An Appreciation of the Scholar, AdalbertBy Vincent Mannings
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August, 1958. Upper West Side, New York City.
I admit to a sense of relief as I begin today with good coffee and news of the death of my one-time mentor, Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira, that occasional dilettante, former bon vivant and, in his twilight years, full bad-tempered scold. To be fair, the man was also a prominent classicist, and I see that he remained to the end a bibliophile and a most gifted appraiser of rare and valuable books. Still, I find myself eager to report that my daily newspaper, opened before me on my breakfast table, proclaims the passing of Ortiz-Teixeira at the age of ninety-three, the cause of death unknown.
Where should anyone start with a fellow as complex as Adalbert? We might opt to begin at the end, and indeed I do. If we are to believe this morning’s published account, it would seem that our reclusive tyrant died alone inside his private library. Famously, Adalbert’s home is an opulent manor house, Eternidade, a fortress-like construction located in Rio de Janeiro. I know the place to be squat and solid, its exterior walls thick, stuccoed and adorned with bougainvillea. Set within the city’s now-affluent Leblon neighborhood, Eternidade has for many years boasted an indulgent staff of twelve. As I enjoy a second cup of coffee, I am reading how the Provençal housekeeper—Marie Claudette, a dependable figure—discovered her employer’s body. Adalbert was no doubt wearing his habitual pajamas and robe, but we are told for sure that he departed this life in a straight-backed leather chair, his head and arms resting upon a writing desk. Apparently, foul play is not suspected, and it looks as though our aged polymath had no surviving next of kin.
Oh, but these are details. Woeful trivia. I have a mind to put aside mixed emotions and to declare my newspaper’s obituary lacking. Certainly, Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira, a force of nature, has been ill served. Yes, I am resolved: after I finish my coffee, I will record some reflections for those who wish to learn more. By this time, the reader will observe my inclination to set pen to paper—my wife and sons have long since despaired. In my defense, I am an emeritus professor of literature: I need to write. Much of the above, in fact, is adapted from an entry in what has become an overly extensive diary and, because of this, I hope that the present document has been kept discreetly in my family’s study: my desire is that it be distributed only when I, too, am gone. I will also note that while the greater part of the material to be offered here will be taken from personal journals and from my recollections of Adalbert, there exist several biographies, recently released, none sanctioned by Ortiz-Teixeira and each despised by their subject. The shallow effort by Richards (Carter Group, New York, 1952) is of course to be ignored. Beyond question, Beauvilliers (Trinité, Lyon, 1954) is superior, but with Adalbert’s enraged response, in my very presence, to the claims of Almeida (Estrelas, São Paulo, 1955), I am pulled naturally to the latter, like the tides toward the moon. So, with due attribution, I will be glad to draw from Almeida’s fine work whenever I judge my diaries or my memory wanting. I might also make a few telephone calls, for one should not discount entirely the testimony of friends.
Come, let us proceed. Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira was born in the coastal city of Aveiro, Portugal, in the year 1865. His mother was the lovely Josefine Ortiz Teixeira (without the hyphen), née Breitwieser, daughter of a middling Prussian portrait artist who had married well and, in doing so, gained access to all the better homes. At one such Gothic pile, a fresh-faced Josefine, dressed tastefully and demure to a fault, had been introduced to a visiting Portuguese trader, a man twice her age. He was a dealer in munitions. He was also a blackguard by repute: nuptials followed within a year, as did little Adalbert. Legally, the groom was Ignácio Teixeira. He had taken to augmenting his surname upon learning of an aristocratic Spanish ancestor known simply as Ortiz. Twenty years later, a rather British hyphen linking those two Iberian names would make its first appearance, with Adalbert then frequenting the quads and tutorial rooms of Oxford’s Pembroke College.
