PEARL
K.
BELL
we were all determined to see these sky-rockets .. . so we kept right
on.... From where we were, away up, [the fireworks] did look
lovely - and were almost silent. The surprise seemed to be one phase
of answering rockets set off right from Corcovado, over our heads -
with Christ appearing very queerly through the smoke and smell of
powder. But even queerer than the surprise was the fact that the sea, or
what you could guess of it from a lighthouse or two and the lights
of passing ships, seemed to be straight up in the air, very high - as if it
were a sheet of carbon paper standing on edge -
45
Elizabeth's enchantment with the flamboyance of nature did not
diminish her chronic sense that there was something terribly wrong with
Brazil, politically, socially, morally. The word she used again and again
to express her exasperation was "hopeless," and the longer she lived in
her new-found land, the more accurate she felt that word to be. In the
early winter of 1954, when Elizabeth and Lota once again had to cancel
plans for a trip to Europe because they didn't have the money, Eliza–
beth's disappointment spilled over into a gloomy appraisal of the coun–
try's seemingly incurable problems. Now that she had to stay put and dig
in
her heels,
it's suddenly made me realize I must take Brazil more seriously and
really learn the god-damned language... . As a country I feel it's
hopeless
and just plain lethargic, self-seeking, half-smug, half-crazy,
hopeless. The U. S. may be in a fearful moral mess right now, but I
feel that what made it great was not geography (as the Brazilians say)
but the enormous moral push behind it to begin with. There has
never been one here, as far as I know - and there has never been a rev–
olution, which every country needs, I shd. think - successful or
unsuccessful - The few honest and intelligent men one hears about . .
. seem to have been like comets - but so very few of them. I some–
times feel if I could only meet one man here who seemed really con–
cerned and honest -
When Elizabeth arrived in Brazil the wily dictator Getulio Vargas,
who had more political lives than a cat, was still President, and during
the years she lived there, one would-be reformer after another would
come into office with high hopes of cleaning out the Byzantine corrup–
tion and in some way lessening the enormous chasm between obscene
wealth and miserable poverty. Eventually the reformers would give up in
despair, overwhelmed by the insurmountable enormity of the problems
they couldn't begin to solve, or outmaneuvered by the cunning of their
