Pitfalls of Young Men and Maidens (Gymnastics)

In Brazil there is a literature that laughs and men of letters who make merry, and this literature of theirs is a true picture of the happy Brazilian people, nestled there in contentment, ignorant of the old world's worries, its crises, and its problems. The contagion of merriment spreads to the writers of the emigrants, and one of them, Mr. F. Kurban, in the magazine "Mount Lebanon," under the title "Gymnastics," tells us this delicious tale:

At last!! Two thousand piasters in the pocket! I know quite well the sum is not large, but it will have to do. I had an appointment, for the first time, with Dercinha (1); I had invited her to dinner at a restaurant and then to see a film — a loaded program, without the least doubt; and some anxiety over it lingered in the depths of my soul, so I did the sum over again: dinner for two at a respectable restaurant, with dessert and tip, between 1,200 and 1,400 piasters; that leaves 700 piasters for the cinema, the cigarettes, and the car.

Six o'clock struck. A last glance at the mirror, and a touch to the cravat. Half an hour later Dercinha was at the appointed meeting place in Patriarchate Square, opposite the church of Saint — the one whose business is marrying people off... After the greetings I complimented her on her elegance and asked her which restaurant she preferred.

Here we are, seated in a private corner of the well-known restaurant, the Elite. The waiter came with the bill of fare in his hand, and while he was laying the table I ventured something quite outside custom: I ordered what I wanted before my companion did... because I wished, in some fashion, to make her understand that she was to follow the same principle. And so, with one eye on the list of dishes and the other on the price column, I said to the waiter:

— Kindly bring me a roast chicken (its price was 300 piasters) and a plate of mixed salad (150 piasters) and an Austrian omelette (200 piasters). And I began telling myself:

That will do — an excellent dinner! Isn't it so?

But that was not how the young lady understood it. I was thrown into no small confusion when I saw the nail of her prodigiously long forefinger travel from the top of the list to the bottom without pausing near the modest items I had ordered. She said:

— Bring a Roman trout.

— At your orders, senhorita.

— And a soufflé, and caviar, and tongues with tartar sauce.

I said:

— What a lot of dishes you are mixing — it's bad for the health!

The waiter smiled a mocking smile, and I felt my cheeks going red. As for her, she answered:

— What harm is there in it? I'm used to it.

Used to it?! Woe to poor me! Only two thousand piasters in the pocket. Then I drew out my handkerchief and raised it to my brow.

She said:

— Do you feel hot, "my treasure"?

— Don't you find the air heavy in here?

— Order a cooled drink.

The waiter heard, and reeled with joy. What a thief! He brought the dishes, and I felt humbled before my "chicken" as he lined it up facing the tongues. You monkey! Why did my companion order caviar? Hasn't the omelette the very same taste??

Dercinha was "getting down" to these delicacies in a way that brought the water to my mouth and lances into my heart! I swallowed my chicken like a man "not there," thinking of the bill.

The waiter came back and said:

— Won't you have something to drink?

What a rascal you are!!

She said: I want a cherry brandy, of the 1905 sort, with a bottle of Vichy.

— And the gentleman?

— Bring a glass of beer.

Dercinha laughed and said: "Azizinho"! there is something in your looks that makes one laugh! They are the looks of a bull that knows it is on the road to the slaughterhouse!

(1) There is no name or thing in the Brazilian tongue that cannot be made smaller or bigger. For the diminutive they have a "dainty" form: Rosa becomes Rosinha and Jorge Jorginho, and so on... As for the augmentative... that is another story...

If only she knew how much truth there was in her words! Yes, I was like a bull on the road to the slaughterhouse!

The waiter came back carrying the drinks, and when he saw me looking like a man who walks in his sleep, he winked his sly eye at me with a meaning of:

— Chew on it, you poor wretch!

And I signaled back with my eye: Your day will come!

Dercinha was absorbed — engrossed, rather — in doing her duty by the banquet, so I said to her:

— It is rare to see a young lady eat with such an appetite. As for me, I have a tendency to stoutness... I must keep my figure... and besides, too much eating brings little pimples out on the face.