But we get ahead of ourselves. I should say that I had been about to raid my memory for the context of the infant Adalbert’s arrival in Brazil, when it struck me that I have never heard the tale. Let me therefore reach for Almeida’s scorned treatise of 1955 and see what he has to say. The biographer selects words with some finesse, but in essence it seems that Ignácio amassed only debts and enemies in Portugal—to a degree that could not be tolerated. And so, a month after his son’s birth, we find the patriarch almost bankrupt, voyaging unaccompanied for Rio aboard the Santa Catarina. I happen to know firsthand that this sleek vessel was a then-new merchant clipper the man would one day own. The balance of the story is easy to recall, since I heard it directly from Adalbert on three occasions. The first time, he related it with untroubled joy, the second with discomfiture. The third telling, when he was old, I witnessed resignation. All three versions had Ignácio sending for Josefine and their baby boy, shortly after sailing into port. He would then build his fortune anew.
Figuratively, at least, the Ortiz Teixeira family grew fat upon investments in various and dangerous mining operations, along with speculations in forest clearance, the transport of tropical hardwoods by the new railroads, the actual railroads themselves and the construction of vast timber yards adjacent to the port of Rio. And, simultaneously, those early years saw the design and erection of the aforementioned residence, Eternidade. It is said that, just prior to the structure being completed, young Josefine got into the habit of drinking limeade and honey at this imposing seaside home: there, and perhaps in all innocence, she would dab her mouth with a napkin, browsing illustrations of chandeliers and velvet drapes while, many leagues inland, descendants of Tememinó warriors labored five-hundred feet beneath the ground, extracting copper ore. Ignácio, not so blameless, began his mornings by reviewing any progress made with the building of the house. Far away, trees fell. They were about a thousand miles to the north. The cries of loggers, a wrench of wood, the cannon-fire of a trunk splitting and then the crashing swoon: at the same time, our patriarch strode the empty halls of Eternidade, inspecting the work of others. Picture the man. He would be attired in a cotton shirt and a frock coat, his breeches tucked into leather boots, and oh how he relished the acoustics of his footsteps as his architect walked anxiously behind. But what of Adalbert on days like those? He was six years of age. Often, he would sit cross-legged on the floorboards of his parents’ library, a space destined to be his preliminary tomb. The bookshelves gathered only dust at that time, for while numerous good—if esoteric—volumes had been ordered, few had shipped from Europe. Nonetheless, in this expectant room, the precociously literate boy would trace a finger across the pages of three distinct copies of The Iliad. These books would be set side by side and they were written in modern Portuguese, early Ionic Greek and classical Latin. Let me be clear, as was the future Adalbert, that he barely understood the lines of epic verse. Mostly, he could only read them. And yet he recalled that as he sat there, dressed in his little sailor suit, he would compare texts and acquire the rudiments of languages unknown to him before.
Really, how should we choose among episodes from the life of such a person? Perhaps our course can be steered by remembering events narrated more than once by Adalbert himself. For example, on a hot summer’s day in 1872, a year after his discovery of Homer, we are taken to a service for the boy’s First Holy Communion. It was held amid a stench of incense and sweat at the Igreja de Nossa Senhora, a concelebration by two bored prelates and a strangely large assembly of parishioners. A choir sang and, in the heat outside, the town square echoed with peals of bells. As might be guessed, Ignácio was a trustee of the church. He was by then a very wealthy man. Half a century later, a widowed Josefine would divulge to her middle-aged son the disgust she had felt with the excesses shown that day. She told him that she had cursed behind her veil, watching as her boy knelt down to accept the sacred host—she had been charmed, however, when he put his hands together in that sweet imitation of prayer.
