The search for a sponsor
In fact, Carmen Dolores intended to secure a sponsor when she considered venturing into journalism. Audaciously, from the outset she was backed by the most important of potential sponsors at the time, Machado de Assis, president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, as she reported in a chronicle written a few days after the renowned writer’s death. Many years before, she had been introduced to him by one of the aristocrats in her circle of friends, the writer viscount de Taunay. According to her, this intermediation amounted to a ‘recommendation of value’ on the part of the author of
La retraite de Laguna. She enjoyed a good relationship with her new friend, who exerted a certain magnetism over her with his ‘subtle sweetness’ and with ‘a certain enigmatic or interrogative way of thinking, something oriental about his fakir-tanned complexion and the smiling silence of his prudent lips’.
1 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 4 Oct. 1908, p. 1.The meeting with de Assis occurred in the 1880s, when
Quincas Borba was rumoured to be in development. The writer and her friend then frequented the Beethoven Club on Rua da Glória, an association of classical music lovers founded in 1881;
2 The Club Beethoven also organised concerts on the premises of the Cassino Fluminense and was frequented by members of the imperial family. they sat side by side in the audience, exchanging witty remarks with each other and also with Taunay. They would also meet on Rua do Ouvidor and, ‘next to some shop window’, they would talk for ‘long hours’, according to the chronicler’s account. As time went by, the pair grew apart as public admiration for de Assis swelled. Then, around 1903, Carmen Dolores approached her old friend at the ministry where he worked to explain her plans to contribute to newspapers. The disappointment must have been bitter, as can be construed from her account of the conversation: ‘I found him very kind, friendly, with his usual soft smile: but slightly negative in that kindness, in that perhaps enigmatic sweetness, I felt the intellectual support I was asking for was missing. And I left saddened.’
3 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 4 Oct. 1908, p. 1.Shortly afterwards, the Frenchman Charles Morel, who ran
L’Étoile du Sud (Rio de Janeiro, 1885–1924), granted her a regular space for her column. When this journalist left the country in 1908, leaving the management of the newspaper in the hands of his son, Henri Morel, Carmen Dolores recalled that she had been responsible for the ‘Lettres d’une brésilienne’, a section in which, like Célia Márcia, she had chronicled the elegant life of the mountain town of Petrópolis, until work from other newspapers built up to the point that led her to quitting the column after two years of collaboration.
4 The newspaper is not available in the National Library’s Digital Library. She left in 1906, when Carmen Dolores took up a column in Correio da Manhã. According to Risolete Hellmann (2021, p. 11), Emília Moncorvo Bandeira de Melo published twenty-nine letters in L’Étoile du Sud. Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 3 May 1908, p. 1.But the decisive support and encouragement received by Carmen Dolores came from Alcindo Guanabara, editor-in-chief of the daily
O País. The chronicle she hand-wrote about a diplomatic reception in Petrópolis, the city where she lived, was taken to Rio de Janeiro by her friend, Almeida Cavalcanti, who showed it to the renowned journalist,
5 According to Nelson Werneck Sodré, he managed Novidades, Correio do Povo, O País, O Dia, and A Imprensa, as well as working as an editor for A República, A Tribuna and Jornal do Comércio. lauding the merits of the then obscure writer. Guanabara not only published the text, but also wrote Emília Moncorvo Bandeira de Melo a warm letter inviting her to collaborate on his newspaper. The columnist confessed the effect this correspondence had on her: ‘Alcindo Guanabara’s talent already adorned his individuality with an aura of such radiant prestige that this letter, written by his hand, had the magical effect of a consecration on me’. She would later emphasise that the spontaneous support of this great journalist ‘breathed courage’ into her ‘woman’s pen’, which she deemed then as ‘trapped in the stupid meshes of prejudice’.
6 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 25 Jul. 1909, p. 1. She had been writing for some time, but she was too afraid to take the plunge into professional journalism.
