itself. De Queirós even rivals Renaissance poet Luiz Vaz de Camões (who
wrote the epic ‘Lusiads’) for the title of Portugal’s most important writer. Outside
of his fatherland, the most important Portuguese exponent of nineteenth
century naturalism is less well-known. His novels offer an often pessimistic view
of a society that, in De Queirós’ eyes, is going down the drain. The writer,
himself an illegitimate child who did not know his parents, was obsessed with
‘forbidden love’ and used it as both a catalyst and a symbol of the rotten state
of society in his triptych of novels that, unofficially, make up the three layers of
society; clergy, aristocrats and bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie finds itself attacked in ‘Cousin Basilio’ (in which two cousins
have a relationship whilst one of them is married with another man) and the
aristocracy comes under fire in his magnum opus ‘The Maias’, a family-
chronicle of the Maia-family in which a brother and sister fall in love (though
they do not know they are siblings). Lastly, the clergy is the object of ‘The crime
of father Amaro’, in which a priest’s relation with a young girl leads to her
demise.
‘The crime of Father Amaro’ takes place in the provincial capital of Leira, where
De Queirós himself had been stationed as part of the local government. The
protagonist is the Father Amaro of the title, much as the protagonists of the
other two books in the trilogy are the titular characters. Amaro has lost his
parents at a young age, and is sent to a seminary to study for priesthood, more
as a solution to his state as an orphan than the calculated reaction to a desired
vocational training on his part.
He is still young and after a brief period in a mountainous outpost he gets
himself transferred to Leira, where the canon Dias receives him amicably. He is
put up in the house of São Joaneira, a pious woman and very good friend of
Dias, even an intimate friend, Amaro will soon learn. It is clear to Amaro that
though piety is a good thing in church, there is almost no-one who practices
what they preach outside the church-walls.
The evening are often spent in São Joaneira’s salon, where her beautiful
teenage daughter Amalia plays the piano, much to the delight of those present.
Indeed, it is this virginal beauty that clouds Amaro’s mind so much that he tries
to find some sort of heavenly explanation for a relationship that soon blossoms
into a secret romance.
There are episodes where the clergy of Leira are shown to be a set of
characters that have made ‘never practice what you preach’ their personal
motto. But ultimately, De Queirós, as a true 19th century realist would, shows
clearly in his novel that each character makes their decisions according to their
own insights and experiences. Amaro, who never became a priest because of
piety, but rather because of the circumstances and the need for food and a
roof over his head, is thus a human open to temptation as any other. The sad
thing is that it is Amalia, in the end, who has to pay for it, and Amaro more or
less walks free.
Though this book is arguably about all the clergy, since it represents this order
in the ‘layers of society’ cycle, the novel never makes the characters evil just
for the sake of vilifying them. In the closing chapters of the novel, there is
another clergy-man who makes his entry: the old village priest Ferrão, who
takes care of Amalia. He is a redeeming character, completely and utterly
devoted to his work and his flock. He seems to make up for all the wrongs of
the clergy that operate in big cities such as Leira, where worldly power and
corruption are at full sway.
‘The crime of father Amaro’ is a grand 19th century novel, a work of European
realism realised on a scale befitting its subject. It is full of colourful characters,
and the protagonists are fully realised persons, with whom we may identify and
sympathise, or whom we may spurn, but at least understand. The story is
carefully written, with due attention to dialogue and plot, and humour is present
in the depiction of provincial town’s idiosyncrasies. De Queirós definitely
deserves his place in European literary as much as the other great 19th
century writers.
