From Itinerant Trade To Moneylending in The Era of Financial Inclusion Households Debts and Masculinity Among Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil 1St Ed Edition Martin Fotta Full Chapter

From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending
in the Era of Financial Inclusion:

Households, Debts and Masculinity
among Calon Gypsies of Northeast
Brazil 1st ed. Edition Martin Fotta
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FROM ITINERANT
TRADE TO
MONEYLENDING
IN THE ERA OF
FINANCIAL
INCLUSION
Households, Debts and Masculinity among
Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil
Martin Fotta
From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending in the Era
of Financial Inclusion
Martin Fotta
From Itinerant Trade

to Moneylending in
the Era of Financial
Inclusion
Households, Debts and Masculinity
among Calon Gypsies of Northeast
Brazil
Martin Fotta
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Goethe University Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
ISBN 978-3-319-96408-9 ISBN 978-3-319-96409-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96409-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952363
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To Adriana
Acknowledgements
Over the years, the research for this book has been funded by a doctoral
fellowship from the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions programme,
Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, and a research
fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
My thanks go to the many people who have contributed to this project
and to those who have kept me inspired.
Thanks to my parents, Ján Fotta and Nataša Fottová, for their concerns
about me.
Thanks to Orlando, Viviane, Kiko, Romero, Rogério Maluco, Paula,
Sara, Nelson, Adair, Paulo, Rita, Tiago, and Wiliam for letting me ask so
much about their lives. Thanks to Luciano, Malu, Marly, Ronald,
Ronaldo, and Rogério for the parties.
Thanks to Roger Sansi for his guidance as my thesis supervisor, and to
Frances Pine for having read the final version of the thesis thoroughly.
Thanks to Michael Stewart and Keith Hart for being critical thesis exam-
iners. Thanks to my colleagues at Goldsmiths for listening to my raw
ideas and to our teachers for their encouragement. Thanks to João de
Pina Cabral, Hans Peter Hahn, Annabel Bokern, and Daniel Margócsy
for their support over the years. Thanks to Cecilia McCallum for think-
ing of me as a decent anthropologist, to Edilson Teixeira for making me
take up jogging, to Elena Calvo-González for the laughs, and to Clarice
Costa Teixeira for the delicious food. Thanks to Juliana Campos, Jucelho
vii
viii Acknowledgements
Dantas, Helena Dolabela, Aderino Dourado, Florencia Ferrari, Mirriam

Guerra, Edilma Monteiro, and Márcio Vilar for all the conversations.
Thanks to participants of seminars and conferences at which I pre-
sented various arguments of this book for their suggestions and ques-
tions. Thanks to Susanne Fehlings, Jan Grill, Andreas Streinzer, Mario
Schmidt, Cătălina Tesăr and Márcio Vilar for their invaluable comments
on parts of the manuscript. Thanks to Emma Welter for her assistance
with proofreading. Thanks to the editors from Palgrave Macmillan, Clara
Heathcock and Laura Pacey, for their patience.
Thanks to Adriana Lamačková for being my wife. Thanks to her and
Matilda Fottová for their love.
Contents

Introduction: Consolidation of the Cigano Moneylending
Niche in the Early Twenty-First Century 1
Part I Settlements, Personhood, and the Centrality of

Households 33
Chapter 1 ‘There Are Ciganos in the Town’ 35
Chapter 2 Household Fixity As a Process 65
Chapter 3 Makers of Their Futures 91
Part II Calon Assimilation of the Local Economic

Environment 121
Chapter 4 Deferred Payments and the Expanding Moment

of Caloninity 123
ix
x Contents
Chapter 5 Lending Money to Jurons 151
Chapter 6 Moneylending Niche As Householding 179
Epilogue: The Crisis, the Stranger, and the State 209
Bibliography 225
Index 237
List of Figures
Introduction: Consolidation of the Cigano Moneylending Niche in the

Early Twenty-First Century
Image 1 Old Paulo sitting in front of his poor tent. In 2017 it stood
at the end of a street in the neighbourhood in São Bento
where most of the Calon from this town lived 27
Chapter 1 ‘There Are Ciganos in the Town’
Map 1.1 Schematic map of the region described in this book. Most
of the Calon who I encountered in Santaluz have lived here
for several decades and many were born here. For house-
holds from Orlando’s family this region represents their
home range within which they move 39
Fig. 1.1 Kinship relations in the camp in Santaluz, October 2008.
Numbers correspond to those in the text and Map 1.2.
Black circles represent widow Fé (left) and Germana (right) 43
Map 1.2 Schematic plan of the camp in Santaluz in late October
2008. Although the core of the turma around Djalma’s
household (I) has remained in place for six years, this exact
composition of households lasted only for ten days. Smaller
black rectangles mark locations of tents of two widows
Germana (right) and Fé (left). They depended on others on
much subsistence and on decisions when and where to
move and settle 44
xi
xii List of Figures
Image 1.1 A Calon camp in a small town in a coastal region of Bahia;

like all settlements mentioned in this book it does not exist
anymore. The tarpaulin on the ground belongs to a family
that on the day when this picture was taken decided to
move elsewhere 51
Fig. 1.2 Orlando’s extended family, July 2009. Orlando is marked
black. Widow Germana is top right; widow Fé is top left 52
Image 1.2 After this turma left the town where they lived in a tent
encampment, one man decided to build a house on a new
location (in the foreground). He never finished it, because
the turma moved elsewhere. The man died a few years
later—in a tent 56
Chapter 3 Makers of Their Futures
Image 3.1 In card games among Calon men, which virtually never
involve non-Gypsies, men see their futures unfolding before
their eyes with each draw of cards and each bet. Card games
are one mode through which they intervene in and reshape
their futures 98
Image 3.2 In 2010, an old Calon lived with his wife in a settlement of
his relative. He had singularised himself and his reputation
for valour and preparedness. Nevertheless, he was deemed
‘morto’ as he had very little money in circulation. There were
no beds in the tent: the man slept in a hammock and his
wife on a wooden palette on which a carpet and duvets were
stretched out at night 107
Introduction: Consolidation
of the Cigano Moneylending Niche
in the Early Twenty-First Century
The Teacher and the Moneylender

Gilson is a 50-year-old high school teacher who lived in Santaluz, a small
town not far from the Atlantic coast of Bahia, northeast Brazil. In
November 2009, we were sitting in a bar, talking extensively about things
that interested me—the economic situation of his household, the ways in
which he managed money, and his plans for future investment. He then
told me how, in 2004, he urgently needed money for a small business
venture he had opened.
At the time, he could not borrow from any of his banks, since several
loan payments were due soon. Instead, he approached his friend, who he
knew was lending money on interest. But as the friend did not have the
sum needed, he suggested Gilson arrange a loan from Ciganos, or Gypsies,
on 40 per cent monthly interest. Gilson agreed, and the next day they
visited a Cigano tent settlement in Bomfim, a small village about 30 kilo-
metres from Santaluz. There they talked to a Cigano, who told Gilson to
return alone the following day. He told Gilson this in a way so that the
friend would not hear, as Gilson felt the man did not want to include the
friend in the deal and to offer a better interest rate.
© The Author(s) 2018 1

M. Fotta, From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending in the Era of Financial Inclusion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96409-6_1
2 M. Fotta
When Gilson returned the following morning, the two agreed on the
20 per cent monthly interest and the Cigano told him that the money
would be ready in five days. In the meantime, however, Gilson managed
to defer one bank payment and no longer needed to borrow money. He
nevertheless came back on the agreed date in order to ‘talk to’ the Cigano
and to ‘thank him’, as ‘I did not know if I would ever need him again’.
‘I think [the Cigano] might even have been Orlando’, Gilson noted,
but added that he could not remember anymore.
Until a few months before our conversation, Orlando had lived in a
big house in Santaluz, but had since left the town. Still, he remained the
most well-known Cigano in the town, and many non-Gypsies thought of
him as the chefe (chief ) of Ciganos in the region. I never discovered
whether the man Gilson met was indeed Orlando, since Orlando, too,
was vague about it—as he has always been regarding his deals and clients.
Be that as it may, throughout the years whenever I witnessed Orlando
meeting Gilson randomly, whether in Santaluz or elsewhere, the former
would greet Gilson amicably with a big smile: ‘Hello, professor! How are
you today?’
* * *
But why would Gilson, a public employee who worked for both munici-
pal and state high schools and had a stable income, think he would ever
‘need’ Orlando? And how does Gilson’s understanding of Orlando’s use-
fulness relate to his view of, and entanglement with, other sources of
credit? And how do loans from a bank, a friend (amigo), or a Cigano
compare? In turn, how does Orlando’s moneymaking depend on being
recognised as a Cigano by people like Gilson and his friend? And how
does his life, and that of the Cigano community to which he belongs,
connect with lives of their non-Gypsy clients? These are some of the ques-
tions that this book will try to answer.
Orlando belongs to a population of Brazilian Romanies who call
themselves Calon and are popularly known as Ciganos (Gypsies). Calon
Ciganos have lived in Bahia since at least the end of the sixteenth century;
another significant population of Romanies in Brazil is that of the Roma,
Introduction: Consolidation of the Cigano Moneylending Niche… 3
primarily from Eastern Europe, who started arriving around the end of
the nineteenth century. Calon Ciganos have thus co-constituted the
Bahian social world for centuries, not only as stock figures of folklore and
popular imagination, but also as people who occupy specific economic
niches and who relate to other Bahians in particular ways. Indeed, the
ethnogenesis of Calon as a distinct Romani population is intimately tied
to the South Atlantic colonial and postcolonial history and the formation
of Brazilian society and economy.
Gilson, like other Santaluzans, recalled that in the past, Ciganos would
pass through the town and sometimes erect their tents next to the river
for longer or shorter periods of time. He also remembered them as clients
of his father, a dental technician who used to make gold teeth for Ciganos.
At that time, Calon Gypsies specialised as itinerant traders of animals.
Today, however, most live in houses and are recognised as moneylenders.
In many towns in the Bahian interior, if one knows where to look (and
what to look for), one can identify groups of Calon men standing on
squares or in front of banks in the morning, waiting for clients. As the
vignette above suggests, Cigano moneylending relies on such ready avail-
ability. At the same time, however, it also depends on the management of
ethnic distance: a non-Gypsy client might even feign not to remember
the details of his deals, even though he had returned to talk to the mon-
eylender and they remain on friendly terms.
By looking at how people like Orlando, a Cigano moneylender, and
Gilson, a non-Gypsy school teacher, connect through relations of mon-
etary debt, and by discussing the role that the Brazilian state has played
in this regime, the book speaks to those recent works that focus on ways
that the state-sponsored project of expanding credit provision, or finan-
cialisation, has impacted intimate relations and future aspirations (e.g.
James 2015; Schuster 2015). It describes how the community life of the
Calon in Bahia is reproduced through debt relations, and how the forg-
ing of distinct relations of debt and credit becomes an aspect of the pro-
cess through which people fabricate and maintain their lifeworlds (e.g.
Chu 2010; Han 2012). Specifically, it argues that the loans extended to
non-Gypsies or the production of deferred payments among Calon, as
well as the technologies of monetary management that are used in both,
while continuous with non-Gypsy practices, serve as tools to recreate
4 M. Fotta
‘Caloninity’, so to speak. Here, specific dynamics of debt and repayment

