To me, Rubião — the protagonist of Quincas Borba — is the greatest character of Machado de Assis. I have read several critics emphasizing the impotence of Machado’s characters, the inability to live, the ineptitude, the apathy. Very well! Moreover, we do not suffer saying that in Rubião the human figure presents itself in amplitude, in precision. Reading Quincas Borba, we see philosophy buried by passion, intelligence transfigured by love and, above all, Rubião walking the steep slope that every man has to walk on. The book ends, comical and melancholy, ridiculous and sad, ambiguous as life always is. And if it leaves us any doubt as to what to feel, the master advises us:
Come now! Weep for the two newly dead, if you have tears. If you only have laugher, then laugh! It is all the same. The Crux, which beautiful Sofia refused to behold as Rubião asked, is high enought that it cannot make out the laugher or tears of men.
____________
Read more: