Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

guess why. He was named sole heir of the testator. Not five, not ten, not twenty
cantos
, but everything, his whole estate, with the possessions specified: houses in the capital, one in Barbacena, slaves, bonds, stocks in the Bank of Brazil and other institutions, jewelry, coins, books—everything, in short, passed into Rubião’s hands directly, without any legacies to other people, without any charitable donation, without any debts. There was only one condition in the will, that the heir was to keep with him his poor dog, Quincas Borba, a name he had given it out of the great affection he felt for it. It demanded that the said Rubião treat the dog as if it were the testator himself, without skimping in any way for its needs, protecting it from annoyances, flight, robbery, or death that people might wish upon it out of evil. In short, to treat it as if it were not a dog but a human being. Item, the condition is imposed that when the dog dies it is to be given decent burial in its own plot, which will be covered with flowers and sweet–smelling plants, and, furthermore, he was to disinter the bones of said dog after thesuitable period and gather them together in a casket of fine wood, to be placed in the most honored place in the house.

XV
     
    S uch was the clause. Rubião found it natural enough since he’d only had thoughts for the inheritance. He’d imagined just a legacy, and out of the will all of the possessions had come his way. He had trouble believing it. He had to have his hand shaken many times, strongly—the strength of congratulations—in order not to imagine that it was a lie.
    “Yes, sir, you scored a goal,” the owner of the pharmacy that had supplied Quincas Borba’s medicines said to him.
    Heir was a lot, but sole … That word puffed up the cheeks of the inheritance. Heir to everything, not a teaspoon left out. And how much would it all amount to? he was thinking. Houses, bonds, stocks, slaves, clothing, chinaware, a few paintings that he had in the capital, because he was a man of good taste, he had a fine knowledge of artistic things. And books? He must have had a lot of books because he was always quoting from them. But what could the figure for all of it be? A hundred
cantos}
Maybe two hundred. It was possible that three hundred wouldn’t be a surprise. Three hundred
cantos!
Three hundred! And Rubião had an urge to dance in the street. Then he calmed down. If it was two hundred or even a hundred it was a dream that the Good Lord was giving him, but it was a long dream, one that would never end.
    The remembrance of the dog managed to take hold in the whirlwind of the thoughts that were going through our man’s head. Rubião found the clause natural enough but unnecessary because he and the dog were two friends, and nothing was more certain than that they should stay together to remember the third friend, the deceased, the author of the happiness of both. There were, of course, a few strange items in the clause, the bit aboutthe casket, and he didn’t know what else, but they would all be fulfilled unless the sky fell in ... No, with God’s help, he added. Good dog! Fine dog!
    Rubião was not forgetting the many times he’d tried to get rich in enterprises that had died in bloom. He considered himself at that time a poor unfortunate, an unlucky person, when the truth was that a person with God’s help caught more worms than the early bird. So it wasn’t impossible to become rich, since he was now rich.
    “What’s impossible?” he exclaimed aloud. “It’s impossible for God to sin. God doesn’t hold out on someone he’s made a promise to.”
    He went along like that, up and down the streets of the town, without heading home, without any plan, with his blood pounding in his head. Suddenly this grave problem arose: whether he should go live in Rio de Janeiro or stay in Barbacena. He felt the urge to stay, to shine where he’d been in the shadows, to get one up on the people