CHAPTER XVI


The Rio of 1888 was seething at the vortex of the wordy battle for
emancipation. The Ouvidor, the smart street of the town, so narrow that
carriages were not allowed upon it, was the center of the maelstrom.
Here crowded politician and planter; lawyers, journalists, and students;
conservative and emancipationist.

At each end of the Ouvidor were squares where daily meetings were held
the emotional surge of which threatened to lap over into revolution at
any moment.

The emotion was real. Youths of twenty blossomed into verse never
equaled before or since in the writings of their prolific race. An
orator, maddened by the limits of verbal expression, shot himself
through the heart to add a fitting period to a thundered phrase. Women
forgot their own bondage, and stripped themselves of jewels for the
cause.

Leighton and his son, wandering through these scenes, felt like ghosts.
They had the certainty that all this had happened before. Their lonely,
calm faces drew upon them hostile, wondering stares.

"Got a clean tablet in your mind?" asked Leighton one day as they
emerged from an unusually excited scene. "Write this down: Nothing bores
one like somebody else's belated emotions. When you've had some woman
insist on kissing you after you're tired of her, you'll understand me