confirm people’s convictions that an individual’s enmeshment in social
relations and participation in the lives of others are central for leading a
proper life—what Calon call vida do Cigano, ‘a Gypsy life’ (Vilar 2016).
Ultimately, the modernisation of the Bahian interior, the end of the
mass demand for work and transport animals, and the expansion of offi-
cial financial services to people and areas of life that until then had lain
outside of its orbit—the process of so-called financial inclusion—might
have been events ‘externally induced’, but the emergence of the Cigano
niche has been ‘orchestrated’ by Calon themselves (Sahlins 1985: viii).
True, this niche belongs to a particular milieu, with its ethnic stereotypes
and its productive structure, but it is not solely determined by it. The
lives of Calon Ciganos are fully embedded in the monetary economy and
depend on exchanges with non-Gypsies. But if recent socio-economic
changes have entailed the reorientation of subjectivities and reshaped
social life in Bahia, Calon have used these new alignments to recreate
themselves anew as Calon. Through attaining a certain stability over time
by means of the repetition and layering of diverse kinds of relationships
(including their juxtaposition), through conceptual and value calibra-
tion, and by drawing on established images about each other, a recogni-
sable social form—a Cigano moneylending niche—is created and
maintained.
A niche thus presupposes the fabrication of its own dimensions. As we
will see throughout this book, Calon differentiate between varied forms of
monetary exchange—various types of loans that come with different
names and standards, and which specify relationships between the parties
involved. This production of a distinction between what could be heuristi-
cally called the ‘inside’—one’s home range, settlement, or family—and
‘outside’—that is, the rest of the world—is characteristic to ethnic trader
communities who, by means of money and exchange, transgress physical
and local limitations and expand the reach of communities and individu-
als in time and space (Hart 2000). In discussing how opportunities emerge
through transgressing an ethnic niche threshold while simultaneously
recasting it, this book joins other works on middlemen minorities or trad-
ing diasporas, a topic still rarely explored in the Latin American context
(e.g. Bonacich 1973; Cohen 1971; Curtin 1984; Kagan and Morgan
2009; Tassi 2017). Its main contention is that the Calon niche represents
a specific form of integration into the market economy, what Chris
Gregory (2009) has termed a non-institutional householding. It is a kind
of householding that, unlike manorial or peasant householding, does not
gesture towards autarky, and because it is embedded in the dominant mar-
ket economy, it does not come with fixed and transcendent institutional
arrangements. Nevertheless, it comes with ethical principles, values, and
motives of its own as Martin Olivera (2016) has also shown for the Gabori
Romanies of Romania. Different kinds of exchanges constantly recreate
one’s social gendered position within one’s family and realise different
types of relatedness, producing distinctions between one’s family, enemies,
known Calon, other Ciganos, and Jurons, as Calon call non-Gypsies.
From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending

In a mid-twentieth-century description of the social composition of
Sergipe, a state that borders Bahia and that also belongs to the northeast
region of Brazil, Felte Bezera (1950: 118) observed that ‘among us, the
designation Cigano carries a cultural rather than ethnic meaning, signify-
ing a nomadic lifestyle sustained through exchanges and trade [trocas e
barganhas]’.1 It is still true today that Ciganos are not unambiguously
viewed by other Bahians as an ethnic group, and considered even less to
be an ethnic ‘minority’ in a European sense. At the same time, however,
nomadism and travelling as the mode of life is seen by both Calon and
non-Gypsies as a thing of the past, the memory of which marks Cigano
distinctiveness in the present (e.g. Fotta 2012; Goldfarb 2004). Moreover,
the term agiota (moneylender) has become a synonym for a Cigano, thus
replacing the terms mascate (an ambulant trader) or negociante (a trader)
used over the past two centuries, and the term gringo (a foreign ambulant
trader) from the seventeenth century. I suggest that the emergence of
moneylending as a recognised Calon specialisation—a niche—in recent
decades has to be understood as a transformation and intensification of
their previous activities, of ‘trocas e barganhas’.
In the Bahian interior of today, Ciganos represent one source of credit.
German anthropologist Elisabeth Thiele refers to them as an ‘informal
6 M. Fotta
bank’ (2008: 144), while an article from the 2005 financial section of
Folha de São Paulo dubbed them ‘the bankers’ of the Bahian sertão (the
semi-arid hinterland).2 The article describes how for the agave farmers in
Valente, a town about 300 kilometres from where I did my fieldwork,
Ciganos represented an important source of credit, second only to the
agave merchants who owned storage spaces and organised crop transport.
The merchants paid against the future crop, thus financing the planting.
Other sources of credit—banks and a co-operative—were not popular;
the cooperative did not even spend the money allocated to it by the fed-
eral government. Dealing with Ciganos did not require any bureaucracy
of the farmers, although their interest rates were considered ‘high’—‘10
on every 100’ per month. The farmers knew that Ciganos could be found
on the main street, although many preferred to deal with them in the
evening when nobody could see them. In Valente, stories circulated about
those who ‘lost everything’ to Ciganos. These are quite common views, in
my experience.
While in the past Ciganos were seen primarily as ambulant traders of
animals and other goods, there are indications that in other periods and
places, they were also known to lend money on interest. A 1957 diction-
ary of slang from Rio de Janeiro (Viotti 1957) provides under the entry
cigano, among other, two definitions that refer to a moneylender—agiota
and onzeneiro. Onzeneiro is derived from onze (eleven)—a percentage of
an interest rate—and dates back to at least sixteenth-century Portugal.
Other synonyms in the dictionary—sovina (miser) and espertalhão (‘con-
fidence man’)—also point to a perception of Ciganos as people involved
with money and money speculation in a way that violates norms of
appropriate sociability. In Rio de Janeiro, evidence of Cigano moneylend-
ing indeed goes back further. José Rabello, a Cigano, was one of the city’s
richest inhabitants at the beginning of the nineteenth century; among
other things, he organised ‘Gypsy festivities’ for the Royal Court. Vivaldo
Coaracy (1965: 74) writes that ‘Rabello, who received a position in the
military, dedicated himself to financial and bank operations. In other
words, he was a prestamista. On interest, naturally.’ A rumour circulated
in Rio de Janeiro that Rabello had so many golden bricks hidden in his
house that the ceiling collapsed under their weight—a legend that ‘was
probably invented by some of his clients’, Coaracy concludes (ibid.). In
Rio de Janeiro, such moneymaking activities were also connected with

the role of Ciganos as meirinhos, lower court officials, a profession that
was passed on hereditarily until the 1950s (Mello et al. 2004). Writing at
the end of the nineteenth century, Moraes Filho notes that ‘they were the
Ciganos of Cidade Nova [a Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood] who showed
off, the old justice officers, who set up home in the gallery underneath the
terrace, waiting for notifications of court orders and writs of garnishment’
(1904: 141).
For my purposes, however, it is important to note that the position of
Ciganos in Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century was unique (Fotta
n.d.). Not only do Ciganos in Bahia of the period come across in histori-
cal sources as poorer and less influential, there is also no explicit mention
of moneylending activities. Rather, until very recently, they were consis-
tently seen throughout the Brazilian northeast as small-time ambulant
traders and resellers of animals, trinkets, and also slaves during the time
of slavery. This does not mean, however, that Ciganos did not lend money
on interest, especially when one takes into account that until very recently
most trade throughout Brazil was done on credit. In Os Ciganos No Brasil
Moraes Filho reproduces a journal article from 1885, which describes an
arrival to a town in the state of São Paulo of Ciganos who, ‘it seems, have
become rich through trading with animals [negócio de animais]’ (1886:
192). The article then goes on to explain that ‘it is certain that it was
usura that has brought about this ambulant wealth’ (ibid. 193). Usura
here is used not in its current restricted sense of monetary loans made
against excessive interests, but to interest rates involved in transactions
more generally. ‘To conclude’, the article sums up, ‘this entourage goes
from land to land trading [negociando] with animals, slaves and with “the
future” of those who are not Ciganos, but who are being ignorant [incau-
tos].’ The word prestamista, with which Coaracy describes Rabello’s occu-
pation, has been used in northeastern Brazil to denote an ambulant trader
who sells his goods on instalments, prestações.
Indeed, the project of the Portuguese maritime empire was based on a
dense net of debt relations into which Ciganos entered on various terms.
Just a paragraph above his description of Cigano slave merchants in the
Valongo wharf in Rio de Janeiro during the first half of the nineteenth
century, English chaplain Robert Walsh (1831: 322) notes that slaves
8 M. Fotta
were sold on credit for up to ten years. And in a commentary to his paint-
ing Boutique de la rue du Valongo (1839), which depicts a Cigano trader
with a buyer from the state of Minas Gerais, the French painter Jacques
Debret discusses the difference between buying on credit and with cash:
‘[D]ue to the depreciation of paper money [papel moeda] over time the
price of a negro [bought on credit] becomes doubled, but the inhabitants
of São Paulo or Minas with ready cash [com dinheiro na mão], buy him
for the exchange rate of the day’ (Debret 1975: 190). In the eighteenth
century, on the other side of the Atlantic, bush traders in Angola—many
of whom were exiled Ciganos and Jews persecuted in Portugal and shut
out from other opportunities—accepted goods on credit from Portuguese
merchants in ports before going into the interior (Miller 1993: 126,
141).
This suggests that the emergence of the present-day Cigano money-
lending specialisation has its origins in a general economy of credit. In
this respect, it could be seen as a continuation and intensification of an
aspect of their activities which had previously been grouped under the
label of negócio, which was itself understood as form of usura. Until a few
decades ago, owing to a general cash shortage and the character of the
agricultural cycle—in which cash from selling crops alternated with a
lack of cash—the majority of animals in Bahia were bought and sold on
credit (fiado). The debt relations went in both directions: When Manuel,
a Calon man, died in 1985, his older sons paid his debts to a farmer from
whom Manuel had bought animals through fiado because they wanted to
continue dealing with him. This is also how an owner of both a small bus
company and a small farm (fazenda) near Santaluz, himself a client of a
few Calon, saw it: his family used to buy animals, mostly on credit, from
Ciganos who frequently camped on the family’s property, and this is how
they became agiotas over time.
The shift towards the core economic activity of today’s Calon men—
lending money on interest without any mediation by objects—is accom-
panied by a shift in the content of the prevalent image of Ciganos from
nomadic traders to agiotas who inhabit houses. Both must be seen in the
context of socio-economic changes. Measures that stabilised the currency
in the mid-1990s under the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
followed by the policies under the Workers’ Party governments between
2003 and 2016—including an increased minimum wage, the expansion

of formal-sector employment, and the broadening of access to official
credit—led not only to a period of economic growth, but also trans-
formed production and consumption across Brazil. Although, since 2014
these developments have given way to both economic and political crises
and recession, the preceding decade—during which most of the ethno-
graphic research on which this book based occurred—had witnessed the
forging of the mass consumer society and the expansion of financial
services.
All of this has impacted the ways in which Calon position themselves
within the local economy and assimilate it into their sociality. As one
Calon man explained to me, after ‘Lula’ (a popular name for Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva) became president it became difficult for Ciganos to trade;
their only option was to lend money on interest. In other words, money-
lending as the Calon economic occupation or the way it is organised can-
not be appreciated without taking into account the culturally and
historically contingent context in which it belongs. I will try to character-
ise this milieu by returning to my discussion with Gilson.
‘Gypsies Are Not the Only Moneylenders’

