I'm telling you, he's a spy.
That man's a spy!
Osório loved Ema, he believed her beauty was beyond compare,
but his snobbery came to the fore
when he had to listen to tales of her saintly aunt Augusta,
with her proverbial goodness.
Ema fooled no one, she had no plots,
she was all show,
dressing and behaving as if to defeat Holophernes.
Her eroticism was fuelled by power
and social status.
Hello?
It's Mother. It's her!
Daddy's out,
visiting patients.
We're very well, I've got a bit of a sore throat.
It's nothing, Daddy says it will soon pass.
Ask where she is.
Where are you, Mummy?
Where?
At Vesúvio? Is it nice there?
We're thinking about you.
We miss you.
Are you coming back?
Wednesday?
Alright.
Kisses.
On Wednesday?
Kisses, lots of kisses. Bye, Mummy!
Hello? Hello? She's hung up.
Mummy's coming home on Wednesday.
'Swim as far as you like, but come home to die',
as your grandpa used to say.
Now she has a weird friend, Tomásia de Fafel.
Weird? Why?
She isn't even pretty, just extravagant.
She's a hunter and a good rider.
She says she was the first upper class single woman who had a child.
As far as we know.
No, this one raised the child openly and proudly.
Ema says she likes going to the woods whenever there's a storm
and smell the sulphur of the discharge.
You know, Maria de Loreto...
...Ema admires these things.
She admires everything that is riotous and daring.
Sometimes I wonder if she is really normal.
Aren't you trying to deceive yourself?
I don't know what to say.
The truth is that I can only live in peace
because I tolerate all her whims.
Well, hoping that one day age will make her forget
this provocation she's going through.
I don't believe she will.
She uses the power of the prophets,
frightens to draw attention.
Is Ema happy with such an agitated life?
The relationship between Carlos and Maria Semblano,
if they were not lovers,
at least belonged to a type of peculiar desires,
materialized by words.
Carlos had never noticed the lady in the painting,
who looked at him with sympathy.
- She has a sweet look. - Yes, understanding and compliant.
She was a very beautiful woman.
It's Catarina, Viscountess of Benagasilde, my great-grandmother.
It's a Roquemont oil.
She was indeed a very understanding and kind woman, as you said.
I would like to tell you a secret, that is, if you don't know already.
Anyway, maybe this will help.
When I realized that my husband was cheating on me,
with a preference for young ladies,
I understood that there was another reason
beyond the common desire for everything that is new.
Semblano strongly believed in the principle of masculinity,
which relies on the principle of authority.
Look, Carlos, we've been friends for years.
In this kind of subject, Ema acts like a man.
Don't be shocked, it's just a figure of speech.
It's not just the controversial beauty of a woman,
Ema limps.
Well, that might be exciting to some men,
but it's her character I'm referring to.
Let's not talk about this anymore, it's a rather delicate subject.
Exactly!
I will show you my... precautions.
Ema was a potential enemy for Maria Loreto,
who had acquired in the frustrations of childhood
a spiritual vocation and made a vow of simplicity.
Ema was a malignant intrusion.
Perhaps for the same reason:
Both women had split personalities.
Supposedly unsuited to sex,
Maria had certain rights.
What was intriguing
was that men, and not just her husband,
were platonically jealous.
I believe my husband was degrading himself, in his affairs.
In dirty sheets, in unworthy households.
I've set up a garden house,
so he can be more comfortable.
I've taken care of everything,
from hygiene to luxury.
The strangest aspect of this development was that the girls,
who certainly surrendered to the husband's desires,
also gave in to the moral adventure Maria proposed
and remained strictly devoted to her wishes.
Love lives in hiding places, couples would do well to seek out.
See how well I think things out, look at this night table.
My husband is getting on
and frequent encounters with selected young ladies
are hardly the cure for his bad legs.
You mean...
Exactly. I make things easier for him.
You're a doctor, you know that.
Women get by without, but for men of a certain age,
any little thing helps.
The bed is a little high
for Semblano.
He doesn't have your strength.
Carlos! Don't misunderstand me.
Lord! Maria de Loreto!
Don't say anything.
I want you to understand.
I want to help you.
Not as I help my husband.
