Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

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And yet there is one factor that unites Brazil more closely than some European countries which are only as big as a single Brazilian state: its language. Brazil is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world. Its Portuguese differs from that spoken in Portugal at least as much as American English differs from English English. But throughout Brazil the language is amazingly uniform, and Brazilians have no difficulty understanding each other.

It is a rather heavy and solemn tongue, with some of its grammatical forms actually dating back to the Latin of the Roman Republic. The tendency in Brazil is to be careless about grammatical niceties, at least in speaking, and to lighten the language with constant diminutives (as Maria da Conceição became Conceiçãozinha). In fact the Portuguese regard Brazilian Portuguese as “effeminate”—charming when women speak it, but no language for men.

Not only the constant use of diminutives but also the forms of address help create an atmosphere of familiarity, of affection and intimacy. Brazilian nomenclature is almost as complicated as Russian and is often compared to it, but in general women are addressed by “Dona” followed by the Christian name or pet name, and men by “Doutor” if they have a university degree or, if they have not, by a softened form of Senhor, “Seu,” again followed by the Christian name.

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Brazilians are very quick, both emotionally and physically. Like the heroes of Homer, men can show their emotions without disgrace. Their superb futebal (soccer football) players hug and kiss each other when they score goals, and weep dramatically when they fail to. Brazilians are also quick to show sympathy. One of the first and most useful words a foreigner picks up is coitado (poor thing!).

Part of the same emotionalism in social life is the custom of the abraço, or embrace. Brazilians shake hands a great deal, and men simultaneously embrace each other with their free arms. Women often embrace, too, and kiss rapidly on both cheeks: left! right! Under strong feeling the abraço becomes a real embrace.

A rich man will shake hands with and embrace a poor man and also give him money, try to find him a job, and pay his wife’s doctor bills, because they grew up on the same fazenda, or country estate, made their first communions together, and perhaps are even “brothers of creation,” a system of partial adoption that dates from slavery days. Servants are still often called criados, a term which originally meant they had been raised in the family. Even today one occasionally sees an elegant old lady out walking, leaning on the arm of a little dressed-up Negro girl, or taking tea or orangeade with her in a tearoom; the little girl is her “daughter of creation” whom she is bringing up.

In such relationships there is complete ease of manner on both sides. Sometimes Brazilians seem to confuse familiarity with democracy, although the attitude seems rather to be a holdover from slavery days, or feudalism, or even from the Roman Empire, when every rich man had his set of poor relations and parasites. Nevertheless, a sense of natural responsibility underlies the relationship and certainly contributes something toward the more difficult and somewhat broader conception of what democracy generally means today.

Home and family are very important in Brazil. But because there is no divorce, strange situations arise: second and third “marriages,” unrecognized legally but socially accepted, in which there are oddly mixed sets of children. These situations merely give the Brazilians a chance to exercise their unique talent for kindly tolerance. In fact, in the spirit of mollification the courts more than two decades ago ruled that henceforth no one could be legally termed illegitimate.

There is a story about Rio de Janeiro and its beloved, decrepit bondes or open trolley cars. A bonde was careening along, overcrowded as usual, with men hanging to the sides like a swarm of bees. It barely stopped for a tall, gangling man to get off; and as he jumped from the step he fell, landing in a humiliating heap. His fellow passengers laughed. He pulled himself together, got up, and with great dignity shouted after them: “Everyone descends from the bonde in the way he wants to.”

That is the perfect statement of the Brazilian belief in tolerance and forebearance: everyone should be allowed to descend from the bonde in his or her own way.

The greatest tolerance is naturally extended to love, because in Brazil that is always the most important emotion. Love is the constant element in almost every news story, street scene, or familiar conversation. If lunch is an hour or so late because the cook has been dawdling with the pretty delivery boy, her mistress will scold her, even lose her temper (for Brazilian tempers are quick, too), but there will be sympathy underneath and the cook’s excuses will be frank, half humorous, possibly even indecent from the Anglo-Saxon point of view. “First things first” is the motto. Opposed to the constant preoccupation with love is the lack of sentimentality about marriage arrangements. There may be surface emotionalism, but there is Latin logic and matter-of-factness underneath.

A Brazilian woman shopping in New York was puzzled by the tag on a madras shirt she had bought for her husband: “Guaranteed to fade.” In a country as rich as the United States, why would anyone want to wear faded clothes? Why do the Americans like to wear faded blue jeans? Surely that is false romanticism and just one more example of the childishness of the Anglo-Saxon as compared to the more adult Latin? Values are realistic in Brazil. Outside of fashionable circles, the poor are thin and the rich are fat, and fat is a sign of beauty, as it has been since the ancients.

Brazilians are in many ways quick, but they can also be woefully slow. The same mistress who scolds her cook for flirting will complain about the meals always being late. Yet if anyone asks naively, “But why not have lunch at one o’clock every day?” she will reply, “Oh, well — this isn’t a factory.”

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Among the first settlers in Brazil were the big “captains,” impoverished Portuguese noblemen and younger sons seeking quick fortunes, who were used to having feudal henchmen and slaves around them. They and the Portuguese of low rank who were also early on the scene soon established a tradition of having Indian and Negro slaves. One result is that to this day physical labor is looked down upon. Of all his inherited attitudes this one is the hardest for the Brazilian, free of so many other prejudices, to overcome. The upper-class Brazilian who visits the bustling North American continent cannot understand why there is so much eagerness for work. A rich boy mowing the lawn? More romanticism! A lifetime government job, white-collar work, or preferably no work at all, is the poor man’s dream. A shabby, sickly bill collector, who can barely support his wife and six children, but who proudly carries a brief case and wears two fountain pens in his pocket, will tremble with rage if his position in society is misunderstood: “I? — Everyone knows I have never worked with my hands in my life!”

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But along with admiration for a life of ease and luxury goes a strange indifference to physical comfort. Even in cold weather — and it can get quite cold south of São Paulo or in the higher regions of the interior — there is no heating of any kind. People simply put on more clothes. In the small towns in June or July, the coldest months, one often sees a pleasant, old-fashioned Brazilian scene: the large family, grandparents, parents, babies, visiting godparents, and a few odd cousins and fiancés, wearing sweaters or perhaps bathrobes over their clothes, all sitting around the dining-room table under a hanging lamp. Everyone is doing exactly what he wants: reading the paper, playing cards or chess, or relentlessly arguing over the other people’s heads. Elsewhere, even the granfinos, the elegant, cosmopolitan-rich set of the upper-class, who have adopted the “English weekend” and spend it in Petrópolis or other resorts, present somewhat the same air of camping out in the winter. In freezing rooms, the ladies with mink coats over their slacks and rugs over their knees, the gentlemen wearing mufflers, they watch after-dinner movies, the latest chic diversion. Perhaps they will sip Scotch, again to be chic, but more likely cafezinhos, the boiling hot and very sweet little cups of coffee. The poor, meanwhile, drink the same cafezinhos, pile all their clothes on top of them and go to bed early.