‘But Ciganos are not the only agiotas’, Gilson remarked after he had fin-
ished telling me about his experience with Orlando. I had come to know
this by then. Ciganos were marginal to informal moneylending in
Santaluz—in fact, many could barely make a living in this way. In the
town, the biggest agiotas were non-Gypsies. A few were shopkeepers—to
a greater or lesser extent, all independent shopkeepers extended credit to
their customers and lent money on interest. Other agiotas combined
moneylending with other activities, such as running gambling parlours.
When Galeguinho, the richest non-Gypsy agiota in Santaluz, was impris-
oned for drug trafficking, rumour had it that the police found 3000 cards
in his house—both bank cards and those for Bolsa Família, a targeted
conditional family grant for the country’s poorest households.
Gilson, too, had experiences with non-Gypsy agiotas. In 2000, his
mother had borrowed R$100 from Seu Raimundo, probably the
10 M. Fotta
second-biggest moneylender in Santaluz, using Gilson’s cheque as col-

lateral. For the next few months, she kept paying only the interest, and
after a year gave Seu Raimundo another cheque from Gilson. His
mother never managed to pay back the loan in full; in 2003 she had a
stroke. A few months later, Seu Raimundo asked Gilson for a new
cheque telling him that his mother’s debt had risen to R$1800. Gilson
managed to get away with paying only half of the sum by arguing,
according to him, that it was not his debt and that if Seu Raimundo
insisted that he pay, he would notify the police.
Besides these known agiotas, many people—like Gilson’s friend who
brought him to Orlando—lend money on interest. This happens usually
within networks of acquaintances and neighbours. ‘They tried to involve
me in agiotagem [moneylending] too’, Gilson told me. This was in 2007
or so, when another friend of his had asked him for a loan. Since Gilson
had just received a larger sum—an accumulation of several delayed sala-
ries from the municipal school—he agreed.
‘Ten percent, isn’t it, Gilson?’ confirmed the friend when she came to
pay back the loan.
‘I am not an agiota. You pay me only the rate of inflation’, he appar-
ently told her, appalled. The grateful friend then suggested that she could
arrange for him to lend money to people, but that the interest rate should
be ‘at least at 10 percent’. Gilson declined.
Gilson insisted that he did not know anything about his mother’s loan
from Seu Raimundo and believed that she would have been given a loan
from a bank: she was receiving a widow’s pension, had a bank account,
and the bank director was her friend. He thought that she must have
needed the money urgently and the bank required a lot of paperwork. At
that period in history, however, only a small minority of Brazilians were
applying for bank loans, and more than 60 per cent of those applications
were rejected (Lavinas 2017: 90). Things have changed radically since
then, as we will see presently.
Most people in small-town and rural Bahia talk of a credit from agiotas
as ‘fast money’ and ‘without any bureaucracy’ which does not require
proof of income. It should also be stressed that agiotas are not only a last-
resort source of credit. Politicians, landowners, and members of the lower
middle classes approach them because they have their own projects and
visions of gains, often preferring the personalised nature of loans from

informal moneylenders. Although people like Gilson can—and do—
borrow from banks, Gilson doubted that banks were very much better.
While their monthly interest was lower, as the payment was extended for
longer periods, he thought that one ended up paying almost the same
amount. In 2015, average rates for consumer credit stood at 139.78 per
cent per annum, and the average length of a loan was 50 months (ibid.:
94). In the case of consigned, or payroll, credit (crédito consignado), the
interest rate was fixed to 2.14 per cent per month, with loans that
extended between 36 and 80 months. Moreover, for consigned credit,
one has no control over payments, since these are deducted directly from
one’s paycheques or pensions and the terms cannot be renegotiated. There
is also a limit to how much one can borrow; officially, only 35 per cent of
one’s salary can be tied up with such credit. This was the problem for
Gilson’s sister in 2009. According to Gilson, she had too many credit
cards; because too much of her salary was tied up in consigned credit, she
had no other option but to borrow from him.
Gilson was convinced that most teachers borrowed from agiotas at one
point or another. Generally speaking, he was probably correct. Between
2003 and 2013, many teachers, municipal employees, and those formally
employed came to form what was dubbed as the ‘new middle class’ (nova
classe média), composed of the ‘previously poor’ (Klein et al. 2018) who
moved up the income bracket (Neri 2008). However, even during the
period of economic growth between 2005 and 2010, whether because
they had exhausted their official credit possibilities or because they did
not want to subject themselves to a bank regime, they sometimes turned
to moneylenders. Yet today, as then, many find themselves in a
predicament where they cannot pay. ‘I know one [teacher] from whose
house a Cigano took a kitchen blender’, Gilson said.
Ultimately, this occurs because, in Gilson’s theory, ‘many people have
problems with SPC and Serasa’ after they fail to pay their credit card
debts or debts in stores. SPC and Serasa are credit reference agencies that
register people with late credit payments; today, at the height of the eco-
nomic recession, 30 per cent of Brazilian adults are listed with them.3
Even back in 2009, if people’s names were ‘dirty on the square’ (nomes
sujos na praça)—that is, if they were on these agencies’ lists—stores or
12 M. Fotta
banks would not provide them with more credit. Gilson explained, ‘Only
financeiras [credit institutions and financial companies] lend to them.
And this is taken directly from their bank accounts. There is no way one
can avoid paying it. So it is much easier [to borrow from an agiota]’.
The point I want to make here is this: in order to understand the sta-
bilisation of the Cigano moneylending niche, we have to take into
account not only the history of Calon integration into the local Bahian
economy, but also the place of this ethnic credit institution within the
dense environment of monetary flows and credit modalities. This envi-
ronment has been radically reshaped in the last 15 years thanks to the
state-led expansion of financial services.
xpansion of Credit Under Social

E
Developmentalism
The economic and financial policies of Workers’ Party governments
(2003–2016) under President Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff
combined extractivism with the promotion of consumption. The aim of
this ‘social developmentalism’, or ‘Lulism’ (Singer 2012), a form of
inward-looking developmentalist politics that relies on the central role of
the state, was to overcome Brazil’s underdevelopment through acting
upon a relationship between income distribution and economic growth:
expansion within the domestic market in combination with new finan-
cial infrastructure was expected to lead to new investment and innova-
tion (Lavinas 2017: 17–70). Key moves of social developmentalism of
the period included increases in the state-regulated minimum wage, to
which pensions, formally, and wages in the informal sector, customarily,
are pegged; the formalisation of employment and expansion of the for-
mal sector; tax breaks on certain durables; tax incentives and tax credits
which fostered transition to private and finance-based provision of social
services (especially in the areas of healthcare and higher education);
expansion of credit to a broad strata of society; and the creation of means-
tested social assistance programmes.
In this way, the Brazilian state stimulated consumption through poli-
cies that broadened access to credit and altered the financial environ-
ment. One of the earliest and most influential of Lula’s financial

interventions, the development of consigned credit—which made low-
interest credit available to state employees and pensioners—played an
important role in the expansion of consumer credit. The government also
supported targeted productive microcredit through secondary institu-
tions, such as fishermen’s and agricultural cooperatives and syndicates.
Last but not least, there was a project of ‘financial inclusion’ or ‘bankari-
sation’ of those who until that point had stood outside of formal financial
services. This was tied to the expansion of social assistance policies, such
as the creation of the Bolsa Família programme (see also Badue and
Ribeiro 2018). The banking system became a prime means for people to
access their salaries, pensions, and welfare and retirement benefits. New
simplified bank accounts were established for people with low income,
while new bank branches were opened across the country. Bank account
ownership, a benefit, a formal salary, or a university grant in turn allowed
people to open credit lines in chain stores.
The successes of these politics of growth are undeniable. With about
13.6 million families enrolled, Bolsa Família is currently the largest con-
ditional cash programme in the world.4 Between 2003 and 2014, levels
of inequality, as measured by the Gini index, lowered, although there has
been a resurgence of inequality during the current crisis (Lavinas 2017:
21–22). Officially, during the same period the proportion of those living
under the poverty line decreased from 23.4 per cent to 7 per cent.5
Moreover, 35.5 million people joined the middle-income sectors of the
population, especially its lowest rungs—the so-called class C. In the
northeast, which includes some of the poorest regions in Brazil, classes C
and D increased by 80 per cent between 2003 and 2009.6 Media and
analysts started speaking of the ‘new middle class’, thus announcing
Brazil’s coming of age and its entrance among middle-class nations (Neri
2008). In my discussions with people during these years, there was a pal-
pable sense of confidence and optimism which translated into their con-
sumption and their plans.
Social developmentalism led to the creation of the mass-consumption
society, while growing domestic demand helped the country to buffer
the global economic crisis of 2008. Between 2003 and 2014, household
14 M. Fotta
consumption was one of the main drivers of Brazilian economic growth,

representing, on average, 61 per cent of the GDP (Lavinas 2017: 48). A
central role in these developments was played by the increase and broad-
ening of the credit supply—while the wage bill grew 5 per cent annually,
individual credit expanded 13.8 per cent and consumer credit 11.5 per
cent. Total consumer loans rose sixfold, from 22 per cent of the GDP in
2003 to 60 per cent in 2015 (ibid.: 48–49). In a related move, between
2004 and 2011 ‘bank credit cards have tripled, to 159.5 million, and
retailer cards have nearly quadrupled, to 233.5 million. The average
interest rate on credit cards is 238 per cent annually, while loans from
retailers cost 85 per cent, and personal loans from banks 47 per cent.’7
This has resulted in a growing overindebtedness and a debt-to-income
ratio of 65 per cent in 2014 (ibid.: 49).
Despite all of these developments, the reindustrialisation of the coun-
try did not happen. As Lena Lavinas (2017) argues, a mass-consumption
society was forged without fundamentally altering the country’s produc-
tive and social structure. Quite on the contrary, it was built on, and
reproduced, internal heterogeneity and segmentation. Indeed, whether
the ‘emerging middle classes’ are middle classes at all is debatable (Klein
et al. 2018). Many, like Gilson’s sister, enter the labour market with earn-
ings slightly higher than the minimum wage, which, in combination
with their lack of savings, hinders their effort to keep up their newly
acquired lifestyle. The lower middle sectors are responsible for most
credit, as well as consumer debt defaults in the interior. A large portion of
their salaries is tied up with consigned credit—about a fifth of loans are
paid through direct deduction from paycheques.8
F inancialisation of Daily Life in Small-Town

