Canaan

Preface

Among the American* cities that have rapidly developed on the Atlantic coast during the nineteenth century, Rio de Janeiro has a character all its own. You cannot compare it to Buenos Aires or New York. Built on a bay, the beauty of which can neither be imagined nor described, upon hills and mountains covered with immense, marvelous forests which form, among its houses, gardens of incomparable beauty, Rio de Janeiro is a gigantic city, full of life and animation. But you cannot see there the crowds, the bustle and the violent activity of other great American cities. It is the only American metropolis that seems to invite you, not to act, but to loaf, to think, and even to dream. It is not surprising, therefore, that this capital of a powerful federation of extensive and rich states, though they are sparsely populated, should be the center of a flourishing intellectual life. Novelists, poets, critics, historians and philosophers — for the most part government employes — go thither and work, meeting from time to time at the Brazilian Academy. They foregather, between four and five in the afternoon, in a huge bookstore in the Rua Ouvidor. This bookstore belongs to the French firm of

♦Needless to say, Signor Ferrero uses the terms "America" and "American," not with the narrow sense given these words in the United States, but meaning the whole American continent and whatever pertains thereto.

6 PREFACE

Garnier, and the latest publications from Europe are received there every week. Stimulated by a cosmopolitan culture in which all shades of European intellectuality are represented, the literary production of Brazil has become quite considerable both as to quantity and quality. Naturally, all of it* is not first class; but among mediocre works, such as are to be found in any literature, Brazilian literature counts some productions which would honor any country in the old world.

One of these works, and perhaps the most remarkable, is a novel; its title is "Canaan" and its author is Joseph Graga Aranha. The personality of the author, andtHe trifle itself, equally deserve the attention of cultivated people. • Aranha, a writer and diplomat descended from an old family, truly represents the intellectual classes of the great American nations which Europe seems to have great difficulty in distinguishing from the crowd of noisy parvenus and newly-rich. His is an extremely fine mind, endowed with a remarkable force of intuition and on which all the cultures of Europe — French as well as German and English — have exerted their influence. He has not merely read and studied books, but has come into contact with life in some of the great problems of mankind. He was one of the favorite disciples of Baron de Rio Branco — the farnous Secretary forForeign Affairs of the Confederation— ^ai^^ in

the office of thaT^^rtmenTa^t Rio de Janeiro. He accompanied MrTTN abucoTlis^secr^tai^v^when the latter was sent to Rome in a mission to present before the king of Italy the case for Brazil in the boundary question with British Guiana of which the Italian monarch was chosen arbitrator. He was for some time Brazilian

PREFACE

^Minister _at Christiania and was afterwards appointed Plenipotentiary for his country at The Hague. This post he relinquished in November, 1914, and returned to Brazil where he was one of the letters in th^anti-German agitation which finally brought Brazil into line witHT the Allies and the United States. He, therefore, knows Europe and the two Americas, yet he has remained a thorough Brazilian, passionately fond of his country, its history, its natural beauties, its traditions. His duties as a diplomat and as a public functionary have not prevented him from writing many books, of which "Canaan" is the most beautiful. *

With such a thorough preparation as the author had, his book could not be merely a novel of individual psychology. "Canaan," therefore, is more than that; it is a novel of cojtitempoi^ry America. Its characters live ancf acfirTtfie midst of anWstoTical phenomenon which no writer, to my knowledge, had yet chosen as a subject for a work of art. This historical phenomenon is the great drama which is being acted on the other side of the Atlantic, in all the countries, north as well as south. It is the^encounter of the races, the mixing of cultures, the di st ur blmfcr'^auseoTTn^^

An^criQn^_-cetiTlfries Eythe masses of inen~~armTiig^ from overcrow^eiJEuropej^ The history of individuals hasp-tkei&krfe^ in this volume a profound social and philosophic significance. A young German, disgusted with Europe and its old civilization — full of violences, lies and ill-concealed abominations — emigrates to Brazil, to the state of Espirito Santo, which is one of the most fertile in tropical Brazil. Everyone knows that in several states of Brazil there exist German colonies which

8 PREFACE

have preserved almost intact their language and national traditions.

