.

Besides the physiological, economical and social calamities, he is also showered with meteorological woes. The inclement weather does not spare him. In summer the sun roasts him pitilessly, as nuts are roasted in an oven; if it rains, be misses not a drop; by the end of May, when the cold weather begins, benumbed like a subject of the Czar in Siberia, he devours the infernal leagues. On Saint Bartholomew's day, as he hangs like grim death to the mane of the lean mare, it is a miracle that the devilish wind does not tumble them both over a precipice.

His patrons, the Government, take it for granted that he is made of iron and his buttocks of chromate of steel; that the roads are asphalted streets lined with plush; that the weather is a permanent blue sky with balmy breezes bent upon blowing the sweet perfume of flowering balsam over the travelers.

It still takes it for granted that the hundred mil réis of salary is a regal remuneration, to make one smack one's lips. And, in these angelical suppositions, when financial crises come and economy must be considered, it cuts