Bahia
Today in towns like Santaluz various forms of credit exist (as well as of
savings and insurance): official loans from banks and financeiras; lines of
credit available at large stores; credit cards from retail chains and tele-
phone companies; fiado purchases in neighbourhood shops; advanced or
other credit from patrons, merchants, and agrarian syndicates; loans from
agiotas; cash and loans from communal institutions such as religious
cooperatives; money (cash or credit) from a variety of communal institu-
tions which go by the names of caixinhas, consórcios, bingos, balaidos, cam-
panhas, and so on. Within this universe, Ciganos are one source of credit
among many.
Although forms of credit differ—some involve two parties, others are
communitarian; some have existed for generations and some are new;
some are built on the ideology of personalised trust while others are
impersonal—most rely on, or take into account in one way or another,
the official financial infrastructure. Many credit modalities were created
by the state’s direct intervention in the financial market. Locally, these
stimulated new kinds of debts and specialisations. Official modalities of
credit and novel monetary flows also combined, influencing more cus-
tomary forms of credit and debt. Take, for instance, purchases that are
fiado (on trust), commonly practised with one’s local shop or merchant.
In the mid-twentieth century, American sociologist Donald Pierson
(1948: 98) noticed, in a town in the interior of the state of São Paulo, on
the wall of one bar ‘a piece of paper on which is printed, in pencil, in large
letters, the following verse’. In his translation:
O fiado me da penas Credit brings me worry

As penas me da cuidado My worries cause me pain
Para aliviar-me penas To relieve myself of worry
Não posso vender fiado I cannot sell on credit
Pierson observed that such posters against fiado were common and, as
a witness to the modernisation of the interior, he interpreted them as
‘[recent half-hearted] efforts to limit the amount of credit extended’
(ibid.). Sixty years later, however, shops in Santaluz still have posters
against fiado. Some are creative, while others, like the one in the bar São
Jorge where Gilson is a regular customer, are blunt: ‘Fiado suspended.’
And just like in Pierson’s era, shopkeepers invariably complain about it.
Indeed, these complaints strengthen the ideology of personalism. Similar
to the Haitian pratik (Mintz 1961), Bahian fiado, as an institution of
economic integration—through which, for instance, Ciganos bought
16 M. Fotta
and sold animals in the past—stabilises ties between parties involved,

bringing security to transactions and a certain order to the market (see
also Stecher 1998).
But things have also changed. Gilson, for instance, writes a cheque to
the São Jorge bar on exactly the date when he receives one of his salaries.
Others might set their payments for days when they receive their
pensions or Bolsa Família money. In other words, while in ideology
personalised relations are still involved and some practise fiado in a
‘traditional way’, so to speak, most fiado purchases today are not based
on trust, at least not solely. Rather, confidence between parties is born
from the regularity of income flows or from transactions’ anchorage by
means of formal financial tools. The bulk of the confidence within a
personalised deal couched in the discourse of trust—between a local
shopkeeper and his neighbour, between a moneylender and his
friend—originates with the state and the flows of money formalised by
it. Undoubtedly, this has had positive consequences for increasing the
autonomy of poor people, as it transformed their access to small credit,
as well as the structure of their incomes and the flow of goods and ser-
vices within their communities (Morton 2019).
Both official sources of credit and unofficial moneylenders thus rely on
official infrastructure. Within the conditional cash transfer programme
Bolsa Família, for instance, money comes directly from the state and
requires registration, documents, and bank accounts. Over time, credit
card and other financial services have been added to the programme’s
infrastructure. The implementation of the programme resulted in poor
people’s inclusion in the official financial system and also required an
expansion of the network of state-run banks, ATMs, lottery houses, and
social services. Initiatives such as agricultural lending schemes that pro-
vide productive credit required the establishment of cooperatives and
expansion of bank services. The state registration of Bolsa Família benefi-
ciaries, retirees, or public employees, and the exchange of this informa-
tion with the private financial sector, eliminated costs for the latter
(Lavinas 2017: 93).
While creating opportunities for the formal sectors, the formalisation
and the creation of this financial infrastructure created new alignments
that have come with their own modalities of diversion. People can have
their money discounted from their bank accounts, but they can also leave
pre-dated cheques or bankcards with agiotas. They also collaterise their
regular cash from the government informally. A friend of mine living in
Santaluz, a single mother who normally earns money doing odd cleaning
jobs, pawned her Bolsa Família card to agiota Galeguinho for a lump sum
of cash. On the date when she received the money, Galeguinho’s right-
hand man met her at a bank with her card, debited the whole grant,
discounted the instalment, and handed her the rest. The moneylender
kept the card until the principal was paid off—several months later than
she had originally planned. People who are better off are expected not
only to help their relatives and friends, but also to use their income as
capital in moneylending ventures. Still others can attempt to divert at
least some money from such arrangements, like Gilson’s amigos who were
hoping to get a commission or a cut on his deals: the first for arranging
the loan from a Cigano, the second for finding clients to whom Gilson
could lend money. Gilson had also served as a guarantor in a bank loan
to others. He only learnt that our common friend did not pay such a loan
when he found out that the daily limits on his credit card and cheque
especial9 were lowered. In all of this, his relatively high salary from the
state served as the ultimate collateral.
While navigating their ‘dense financial lives’ (Abramovay 2004),
whether they are searching for opportunities for gain or because they are
paying off non-negotiable debts, Bahians rely on various sources of credit.
Ciganos are an integral part of this distributional regime in which both
official and unofficial credit institutions increasingly tap into people’s
bank accounts or into at least partially formalised flows of money (James
2015). It is the changes of this regime that underpin the rise of a recogni-
sable Cigano niche. It is also here where the ambiguity of the current
popular view of Ciganos rests.
Cigano Moneylending Niche

Calon moneylending depends on common Bahian views about money and
intimacy, Ciganos and their moneymaking activities. Calon manipulate a
folk image of ‘Ciganos’ as standing outside of established social relations,
18 M. Fotta
especially those of social debt and reciprocities—defined by dynamics such

as patronage, amizade (friendship), favor (a kindness; service), and consid-
eração (consideration)—that lie at the heart of s mall-town and rural social-
ity. Today, their position emerges from the system itself, in which, through
an ever-increasing field of state intervention and formalisation, wealth
flows and forms are being redefined and traditional regimes of value and
locally sanctioned debts and forms of distribution unsettled. People might
end up giving Ciganos their salaries or pre-dated cheques when faced with
non-negotiable and non-optative obligations backed up by the state or
when they need money to pay back a loan in a financeira. Conversely, they
might also take out a loan from a bank or sell some of their property in
order to pay their debts to Ciganos. Or they might not be combining credit
modalities at all, but only think that the interest rate is unjustified. Either
way, they end up seeing Ciganos as benefiting from their own liability and
as being somehow aligned with the formal financial sector against the inter-
ests of their households.
Generally speaking, interests on loans (empréstimos) that Calon make
to Jurons follow a temporal algorithm that is characteristic of the region.
Smaller loans carry higher monthly interests, while more spectacular
loans are usually calculated in years and for lower interest in relative
terms. Deals are often stabilised by promissory notes (notas promisórias),
a practice common in the region, especially with shopkeepers. And, more
or less explicitly, loans are backed up by a threat of physical violence and
the impossibility of borrowing later if the agreement is violated. All these
aspects—traditional views of Ciganos, customary modes of calculating
interest, social distance, and so on—give Ciganos-as-a-niche its temporary
stability, its ‘objectivity’ of a social form (Simmel 1972).
The term ‘niche’ as I use it here, however, does not primarily refer to
the specificity of a Romani mode of making a living through exploiting
temporary opportunities or those that others refuse or fail to cover (e.g.
Okely 1979; Gmelch and Gmelch 1987; Rao 1987). Rather, the niche
highlights a named specialist production, with specific standards, exper-
tise, and definitions, fully embedded in the commercial economy (Guyer
1997; 2004b). It belongs to an emergent-economy Brazil where life has
become increasingly financialised, but it is stabilised and made meaning-
ful by Calon practices. Calon value autonomous ways of making money,
often referred to as a negócio (business, deal)—an orientation similar to

that of other Romani communities (for overviews, see Gmelch 1986;
Brazzabeni et al. 2016b). Although the term includes all sorts of b uying
and selling, today, consistent with the shift in the core of Calon economic
practices, it refers primarily to lending money on interest. The Calon
meaning of negócio is contiguous to the regionally dominant view, while
their use of notions such as ‘the street’ (rua), ‘movement’ (movimento), or
‘future’ (futuro) that accompany it refract common sensibilities across the
Brazilian northeast. At the same time, however, Calon give these concepts
a different connotation, which belongs to a different form of relating to
and being in the world. In other words, the Calon specialisation as agiotas
is not totally explainable by reference to the broader context. Rather, it
requires an understanding of how their moneymaking activities relate to
their social organisation and socio-cosmology.
At the core of this linking of social and physical space in time, of the
reorienting of individual subjectivities and marking of communal bound-
aries through credit and debt (Peebles 2010), lie households. A Calon
niche, as an interstice maintained in the midst of Jurons, can also be imag-
ined as an archipelago of such household-centric spaces. The capacities of
money, on the one hand, to transgress and negotiate distance and close-
ness and in this way to objectify the external activities of the subject
(Simmel 1990), and, on the other, to function as a ‘memory bank’ (Hart
2000)—that is, to stabilise personal identity in time and space through
linking one’s desires to those of others—are central to these processes.
Households create an imperative for Calon men to go out into ‘the street’
and multiply their transactions. Among Bahian Calon, a husband’s capac-
ity to seize and create such opportunities is sometimes glossed over as
‘making the future’ (fazer futuro). Money in circulation inscribes the space
of a man’s potency, his strength (força): small loans criss-cross settlements,
deferred agonistic payments constantly represent moments in which his
manhood and equality with other Calon can be demonstrated, and loans
to Jurons are a source of subsistence and reflect his skills. The sociological
intention, so to speak, behind his economic activities is to ‘establish’ (esta-
belecer) himself—to be recognised and respected by others and to live in a
grounded manner (viver apoiado). The successful weddings of one’s chil-
dren become the ultimate proof of one’s efficacy as a moneylender.
20 M. Fotta
Mapping the Terminology