The young emigrant wants to settle in one of these I colonies. The son of a college professor, and brought up in an idealistic and anarchistic philosophy, he seeks in the New World, in the midst of populations devoted to tilling the land, a simpler, more moral, more sincere, a freer and happier society than the one he has left behind in Europe. N^nd the book begins with a description qf his journey on horseback from Queimado to Porto do Cachoeiro, where he intends to obtain a piece of virgir, forest in order to clear it and plant coffee!^

Those who have traveled in tropical America will not read without intense emotion the pages in which the Brazilian landscape is described with powerful and rich images. But the subtlety of the author's psychological analysis is not inferior to the beauty of his descriptions. The young emigrant arrives; he obtains from the Brazilian official in charge of the distribution of land, the piece of virgin forest which he desires ; he begins his new existence in a world which he believes to be young and, , therefore, exempt from all the evils accumulated by history in the old civilizations. But little by little he discovers in this young world the cruelties, the lies and le immoralities which he believed he had left behind the other hemisphere, when he expatriated himself; he |nds the same narrowness and rigidity in the laws ; the len of wealth and power exhibit the same tendency to :>use them ; in their relations to each other, men display le same hypocrisy and the same spirit of egotism. The trial for infanticide of a young girl, wrongly accused, lets loose in the colony one of those floods of

PREFACE 9

delirious hate and collective, cruelty which seem at times to rehabilitate the crime and the criminal that brought them forth. In the midst of the forests where he thought he would find the sweet calm of a pure and serene life, this idealistic philosopher is compelled to witness, heartrent and helpless, the eternal drama of the justice of man seeking to purify the world by exciting the worst and most violent passions of which the human soul is capable. Graiiuallyy~the-4reanaer. discovers in the country he had thought young all the symptoms of a/ dying world : immense lands, exhausted for want of cultivation; old f^milk&^disappearin^ : tr;aditk>n9;-'thc^tradi tions^of^oj^ Brazil, lostjn the a^alanrilgS races ;the_stiuggle^of an olj^ocleJ^j^fusing^to die, and a new society trying to oc_cupy its place. ^•3^~erkfcs~wrl^^ the literary merits of this novel. As a literary amateur, I will point out among its qualities the bejtuty_of its style and its descriptions, the jmrity of the psychological analysis, the depth of the thoughts and reflections of which the novel is full, and among its faults a certain disproportion between the different parts of the book ..and an ending which is too vague, indefinite and unexpected. But its literary qualities seem to me to be of secondary importance to the profound and incontrovertible idea that forms the kernel of the book. Here in Europe, we are accustomed to say that modern civilization develops itself in America more freely than in Europe, for in the former country it has not to surmount the obstacle of an older society, firmly established, as is the case in the latter. Because of this, we call America "the country of the young," and we consider the New io PREFACE

World as the great force which decomposes the old European social organization.

But those who know America are perfectly well aware that such an opinion is but an illusion, due to distance. In Argentina, as in Brazil and in the United States, this civilization which we in Europe call "Americanism" and whose principal aim is to exploit extensive and sparsely populated territories, develops itself only at the expense of an older society, more conservative and more attached to traditions. Everywhere there is an old America struggling against a new one and, this is very curious, the new America, which upsets tradition^ js formed above all by European immigrants who seek a place for themselves in the country of theTr'adoption, whereas the real Americans represent the conservative tendencies. Europe exerts on '" American society — through its emigrants — the same dissolving action which America exerts-- through its novelties and its example — on the old civilization of Europe. The protagonist of "Canaan" says so, at one time, in a beautiful passage which expresses the philosophy of the whole book:*"It is probable that ou * fate will be to transform this country from top to bottom, to substitute with another civilization all the culturo, religion and traditions of a people. It is a new conquer . slow, dour, peaceful in its means, but terrible in fts ambitious schemes. It is necessary that the substitution be so pure and luminous that upon it may not fall the bitter curse of devastation. In the meantime we are a dissolvent of the race of this country. We soak into the nation's clay and soften it ; we mix ourselves with the natives, kill their traditions and spread confusion among them . . . No one understands anyone else; there is a

PREFACE ii

confusion of tongues; men, coming from everywhere, bring with them the shadows of their several gods . . . " * None of the books on America that I am acquainted with make one realize so clearly this phenomenon as this profoundly truthful book. For this reason, "Canaan" must be considered as the novel of contemporary America. The little drama which Mr. Aranha has located in a small town of the state of Espirito Santo, the bitter and truceless struggle between old Brazil and the European immigrants, is the drama of all America at this particular historical moment when America is being Europeanized and Europe is being Americanized. And it is not surprising that an American nurtured in the old culture of Europe, should have been inspired by this historical phenomenon to create a beautiful work of art.