You are a healthy man.
I want to help you with Ema.
Men and women have similarities as well as differences.
As a woman,
she's condemned to intrude on territory,
on thoughts and pleasures that are not for her.
I sound like an oracle.
I'm giving you the instincts of a woman
who suffered in body and in soul
from the demands of a foolish husband
and a son,
who though a man, was fragile and delicate.
He got from his mother an artistic bent.
Thank you, Carlos.
I should thank you for everything you've said.
I know you as your doctor and now as a man.
But there is something indecent
in what you are telling me.
Yes, there's something indecent in it.
You mean Ema's upbringing?
I mean Ema's and mine and women in general.
We're educated as women,
but our consciences are like a man's.
What do you mean?
There's something not quite true,
the content is not all there,
like a missing rib.
Eve out of Adam?
The difference is imaginary,
a women's thing,
like a creature that swallows another, then rejects it.
Maternity symbolizes this process,
which is to do with absence.
The hollowness to which desire tends.
Very literary thoughts.
Yes, that's what I'm writing about in those papers I showed you.
To write is to give expression to life and society.
That's your son, isn't it?
So...
Have you been sleeping with him?
- Do you know what he is? - What is he?
He's dumb and drinks too much.
In the ball, right here, you introduced him to me.
The ball... You only talk about that ball.
It's as if nothing else happened in your life.
He's stupid, he doesn't even know who wrote 'Lusíadas'.
No one is good enough for you, everyone is worth nothing.
One gets desperate talking to you.
Once, you confessed to me, a while ago,
that, one night, Fernando Osório had loosened the straps of your dress.
- Do you remember? - No, I don't.
I do.
Be careful, Ema.
Don't let any man do what you are able to do yourself.
Otherwise you won't emancipate in life.
What do you want from him?
He's a penny-pincher
and his three sons stick like glue, taking everything they can.
- You introduced me to him. - You said that already.
Love has a bad memory.
Don't go to Vesúvio again, Ema.
Venus doesn't love women like you,
you don't know the art of delusion.
Is delusion an art?
We are not born men or women...
...we learn it.
You and I contradict that.
I know why people call you 'little Bovary'.
But you were the one who called me that.
And Loreto, that snake, told it to everyone.
And why do you call me 'little Bovary'?
Because Madame Bovary didn't learn that art, either.
What you're saying makes sense.
And explains a lot.
But I won't bother giving it much thought.
You don't learn with what you think, but with misunderstandings.
I never understood why people call me 'little Bovary'.
And I already read the book twice.
It must be a misunderstanding, for sure.
We can't have friends anywhere.
They cause misunderstandings.
When she asked an old lover for money,
she found a bloke who had learned the art of men.
Do you know what he did? He said he didn't have it.
He said it perfectly calmly, like someone covering their old anger.
Well said... and well done.
Men are perfect scrooges.
It's the only role they don't play, that they live fully.
My father, when someone asked for money,
even if it were just for matches,
looked like a polished wall with no cracks.
A wall that was impossible to climb.
I robbed him several times.
That's how I got around his stupid tightfistedness.
Really? One could expect that from you.
You can't really distinguish between the real and the imaginary.
Comedy gets the better of life.
Your life.
A theatre performance reduces guilt to a strategy.
It's not devastating and it has no effect on reality.
It's good to listen to you.
But is it true?
I don't know.
There's an empty space in our thought that will never be filled.
It gives us the ability to speak,
to make judgments, which creates relationships.
We say:
'The earth is round. '
Or... 'the woman is the womb'.
It makes no sense, if we want to be exact.
What throws you into disorder is that you delay your judgement
You say:
'Tomorrow I'll be in a place where everything is clear. '
But you want life itself to be your support,
not just the expression of yourself.
Fornicating is not just an undoubting, simple, communicative act,
it's also something that displeases you, that you lead into displeasure.
That's the way of feeling the importance of something.
Do you mean that I won't be happy in love?
Who is happy in love is a fool.
Ema was intent on stepping up the pace of her life
in any way she could,
including indebtedness and as much scandal as possible.
It was ephemeral pleasure Ema was after.
She was prepared
for a semblance of pain.