One’s positionality in transactions plays a central role. A Calon needs to
demonstrate conhecimento (knowledge), that is, how to relate to others
properly (Vilar 2016). As a consequence, there is a difference between a
Calon man lending money to a Juron and the same man lending to
another Calon. When lending money to the former, the man takes into
account non-Gypsy views of Ciganos. Deals between two Calon are con-
trasted with non-Gypsy sociality and morality as Calon see it and with
the kinds of relations that Calon should maintain with non-Gypsies. This
is not simply a question of ethnic boundary-marking, as if the creation of
such a boundary was the purpose of life, but is the very process through
which Calon remain Calon—through which they continue leading a
vida do Cigano.
The following excerpt illustrates what is at stake:
From a strictly semantic point of view, the distinction Roma/Gaĝe [non-

Gypsy] does not correspond exactly to that of Gypsies/non-Gypsies. The
area denoted by the term Roma, as it is used by a Rom, and of the term
Gypsies, as it is used by a non-Gypsy, intersect for a large part, but they do
not correspond totally. To this semantic discontinuity corresponds a far
more important gap in perceptions: For a Rom the Roma/Gaĝe distinction
is the fundamental distinction; the Gaĝe are the ‘outside’ by definition. For
a non-Gypsy, the Gypsy is an ‘other’ among many, a ‘marginal man’ among
many, a bit of folklore among many; in our case, a thief among many. The
perceptions are asymmetrical and they reflect the way of life of the Roma
in respect to the Gaĝe. (Zatta and Piasere 1990: 165)
The authors distinguish between the idea of an ethnic group (a non-

Gypsy view), on the one hand, and adherence to a Roma way of life and
forms of evaluating behaviour where the Gaĝe serve as the ‘outside’ (a
Roma view), on the other. Among Calon, ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ are marked
by different exchange relations and modes of circulation. Moneylending
is thus not only about making a living, but refracts ontological premises
of a Calon lifeworld. To summarise, there exist two main ways of marking
a difference, which depend on the context and result in an exploitable
conceptual discontinuity and a gap in perceptions.
Broadly speaking, for any Calon individual there is a context-related

difference between talking about oneself as Cigano (masc.) or Cigana
(fem.), on the one hand, and as Calon (masc.) or Calin (fem.), on the
other. Although Calon use both sets of terms, I have witnessed their non-
Gypsy neighbours in Bahia use only the term Ciganos. Therefore,
throughout this book, whenever I speak from a non-Gypsy point of view
or want to describe interactions involving non-Gypsies as if from a dis-
tance, I use the term Cigano(s) or Cigana(s) and their derivatives. While
in many parts of Europe (but not everywhere and not for all communi-
ties), the equivalent term ‘Gypsy’ is rejected as derogatory and the term
‘Roma’ is preferred, in Brazil Cigano(s) is the term of choice of political
recognition. At federal and state levels, ‘Ciganos’ is the term used to rec-
ognise this group, albeit tentatively, among so-called traditional peoples
and communities. While this potentially opens up a space for specific
public policies and interventions (e.g. Lima and Dolabela 2016), it has
not impacted the Calon described in this ethnography. Therefore, when-
ever I use the word ‘Gypsies’ throughout the book, I follow local prefer-
ences; in no way should this be interpreted as an attempt to police the
self-designation of Romanies in general. For this reason, while for com-
parative purposes I use the term ‘Gypsies’ more or less interchangeably
with ‘Romanies’ or ‘Romani people’—that is, those communities who
speak some sort of Romani or para-Romani—whenever possible I try to
use the latter term, which seems to me to be more neutral. On the other
hand, whenever the book discusses the personhood and sociality of the
specific community of Bahian Ciganos among whom I did my research,
I use the term ‘Calon’ and its derivatives. I also use the term as a name for
a specific population of Romanies in Brazil alongside others that might
be encountered in the country, such as the Roma Kalderash or Portugueses
Ciganos.
The Calon in Bahia use various terms to describe non-Gypsies.
Whenever possible, I have reduced them, for the sake of readability, to
two: Juron(s) or Jurin(s), on the one hand, which is used most com-
monly among the Calon, and ‘non-Gypsy’/‘non-Gypsies’, on the other,
which I use for analytic and comparative purposes. This use mirrors the
logic described above. For the sake of completeness, however, let me
note that most non-Gypsies in Bahia know or think that Ciganos call
22 M. Fotta
them Gajão (also written as Gajon) and its derivations (such as the femi-
nine Gajona, Gajin, Gajinha). It can be used by Calon as a form of
address marking ethnic separation, as in ‘Do me a favour, Gajão.’ Non-
Gypsies in Bahia have appropriated this expression and inverted its use,
sometimes addressing Ciganos as Gajons. But the Calon I know hardly
ever use this term. Instead, they use Brasileiro(s) and Juron(s). The terms
are generally interchangeable, although there are slight differences: first,
the terms Juron/Jurin (especially in the singular), and their equivalents
Huron/Hurin or Burnon/Burnin, are the most frequent. Alongside the
word ‘Calon’, these are among the first words that a Calon child learns.
Second, Calon never use this term when addressing, or in the presence
of, non-Gypsies, and most Bahians are ignorant of the fact that they are
Jurons. I was always struck by how policed the use of the term was: talk-
ing among themselves, Calon would refer to a specific non-Gypsy as a
Juron, but a moment later, talking to this very Juron, all non-Gypsies
would become Brasileiros. Third, and related to this, the term Brasileiro(s)
is often used by Calon in the plural in a contrastive way—‘Ciganos are
like this, Brasileiros are like that.’ Fourth, Juron is almost exclusively
used to denote a specific person (or Jurons for a specific group of
non-Gypsies).
Although I have remained a Juronzinho (diminutive) as a foreigner, I
have never been a Brasileiro. All of this speaks to the tension that ani-
mates this book—and Romani studies in general (Williams 2011b)—
between contextualisation and comparison; a tension between seeing
Calon as a community of Brazilian Romanies and seeing them as a
community of Romanies (that happen to live) in Brazil. While
Brasileiro-
Cigano distinction resonates directly with local circum-
stances and specific national histories, Juron-Calon difference is pre-
mised on a different ontology, where a relation to the Juron as the
Other, the ‘outside’ in Piasere’s terms above or ‘the given’ in Ferrari’s
Wagnerian terms (Ferrari 2010; Wagner 1981), is central to the Calon
relating to the world and thus to the creation of the ‘inside’, to their
dwelling in the world. How this is achieved in practice depends on
specific historical circumstances, such as that of financialisation in the
emergent-economy Brazil.
apping the Network, or Chronicles

M
of a Calon Family
Over the last decade and ten fieldwork trips to Bahia, which ranged from
6 weeks to 15 months in duration, I spent time with Calon like Orlando
as well as with non-Gypsies like Gilson. From the very beginning, I was
made aware of the distrust and ambivalence that connected and sepa-
rated the two, even if they greeted each other warmly in the town square.
My Portuguese teacher in Salvador could not understand why I was inter-
ested in Ciganos. She told me about her friend whose household disinte-
grated after the family was threatened by Cigano moneylenders, but
refused to give me any more details.
Santaluz was the starting point for my research. This is where both
Orlando and Gilson lived in 2008 and 2009, although, for reasons
explained later in the book, Orlando has since left the town; however, he
has maintained many clients there. Two hours from Salvador, Santaluz is
a small municipality with a total population of about 25,000, out of
which about 10,000 live in the rural area (zona rural). Santaluz, like the
names of all other small towns mentioned in this book, is a pseudonym;
there is no Santaluz on the Bahian coast. All proper names (as well as ages
and other details) have also been changed to protect people’s anonymity;
composite characters and attribution of statements to different characters
are also used throughout. However, inspired by Ann Sutherland (1986:
ix), I drew from names used by Calon throughout Brazil—so although
one can definitely find Orlando, Paulo, or Renato Cigano, say, online, let
me assure you they are not the characters of this ethnography.
The first time I talked to him in July 2008, as I was explaining to him
the purpose of my research, one of the things Orlando told me was that
if I wanted to live with Ciganos, I had to move to a house near them,
spend time with Ciganos, and my wife should wear Cigana dresses. He
was right in a sense. Although Adriana would not exchange her shorts
and a tank top for too-warm dresses, and kept her hair short to the horror
of her Calin friends, renting a house just opposite Orlando’s and close to
a Calon tent camp, and spending virtually every day with the Calon from
Santaluz, turned out to be crucial for my fieldwork. The street was locally
24 M. Fotta
known as Rua do Cigano (‘Gypsy Street’), as Calon had lived there for
decades. It is the Calon who happened to live on the Rua do Cigano in
2008 or in 2009, and their relatives living in nearby towns, whose lives
are primarily characterised in this book.
One important thing must also be said from the outset. Given my
research focus—male moneymaking activities—and the fact that I spent
most the time with Calon men, the book reflects primarily on male expe-
riences and concerns. It represents my situated and partial understanding
of the way certain Calon men see their world and the place of Calon
within it; this is also how anything that sounds like a generalisation about
‘the’ Calon should be understood. But a reader will not fail to notice the
centrality of wives and households, as well as wives’ involvement in,
influence on, and knowledge of what is presented as husbands’ money-
making activities.
I got to know the extended families of Orlando and his wife Viviane
the best. Throughout 2008, Orlando’s older brother Renato and his old-
est sister Rita lived with their families in the tent camp in Santaluz. Other
members of this extended family were residents of settlements located in
other towns, none of them more than 70 kilometres away (Viviane’s fam-
ily lived in a different region). I spent a great deal of time accompanying
someone or other from this family. Today, in 2018, however, none of the
settlements described in this book exist, although some people continue
to live in the same towns. This is an important point to bear in mind:
although Santaluz was the geographical starting point of my research, as
I got to know Calon, individual towns receded and a different spatial-
ity—one which is much more fluid, but nevertheless lasting and
recognisable—emerged.
Naturally, my understanding of the Calon in Bahia is influenced pri-
marily by what I learnt from Orlando’s family and from other Calon that
I got to know in Santaluz. On the one hand, I am convinced that an
ethnographer cannot enter a Calon social world by other means than
through a particular family, with all the affordances and limits this brings,
unless one goes through a non-Gypsy institution, such as a school, or one
that also involves or targets non-Gypsies, such as a public policy for
Ciganos. The book can therefore also be read as one family’s chronicles.
It is through this family that I learnt about the dilemmas and a mbivalences,
aspirations and values that accompany Calon lives and sociality. There
were Orlando, a rich Calon and a tight-fisted moneylender, and his
imposing wife Viviane, who came from a valiant family, married Orlando
at the age of 13, and whom his siblings blamed for standing between him
and themselves. There was Renato, a gambler who lost his house in cards,
with his rather invisible wife—his third—Joanna. There was the very
poor elderly couple of Paulo, good at giving advice on what is just and
right, and his refined wife Rita. There was the honourable Pancho, who
never had much ‘luck’ in deals, with his shrewd wife Genilsa, the only
one who still owes me money. There were the quiet Beiju, who was said
to have five revenge killings to his name, and his tough but kind wife
Carla, who knew how to recognise a good weapon. There was a man who
enjoyed deals more than anybody else I knew, Zezinho, and his wife Sara,
who was known for her magical skills. There was a grandma Germana,
said to be a hundred years old, who remembered Lampião, a famous
sertão bandit killed in 1938, and who continued to make money through
begging and palmistry. There was another grandma, Fé, whom people
thought mad and who was dependent on others. This is before mention-
ing the generation of Orlando and Viviane’s children; much of the eth-
nography that follows deals with their entry into Calon adulthood.
But maybe that is precisely the point: in a sociality that is not based on
transcendent rules and offices and which relies on individual perfor-
mances, people themselves become indexes of archetypal behaviour and
moral exemplars (Robbins 2015; see also Gay y Blasco 2011). While
none of these people can be said to be the Calon, through their lives and
trajectories, while individualising themselves and gaining recognition
from others, they have realised specific Calon values with their contradic-
tions and appeal, such as unconditional care for one’s relatives, adroit-
ness, or valour. It is these dynamics that give the Calon world its character.
Indeed, the book describes how people’s behaviour is fraught with ten-
sion and the possibilities of multiple interpretations, particularly in the
context of deferred payments. It explores thresholds when behaviour
threatens to slip into something else: When does an unpaid loan become
an abuse of trust? When does it become theft? When does a man’s word
go against the interests of his household and children? When is money-
lending among kin a recognition of autonomy and equality, and when
26 M. Fotta
does it denote dependency, hierarchy, or abuse? When does a man fail to