GUGLIELMO FERRERO.

Chapter I

MILKAU rode quietly the tired horse he had hired to take him from Queimado to the city of Porto do Cachoeiro, in Espirito-Santo.

The eyes of the immigrant rested on the peaceful uniformity of the landscape. In that region the earth expresses a perfect harmony of all its parts. The river is neither large and awe inspiring, nor terrifying and tumultuous. The mountains are not like those that thrust their heads into the clouds with a fascinating attraction, inspiring to some dark cult or inviting towards death, as if to a tempting shelter . . .The Santa Maria is a child of the heights, sprightly at its beginning. Then, hindered for a long distance by stones which force it into falls and from which it extricates itself with a mighty effort, it regains its accustomed speed and becomes playful and joyous. It flees through a little wood and insinuates itself into the bosom of the round soft hills which seem to look on its pranks benevolently . . . The hills rise gracefully, covered with short grass that falls along their sides like a yellowish tunic. At that moment the solitude formed by the river and hills was peaceful and bright. There was nothing in it to indicate anguish and terror.

•^Absorbed in the contemplation of the landscape, Milkau lei his horse go at an indolent and broken pace. The loose reins fell on the neck of the animal, who moved his head lazily up and down and now and again lowered his eyelids over his watery eyes. There was a lazy abandon in their movements, a languid trailing through the peacefulness of the landscape. The humble noises of Nature contributed to the voluptuous sensation of silence.

The gentle breeze, the murmuring of the river, the voices of the little insects, all made the broken immobility of things more soothing and more profound. The unceasing noises of life, the perturbing movement which creates and destroys, was interrupted here. Even the rising sun appeared quietly from the calmness of the night, and its rays had no power to disturb the quietude of the earth. \ Milkau fell into a deep and consoling meditation. He who does not enjoy an absolute repose does not live within himself. In the turmoil, Milkau's voice had modulated accents which he could not perceive. To-day in the solitude, he was frightened by the disturbing sensation which emanated from his sore and excited nerves. All eternal, and beautiful, and holy creations of the soul and the heart are engendered by the mysterious and fertile forces of silence ...

In front of the immigrant rode his little guide, son of the stableman at Queimado. The lad, very much bored by the journey and his companion, allowed himself to be carried along by the old horse. At limes he uttered some word which was lost in the air;. again, as a diversion, he scolded his mount, spurring him into a broken gallop. At such moments Milkau viewed the lad with compassion, full of regret at the sight of the skinny and bony creature, miserable offspring of a race that was dying out in the dumb and unconscious suffering of a species that never arrive at a blossoming period, or the full expansion of ^individuality. The traveler, coming out of his deep reverie, called to the lad :

"Do you always come to Cachoeiro ?"

"Ah ! . . . " exclaimed the boy, as if scared at the sound of a human voice. "I come when we have customers. I came the day before yesterday, but for a long time before there was no one from Victoria. Besides, it has rained such a lot lately ! . . . "

"Which do you like better: your house or the city?"

"The city, sir!"

"All you have to do is to accompany travelers to Cachoeiro, isn't it ?" continued Milkau in his questioning, which pleased the boy.

The lad replied pertly :

"Oh! no, sir."

"What else do you do, then?"

"We help our father . . . Sometimes we go to the fishing grounds to haul in the nets. To-day we had just re- j turned when you arrived . . . Just a few fishes . . . Only four . . . The river is very low. Uncle Francis says it is because the water is very cold, but Aunt Rita says that as the moon is full, the mother of the waters will not allow the fishes to come out. The best thing to do is to fish I with explosives, but the officials won't allow it, and the people have to waste their labor for nothing."