Now she was home with Carlos and her daughters,
a rare occurrence,
which Lolota and Luisona resented: They wanted to see more of her.
It was the feast of Socorro,
celebrated with tremendous fireworks.
As a child, from the conservatory at Romesal, Ema had seen
the same display with delight.
She remembered the altar where Aunt Augusta used to pray
and gossiping with the maids who loved her,
Marina and Branca and Alice.
Being an orphan was bearable
among the laughing women of Romesal,
whose absolute mistress she was.
But that life had vanished,
by subsequent events extinguished,
like the magnificent sparks of these fireworks.
Ema returned to Vesúvio.
Osório had gone back to a wife he despised and children he loathed.
Neither he nor Ema had forgotten their affair at Vesúvio.
Disappointed by Osório's absence,
Ema put on a blue jumpsuit
to go mad in a motor boat.
Can I help you, Mrs Paiva?
You've never offered before.
You're alone today.
You've seen me alone before.
Yes, but...
Forgive me, but...
What is it?
You're rough on that boat.
Only on the boat?
Would you rescue me if I capsized?
Of course. I wouldn't let it capsize.
Even if you died?
Even if I died.
Really?
If I had to.
I'd give my life for you.
All right. Come with me.
Be careful.
Two of those planks are rotten.
I'm not a child, I've been here before.
I know.
Am I safer with you?
It's easy to forget.
What kind of a Bovary?
Ema's lust was just imaginary.
And all she wanted from men
was their desire.
It wasn't pleasure,
but more a reward to the men for wanting her.
A scent of roses struck Fortunato's nostrils.
He glimpsed Ema in a mist of netting.
She was at peace, hands on her chest,
sleeves buttoned up, like a novice at prayer.
She did not let him possess her, treating him like a eunuch,
but the caresses she allowed him were forceful,
as if he had been wounded in his sex.
This refusal was also loyalty to his master.
Ema was not doing wrong.
She was inaugurating a vice.
Good morning, Mrs Paiva.
Good morning. You may go.
Don't you want the curtains drawn?
Please. Then leave.
Very well.
Ema's behaviour stirred Caires'curiosity
and his physical desire.
Fortunato!
What's going on between you and Mrs Paiva?
What's going on? You're always spying on us.
I have to keep an eye on this house.
Aren't I the butler?
Anyway...
I don't like this intimacy.
And Mr Osório will like it even less when he finds out.
Just watch out.
You're jealous!
Have some respect. I'm your uncle
and you're speaking of Mr Osório's guests here,
in a house built by the firm will of a great lady,
the boss' great-great-grandmother.
Have some respect.
Osório was away when Ema arrived.
Ema left a couple of days before he was due back.
Even in the days of their intimacy
their kisses had been light, almost unerotic.
Only when she was with Fortunato did Ema break her platonic rule
under a mysterious constraint which was more than just sexual,
a bitterness which found its release.
Like a savage, sometimes tender, sometimes fierce,
Ema flung herself into Fortunato's arms.
Caires spied on them, his jealousy driving him mad.
Ema and Fortunato's pleasure was all the stronger.
Was it love which brought Ema to Vesúvio?
Vesúvio, with My Lady's House,
patios full of palm trees,
above all a return to harmony
with the odour of the presses and mills
and brandy dripping into buckets.
My Lady's had had a first husband called 'the deceased',
and a second in her prosperous prime
called 'the late lamented'
and last, her favourite,
because he was good at business,
between them, not sheets but sets of accounts,
My Lady called him 'the departed'.
Time passed.
Fortunato took fright and got married in poverty
to recover from high-flown sentiments
which were not in any case his lot.
Osório was away.
Ema knew he'd stayed at a pretentious hotel in Hong Kong,
where the carpet-pile was knee-deep.
Ema returned to Vesúvio
and heard stories about My Lady,
who was said to be tempestuous in love
and estate-management.
She scared off burglars,
fearlessly.
The burglars left sheepishly,
not even looking up at the chandeliers
which My Lady snuffed out with her fingers,
wiping off the soot with the palm of her hand curved like a shell.
Mrs Paiva!
What are you doing?
Barefoot and all...
I like to feel the warmth of the stone.
But a lady like yourself, in that outfit!
