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“In other words, Canudos made a real journalist out of you,” the baron said mockingly. “Or else you’ve changed. Because my ally Epaminondas is the same as he’s always been. He hasn’t changed one iota.”

He waited for the journalist to blow his nose on a blue rag that he quickly pulled out of his pocket.

“In that letter, Epaminondas said that you turned up with a strange person. A dwarf or something of the sort, is that right?”

The nearsighted journalist nodded. “He’s my friend. I’m indebted to him. He saved my life. Shall I tell you how? By telling me about Charlemagne, the Twelve Peers of France, Queen Maguelone. By reciting the Terrible and Exemplary Story of Robert the Devil.”

He spoke rapidly, rubbing his hands together, twisting and turning in his chair. The baron was reminded of Professor Tales de Azevedo, a scholar friend of his who had visited him in Calumbi many years before: he would spend hour after hour listening, in rapt fascination, to the minstrels at fairs, have them dictate to him the words that he heard them sing and recite, and assured him that they were medieval romances, brought to the New World by the first Portuguese and preserved in the oral tradition of the backlands. He noticed the look of anguish on his visitor’s face.

“His life can still be saved,” he heard him say, a pleading look in his ambiguous eyes. “He has tuberculosis, but it’s operable. Dr. Magalhães, at the Portuguese Hospital, has saved many people. I want to do that for him. It’s another reason why I need work. But above all…in order to eat.”

The baron saw the look of shame that came over his face, as though he had confessed to some ignominious sin.

“I don’t know of any reason why I should help that dwarf,” the baron murmured. “Nor why I should help you.”

“There isn’t any reason, of course,” his myopic visitor said, pulling on his fingers. “I just decided to try my luck. I thought I might be able to touch your heart. In the past you were known to be a generous man.”

“A banal tactic employed by a politician,” the baron said. “I have no further need of it now that I’ve retired from politics.”

And at that moment, through the window overlooking the garden, he spied the chameleon. He very seldom caught a glimpse of it, or, better put, seldom recognized it, since it always blended so perfectly with the stones, the grass, or the bushes and branches of the garden that more than once he had nearly stepped on it. The evening before, he had taken Estela, accompanied by Sebastiana, out of doors for a breath of fresh air, beneath the mango trees and ficuses, and the chameleon had been a wonderful diversion for the baroness, who, from her wicker rocking chair, had amused herself by pointing out exactly where the creature was, recognizing it amid the plants and on the bark of trees as readily as in days gone by. The baron and Sebastiana had seen her smile when it ran off as they approached it to see if she had guessed correctly. It was there now, at the foot of one of the mangoes, an iridescent greenish-brown, barely distinguishable from the grass, its little throat palpitating. He spoke to it, in his mind: “Beloved chameleon, elusive little creature, my good friend. I thank you with all my heart for having made my wife laugh.”

“The only things I own are the clothes on my back,” the nearsighted journalist said. “When I returned from Canudos I found that the woman who owned my place had sold all my things to get the rent I owed. The Jornal de Notícias refused to pay for the upkeep while I was gone.” He fell silent for a moment and then added: “She also sold off my books. Sometimes I recognize one or another of them in the Santa Bárbara market.”

The thought crossed the baron’s mind that the loss of his books must have been heartbreaking for this man who ten or twelve years before had assured him that he would someday be the Oscar Wilde of Brazil.

“Very well,” he said. “You may have your old job back at the Diário da Bahia. All in all, you weren’t a bad writer.”

The nearsighted journalist removed his glasses and