In "The Alienist and Other Stories", Machado de Assis turns everyday life into an enigma and irony into a lens. The stories gathered here reveal characters shaped by quiet...

Friar Simão lives in silence and penance until his death, without ever revealing his past. Only after his death does a manuscript reveal the tragic story of a forbidden love,...

After the death of her husband, a widow decides to reveal the hidden truths of her marriage, including her secret relationship with Emílio, a lover who transformed her life. In a...

Nicolau B. grows up marked by a strange condition: an almost physical revulsion at any sign of superiority in others. He lives in constant discomfort, seeking only the company of...

Trapped in a love triangle between his childhood best friend and his friend's wife, Camilo, a young man in love, but skeptical, decides to consult a mysterious fortune teller...

The story presents a scene set in Noah's Ark, where human passengers and animals live together amid the flood. In a satirical tone full of subtleties, Machado de Assis constructs...

In "The Mirror", Machado de Assis shows, through Jacobina's experience, that each person has two souls: one intimate and the other shaped by social perception. Upon losing the...

Two friends engage in a philosophical and sarcastic conversation about happiness, bad luck, and the whims of fate. Starting with an allusion to the famous ring of Polycrates, the...

In "The Alienist", renowned physician Dr. Simão Bacamarte decides to found an asylum in the small town of Itaguaí to study madness. However, his obsessive quest to define sanity...

In an ironic and satirical tone, Machado de Assis presents a conversation between a father and son, in which the father advises the young man to become a "medallion" — a symbol...