Childhood memories, Caires.
I used to help Marina and Branca in the yard.
Good for the mind, good for the body.
Leave that to the bosses, that's their business.
Leave it to the bosses? What would I do?
A woman like you...
...shouldn't do anything.
But I like scrubbing!
You must be a dyke.
Is that all you can say? Filth!
I'm not filthy, I'm just a man.
You give me the...
Pig! Answer my question.
What question?
You know. Just tell me.
Why should I tell the bosses to do the scrubbing themselves?
To make a point!
What point?
That's it!
What point?
You've got rights.
What rights?
A worker's rights!
But if they do the work, what rights have I got?
I'm the boss and they're the workers. Is that what you want?
I've got a real fascist here!
What do you want?
Nothing, boss.
Pedro didn't come and they sent me with this, boss.
Put it down on the step and get going.
Did he behave badly?
He didn't know who I was.
It was very funny.
You shouldn't trust people like that.
He looked like a scoundrel.
You should be careful.
Of him? Or of you too?
Mrs Paiva! I know how to treat a lady.
I have a great deal of respect for you.
I respect you profoundly.
Your wish is my command.
You are everything to me.
If only you knew what was inside me...
I think only of you.
If you wish...
What wouldn't I do for you?
Caires, what is this? Let me go.
With the greatest respect.
My confession was sincere.
And heartfelt, most heartfelt.
I'm not a layabout like Fortunato.
I'm Caires, butler to this most ancient house.
I'm not to be despised like a dog.
You're a rascal, Caires.
I am unhappy.
Unfortunate.
A poor devil.
A flunkey.
Unfortunate.
A poor devil.
Flunkey.
Only My Lady, dressed in black,
stared at her ancestrally, without irony or meaning.
When Osório telephoned to confirm his arrival,
Ema pretended that she hadn't gotten the call.
'Go, my girl. '
'I shall receive this ass who does not deserve your shame. '
Ema thought My Lady could have summoned all her contempt
and thrown it from Vesúvio into the river.
You think like a man, as a woman you have usurped men.
Your inhuman pride is wounded
and all you feel is apathy.
You know how to think and that will be your fall.
It is of no use to you.
Your shoulders are covered in dandruff.
Don't you wash your hair?
That's typical of you.
I need to be a woman to get inside your head.
There's no dandruff.
No, but something similar.
Dust perhaps.
You can detect dandruff
against the white of my jacket.
Luminares told the story of his aunt Alberta,
who had her hair washed on her deathbed.
She was half dead.
Water dripped off an oilcloth and soaked the towels.
She chose a tint,
but wouldn't look in the mirror.
The sensualness of things
that comes with death,
that's what she must have felt.
Only a woman would do that.
But I'm a man, according to you.
Flaubert said, 'I'm Madame Bovary. '
And Flaubert was a man.
They call me 'little Bovary,' but I am not her.
Still less Flaubert.
We share the same first name, Ema, that's all.
A Cardeano by birth,
a Paiva by marriage.
Ema Cardeano Paiva.
Are you mocking me?
No.
I speak with unhealthy affection.
Don't be amazed to see tears in my eyes.
I have no future.
Don't be big-headed.
I am not big-headed.
I am all in the past. Only the past lives in me.
You say you don't have one, but your fate is your fate.
The bottomless well of desire...
You are implacable.
Life...
Life is implacable. Not me.
Wasn't it you who said Carlos was a dog...
...who begs and never bites?
He has an undertaker's soul.
The bills he sends
after a funeral are a scandal.
Dearest...
Who pays for your luxuries? Your jewels and your clothes?
Money must come from somewhere.
I don't know. He hides what he earns, but he makes lots of money.
He has stocks and shares, he buys and sells jewels.
Women are selling gold because they're afraid of burglars.
Luminares wondered whether Ema would not
have made a good La Valliére.
She even possessed the flaw
that stimulates beauty in the eye of corruption.
Satan too was lame.
Beauty must contain a warning if men are to be safe.
Ema tasted evil as if it were a delicacy,
a wine many times strained, passed over years from barrel to barrel,
rounded, strange, deep.
A criminal record of sorts:
That badness which a woman involves in everything,
her pleasures, duties, contracts and suffering.