Ah, but this was the time Eternidade first blossomed. The construction finished and all interior surfaces immaculate and primed, the staff and occupants busied themselves with the deployment of rugs and furniture, the hanging of curtains, the transformation of an undoubtedly impressive building into something like a home. I am told how happy was Josefine to supervise, and in my mind’s eye she continues to do so today, though she has been dead for many years. Her former home has two stories. A front door of carved rosewood opens to a grand hall from which we see, toward the rear, a couple of flights of marble steps: gently, these bend away from each other as they near a colonnaded gallery, leading to dressing rooms and to bedrooms. Downstairs, at the right, we encounter first a parlor for the reception of guests. My memory is that in this same direction we find the living room and, beyond, a big and formal dining room. To the left is a study and then we have the magnificent library. Painted with care by a team of local artists, the library’s rounded ceiling had darkened by the time I first knew it, yet Adalbert assured me that the efforts of those artists had been colorful and bright. Bible scenes, the stellar heavens, portrayals of Greek mythology, all are jumbled, each struggling for dominance. Even so, the effect is striking and the work imparts just the right quality to the entire room. Had I been there almost a century ago, beneath that newly painted dome, I would have found Adalbert, seven years old, gazing as men with white gloves lifted books from packing crates. One by one, the volumes were shown first to the boy, with Ignácio standing by, after which they were arranged inside bookcases built all around the walls. The process lasted two days. I like to think that Ignácio then put an arm across his son’s shoulders, affectionately. Why not? The boy had dreamed about the library, and now the place was real.
I do know that, for patriarch and child, this was a period of pleasant outings. Most weekends, Ignácio would have a four-wheeled buggy and two enormous mares brought from stables at the back of Eternidade. Adalbert remembered waiting on the forecourt, the buggy’s approach announced by odors of leather, wood polish and manure. There was the splendid sight of brass and tassels and, for the ear, a fuss of wheels on paving stones and that rhythmic clatter of hooves. Both horses, snorting, tails flicking, stopped without being commanded, and Ignácio would get up onto the high seat and grab hold of the reins. Quickly, a ride of ten miles carried father and son west of the bay and within sight of the harbor’s wharves. Their destination was Rua de Março, location of the city’s new coffeehouses. Selecting whichever was the least busy, Ignácio always chose a table outside, on the boards of an open veranda. There, he would purchase cake and soda pop, and when his boy was quiet, either reading or taking in the scene, he would watch the mares and smile, tipping his hat to acquaintances if any should be passing by. Adalbert never felt closer to his father than when they were together on those excursions. Each in his own style would thrill to the clamor of people and carts, the shouts of men at market stalls and, at the quayside, blasts from the horns of ships. For both, this was a remarkably special time.
Almeida (1955) informs us that the bells of Nossa Senhora rang again soon afterwards, during another blessing for Adalbert. The occasion was his departure for Switzerland. Once in a while, Adalbert recounted to me with pleasure a boarding school near to Lake Geneva, also the college years in England, but always his spirit was in Eternidade. Long before he found society abhorrent, dinner parties at Eternidade drew as many as fifty guests. Candlelit and elegant, such gatherings were vibrant, a critical mass of intellects and personalities. He never knew another true home. Notoriously, he stayed there upon retirement, when it became the setting for his descent into solitude and obsession. But it seems to me that even when he was a bachelor in his twenties, Eternidade was a retreat after extended tours of Rome and the ruins of ancient Carthage. Later, to the distress of domestic staff and a succession of devout wives, his home was where he would write peculiar histories of theology. Rigor was in evidence when he favored literature and the classics, and in these he excelled, whether alone in his beloved library or with colleagues as a visiting academic at some campus overseas. Classicists, writers, theologians: ultimately, he would alienate them all, but no matter—his entire life and particularly when old, held captive by his work, Eternidade sufficed. In many ways, this was a turtle and his shell.