treat another with respect? Is it an affront to one’s honour, and what
should one do in return?
Since 2008, many people described in this book have passed away.
Although I did not know it then, 2017, my last stay in Bahia, would be
the last time I talked to Orlando’s sisters Sara and Rita, two women whom
Adriana and I were particularly fond of. In 2017, Rita lived in São Bento
not far from her brother Orlando. Her tent was made of an old tarpaulin
that had been torn in many places. Rita and Paulo were one of the poor-
est Calon couples in Santaluz. Apart from an old stove, a bed, two plastic
chairs, and a trunk with some clothes, there was no furniture in the tent.
Paulo lent money only rarely, always in small sums, and sometimes with-
out any gain. The couple depended on Rita’s retirement benefits, since in
2009 Paulo had sold his own to Orlando in order to pay for their son’s
gambling debts. As I sat down with Paulo on that last visit and we
enquired about each other’s families and health, Rita murmured in Calon
Romani to Paulo that he should ask me for some money (manguelar
caden). The proud Paulo dismissed her with a grunt.
The couple had nowhere else to go and were pretty much stuck on this
small lot at the end of the street, ceded by a friendly non-Gypsy: they had
no money, and neither Paulo’s nor Rita’s families wanted their only son,
on whom the couple depended, to live next to them. That agouro aza-
rento, a bad luck omen, as Paulo referred to him then, was again playing
cards or drinking somewhere. When I left after half an hour, Paulo was
still sitting in front of his tent without anybody to talk to; virtually every
day throughout the decade I knew him he had spent sitting on a plastic
chair, but there used to be times when his spot had been in the middle of
a busy settlement with other people around, and often somebody would
sit with him. Rita—and this is my last image of her—was trying to come
up with something for lunch; I gave her R$100 without Paulo knowing
it (Image 1).
Meanwhile, at the other end of the street in front of about a dozen
Calon men, Orlando was negotiating in his house with Castilhomar, a
rich Calon who also lived in São Bento. Orlando was ready to leave the
town and wanted to buy Castilhomar’s house in Volta Redonda. His own
house, which was one of the biggest in this part of São Bento, was all
Image 1 Old Paulo sitting in front of his poor tent. In 2017 it stood at the end of
a street in the neighbourhood in São Bento where most of the Calon from this
town lived
packed up, as was that of his younger son—a small construction within
the same walled yard. Orlando had sold the property for R$130,000 a
few days earlier.
In other words, on the day when Rita told Paulo to ask the visiting
anthropologist for some money, her brother Orlando was given the keys
to a house in Volta Redonda for R$170,000, payable in one year. Whereas
Paulo or his son were not creditable, Castilhomar trusted Orlando’s word,
his moneymaking capabilities, and had a certain idea of how much
money Orlando had in loans, in property, or how much he could make.
While Paulo had no choice but to rely on his son despite the fact that the
latter was unreliable, Orlando was planning his life in Volta Redonda.
Later that day as we drove there, Orlando described how he and his son
would live in a ‘grounded’ or ‘supported’ manner (viver apoiado) there,
which is a Calon idea of a good life: on his own big property, on friendly
28 M. Fotta
terms with the mayor and the neighbours, with most of his big clients in
nearby Santaluz, and, especially, surrounded by people he trusted. Indeed,
immediately after Castilhomar had left, Orlando had called his widowed
sister Sara and asked her to move to the property; this is where I would
encounter her a few weeks later for the last time—on Orlando’s property
living in a tent beside the tent of her daughter. The households of Carla,
another of Orlando’s sisters, and Carla’s son joined them a few months
later.
Organisation of the Book

As Paulo nostalgically explained to me in 2010, in the past Ciganos
were all poor and led itinerant lives, but they shared and helped each
other. The Plano Real, however, ‘started this thing of buying cars and
fridges’. The Plano Real, or the Real Plan, refers to the introduction of
the new currency in 1994 that stabilised prices and put an end to the
hyperinflation that had dominated the previous decades. Eventually, it
laid the ground for the expansion of consumption, economic growth,
and increased monetarisation of daily life in Bahia, which saw Calon
moving into moneylending as their prime moneymaking activity. Some,
like Orlando, succeeded, while others, like Paulo, did not. Their reputa-
tions and opportunities are tied up with the management of monetary
debts, while changes in the mode of living brought with them their own
tensions. Still today, like in the past, to live in a grounded manner—
which denotes a level of autonomy and security but not a geographic
fixity or separateness from one’s relatives—presupposes relationships
with Jurons.
In order to illustrate this connection between Calon sociality and per-
sonhood, on the one hand, and the loans they make and their economic
integration, on the other, this book is divided into two parts, each con-
sisting of three chapters. Chapter 1 gives an account of Calon spatiality
and their non-sedentary relationship to places. It argues that Calon settle-
ments—which emerge around influential men—are unstable assemblages
of conjugal households. Settlements do not possess identities separate
from their denizens and cannot be understood without taking into
account links to other settlements. People readily (and sometimes fre-

quently) move between settlements within the region where their rela-
tives and known Calon live.
Calon non-sedentarist ideology and a lack of fixity cannot be under-
stood without understanding its apparent opposite: people’s continuous
efforts to forge a unique place in the world. Chapter 2, based primarily
on the story of Orlando’s family over two years, reveals the constant effort
that goes into the stabilisation of households, demonstrating how the ties
that make Calon families strong also make them vulnerable. The analysis
focuses on how durable household wealth, associated with wives, and
money, associated with husbands, are implicated in this process. The
amount of money a man has in loans to Jurons registers his relations with
others and condenses his reputation. It is related to lifecycle, in which the
man’s efficacy becomes most visible in the creation of his children’s
households.
Chapter 3 discusses how Calon men gain the attributes of gendered
social persons. It argues that an adult man is expected to be able to dem-
onstrate his valour and back up his claims with physical force whenever
appropriate. He has to be attuned to his environment, ready to seize
opportunities and thereby ‘make the future’ (fazer futuro), which becomes
mapped onto his moneylending activities. Taking care of one’s family and
gaining status within a community requires a proactive stance as well as
interactions with Jurons. At the same time, however, in so doing a Calon
man differentiates himself from those, such as children and Jurons, who
do not ‘know’ how to behave or what leading a (re-)productive life entails,
and from those Ciganos who do not ‘make the future’ anymore because
they are dead (mulon, in Calon Romani).
The second part of the book starts with Chap. 4, which examines how
deferred payments among Calon men co-constitute Calon sociality.
Among Calon, any sale or loan highlights the autonomy and equality of
parties involved, and always results in an agreement for one party to pay
a sum of money in the future. In so doing, it co-constitutes an ever-
changing network of dyadic obligations witnessed by others. Various
types of deferred exchanges create distinct egocentric spaces of interac-
tion: small subsistence loans characterise relations within settlements,
loans defined as ‘help’ (ajuda, apoio) mark relationships between r elatives,
30 M. Fotta
while agonistic ‘deals’ (rolos) are carried out with people from one’s
broader region. At the limit of this network stand one’s enemies and
unknown Ciganos with whom one cannot enter into exchange relation-
ships by definition.
Chapter 5 argues that Calon physical sustenance and societal repro-
duction are premised on the continuation of relationships with Jurons.
Although clients come from all social backgrounds, the majority are
members of the lower middle class. Calon aim to establish one-way flows
of money from long-term non-Gypsy clients to their households and
make use of their reputation as cold-hearted and money-driven in order
to ensure that their loans do not turn into personalised forms of reciproc-
ity. Throughout a household’s lifetime characterised by spatial mobility,
Calon build up a network of clients scattered across a broader geographi-
cal area. Yet loans are often unsuccessful, with the most potentially lucra-
tive able to cause equally spectacular failures.
Chapter 6 synthesises the findings from previous chapters and pro-
poses a comparative framework. The chapter argues that the analysis of
Calon integration into the Bahian economy occurs not through individ-
uals, but through households. It therefore suggests that while the Calon
have been enmeshed in a commercial economy characterised by money
and debt for centuries, their involvement is not best approached through
the prism of the market. Rather, it should be seen as a form of non-
autarkic householding, a concept that Chris Gregory (2009) develops on
the basis of the work of Karl Polanyi. This is a form of economic insertion
of communities that depend on exchange relations with majority societ-
ies, which see them as ‘outsiders’ and from which, at the same time, these
communities differentiate themselves.
Notes
1. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are mine.
2. Billi, Marcelo. No sertão da Bahia, cigano é ‘banqueiro’, Caderno Dinheiro,
Folha de São Paulo, 12.06.2005.
3. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2017/07/1897897-dividas-
poem-61-milhoes-com-nome-sujo-na-praca-recorde-desde-2012.shtml
4. http://www.brasil.gov.br/cidadania-e-justica/2017/03/beneficiarios-
recebem-r-2-4-bilhoes-do-bolsa-familia
5. http://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,combate-a-pobreza-foi-o-
maior-feito-do-pt,10000050641
6. ‘Classe média no Nordeste aumentou 80% em sete anos’, n.d., http://
www.sae.gov.br/novaclassemedia/?p=236
7. Maurer, Harry, and Alexander Ragir, ‘Brazil’s New Middle Class Goes on a
Spree’, Bloomberg Business, 12.5.2011, http://www.businessweek.com/maga-
zine/content/11_21/b4229010792956.htm, last accessed 30 April 2012. See
also Leahy, Joe, ‘Brazil’s tale of two middle classes’, Financial Times, 20.7.2011,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6745ef9a-b1e9-11e0-a06c-00144feabdc0.
html#ixzz1qUd3orss, last accessed 30 April 2012.
8. Maurer, Harry, and Alexander Ragir, ‘Brazil’s New Middle Class Goes on a
Spree’, Bloomberg Business, 12.5.2011, http://www.businessweek.com/maga-
zine/content/11_21/b4229010792956.htm, last accessed 30 April 2012. See
also Leahy, Joe, ‘Brazil’s tale of two middle classes’, Financial Times, 20.7.2011,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6745ef9a-b1e9-11e0-a06c-00144feabdc0.
html#ixzz1qUd3orss, last accessed 30 April 2012.
9. These cheques allow him to go into R$3000 overdraft without any inter-
est if he pays the debt within one week.
Part I
Settlements, Personhood, and the
Centrality of Households
Chapter 1 ‘There Are Ciganos
in the Town’
Two Decades in the Life of a Calon Family