You couldn't imagine her doing harm,
though she might dip men's hearts
in a spice that gives the earth salt and makes it fertile.
Listen. Are you ever unfaithful to Simona?
No.
I am not that sordid.
I'm not a ladies' man, believe me.
Are men becoming intelligent then?
What will happen if vanity vanishes?
Laughter will dry up
and men will sigh like sick women.
This is a dirge.
You are so lovely!
So utterly beautiful.
I am ashamed of my beauty if it does not tempt you.
Don't be.
Give a thirsty man a drink.
But I'm not thirsty.
Ema assumed he was mocking her.
What happened to poor Ema?
- The moon will blush. - Blush? Why?
I say that because nobody takes notice of her.
And what will happen to us both? Tell me, Pedro.
A love between two persons.
A love as spiteful as pure hatred.
Men built castles,
locked themselves in and reigned anyway among their servants,
including their wives and mistresses.
Ema survived countless failures in the past of women.
Luminares was opposed to Ema's unique beauty
his wife's charms, seen from a different point of view.
But women had to be put on a level with dogs, with vegetables.
Some women couldn't stand it,
and they would often look like men.
What did Ema think of purity?
To be deprived of desire,
which comforts us by having no pointless problems?
Humour that despises
and turns its bouncing sovereignty into great knowledge and the world?
Cardeano welcomed Carlos, who visited him one day,
and they met like two persons who shared the same religion,
without trying to interpret each others' suffering or emotions.
Carlos would call himself 'virtuous,' which was unutterable among men.
Once, when he was already married, forgetting his passion for a moment,
he took one of his nurses into the woods...
... her temporary love compensated for his wife's absence.
Ema grew up in an unsuitable environment for feelings,
suitable for the secrets of life,
fully identifiable with desire and its obligations.
Your daughter, Mr Cardeano...
I don't know how to restrain her.
I don't want to repress her, I really don't.
But the truth is, she is never home.
For long periods. Our daughters miss their mother.
I have given her everything.
Ema likes having a lot of luxuries.
- Who are her friends? - I don't know. She just hangs around.
She seeks refuge in Vesúvio, at Osório's house.
At Osório's estate? Fernando Osório?
- She stays there with him? - No, it's not that.
Fernando isn't even there, he travels a lot.
She just likes the place, likes to ride the launch in the river.
And I think she has a friend, Tomásia de Fafel,
a very weird woman who gives her bad advice.
A person I never met and I don't wish to.
She has another friend, this one I know. Pedro Dossem,
a refined man, who moves in high society.
I think he restrains her a bit.
He's a true gentleman.
I'm always waiting for her...
I think she is lost.
I live in uncertainty,
afraid that someone will bring her home, dead, because of an accident.
That's terrible!
How did you come up with that?
Calm down.
Ema just went astray.
A face like hers makes a man's life worth while.
Cardeano thought he was mad and didn't say a thing.
He thought that maybe Ema needed another husband,
this one was too soft, and had corrupted her with his consent.
Cardeano thought it wasn't good to get close to poor chaps.
Carlos had what he deserved.
There's another thing.
It's very serious.
If it's so serious, just say it.
It's serious and delicate, I wanted to spare you.
Say it!
Just say it!
It's your granddaughter, Lolota.
What about her?
She said in front of me, her mother and her sister,
as if it were quite normal, that she was pregnant.
Pregnant? A single young lady? My granddaughter?
Lolota was a 14-year-old girl who only liked listening to music
and reading women's magazines
to learn about the ruling families in Europe and their marriages.
She became snobbish and only talked to people because she had to.
But nobody cared.
But is it true?
It's true. She said she was pregnant, just like that,
and started to devour candies.
- Devour? - Yes, devour, that's the word.
To devour candies?
I spoke to her in a tender way, wanting to know who was responsible.
And who is the scoundrel?
She answered candidly, it was no one.
- No one? - No one.
She asked if it could have happened in the bath.
In the bath?
- What does Ema say to that? - Ema...
That Lolota is a comedienne, she doesn't dream of lovers,
and doesn't even have the kind of fancy
girls usually have for rock stars.
So... This young lady is trying to mock us?
Or is it you?