— That's silly. I eat everything, but I do violent gymnastics. I said to myself: it is I who will be doing gymnastics when the hour comes to pay the bill!

— What's this? Have you no appetite?

— My family are people of excess, and my father died of an ulcer of the stomach.

— Poor thing! Nothing ever hurts me.

And to furnish the proof, she ordered a second plate of the trout.

I said — to turn her desire away from the cinema, and shift the price of the tickets over to the dinner bill:

— I believe the hour of the first cinema show has passed.

— Don't grieve, my dear; we'll go to the second show.

The waiter brought the list of sweets, and she said, let us see:

— Mixed compote. No. Fruit. No. Pudding. No. Aah — here! Bring wafers, and cherries with French cognac, and some chestnuts with port, and ice cream.

The little demon, like the plague, was leaping in one "tick" from France to Portugal to North America. The waiter no longer took me into any account: he went off without asking me what I wanted. I said: God be praised! But then he came back with the plates of sweets for my companion, and drew out — from where I do not know — two dried bananas whose very look brought on gloom, and set them before me; and I had strength for nothing except to curse his mother... inwardly. And I asked her — to draw out the time and so escape the cinema — Coffee?

— I don't want any, "my precious," thank you.

I was dumbfounded, and cried out:

— We must drink coffee!

— Very well.

We drank the coffee, and she said, come along. I said, we've missed the first show.

The cold sweat was streaming from my brow and my teeth were chattering like brass castanets between the fingers of a Spanish dancer.

— Are you perhaps ill?

— No. It may be indigestion...

— ??? But you have eaten nothing!

The truth is I had eaten nothing. It was she who ate — and at that minute she was eating my very soul. What was I to do, O Lord? Should I ask my companion whether she carried any money on her? And what would she say then of us, the sons of the Arabs??

Time passed, and my agitation grew; my companion painted her face over and over, laid layer upon layer on her lips, and the waiter came back again and again to ask whether she wanted anything more. Her patience gave out and she said:

— Alfredinho! We have missed the first show and we shall miss the second. Come along!

She rang the bell and the waiter came. I said, in a runaway voice:

— The bill.

And I set about calming my terror, saying: why drown in a glass of water?? What I have with me may be enough. What imbecile optimism! The two-thousand-piaster note was saying, "I must grow, and grow again, until I get as fat as the hundred-lira note."

I heard the fall of the waiter's steps. As he came on, the sight of him was like the sight of the train in the cinema when it devours the ground and seems about to come out of

the screen and leap upon the spectators. He said:

— Here is the bill. For your honor — and he divided the bill deliberately — 650 piasters. And for the senhorita, 3,830 — and ten centimes.

And why the ten centimes?

I rose. The restaurant's radio was playing a swing number, and my knees shook so hard that the accursed waiter observed that they were keeping time with the tune. I sent him off to fetch me a packet of cigarettes and slipped away toward the manager of the restaurant, and told him my tale; he all but wept for sorrow... — or for fright, that the pledge I was going to give would not be enough. He said:

— My dear sir, these things happen very often. It is your good luck that you came into a restaurant whose proprietors treat people with entire consideration. Allow me a word of advice, my friend: never again go about with a girl of the "gymnastics" kind!! Then a glance of his fell upon my wrist and he cried out: Ah, what a beautiful watch! Is it not gold?

A few minutes later I was with my companion outside the Elite restaurant. The miraculous two-thousand note was still in my pocket, but my watch was with the manager of the restaurant. And my companion admired the film, and loved it!

Is there anything in the world she does not love?

Next morning I signed a note of hand at the establishment where I worked and hurried off to "release" the pawned watch. At noon I came into the house a "tower of wrath," and gave no one a greeting.

The telephone rang, and my sister answered.

— Alfredinho! The telephone is for you, and the voice is a young lady's voice... you chief of pirates!!

I took the telephone, smiling for the first time in twenty-four hours.

— Hello.

A voice softer than muhallabiyya answered me:

— Hello-o-o! Alfredinho. This is Dercinha, "my precious." At which restaurant are you dining tonight?

— Riiight????? At the Chinese restaurant, curse you! — where the full meal costs eight piasters!!

From the Portuguese