Ilse’s Reviews > The Maias > Status Update

This world of fado singers, of beech trees, seemed to Carlos worthy of a study, a novel. This immediately led to talk of Zola’s L’assommoir and realism – and Alencar immediately, wiping the drops of soup from his moustache, begged that this latrinaire literature not to be discussed at the proper hour of dinner.

Well, as soon as I can, I go straight to Paris! That’s the place! This place is a pigsty…If I don’t go there every year, believe me, I even start to get sick. That little boulevard, eh!...O, I love it…

Latin was a scholar’s luxury.

'But finally, the classics,’ the abbot ventured timidly.

-What classics! Man’s first duty is to live. And for that, it is necessary to be healthy and strong. All sensible education consists of this: creating health, strength, and habits, developing the animal exclusively, arming it with great physical superiority. As if it had no soul. The soul comes later….The soul is another luxury.

Affonso ended up discovering an intimate charm in the view.It was like a seascape,framed in white stonework, suspended from the blue sky showing the fleeting episodes of a peaceful river life with always in the background two white houses full of expression, sometimes sparkling and emitting rays from the glowing windows;sometimes taking on a pensive air,covered in the tender pinks of sunset,almost like a human blush