I don't understand.
It's up to you.
You raised her. It's the result of modern upbringing.
It's your responsibility.
Deal with it the best you can, but don't give me any trouble.
It's your problem. It's your problem! Goodbye.
Bye, bye.
All of it seemed inexcusable to Carlos.
Ema, who lived like a mole,
desperately digging tunnels.
A selfish father, who had raised his daughter badly,
and him, Carlos, victim of his own passivity,
in a passion that blinded him like sunlight.
Old Semblano died of a heart attack
and at the estate Loreto suffered the loss of a servant,
who was more faithful than people thought.
Maria Semblano knew that her son would be Ema's target.
But young Semblano
was hesitant in letting her seduce him.
But Ema's beauty would be a waste if it weren't appreciated,
and still had a physical effect.
- Why now? - And why not?
We are here now and we want to hear you play, don't we?
You have to, you have to.
- We want to hear you. - I'll think about it.
Come on, son, don't be shy, go get your violin.
He's the opposite of his father, he's very shy.
His shyness comes from a great sensitivity.
- He's an artist, like his mother. - You're too kind...
- He's a very attractive young man. - You think?
There's an uncommon innocence in him.
He would be great for your daughter Lolota.
You think?
- Don't you think so, Carlos? - Absolutely.
They would make a lovely couple. Wouldn't they, Ema?
Yes, if they wanted to.
But please, don't stand there. Sit down. Carlos?
That uniform with medals
reminded her of the altar in Romesal.
Dossem never really understood Ema.
He thought she was... puzzling.
If the woman is the muse, then music is the queen of the arts.
Why do you always say such literary things?
It's the least I can do sitting next to a muse.
Dossem, again?
Your young Semblano is very virtuous.
Thank you.
Always flattering, but not straightforward.
Maria do Loreto, please...
What's the young man's first name?
Narciso.
It couldn't have suited him better.
What are you going to play?
What are you going to play, son?
The fourth string aria from Bach.
Seen from behind, you look like a woman.
Did you regret coming with me?
Are you saying that because I said you looked like a woman?
No, you didn't disappoint me. You proved well you are a man.
The young man felt reality was calling him.
Ema's beauty, elaborated to the point of being untouchable,
gave him the idea that the world was secretly producing
things that belong to privacy and were not meant to be shared,
like sex and bread.
When I was a child and I wanted to know the name of a flower,
people always told me "rose" or "daisy" and I doubted the answer
because I wanted to know more.
Why "rose"? Aunt Augusta got restless,
as if she had to prove God's existence.
'Don't be silly! It's its name', she answered.
For her, God was everywhere and didn't take part in the dialog.
Later, I found out that, in the old Brahman language,
'rose' meant 'swinging' or 'the one that swings'.
A very brief image of the flower, its stem, touched by the wind,
its leaves about to fall. Why 'rose'?
When the wind touches it, it's no longer a rose.
In its swing it is a rose, but soon ceases to be.
What do you mean by that?
That you are a rose? A rose in the wind?
I'm nothing. I'm a swinging state of mind.
Stop, Narciso!
That melody makes me sad.
Let's go.
- What's wrong with that? - Nothing's wrong with that.
It's almost offensive to the industry of house appliances.
That poor woman scrubbing cloths, like a machine, nowadays...
It's completely surreal. - You are a very special person,
but you don't know the situation. It's Ritinha,
I don't know if I ever mentioned her.
If I didn't, it was a serious omission.
- What are you going to tell me? - It's very simple.
She was already a washerwoman at my parents' house.
I was born and raised with her. She's intuitive and very smart.
But she doesn't talk nor hear.
She's deaf, deaf-and-dumb.
She can't do anything else. She's remained single,
and even a virgin, I think. It may seem odd to you
but washing clothes makes her feel fulfilled.
I didn't know. But...
She seemed smart to me.
She's very smart. She knows a lot, she knows everything.
She's a closed book because she can't talk.
And deaf as she is, everything she knows comes through her eyes.
You mean, if she didn't have this "passion"...
See, you understand.
We have a mutual esteem based on the imponderable.
Even if she could talk, she wouldn't know how to explain.
She was dedicated and absolutely upright.