"Have you any meat at Queimado?"

"Ah ! yes, sir. There is dry meat in my lather's store, but it is for the customers. We eat only fish, and when there is none, we drink mingao . . . "

They continued on their way inland.

The landscape had not changed in general design. The sun had hardly begun to brighten up the atmosphere. Milkau surveyed his little guide with kindly eyes; the lad smiled gratefully, opening his colorless lips and showing a set of greenish teeth, sharp as those of a saw. His emaciated face was illumined with the sweet resignation of his race.

'How much further have we to go, my son?" asked the traveler.

"More than half way. We can't see yet the ranch of Samambaia, and from there to the city is as far as from Queimado to the ranch."

"Must you return home right away, or will you take a rest? Will you stay until the afternoon?"

"Oh ! sir. My father ordered me to go back at once. To-day I must go with my mother to gather wood, and after I have taken care of the animals, I must mend the net which Uncle Joseph Francis' boat tore this morning. And to-night, before the rising of the moon, we go to c^st the nets, for if the water be warm there will be a good catch . . . That's what my father said."

The kindly immigrant could see in the unfortunate boy's nine years the astwnding4H£Ci}c4l3ro^ by the children of the wretched. The youngster, excited by the conv^i^atie^T^traigntened upon his horse, gathered up the reins firmly, tightened his bony legs against the sides of his mount, and started the animal at a sharp trot. Milkau instinctively followed the boy's example, and thus the pair of them — a temporary partnership of pity and misery — advanced along the road. \y

Shortly afterwards, in a bend of the way, the boy stretched one hand forward and, turning his face back, said to his companion :

"We have arrived at Samambaia."

There, on top of a hill, a brownish building was hardly discernible in the ashen blue of the horizon. As Milkau advanced, the view became narrower, and the hill so concealed the road that it seemed as if the latter, by a supreme effort, had stretched itself to die at its foot. The travelers were skirting, now a coffee plantation on the hillside, now one of manioc, in the low lying lands. NThe land was worn out and the plantations were poor. The coffee plants lacked the dark-green color which indicates a healthy sap, and, instead, were colored with a light green which shone under the golden rays of the sun. The manioc plants, thin and delicate, waved as if they had no roots and the wind would carry them away. The sun was clearing up the sky and the air was filled with the songs of the river and the birds, that seemed to prolong the dawn. On contemplating that land, exhausted but smiling, one felt a sad mixture of discouragement and bitter pleasure. The land there was dying like some beautiful woman, still young, and with a smile on her discolored face, but exhausted for the toils of life and barren for the pleasures of love. ')

Milkau and his guide reached a gate which closed the road where it enters the lands of Samambaia. The lad pushed the gate open with one hand, and the hinges gave a discordant screech. Then Milkau entered, and the gate closed itself with a dull thud. The road, after entering the lands of Samambaia, described a wide curve which embraced the vale and approached the bank of the river. It was muddy, sticky and wet, full of ruts made by oxdrawn carts, and it gave forth a stench of loam and dung. Uphill the land was uncultivated and covered with wild grasses. Here and there a few oxen, shaking with the restless movement of their heads the bells they carried at their necks, browsed along, puffing and pulling impatiently at the grass. The hides of the poor beasts closely followed the lines of their skeletons. A few birds kept them company, anums of ill omen that lighted on the decrepit backs of the oxen, shrieking like the trumpeters of death.

When Milkau arrived before the house, he let go the reins and began to look around. The house he was observing was big and low, with no windows, but with an immense piazza around it into which opened some illfitting and paintless doors. The house had been painted white but had become dark, with an uneven brown color ; here and there the moss had traced curious, fantastic designs on the walls; there was a stair from the piazza which lacked several steps and had had the hand-rail torn from it; in front, the grass grew in big tufts, hardly disturbed by the paths which led from the house to the road and in several other directions. On one side there was a chapel — built a good many years before — guarding in its silence the voice of devotion which had some time so anded there, converted now into an unknown and mysterious reliquary of antique images of saints, ingenuous beauties, perhaps, of a primitive, simple and religious art. Inside the little church, and guarded by the divinities therein imprisoned, lay in the sacred ground the remains of masters and slaves rendered equal by death and oblivion . . .

