I like the word “fed”. It's a word that says everything it wants to say. If you read that a woman is “well built”, you know exactly what she is like. Not fat but full, plump, fleshy. It is hot. Maybe it's the resemblance to “oven”. Maybe it's just the kind of mind I have.
I cannot see the word "lust" without thinking of a woman, not stocky but thin and long. Lascivia, Empress of Cantaro, daughter of Pundoror. I imagine her luring every young man in the kingdom to her royal bed, decapitating the incapable by failure and the capable by daring.
One day a young troubadour, Lipid of Albornoz, arrives in Cantaro. He crosses the Bridge of Safena and enters the city on his horse Escarcée. He catches sight of a woman wearing a black sash who gives him a look full of bitumen and cabriolet. He follows her through the alleys of Cântaro to a summary – a kind of enclosed garden – where she drops the sleaze. It's lust. It ascends by a scrutiny, small narrow stairway, and disappears by a portiuncula. Lipid follows her. It is seen in a long collusion that leads to an ajar prosthesis. He enters. Lascivia is sitting on a trump card in front of her pinochet, combing her hair. Lipida, who always carries a buck (a primitive seven-string instrument) with him, begins to sing a ballad. Lewd claps and calls:
- Cistern! Boasting!
They are his slaves who come to prepare her for the rites of love. Lipídio gets rid of his clothes – the satrap, the lumpen, the two fatuous ones – until he is left with nothing. He goes to bed singing an old minaret. Lewd says:
- Shut up, sandalwood. I want to feel his vespuce next to my passe-partout.
Behind a curtain, Muxoxo, the executioner, prepares his long register to cut off the troubadour's head.
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The story doesn't end badly because Lipida's horse, Escarcéu, peeks out the window as Muxoxo is going to decapitate its owner, at the moment handed over to the sassafras, and raises the alarm. Lipidus jumps out of bed, quickly dresses his paltry and goes out the window, where Escarcéu is waiting.
Lechery orders the Bridge of Safena to be raised, but too late. Lipídio and Escarcéu already gallop through riots and valiums, far from Lascivia's revenge.
*
“Fallacy” is a multiform animal that is never where it appears to be. One day a traveler named Pseudonym (not his real name) arrives at the house of a fallacious creator, Otorrino. He comments that Otorrino's business must be doing very well, as his fields are full of fallacies. But Otorrino doesn't seem very happy. She whines:
- Fallacies are never where they seem to be. If they seem to be in my field, it's because they're elsewhere.
And he cries:
- Every day, in the morning, my wife, Bazofia, and I go out into the fields telling fallacies. And every day there are more fallacies in my field. I mean, every day I wake up poorer, because there are more fallacies I don't have.
- I make you a proposal - said Pseudonym. – I buy all the fallacies in your field and pay a buck for each one.
- A buck for each one? – Otorrino said, barely managing to disguise his enthusiasm. – I must not have five thousand fallacies.
- Because I pay five thousand bucks and take all the fallacies you don't have.
- Done.
Otorhino and Bazofia collected the five thousand fallacies for Pseudonym. It opens its itch and starts pulling out invisible bucks and placing them in Otorrino's outstretched palm.
- I don't understand - says Otorrino. – Where are the painters?
- Painters are like fallacies – explains Pseudonym. – They're never where they seem to be. Do you see a buck in your hand?
- None.
- It's a sign they're there. Don't drop it.
And Pseudonym continued his journey with five thousand fallacies, which he sold to an English meatpacking company, Filho and Sons. Otorrino woke up the other day and looked with satisfaction at his empty field. He opened the snout, a kind of safe, and looked at the bucks that didn't seem to be there!
In the kitchen, Bazofia put poison in his mush.
*
“Lorota”, for me, is a fat manicure. She is exploited by her boyfriend, Falcatrua. They live together in a den, a small apartment. One day there is a knock at the door. It's Hammer, the Italian inspector.
- Dove está il tuo megano?
- My what?
- Il fistulado del tuo matagoso umbraculo.
- The Falcatrua? He is working.
- Know. With your fibula drag. Magarefe, Baroque, Cantochão and Acepipe. I know the yard well. They are a bigger brand.
- What did Falcatrua do?
-He's selling canned English fallacy.
- And?
- So there's nothing inside the can. Meager bro!
Luís Fernando Veríssimo. From the book The Analyst of Bagé.
