the Hotel Continental. Through the window he can see the station and the sign: Vila Bela de Santo Antônio das Queimadas. Which does he hate more: the flies or Queimadas, where he has the feeling that he is going to spend the rest of his days, bored to death, disillusioned, whiling away the hours philosophizing about flies? This is one of those moments in which bitterness makes him forget that he is a privileged man, for he has a little room all to himself here in the Hotel Continental which is the envy of thousands of officers and men who are squeezed in together, by twos, by fours, in houses requisitioned or rented by the army, and of those—the great majority—quartered in huts erected on the banks of the Itapicuru. He has the good fortune to occupy a room in the Hotel Continental by right of seniority. He has been here ever since the Seventh Regiment passed through Queimadas and Colonel Moreira César limited his responsibilities to the humiliating duty of taking care of the sick, in the rear guard. From this window he has witnessed the events that have convulsed the backlands, Bahia, Brazil in the last three months: Moreira César’s departure in the direction of Monte Santo and the sudden return of the survivors from the disaster, still wide-eyed with panic or stupefaction; since then he has seen the train from Salvador spew out, week after week, professional soldiers, brigades of police, and regiments of volunteers come from every part of the country to this town held in thrall by flies, to avenge the dead patriots, vindicate the honor of humiliated institutions, and restore the sovereignty of the Republic. And, from this same Hotel Continental, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira has seen how those dozens and dozens of companies, so high-spirited, so eager for action, have been caught in a spiderweb that is keeping them inactive, immobilized, distracted by nagging problems that have nothing to do with the generous ideals that have brought them here: incidents, thefts, the lack of lodging, food, transport, enemies, women. The evening before, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira attended a staff meeting of officers of the Third Infantry Battalion, called because of a major scandal—the disappearance of a hundred Comblain rifles and twenty-five cases of ammunition—and Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros, after reading an order warning that unless they were returned immediately those found responsible for this robbery would be summarily executed, has told them that the great problem—transporting to Canudos the tremendous amount of matériel accompanying the expeditionary force—has still not been resolved and that therefore no definite date has been set for departure.
There is a knock at the door and Lieutenant Pires Ferreira says: “Come in.” It is his orderly, come to remind him that Private Queluz is awaiting punishment. As he dresses, yawning, he tries to remember the face of this infantryman whom he has already flogged once, he is sure, a week or a month or so before, perhaps for the same offense. Which one? He knows them all: petty thefts from the regiment or the families that have not yet cleared out of Queimadas, fights with soldiers from other corps, attempted desertion. The captain of the company often orders him to administer the floggings with which he tries to preserve discipline, which is deteriorating by the day because of the boredom and the privations his men are suffering. Giving a man a lashing is not something that Lieutenant Pires Ferreira ordinarily likes doing. But now it is something that he does not dislike doing, either. It has become part of the daily routine here in Queimadas, along with sleeping, dressing and undressing, eating, teaching the men the nomenclature of a Mannlicher or a Comblain, explaining what a defensive or offensive square is, or philosophizing about flies.
On leaving the Hotel Continental, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira takes the Avenida de Itapicuru, the name of the stony incline that leads up to the Church of Santo Antônio, his eyes surveying, above the rooftops of the little houses painted green, white,