Manuel Borges da Costa was born in the semi-arid hinterland, sertão, but
in the second half of the 1970s he lived in the area that lay within the
so-called agreste zone, located between the market town of Feira de
Santana and the coast with its zona da mata, coastal forest zone. He was
the leader of a small turma—an aggregate of people that live together—
composed of five households: his own, which he inhabited with his wife
and their eight children; that of his widowed mother, who lived alone;
that of his brother and his family; that of his nephew and his wife; and
that of his friend and his family. These Calon made a living primarily
through buying and selling animals for work in sugar mills.
In 1979, Manuel and his wife arranged the marriage of their oldest
son, Jorge, near Salgado, about 300 kilometres south. They planned to
return to the coast after the wedding, but when the town’s mayor sug-
gested that they settle there, Manuel accepted. He started building two
houses—for his family and for Jorge. Soon, Mariazinha, his second-eldest
child and oldest daughter, also married. She married Claudio, her
cousin—her father’s sister’s son.
© The Author(s) 2018 35

M. Fotta, From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending in the Era of Financial Inclusion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96409-6_2
36 M. Fotta
The newlyweds lived in a neighbouring town alongside Claudio’s fam-

ily until, about two years later, they suddenly appeared at Manuel’s house.
They explained that Claudio had gotten into an argument with his father,
Eraldo, and pulled a gun on his father. His mother had stepped between
them and was hit by a bullet. Claudio swore that he had not meant to
shoot her. Manuel arranged for the couple to hide at an acquaintance’s
farm for some time. His sister—Claudio’s mother—died the next day.
Manuel’s oldest sons, who had never liked Claudio, were against
Claudio and Mariazinha joining their turma. Manuel also suggested that
Mariazinha leave her husband, as they did not have any children yet, but
she refused.
The couple moved to a town about 200 kilometres away. About a year
later, Manuel learnt that Mariazinha was being abused by Claudio and
that he had beaten her even after she had become pregnant. Manuel and
his second-eldest son, Giovanni, drove to do something about the situa-
tion. When they arrived, they first talked to other Calon in the area, who
confirmed the rumours. Manuel then invited Mariazinha to leave with
them, bringing her baby as well. If she did not come, he warned her, he
would never set foot into her tent again, as he did not want to see her
suffer. She accepted.
A few months later, in June 1984, Claudio was killed in a bar fight.
Eraldo, Claudio’s father, blamed Manuel for his son’s death. The way he
saw it, Manuel was responsible, as Claudio had become uncontrollable
after Mariazinha left him. To avenge his son, Eraldo killed Manuel in
March 1985 at the marketplace in Salguerio. Within a few days, Manuel’s
turma moved from Salgado to neighbouring Brejo Santo, where they
built new houses and tents. A few months later, Manuel’s oldest sons, who
were especially angered by their father’s murder, arranged for Eraldo to be
killed in prison, where he had been incarcerated on unrelated charges.
The turma, now headed by Giovanni, lived in Brejo Santo for the next
12 years. In 1997, during a wedding in their family, a local councillor
started claiming that one of Giovanni’s cousins had bought a gun from
him, but had never paid for it. In the midst of a row that followed, the
non-Gypsy was shot dead. The family of the late Manuel fled immedi-
ately, eventually returning to the humid coast.
* * *
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Après ces derniers mots, prononcés d’un ton de sentimentalité
ironique, elle redevint sérieuse.
— Si vous saviez ce que je souffre à toute heure, dans mon
légitime orgueil !… Voyons, dites, est-ce que ces mains-là sont faites
pour la couture — dites franchement, — ou pour le balai ?
Il les prit et les baisa.
— Est-ce que ces lèvres-là sont faites pour souffler la poussière
dans l’angle des étagères à bibelots ?
Il l’attira vers lui et il baisa ses lèvres qui demeurèrent froides et
immobiles.
Quand il eut fini, elle éclata de rire.
— Les mains, les lèvres, fit-elle… je n’ajouterai rien, ni vous non
plus… En voilà assez. C’est très agréable, mais il ne faut plus. Nous
avons abusé de ça quand nous étions jeunes ! A partir d’aujourd’hui,
je me range… Je comprends trop le danger !… Pour une jeune fille,
ça serait la ruine !… »
Léon eut un élan de toute sa personne vers la coquette fille qui,
un doigt sur les lèvres, posa sur la bouche du jeune homme son
autre main, avec laquelle elle le repoussa, en lui disant : « Chut !
soyez sage ! Allons, c’est assez. »
Il se calma.
— Ce qui me fait le plus souffrir, le croiriez-vous, c’est mon père ?
Le père vivait alors. Il mourut trois ans plus tard, comme elle
avait vingt ans.
— Vous n’imaginez pas à quel point il est commun ! Je sais bien
qu’il travaille de son mieux pour gagner un peu de ce malheureux
argent. Mais n’aurait-il pas pu trouver le moyen d’en gagner
davantage et vite ? Est-ce que, par le temps qui court, on ne peut
pas s’endormir pauvre et se réveiller millionnaire ? Qu’est-ce qu’il
faut pour ça ? De l’audace… encore de l’audace ! Et quand on a des
filles à marier, c’est une honte de ne pas penser à l’argent avant
tout ! Lui, c’est un poltron. Nous sommes à une époque d’égalité,
n’est-ce pas ? Eh bien ! je ne vois pas pourquoi, plus belle que la fille
du marquis de Lagrène ou du ministre Durandeau, par exemple, —
je ne serais pas aussi bien mise qu’elles… Alors ? — Eh bien ! non, il
travaille chez un notaire, — dont il fait toute la besogne, il est vrai, —
mais il gagne cinq mille francs à cette besogne sans prestige, cinq
mille francs qui disparaîtront avec lui !… C’est indigne, au fond !
Savez-vous ce qu’il nous laissera pour tout potage ? Trois mille livres
de rente, — ce qui, joint à la dot de ma mère, nous fera cinq mille. —
Et il y a ma sœur… Celle-là, j’espère bien, puisqu’elle à un métier,
me laissera sa part. Je m’arrangerai pour ça au besoin… Toutes les
valeurs sont au porteur… Laide comme elle est, qu’a-t-elle besoin
d’argent ?… Ah ! elle fera bien de renoncer à l’amour, celle-là ! »
Tout cela n’était pas d’une âme généreuse, mais Monsieur Léon
écoutait ce langage sans sourciller. Il n’avait pas de surprise. Il avait
vu se former cette personne morale, jour par jour, depuis leur petite
enfance. D’ailleurs, n’est-ce pas là, songeait-il, le train ordinaire du
monde, le niveau habituel de toutes les âmes ? Ne sont-ce pas là
des pensées à l’effigie des pensées courantes ? seulement, à
l’ordinaire, on cache ça, parce qu’on ajoute une hypocrisie à toutes
les hontes.
Il la regardait et songeait âprement qu’elle était belle.
Elle poursuivait :
— Il a toutes les vulgarités de son métier, mon père. Pourquoi
avoir honte du mot, avec vous ? C’est un clerc de notaire, voilà tout !
A une époque où cependant le dernier des saute-ruisseau vous a
des airs de gommeux gentilhomme, il a l’air d’un paysan, lui ! Oui, il
s’habille comme un paysan ! Que voulez-vous ? pas de race !… Je
ne sais vraiment pas comment je suis sa fille !… C’est heureux qu’il
ne nous accompagne nulle part ! Ma mère a su y mettre bon ordre.
C’est une femme de tête, après tout… L’avez-vous vu manger à
table, cet homme ?… Ça suffit à le juger : il tourne son pain avec ses
doigts, en pleine sauce ! C’est un maniaque — et assommant !…
Enfin, il faut vivre avec son mal… jusqu’au mariage !
Elle le regarda d’une certaine manière : « Tu es bête de n’avoir
pas le sou : tu m’aurais tirée de là, toi ! »
Elle le tutoyait quelquefois, comme lorsqu’ils étaient petits, bien
qu’elle l’eût prié, depuis qu’elle avait quinze ans, de la traiter en
demoiselle, et de lui dire vous.
A ce moment le père parut. C’était un brave homme, assidu à
son travail, adorant ses filles, aimant bien sa femme, qui le trompait
quand l’occasion était bonne. Plein de terreur à mesure qu’il avait vu
naître les prétentions et les ambitions de sa fille cadette, troublé à
l’idée qu’elle n’était peut-être pas bonne, il subissait, lui aussi, tout le
premier, le charme menteur de sa beauté. On le boudait toujours,
mais on l’embrassait pour avoir un louis, et au moment où il le
donnait, il était le plus heureux et se croyait le mieux aimé des
pères. Et pour le gagner, ce louis, il travaillait tellement qu’il en
perdait de vue son inutile inquiétude sur l’éducation toute moderne
de sa fille.
Il apportait chez lui de gros dossiers de l’étude et souvent passait
les nuits, penché dessus, le dos rond, dans une vieille redingote
sale… Il se privait d’acheter une robe de chambre !… Ne fallait-il pas
que sa petite fût bien habillée, toujours contente, et qu’elle eût des
professeurs ? professeurs de piano, de chant, de dessin ? Pour la
récitation, elle n’avait qu’à choisir parmi les acteurs à la mode, jaloux
de lui donner gracieusement des conseils… mêlés de libres propos.
Monsieur Déperrier se montra donc à la porte du salon, et,
voyant Léon :
— Ne vous dérangez pas, dit-il, je suis pressé !… Adieu, ma
chère petite…
Du bout des doigts, il envoyait un baiser à sa fille… si
gauchement, que son portefeuille en tomba. Il se baissa pour le
ramasser… Son chapeau perdit l’équilibre : il le remit en place d’un
mouvement prompt et sans grâce ; — et quand il tourna le dos, il
montra d’humbles talons, un peu crottés par la sortie du matin. Le
bas de son pantalon, relevé, laissait voir une grossière doublure de
lustrine noire et des chaussettes ridiculement blanches, et toutes
mouchetées de boue.
Il sortit.
D’un involontaire mouvement, la jeune fille, entraînée par les
précédentes confidences, avait saisi le bras du jeune homme, et
d’une voix sifflante où passait la rage d’être née d’un trop pauvre,
d’un vulgaire, d’un brave être soumis à la destinée des humbles :
— Ah ! tenez, dit-elle, il me fait horreur !
Léon ne sourcilla pas. Il dit, simplement, sur le ton du reproche
qui veut rester doux, se sachant inutile :
— C’est votre père !
— Est-ce que nous avons demandé la vie à nos parents ? dit-elle
ingénument, en levant sur lui son beau regard pur. Est-ce qu’ils ne
doivent pas se faire pardonner, quand ils ont eu l’imprudence de
nous faire naître sans assurer à l’avance notre bonheur ? Je ne suis
pas assez enfant pour ignorer que s’ils nous ont mis au monde,
c’était pour leur plaisir !
— Cependant… — essaya-t-il…
Elle conclut tout sec :
— Voilà pourquoi, mon cher, — bien que je vous aime, — car
c’est évident, c’est vous que j’aime… je vous préfère du moins à
tous les autres mal intentionnés de ma connaissance… eh bien ! que
disais-je donc ?… Bref, malgré tout, ce n’est pas vous que
j’épouserai, mon cher. Entrez-vous bien ça dans la tête… Pour
mettre au monde des malheureux… Pas la peine !
— Etes-vous donc si sûre que la fortune, c’est le bonheur ?
— C’est au moins le seul moyen des bonheurs possibles !… Et
c’est pourquoi, tout en vous regrettant, — je ne vous épouserai
pas… Pas si bête !
Ce fut le dernier mot de cette conversation inoubliable… Et
depuis ce jour-là, Monsieur Léon se mit à plaindre plus que jamais
Mademoiselle Marie d’être si injustement malheureuse, et, pour la
consoler un peu, à lui écrire des lettres d’amour, de véritables lettres
d’amour « comme dans les livres », lui disait-elle. C’est même sur
l’instante prière de Marie qu’il s’était mis à lui écrire ainsi tout ce qui
lui passait par la tête et par le cœur. Elle ne lui répondait pas, ou
seulement d’un mot bref sur sa santé, sur la couleur du temps. Elle
n’avait pas envie de se compromettre sans aucun profit !… Et il
écrivait toujours. C’était des lettres quelconques, pas plus
spirituelles, pas plus bêtes que tous les cris de désir des autres
amoureux. Il s’emballait, s’exaltait dans le souvenir des menus
suffrages de l’adolescence. Comme on se grise en buvant, il
devenait fou d’amour à force de parler d’amour. Elle, ces lettres
l’enchantaient, et si elle lui répondait parfois, c’était surtout pour
l’exciter à écrire. Avec lui, elle se sentait libre à cause de leur
camaraderie, et sûre d’elle ; car elle le dominait complètement.
Elle ne risquait donc rien et se complaisait à relire ces paroles
ardentes. Elle n’était pas sans regretter cette émotion des
amoureux, devinée ou même éprouvée par elle, aux soirs d’été,
dans les sentiers du Bois ; — mais elle refusait énergiquement de s’y
abandonner tout entière pour ne pas compromettre l’avenir…
L’avenir, c’était le beau mariage. Il fallait tout sacrifier à cela. On
verrait après. On tâcherait de rattraper le temps perdu. C’est alors
peut-être que Monsieur Léon aurait son heure, — qui sait ? Lui-
même, de son côté, concevait parfois cette idée, et l’envisageait
sans trop d’impatience, comme « une de ces choses qui arrivent ».
Et elle continuait de résister, sans beaucoup de peine d’ailleurs, aux
tentatives du jeune lieutenant. Il s’emportait quelquefois ; alors elle le
faisait rentrer, d’un mot, gentiment, dans les limites du respect
nécessaire.
Il lui donnait, sans le savoir, une comédie d’amour à laquelle, par
l’imagination, elle prenait presque autant de plaisir qu’à une aventure
définitive.
IV
Paul d’Aiguebelle et Albert de Barjols s’aimaient dès l’enfance.