And now our savant is dead. How bereft the house must feel. I suspect it is tranquil, too. I see the staff being less tense, addressing one another with ease. I also see the dining room where, as usual, the table and chairs are concealed by drop cloths: likewise, the furniture in other rooms will soon be shrouded. The kitchen will then grow quiet, the furnaces will cool down and the lamps will all go dark. Yet might the presence of Adalbert persist? During what proved to be my last trip to Eternidade, a year before he died, I was left alone for a while to enjoy the library’s spectacular dome. The hour was late. Light from a full moon streamed through the windows, and I was watched not only by the figures painted on the ceiling but by terracotta busts of Aeschylus and Euripides. Truly, the room had remained glorious, a cerebral space, even if something in there had changed: the library had become a kind of literary workshop, and a wild one at that. Bookcases were crammed to capacity. Every gap was filled. Rows of books were topped by other books, laid out horizontally. Extra volumes were stacked on the floor and on the huge writing desk at the center of the room. As I dawdled, looking around, it appeared to me that all these works had been contemplated, pored-over and studied to exhaustion. They were almost worshipped. Throughout the man’s life, and especially near the end, he had given so much of his vitality to books that, in the library’s hush, I wondered if I might actually hear them breathe.
It cannot be denied: Adalbert was once a superb teacher and a valued collaborator. I will mourn him, no doubt about it, though in truth we said goodbye a long time ago. Year upon year, he focused on the gathering of facts, the formulation of propositions, the mastery of one more subject, and then another. Increasingly, he strove to connect the separate disciplines across all cultures and all historical periods, diving without fear into arcane waters, dragging from the depths great chains of knowledge, the links of each chain encrusted with fresh learning, new insights. He never quite declared it, but I saw in him a need to discern an overarching pattern, a schema not previously revealed. Absurdly, did he seek some hint of a world beyond? If so, then his toil was either one very bold pursuit or it was vanity, and nothing more. The effort failed—of course it did—for I say he came only to approximate his library of printed works. With this, it occurs to me that the unique Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira will be entombed at the family vault in Rio. May his soul go calmly, et requiescat in pace. But he should perhaps be cremated instead: the book he most admired could be cored out and his ashes deposited therein, safely between the covers. Then, please—just let the man be shelved.
I admit to a sense of relief as I begin today with good coffee and news of the death of my one-time mentor, Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira, that occasional dilettante, former bon vivant and, in his twilight years, full bad-tempered scold. To be fair, the man was also a prominent classicist, and I see that he remained to the end a bibliophile and a most gifted appraiser of rare and valuable books. Still, I find myself eager to report that my daily newspaper, opened before me on my breakfast table, proclaims the passing of Ortiz-Teixeira at the age of ninety-three, the cause of death unknown.
Where should anyone start with a fellow as complex as Adalbert? We might opt to begin at the end, and indeed I do. If we are to believe this morning’s published account, it would seem that our reclusive tyrant died alone inside his private library. Famously, Adalbert’s home is an opulent manor house, Eternidade, a fortress-like construction located in Rio de Janeiro. I know the place to be squat and solid, its exterior walls thick, stuccoed and adorned with bougainvillea. Set within the city’s now-affluent Leblon neighborhood, Eternidade has for many years boasted an indulgent staff of twelve. As I enjoy a second cup of coffee, I am reading how the Provençal housekeeper—Marie Claudette, a dependable figure—discovered her employer’s body. Adalbert was no doubt wearing his habitual pajamas and robe, but we are told for sure that he departed this life in a straight-backed leather chair, his head and arms resting upon a writing desk. Apparently, foul play is not suspected, and it looks as though our aged polymath had no surviving next of kin.