Milkau's horse went on at a slow pace. The guide yawned with indifference, and lifting one leg, crossed it over the saddle with a gesture of resignation. Turning towards the house, he saw a man advancing to the rail of the piazza, and recognizing him, said lazily to his companion :

"There you have Colonel Affonso."

Milkau saluted courteously, taking off his hat ; the man above answered by lazily lifting his straw hat. The master of the ranch, barefooted, in a pair of cotton trousers and a soft shirt, appeared to be very old, judging by his white beard; and the whiteness of his skin bore witness to the purity of his blood. His face was sad, as if he were conscious that responsibility for the rnisTdfttrrreir of his race^irTcb4amily fell upon hinv^Jiis look was ^mptv^Jike an idiot's, betraying no interest whatever in life's activities/^ It seefflerinis-thTmgh the exhaustion of his faculties, emotions and sensations, was complete, and had brought him to the miserable condition of an automaton. But, in spite of this, he represented a hurrian figure, the superior lii^jvhishJ^xxglcd^ip ia-the_j££w

along into the general ruin. .And there J&jio-saddex-pic-

ture than that in which the action of time, the force of destruction, does not confine itself to traditions and inanimate things, but envelopes human beings in the catastrophe, striking and paralysing them, and increasing the painful situation to an infinitejndancholy.

Tflmost at the edge of the road was the mill where flour was prepared. It was a ramshackle building, covered with blackened, broken tiles on which green moss grew, a thick forest in miniature. Inside the building stood the fly-wheel, a silent reminder of days when grain had been ground, and, beside it, the wheel where in slavery times the manioc was grated. There were also two pots where the flour was now mixed by the rudimentary process of paddles. They were made of brass and therein differed from the rest of the machinery scattered on the floor, — tubes, boilers, cogwheels — showing that there had been there an excellent installation which man, falling from degeneration into degeneration and losing all the varnish of an artificial civilization, had abandoned in his decadence for primitive appliances which harmonized better with the brutish condition into which his spirit had fallen.

Milkau proceeded along the road, compassing with his eyes the picture of that miserable ranch. The figure of the colonel remained stationary upstairs, presiding with his vacant stare over the silent disintegration of those remains of culture and awaiting in a mournful attitude the slow invasion of the jungle which, in triumphal revenge, was gradually circumscribing man and things human . . .

The travelers continued to move along this landscape in which the forces of life seemed to have been paralyzed, and where everything had the rigidity and perfection of immobility when, turning to the right, they came almost suddenly upon a native ranch. It was a miserable dwelling built cross-like, thatched with straw that projected irregularly beyond the walls. The little guide went up to the house instinctively, as if impelled by the force of habit. Leaning against aj^illai^aiLjQld^r^

£- He wo'fe^a threadbare pair of trousers ; his body. wa&-nakedandhis tanned skin covered the mighty structure of an athlete; on his chest, as if it were the dying trunk of a tree, grew a whitish, ciiriy-dowit^dTTch^ coveredTTh^ and fH£r&

became a rather thin beard. His attitude was one of primitive adoration, of ^evxr.erjjdirj^a^1imi^men^^tt-ihe splendor and glory of the world.

OrTthe threshold was sitting a young mulatto woman. She seemed 4ttdateirce~persoiiifi^

stuck out of her head like horns; her skirf hung carelessly ovgrJi^JL^maaatedbosom and her flaccid breasts fell loosely on herjbelly. ^Standing 'beside her, a little^negro, with^no^ other~weanng apparel thkn Unstring round his neck, from^wmxtriruiig an ainuleriTf~dotigh and a-picture oi- SolQmon^-gazedJntently at the, new arrivals. "Milkau saluted the group and they let him come forward without betraying the least emotion. The old man, answering the salute, merely said : "Get off your horse, young man."

"No, thank you. I am in a hurry ..." "Well, sir, from here to Cachoeiro is only a little bit. Look ... In two turns of the river you are in the city."

Then the old man, as if reflecting for a minute and feeling a desire for sociability, insisted that Milkau should get off his horse. The guide waited no longer, and slipping from the saddle, he left his own horse alone and went over to hold the reins of the other horse while Milkau alighted. When he was on his feet, Milkau yawned with restful satisfaction.

