Page:Brazilian tales.djvu/19

Rh list of works is too numerous to mention in a fragmentary introduction of this nature; chief among them stands Innocencia, a sister tale, so to speak, to Isaacs's María. According to Verissimo, Innocencia is one of the country's few genuinely original novels. It has been called, by Mérou (1900), "the best novel written in South America by a South American," a compliment later paid by Guglielmo Ferrero to Graça Aranha's Canaan. Viscount Taunay's famous work has been translated into French twice, once into English, Italian, German, Danish, and even Japanese.

The scene is laid in the deserted Matto Grosso, a favorite background of the author's. Innocencia is all that her name implies, and dwells secluded with her father, who is a miner, her negress slave Conga, and her Caliban-like dwarf Tico, who loves Innocencia, the Miranda of this district. Into Innocencia's life comes the itinerant physician, Cirino de Campos, who is called by her father to cure her of the fever. Cirino is her Ferdinand; they make love in secret, for she is meant by paternal arrangement for a mere brute of a mule driver, Manaçao by name. Innocencia vows herself to Cirino, when the mule-driver