In ‘A Semana’, Carmen Dolores never missed an opportunity to praise Coelho Neto and promote his works, which she had done since the beginning of her collaboration with
O País. Having not received the attention and encouragement she was expecting from the then president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Machado de Assis, she made a point of this and attributed to the Maranhão native the epithets of ‘our greatest writer’,
7 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 21 Oct. 1906, p. 1. ‘the first of our writers’,
8 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 14 Jul. 1907, p. 1. and ‘the greatest of our writers’,
9 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 23 Aug. 1908, p. 1. which accolades for many contemporaries should have been reserved for the creator of Capitu. She also described Coelho Neto with hyperbole, as ‘inimitable’
10 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 22 Oct. 1905, p. 1. and ‘an excellent colourist’,
11 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 15 Mar. 1908, p. 1. ‘an artist of the pen’,
12 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 30 Aug. 1908, p. 1. ‘a distinguished master of Portuguese letters’ (Dolores,
O País, 30 August 1908), and the owner of a ‘sparkling causerie’.
13 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 20 Dec. 1908, p. 1. As a stylist, he was said to possess ‘rich language’ of ‘sonorous magic’,
14 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 22 Oct. 1905, p. 1. a ‘simple but warm, suggestive style, full of charm’
15 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 26 Mar. 1905, p. 1. and of ‘oriental luxury’.
16 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 21 Oct. 1906, p. 1.In her column, the
O País columnist promoted Coelho Neto’s novels, plays, and lectures with rather brief comments. As she guaranteed that her critical judgement was always ‘spontaneous’ because she lived apart from ‘the whole literary milieu’, which was not exactly true, her best interventions occurred when she tried to define her intense reactions triggered by reading Coelho Neto’s ‘realist’ works. The short stories ‘Cega’ and ‘Os velhos’, from
O sertão (1897), made her feverish,
17 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 14 Jul. 1907, p. 1. and she considered it a ‘sweetness’ to reread a book by Coelho Neto,
18 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 24 Oct. 1909, p. 1. and stated in no uncertain terms: ‘There are names that have the most vivid power over my nerves, over my brain. One of them is Coelho Neto’.
19 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 26 Mar. 1905, p. 1. In relation to the books
Sertão,
Treva, and
Turbilhão, she confessed: ‘I quiver under their influence, as if before a perfect work of art – as if before the very truth of life’.
20 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 21 Oct. 1906, p. 1. In the two volumes of
Teatro, she perceived ‘the several and luminous facets of a vibrant spirit’, presented ‘in all the richness of their prisms’.
21 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 15 Mar. 1908, p. 1.She categorically revealed her loyalty to the writer from Maranhão while he was away from Rio de Janeiro giving lectures in Rio Grande do Sul. News reported in a Pelotas newspaper had been damaging Coelho Neto’s reputation. According to the report, which was even commented on at the Minas Gerais spa where Carmen Dolores was staying, the speaker had arrived early at the railway station in Santana do Livramento and, naturally, there was no one waiting for him there. So, on his own account, the writer headed to the hotel and checked into a room with the intention of resting from his journey. Shortly afterwards, the reception group that had been organised in the city went to look for him at the railway station and, discovering that Coelho Neto was already at the hotel, followed him there. Informed of their presence, the speaker refused to receive them because he was resting. It was then that a member of the committee forced open the bedroom door and entered uninvited. After an exchange of harsh words, the committee ordered the cancellation of the planned party and banquet. However, everything was resolved thanks to the intervention of a local political mandarin.
Readers of the Pelotas newspaper were led to conclude that the writer’s attitude was borne of spite for not having anyone to greet him upon his arrival. Carmen Dolores’ version of the event was different; she claimed ‘our glorious master of the pen’ had actually been the victim of an ‘attack’, because ‘they disrespected his will and his rest, absolutely, as if a writer had an obligation to show his face as soon as they wanted to see him’.
22 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 17 Mar. 1907, p. 1. In the chronicler’s opinion, the Maranhão man’s character could not be cast into doubt by attributing such a petty reaction to him:
Coelho Neto, despite his immense talent or perhaps by virtue of it, is such an adorably simple and unpretentious spirit that he would never give in to an intimate movement of this kind.