The foreigner grasped the rough horny hand of the old man, who opened his lips in an ungainly effort at a smile, showing his red, toothless gums. The young woman did not budge; scarcely moving her eyes, she cast on^(l^travelerj_gl^ice full of laziness and discouragement. The child cuSdic&'~^^^^^^^o?^1^' moiithed/tEe^atirarruhning trom its thicklips.

Fromttre~~door, MilkatTcouW see LlieUxitgrior of the dwelling. The roof was high in the middle and pitched *^o~sharply towards the sides that at the walls a man could not stand upright; the furnishings, simple and mean, consisted of a tobacco-colored hammock rolled up and hooked on the wall, a mat made of rushes spread on the floor, two low stools, an oar, reels of fishing tackle, and a few agricultural implements. A small straw partition, like a screen, enclosed a corner, forming a little room where one could see another mat and a fowling piece. At the back, a door opened into a clearing in the forest in which grew a group of banana plants ; and near the door, some black stones, mixed up with pieces of charred wood, betrayed the kitchen.

"Have you lived here long?" asked Milkau.

"I was born and I grew up in this countryside, young gentleman . . .There, near Mangahary" — And he extended his hand towards the river. "Do you see a big house, away back? It is there I grew into a man, in the ranch of Captain Mattos, now dead. The Lord have mercy on his soul !"

Following the hand with his eyes, the foreigner could faintly see a heap of ruins which interrupted the verdure of the forest. The conversation continued through a series of questions from Milkau as to the former conditions of life in the region, to which the old man answered with pleasure, for such questions gave him a chance to talk of times gone by. Like most primitive and simple people, he was incapable of assuming jthe-4»— itiative in a conversation. He related inJaroken phrases the story ot^J^-^^T^ie.<^l[oiit was a pathetic^jdrama:, jwithout-aetiorrrwitriout adventures, but full of an intense and profound agony f> He spoke of the old house f uljjfcf slaves, of the simrjl^fe,^ivitie^orihe labors, of the punishmcritr7*T7~And in his roughdialecTrre murmured; "as if in ecstasy, his sorrowful recollections.

"SET All that, my young gentleman, is gone . . . Where is the ranch? My late master died. His son continued to live there until the government deprived him of his slaves. Everything went to pieces. The master went to Victoria, where he has a job ; my mates went into the forest and each built a house here, there and everywhere, just where they pleased. I, with my people, came here, to the coloners land. Things are sad now. lllie^cag^fmrielrit finished upr-the* ranches and-fluagjus into the world to lookJbr_som^

to (tjgss^gjffCaiid to worMiksexeirtn order to live. Ah ! those were goodjtimes_at theranch ! We all worked together. Some gathered cotfeersorne^TusIceXcorn, all to? ggffierT^ for the foremarjJL*^^ killed^anyone.

[teTe'wasalways plenty of food<-andjcm--Satu5ayx Sunday^-£¥%-tliei)ld drum used to beat until the early niorn^

In this fashion Jhe jormer-slave^went en mixings injhe bitterness of his nostalgia, recollections of the pleasures of ^he_ c_ommunal Jife of yesterday, protected by the paternal influence of the ranch, with the despair of the present f soIalTofT and the melaircrroTy'of a world gone to pieces.

"But, my friend," said Milkau, "at least you are living on what is your own. You have your own house, your own land. You are your own master/' -^ "My land; my . . . nothing! The house belongs to the husband of that daughter of mine sitting right there. The land belongs to the colonel and is rented for ten thousand reis per year. Nowadays everything belongs to the foreigner; the government does nothing for the Brazilians; everythingJLs for the Germans, ... . . "

The old negro trembled with emotion and stared blankly into space. He went on with his monologue:

"Are you going to settle here, sir ? In a year you will be stinking with money. I have seen your countrymen arrive here with their pockets absolutely empty and their hands hanging by their sides . . . And now . . . they all have a house, a coffee plantation, a herd of mules . . . The government has taken everything from the Brazilians, ranches, horses, negroes . . . The only thing they did not take from us is the grace of God."