Oh, but these are details. Woeful trivia. I have a mind to put aside mixed emotions and to declare my newspaper’s obituary lacking. Certainly, Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira, a force of nature, has been ill served. Yes, I am resolved: after I finish my coffee, I will record some reflections for those who wish to learn more. By this time, the reader will observe my inclination to set pen to paper—my wife and sons have long since despaired. In my defense, I am an emeritus professor of literature: I need to write. Much of the above, in fact, is adapted from an entry in what has become an overly extensive diary and, because of this, I hope that the present document has been kept discreetly in my family’s study: my desire is that it be distributed only when I, too, am gone. I will also note that while the greater part of the material to be offered here will be taken from personal journals and from my recollections of Adalbert, there exist several biographies, recently released, none sanctioned by Ortiz-Teixeira and each despised by their subject. The shallow effort by Richards (Carter Group, New York, 1952) is of course to be ignored. Beyond question, Beauvilliers (Trinité, Lyon, 1954) is superior, but with Adalbert’s enraged response, in my very presence, to the claims of Almeida (Estrelas, São Paulo, 1955), I am pulled naturally to the latter, like the tides toward the moon. So, with due attribution, I will be glad to draw from Almeida’s fine work whenever I judge my diaries or my memory wanting. I might also make a few telephone calls, for one should not discount entirely the testimony of friends.
Come, let us proceed. Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira was born in the coastal city of Aveiro, Portugal, in the year 1865. His mother was the lovely Josefine Ortiz Teixeira (without the hyphen), née Breitwieser, daughter of a middling Prussian portrait artist who had married well and, in doing so, gained access to all the better homes. At one such Gothic pile, a fresh-faced Josefine, dressed tastefully and demure to a fault, had been introduced to a visiting Portuguese trader, a man twice her age. He was a dealer in munitions. He was also a blackguard by repute: nuptials followed within a year, as did little Adalbert. Legally, the groom was Ignácio Teixeira. He had taken to augmenting his surname upon learning of an aristocratic Spanish ancestor known simply as Ortiz. Twenty years later, a rather British hyphen linking those two Iberian names would make its first appearance, with Adalbert then frequenting the quads and tutorial rooms of Oxford’s Pembroke College.
But we get ahead of ourselves. I should say that I had been about to raid my memory for the context of the infant Adalbert’s arrival in Brazil, when it struck me that I have never heard the tale. Let me therefore reach for Almeida’s scorned treatise of 1955 and see what he has to say. The biographer selects words with some finesse, but in essence it seems that Ignácio amassed only debts and enemies in Portugal—to a degree that could not be tolerated. And so, a month after his son’s birth, we find the patriarch almost bankrupt, voyaging unaccompanied for Rio aboard the Santa Catarina. I happen to know firsthand that this sleek vessel was a then-new merchant clipper the man would one day own. The balance of the story is easy to recall, since I heard it directly from Adalbert on three occasions. The first time, he related it with untroubled joy, the second with discomfiture. The third telling, when he was old, I witnessed resignation. All three versions had Ignácio sending for Josefine and their baby boy, shortly after sailing into port. He would then build his fortune anew.
Figuratively, at least, the Ortiz Teixeira family grew fat upon investments in various and dangerous mining operations, along with speculations in forest clearance, the transport of tropical hardwoods by the new railroads, the actual railroads themselves and the construction of vast timber yards adjacent to the port of Rio. And, simultaneously, those early years saw the design and erection of the aforementioned residence, Eternidade. It is said that, just prior to the structure being completed, young Josefine got into the habit of drinking limeade and honey at this imposing seaside home: there, and perhaps in all innocence, she would dab her mouth with a napkin, browsing illustrations of chandeliers and velvet drapes while, many leagues inland, descendants of Tememinó warriors labored five-hundred feet beneath the ground, extracting copper ore. Ignácio, not so blameless, began his mornings by reviewing any progress made with the building of the house. Far away, trees fell. They were about a thousand miles to the north. The cries of loggers, a wrench of wood, the cannon-fire of a trunk splitting and then the crashing swoon: at the same time, our patriarch strode the empty halls of Eternidade, inspecting the work of others. Picture the man. He would be attired in a cotton shirt and a frock coat, his breeches tucked into leather boots, and oh how he relished the acoustics of his footsteps as his architect walked anxiously behind. But what of Adalbert on days like those? He was six years of age. Often, he would sit cross-legged on the floorboards of his parents’ library, a space destined to be his preliminary tomb. The bookshelves gathered only dust at that time, for while numerous good—if esoteric—volumes had been ordered, few had shipped from Europe. Nonetheless, in this expectant room, the precociously literate boy would trace a finger across the pages of three distinct copies of The Iliad. These books would be set side by side and they were written in modern Portuguese, early Ionic Greek and classical Latin. Let me be clear, as was the future Adalbert, that he barely understood the lines of epic verse. Mostly, he could only read them. And yet he recalled that as he sat there, dressed in his little sailor suit, he would compare texts and acquire the rudiments of languages unknown to him before.
