Machado de Assis was not too hopeful of human nature. One of his most noted tales, _O Infermeiro_ (The Nurse or Attendant) is a miniature masterpiece of irony in which man’s self-deception in the face of his own advantages is brought out with that charm-in-power which is not the least of the Brazilian’s qualities. A man has hired out as nurse to a testy old invalid, who has changed one after the other all the attendants he has engaged. The nurse seems more fortunate than the rest, though matters rapidly approach a climax, until “on the evening of the 24th of August the colonel had a violent attack of anger; he struck me, he called me the vilest names, he threatened to shoot me; finally he threw in my face a plate of porridge that was too cold for him. The plate struck the wall and broke into a thousand fragments. “‘You’ll pay me for it, you thief!’ he bellowed. “For a long time he grumbled. Towards eleven o’clock he gradually fell asleep. While he slept I took a book out of my pocket, a translation of an old d’Alancourt novel which I had found lying about, and began to read it in his room, at a small distance from his bed. I was to wake him at midnight to give him his medicine; but, whether it was due to fatigue or to the influence of the book, I, too, before reaching the second page, fell asleep. The cries of the colonel awoke me with a start; in an instant I was up. He, apparently in a delirium, continued to utter the same cries; finally he seized his water-bottle and threw it at my face. I could not get out of the way in time; the bottle hit me in the left cheek, and the pain was so acute that I almost lost consciousness. With a leap I rushed upon the invalid; I tightened my hands around his neck; he struggled several moments; I strangled him. “When I beheld that he no longer breathed, I stepped back in terror. I cried out; but nobody heard me. Then, approaching the bed once more, I shook him so as to bring him back to life. It was too late; the aneurism had burst, and the colonel was dead. I went into the adjoining room, and for two hours I did not dare to return. It is impossible for me to express all that I felt during that time. It was intense stupefaction, a kind of vague and vacant delirium. It seemed to me that I saw faces grinning on the walls; I heard muffled voices. The cries of the victim, the cries uttered before the struggle and during its wild moments continued to reverberate within me, and the air, in whatever direction I turned, seemed to shake with convulsions. Do not imagine that I am inventing pictures or aiming at verbal style. I swear to you that I heard distinctly voices that were crying at me: ‘Murderer; Murderer!’” By one of the many ironies of fate, however, the testy colonel has left the attendant sole heir to his possessions; for the invalid has felt genuine appreciation, despite the anger to which he was subject. Note the effect upon the attendant, whose conscience at first has troubled him acutely: