Mancunima: the Hero with no Character

The next day on account of the bruising Macunaíma woke up with an angry rash all over his body. They went to check it out and it was St. Anthony's fire, a lingering ailment. The brothers took real good care of him and each day they'd bring home all the erysipelas remedies recommended by their neighbors and acquaintances, all those Brazilians. The hero was laid up in bed for a week. At-night he kept dreaming of boats and come-morning when the boarding house madam stopped in eager to see how the hero was doing she'd always declare that boats most indubitably meant travel by sea. Afterward she'd go, leaving the Estado de São Paulo on the sickbed. And the Estado de São Paulo was a newspaper. Then Macunaíma would spend the day reading all those ads for erysipelas remedies. It was a whole lotta ads!

By the weekend the hero was already scabbing off nicely and he went downtown itching for trouble. He drifted around brooding brooding, and clean worn out on account of his weak condition he stopped at Anhangabaú Park. He'd walked right up to the foot of a monument honoring Carlos Gomes who'd been a widely celebrated musician and was now a little star in the sky. The sound of the fountain murmuring in the late-afternoon conjured for the hero a vision of the waters of the deep blue sea. Macunaíma sat on the edge of the fountain and contemplated the bucking bronze sea colts weeping water. And there in the gloom of that grotto behind the drove of horses he witnessed a light. He squinted harder and could make out the most beautiful boat floating across the waters. "It's a sailing skiff," he murmured. However the vessel kept getting bigger the closer it came. "It's a riverboat," he murmured. But the riverboat was getting huge as it came closer, so huge! that the hero jumped high in surprise and hollered into the echoing dusk, "It's a sternwheeler! " The ship was now clear as day behind the bronze colts. Its silver hull was cut for speed and its raked masts were a-flutter with flags pressed flat between blades of air whipping in its swift wake. The hollering had brought all the chauffeurs over from the esplanade and they watched the hero's frozen expression curiously, following his line of sight right smack into the shadowy fountain.