Really, how should we choose among episodes from the life of such a person? Perhaps our course can be steered by remembering events narrated more than once by Adalbert himself. For example, on a hot summer’s day in 1872, a year after his discovery of Homer, we are taken to a service for the boy’s First Holy Communion. It was held amid a stench of incense and sweat at the Igreja de Nossa Senhora, a concelebration by two bored prelates and a strangely large assembly of parishioners. A choir sang and, in the heat outside, the town square echoed with peals of bells. As might be guessed, Ignácio was a trustee of the church. He was by then a very wealthy man. Half a century later, a widowed Josefine would divulge to her middle-aged son the disgust she had felt with the excesses shown that day. She told him that she had cursed behind her veil, watching as her boy knelt down to accept the sacred host—she had been charmed, however, when he put his hands together in that sweet imitation of prayer.
Ah, but this was the time Eternidade first blossomed. The construction finished and all interior surfaces immaculate and primed, the staff and occupants busied themselves with the deployment of rugs and furniture, the hanging of curtains, the transformation of an undoubtedly impressive building into something like a home. I am told how happy was Josefine to supervise, and in my mind’s eye she continues to do so today, though she has been dead for many years. Her former home has two stories. A front door of carved rosewood opens to a grand hall from which we see, toward the rear, a couple of flights of marble steps: gently, these bend away from each other as they near a colonnaded gallery, leading to dressing rooms and to bedrooms. Downstairs, at the right, we encounter first a parlor for the reception of guests. My memory is that in this same direction we find the living room and, beyond, a big and formal dining room. To the left is a study and then we have the magnificent library. Painted with care by a team of local artists, the library’s rounded ceiling had darkened by the time I first knew it, yet Adalbert assured me that the efforts of those artists had been colorful and bright. Bible scenes, the stellar heavens, portrayals of Greek mythology, all are jumbled, each struggling for dominance. Even so, the effect is striking and the work imparts just the right quality to the entire room. Had I been there almost a century ago, beneath that newly painted dome, I would have found Adalbert, seven years old, gazing as men with white gloves lifted books from packing crates. One by one, the volumes were shown first to the boy, with Ignácio standing by, after which they were arranged inside bookcases built all around the walls. The process lasted two days. I like to think that Ignácio then put an arm across his son’s shoulders, affectionately. Why not? The boy had dreamed about the library, and now the place was real.
I do know that, for patriarch and child, this was a period of pleasant outings. Most weekends, Ignácio would have a four-wheeled buggy and two enormous mares brought from stables at the back of Eternidade. Adalbert remembered waiting on the forecourt, the buggy’s approach announced by odors of leather, wood polish and manure. There was the splendid sight of brass and tassels and, for the ear, a fuss of wheels on paving stones and that rhythmic clatter of hooves. Both horses, snorting, tails flicking, stopped without being commanded, and Ignácio would get up onto the high seat and grab hold of the reins. Quickly, a ride of ten miles carried father and son west of the bay and within sight of the harbor’s wharves. Their destination was Rua de Março, location of the city’s new coffeehouses. Selecting whichever was the least busy, Ignácio always chose a table outside, on the boards of an open veranda. There, he would purchase cake and soda pop, and when his boy was quiet, either reading or taking in the scene, he would watch the mares and smile, tipping his hat to acquaintances if any should be passing by. Adalbert never felt closer to his father than when they were together on those excursions. Each in his own style would thrill to the clamor of people and carts, the shouts of men at market stalls and, at the quayside, blasts from the horns of ships. For both, this was a remarkably special time.