Moreover, dear readers, I think he must feel that he has already had more than enough homages, so as not to be upset about the lateness of those in Santana do Livramento, am I right? […]
Why are they now confusing tiredness with ill humour?
23 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 17 Mar. 1907, p. 1. What advantage would Carmen Dolores gain by publicly endorsing the dignity of a colleague, upon whom she had, in any case, already been heaping praise? These attitudes could likely bring many advantages. The famous prose writer would end up prefacing Dolores’ anthology of short stories entitled Um drama na roça (1908) and, in late 1909, the readers of ‘A semana’ witnessed the columnist blatantly attempting to use the prestige and influence of Coelho Neto and also Guanabara, her sponsor, in her favour.
The theatre company directed by Francisco José de Mesquita had been contracted by the city to run the newly opened municipal theatre; a jury was then set up with members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters with the mission of selecting the five plays that would be staged there each year. As soon as this group of judges was appointed, a deadline of ten days was set for interested playwrights to submit their work. Carmen Dolores, who had written the play
O desencontro, which had been well received the previous year in the cycle of shows organised by playwright Artur Azevedo at the National Exhibition, protested against the tight deadline: ‘who, away from the backstage and receiving a summons of this inexplicable order, can put together a good play in two or three acts, strangled by urgency, nervous, and afflicted by the thought of time running out?’
24 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 5 Dec. 1909, p. 1. In none too subtle terms, she speculated on possible reasons for the measure: ‘Was this a deliberate decision to ensure that the only applicants are those already prepared and aware of the plot being woven […] to keep it in the family?[…] Yes, because the Academy of Letters represents more or less a family group, always in agreement and in good harmony’.
25 The criticisms and insinuations were answered by an ‘open letter to the Honourable Ms. Carmen Dolores’ signed by Filinto de Almeida, president of the commission. This text reiterated explanations about the short deadline already given to the evening newspaper A Notícia, which was also critical of the situation. The immortalised playwright and poet elegantly concluded his letter by stating that he regretted that the chronicler’s opinion that the commission was ‘judged to be capable of criminal collusion, partiality, plots of black insidiousness and backstage betrayals’. ‘As peças para o teatro municipal’, O País, 6 Dec. 1909, p. 2, col. 4.5. Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 5 Dec. 1909, p. 1. Not satisfied with making these serious insinuations, she directly urged Guanabara, who, with the writers Filinto de Almeida, Sousa Bandeira, Alberto de Oliveira, and Afonso Celso,
made up the commission, to comment on the deadline, but above all she invoked the help of her dear friend: ‘perhaps we should also count on the action of another broad and just spirit, always well away from backstage betrayals: that of Coelho Neto, right?’.
26 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 5 Dec. 1909, p. 1. Her confidence was well-founded; in the Federal Chamber, Coelho Neto had spoken out against the dubious quality of the international repertoire offered by the company that held the lease of the municipal theatre and had criticised Brazilians for having ‘the urge to despise everything that is ours, to only applaud what comes from abroad’.
27 ‘O teatro municipal na câmara: um discurso do Sr. Coelho Neto’, O País, 21 Aug. 1909, p. 1. The committee’s hasty choice of five Brazilian plays may have been a response to the parliamentarian’s criticisms, which were widely applauded when they were made in the chamber.
Praise and favourable mentions in ‘A Semana’ were also afforded to Oliveira, Raul Pederneiras, Luís Edmundo, Viriato Correia, João do Rio, and writers Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Branca de Gonta Colaço, and Ana de Castro Osório. A fellow Portuguese of the latter two and newspaper colleague of Carmen Dolores, the young Luís da Câmara Reis, who would later become editor of the journal Seara Nova (1921–61), was quoted several times by Carmen Dolores, who promoted his books and praised articles published in O País, as well as engaging in personal correspondence with him.