They inaugurated the street cars [bondes in Portuguese, a word which originated from the English 'bond'] of Santa Teresa, — a system of clogs or a stairway to heaven, — an image of the things of this world. When the streetcar ascends, another descends, there is no time on the way for a pinch of snuff (powdered tobacco), but surely, two gentlemen can greet each other with a tip of the hat.
The worst is if one day, during the constant ascending and descending, descending and ascending, some ascend into heaven while others descend into purgatory, or perhaps to the morgue.
It goes without saying that the diligences saw the inauguration with an extremely melancholic eye. Some donkeys, accustomed to the ascension and descenst of the hill, were regretting this new step towards progress. One of them, a philosopher, humanitarian and ambitious, would murmur:
— They say: les dieux s’en vont [the gods are leaving]. What irony! No; not the gods but us. Les ânes s’en vont [the asses are leaving], my collegues, les ânes s’en vont. And this interesting quadruped would look at the streetcar with a face full of saudade and humiliation. Perhaps it would recall the slow fall of the donkey, expelled in every way by the steam, like the steam would be by the balloon, and the balloon by electricity, and electricity by a new force, which would take at once this grand worldly train all the way to the terminal station.
However in this way it has not…yet.
But they inaugurated the streetcars. Now Santa Teresa will become fashionable. What was worse, not to be too preachy, were the ‘trips of diligence’, and ironic name for all the vehicles of this type. Diligence is a term midway between a turtle and a bull.
One of the advantages of the streetcars of Santa Teresa on the city, is the impossibility of fishing. Fishing is the sore of the other streetcars. Like this, between the neighborhoods Largo do Machado and Glória, fishing is a true annoyance, as each streetcar descends slowly, looking out from one side or the other, to pick up a passenger from a far. Sometimes the passenger heads towards the Praia do Flamengo, while the streetcar, polite and generous, pauses, naps, takes a sniff, says a few words, collects the passenger and continues its fate until the next corner where it repeats the same lengalenga (spiel).
Nothing like this happens in Santa Teresa: where the streetcar is a real leva-e-traz (gossiper), they aren’t dissuaded to play along the way, like a loafing student.
And if after what is said and done, there isn’t any generous soul that will say that I have a house to rent in Santa Teresa-word of honor! the world is upside down.