Almeida (1955) informs us that the bells of Nossa Senhora rang again soon afterwards, during another blessing for Adalbert. The occasion was his departure for Switzerland. Once in a while, Adalbert recounted to me with pleasure a boarding school near to Lake Geneva, also the college years in England, but always his spirit was in Eternidade. Long before he found society abhorrent, dinner parties at Eternidade drew as many as fifty guests. Candlelit and elegant, such gatherings were vibrant, a critical mass of intellects and personalities. He never knew another true home. Notoriously, he stayed there upon retirement, when it became the setting for his descent into solitude and obsession. But it seems to me that even when he was a bachelor in his twenties, Eternidade was a retreat after extended tours of Rome and the ruins of ancient Carthage. Later, to the distress of domestic staff and a succession of devout wives, his home was where he would write peculiar histories of theology. Rigor was in evidence when he favored literature and the classics, and in these he excelled, whether alone in his beloved library or with colleagues as a visiting academic at some campus overseas. Classicists, writers, theologians: ultimately, he would alienate them all, but no matter—his entire life and particularly when old, held captive by his work, Eternidade sufficed. In many ways, this was a turtle and his shell.
And now our savant is dead. How bereft the house must feel. I suspect it is tranquil, too. I see the staff being less tense, addressing one another with ease. I also see the dining room where, as usual, the table and chairs are concealed by drop cloths: likewise, the furniture in other rooms will soon be shrouded. The kitchen will then grow quiet, the furnaces will cool down and the lamps will all go dark. Yet might the presence of Adalbert persist? During what proved to be my last trip to Eternidade, a year before he died, I was left alone for a while to enjoy the library’s spectacular dome. The hour was late. Light from a full moon streamed through the windows, and I was watched not only by the figures painted on the ceiling but by terracotta busts of Aeschylus and Euripides. Truly, the room had remained glorious, a cerebral space, even if something in there had changed: the library had become a kind of literary workshop, and a wild one at that. Bookcases were crammed to capacity. Every gap was filled. Rows of books were topped by other books, laid out horizontally. Extra volumes were stacked on the floor and on the huge writing desk at the center of the room. As I dawdled, looking around, it appeared to me that all these works had been contemplated, pored-over and studied to exhaustion. They were almost worshipped. Throughout the man’s life, and especially near the end, he had given so much of his vitality to books that, in the library’s hush, I wondered if I might actually hear them breathe.
It cannot be denied: Adalbert was once a superb teacher and a valued collaborator. I will mourn him, no doubt about it, though in truth we said goodbye a long time ago. Year upon year, he focused on the gathering of facts, the formulation of propositions, the mastery of one more subject, and then another. Increasingly, he strove to connect the separate disciplines across all cultures and all historical periods, diving without fear into arcane waters, dragging from the depths great chains of knowledge, the links of each chain encrusted with fresh learning, new insights. He never quite declared it, but I saw in him a need to discern an overarching pattern, a schema not previously revealed. Absurdly, did he seek some hint of a world beyond? If so, then his toil was either one very bold pursuit or it was vanity, and nothing more. The effort failed—of course it did—for I say he came only to approximate his library of printed works. With this, it occurs to me that the unique Adalbert Ortiz-Teixeira will be entombed at the family vault in Rio. May his soul go calmly, et requiescat in pace. But he should perhaps be cremated instead: the book he most admired could be cored out and his ashes deposited therein, safely between the covers. Then, please—just let the man be shelved.
Vincent Mannings's work has appeared in The Woven Tale Press, Writing Disorder, The Wilderness House Literary Review, and The Zodiac Review. With his wife, Helene, he makes his home in Pacific Grove, California.