There's this connection between us,
how should I say, primal.
She dedicated her whole life to work,
simply out of devotion, nothing was demanded of her.
But they forgot to give her a medal,
like they did to the old lady who served the Bovary family.
For her good services.
They haven't committed that cruel unfairness.
There are people who are like part of us.
- Like Ritinha? - Like Ritinha.
And like my mother, I lost her when I was a baby.
We are nothing, we are slaves.
What a pleasant surprise!
I was really being ungraceful, talking with your wife about politics.
That's all right, they should run the world.
Sit down, please.
Sit down, girls.
The queen often ruled in monarchies.
And nowadays, in democratic governments,
there is sometimes an elected woman Prime-Minister.
And women do it as well or as badly as men.
Why? A woman in power is no longer news.
I would say it never was.
Were you talking about matriarchies?
No, I was talking about the world going the wrong way,
about what they call 'progress'.
About hunger, misery and unfairness.
Straightforward to the worst!
Well, I was talking about wrong ways. Europe, for instance.
It created a civilization, right, but how?
It took advantage of the things that didn't belong to it.
What did it give them in exchange?
It created a market to better suck the marrow out of them.
Don't you think it's regrettable?
I think you're overreacting a bit, don't you think?
No, I don't think so.
What civilized Europe produces today is nothing but garbage.
Hunger and unfairness.
You speak like a rebel.
In a way, I am.
But a peaceful one.
Peaceful like a dandy, an aristocrat, a "bon vivant."
- Isn't that what you are? - Maybe.
But I don't know where's the incompatibility with justice,
and much less with the idea you have of what's fair.
The problem is just a matter of ethics.
'Ethics' with capital 'e'. That's what's missing.
Europe made it all up without it.
As far as I know, Europe's responsible for everything.
Isn't that a bit drastic?
Well, people take punishment for justice, power for honour,
pride for nobility. Europe...
Which Europe are you describing? The Europe of princes, of royalty,
who have fun at the parties you usually go to?
No, I don't leave that one out, nor any of them.
I don't leave out the republics that followed, either.
They spread like democracies or dictatorships
throughout the East and the West.
I know that people, European or not,
are part of mankind.
That's exactly the problem with the world.
Civilization degenerated
and mankind became the virus that has destroyed nature.
This Europe, there's no other,
created the concept of civilization itself
and is a victim of its own making.
Europe realized it maybe too late
and feels forced to rearrange the world.
She's desperately trying to do it with democracy.
I may agree with you, but not completely.
All that you've been saying... seems too complicated.
It's very complicated and very complex.
By the way, I'm curious,
what about the United States of America?
Are they exempt from this argument of yours?
The United States are the sons of Europe.
Sons and heirs of western civilization.
But they are under saxon influence, or anglo-saxon,
though the mediterranean root is still there.
Yes, I understand.
But they received that culture.
Don't you think that at least that is positive for Europe?
They received a culture as well as a religion.
But both aren't fulfilled yet, neither here nor there.
They were corrupted,
profaned by excessive and dehumanising idolatry and pragmatism.
It's strange...
It's very strange, your... how shall I put it?
- Pessimistic enthusiasm. - Enthusiasm?
On the contrary,
I know I'm not a so-called 'politician'.
If I dare talk about these things,
it's with a spirit and sensitiveness equivalent to those of an artist.
An artist or an aristocrat?
I didn't say 'artist', I said 'equivalent'.
An artist has a poetic vision of the world, of things,
that's why he suffers. - Suffers?
Yes, Ema. Suffers the shock of reality.
Daddy!
This cat is impertinent!
Isn't it your impertinence?
Ema, please...
I'm so sorry,
what I've been saying is really annoying.
No, it's not. I'm delighted to hear you talk. Right, mum?
I have to go, anyway.
I have a meeting.
Thanks a lot for your kindness.
- You really must go... - I must...
That's a shame!
Then I insist on taking you to your car.
I'm amazed!
I didn't recognise you, you look so neat!
What have you been doing, Caires? I haven't seen you at Vesúvio.
I've worked abroad a few years.
- You did? Where? - Mostly in England.
I met some English people in Vesúvio, and so I went.
- And was it good for you there? - Yes, it was, Mrs Paiva.
It was a bit hard at first,
but with the help of a few friends, I got lucky
And things went all right. Are you coming back to Vesúvio?
No, Mrs Paiva, only to pay a visit.
A visit? Are you angry at Mr. Osório?
No, Mrs Paiva, I'm angry at no one.
I bought an estate, near Pinhăo.
I don't want to brag,
but it's a big estate, with a beautiful house.
Not as big as Vesúvio's, but it's a beautiful house.
I would like to invite you, Mrs Paiva
and Mr Paiva too, of course, just for a visit.
We'll think about it.
I must see a patient now.
Goodbye. See you.
Sit down, Caires. Tell me what you've been doing.
Excuse me.
Mrs Paiva, my life is totally changed.
I'm rich now, very rich.
Well done! What about your nephew, Fortunato?
Don't even mention him.
He has become a revolutionary.
He left his wife and went to our old colonies to make trouble.
So, he left his wife?
Yes, he did. He's wicked.
He only thinks about himself and silly things. He's a degenerate.
Mrs Paiva, I know,
I was told that Mr Paiva...
...that Mr Paiva had lost money in the stock market,
well, that he had financial problems.
Who told you that?
People know these things. It goes without saying.
I wanted to tell you that...
Say it.
Mrs Paiva, you know...
...you know the feelings I've had for you for a long time.
When I was abroad, the only thing I could think of was you.
How I missed you...
And what do you want now?
I can help you financially.
I only think of you, Ema.
Caires...
I will do anything for you, Ema.
You don't know the love I feel for you. How I need you.
Caires, you won't cut your wisdom teeth.
Get up and leave.
My daughters will be here any second
and I don't want them to see you like that.
Well, if you don't leave, I will.
Ema felt humiliated.
Suddenly, she thought it would take 500 years of intrigue,
war, prison and written history to belong to that place.
'You're beautiful', said the princess, 'but you didn't get here on time. '
'My maid is more useful than you. '
'Watch how she serves. '
'The way she lets the mint liquor drip down the bottle. '
'She waits and puts it down quietly. '
'Only after the drop returns to the green, fragrant content of the bottle'
'does she put it down, making sure that everything is all right. '
'Could you be that steady? '
'That absolute surrender,'
'letting go of yourself in your own solitude,'
'because that is serving. No, you couldn't.'
Ema ran away again.
And she came back to Vesúvio,
where there was no one waiting for her.
The next morning
men were pruning on a rainy winter day.
When Ema woke up, she suddenly realized
that she couldn't articulate anymore. Then she said to herself:
'I didn't learn the human skeleton, nor how to move the arms'
'or to turn the head. '
'It's not a habit, it's the perfect combination of cause and effect. '
'The connection between things, I never saw how it worked. '
The vineyards of Douro
are one of the most impressive places in the world,
only comparable to the rice fields in China,
also planted in terraces.
A place like this will never die, ever.
It's an honour to suffer,
fated to live in torment,
as we can see by the shape of the grape-vines,
curved, nodulous,
scaly, black.
And, on the third day,
the sun shone, surprisingly shiny and redeeming.
'Go back to your little mental disturbances,'
'your sentimental statement of the pure heart you've lost.'
'We don't lose a pure heart, nor waste it, nor change it.'
Ema dressed up as if she were going to a ball,
and she asked herself how much longing love was there
in her visits to Vesúvio,
or if it was My Lady that she wanted to greet,
like a maid who always returns to the place where she first served.
She left the bouquet for My Lady
and went through the orange grove,
which reminded her of her virginity.
Some time later, Carlos was found dead
on one of the benches in Caverneira park.
He smoked a pipe for the sake of hygiene
because pipe tobacco was less harmful.
The tobacco was still on his fingers, a bit that had fallen from his jacket,
and is head was bent, as if he were going to lean over
and pick up the tobacco box that had fallen to the ground.
His concern was so clear
that the first thing the gardener did was to pick up the box,
as if he were obeying an order.
Maria Loreto Semblano had asked him that day
to revise her last book and she told him:
'None of this matters. '
'But no one imitates better than me'
'a beautiful life. '
Subtitling Margarida Pacheco / CRISTBET, Lda.