L’actuelle situation se compliquait de ceci : tous deux, à l’insu l’un
de l’autre, s’étaient épris en même temps de Mademoiselle Marie
Déperrier, qui était venue passer à Hyères deux mois d’hiver.
Elle y était venue avec sa mère chez la vieille marquise de
Jousseran qui avait dit un jour à Marie : « Je suis malade, riche et
seule. Si un voyage dans le Midi vous paraît agréable, permettez-
moi de vous l’offrir comme je vous offrirais, ma chère enfant, des
bonbons ou des fleurs au jour de l’an. Si cela vous tente, vous
n’aurez qu’à quitter Paris le 30 décembre avec moi ; et s’il vous
déplaît — délicatesse mal placée avec une vieille femme qui a pour
vous de l’affection — de recevoir un cadeau que vous ne rendrez
pas, dites-vous bien que m’accompagner là-bas c’est me rendre le
plus grand, le plus inappréciable des services. »
Mademoiselle Marie Déperrier avait poussé le cri de joie d’un
chasseur endiablé et pauvre auquel on offre tout à coup un
déplacement en Écosse pour la chasse aux grouses.
Madame Déperrier mère, consultée par la marquise, avait
déclaré, avec une pointe de jalousie sèche, qu’elle ne s’était jamais
séparée de sa fille. C’était vrai. Elle y mettait d’ailleurs tant
d’affectation et si peu de sollicitude, qu’elle tournait à la mère
d’actrice.
— Mais, répondit la douairière avec beaucoup de vivacité, j’ai
toujours entendu que vous ne quitteriez pas votre fille. C’est grâce à
votre présence seulement qu’on pourra vous croire en villégiature à
Hyères…
— Merci, madame, dit Madame Déperrier d’un air sévère. Il ne
faudrait point qu’on supposât que ma fille, même pour quelques
semaines, a été demoiselle de compagnie.
— C’est un mot que je n’ai pas prononcé, ma bonne dame. Vous
aurez votre appartement dans mon hôtel. Il me suffira de vous savoir
par là, pas trop loin, pour ne point éprouver la sensation du complet
abandon dans une ville inconnue, — et je vous resterai très
reconnaissante. C’est, je le répète, un vrai service que je vous
demande…
On avait accepté, et quand les deux amis Paul d’Aiguebelle et
Albert de Barjols s’éprirent ensemble des charmes innocents de
Mademoiselle Déperrier, ce fut à Hyères, dans une soirée donnée
par des Russes, qui, enthousiasmés du pays, provisoirement
décidés à s’y installer chaque hiver, venaient d’y acheter une villa
toute meublée. Ils avaient imaginé de donner une fête
d’inauguration. Ils demandèrent une liste des notables du pays
comme aussi des étrangers de distinction, et lancèrent leurs
invitations un peu à la diable. Ce fut comme une folie de grands
seigneurs qui s’installent, et qui veulent en pays inconnu se croire
tout de suite chez eux. Il se trouva, par parenthèse, que six mois
plus tard ils revendirent avec perte la villa magnifique, qui avait
cessé de plaire.
C’était d’ailleurs trois seigneurs authentiques, d’âges divers,
parents entre eux, et réunis pour une poursuite commune de ce
genre de bonheur qu’on peut rencontrer en voyage lorsqu’on a
beaucoup d’argent.
Les gens du pays répondirent avec empressement à leur appel,
les uns par simple curiosité, les autres pour être aimables envers
ces passagers qui font la fortune des villes d’hiver. Quant aux
étrangers qui acceptèrent l’invitation, beaucoup estimaient que cela
ne les engageait pas plus qu’une rencontre sans lendemain dans un
buffet de grande gare ou dans une caravane d’Égypte. Les
étrangers donnèrent en masse.
N’est-il pas essentiel, pour les gens du monde fatigués ou
malades qui demandent la paix ou la guérison aux villes d’eaux ou à
la campagne — d’y retrouver, le plus souvent possible, le casino, le
théâtre, les bals et toutes les occasions de fatigue qu’ils prétendent
fuir ?
Albert de Barjols, lieutenant de vaisseau, qui commandait en ce
moment un torpilleur aux Salins d’Hyères, fut invité comme officier
de marine — et le comte Paul (on appelait familièrement ainsi
Monsieur d’Aiguebelle dans tout son voisinage, depuis la mort de
son père) fut naturellement invité l’un des premiers comme châtelain
d’Aiguebelle.
Les dames Déperrier eurent de leur douairière sa lettre
d’invitation, ainsi libellée d’après les indications du Journal des
Étrangers : « Madame la marquise de Jousseran et sa famille. »
Elles représentèrent « la famille » de la marquise.
On parlait déjà d’alliance ou du moins de sympathies russes.
Mademoiselle Marie déclara qu’il ne fallait pas mécontenter le Tsar
et qu’elle irait à ce bal avec sa mère, puisque la marquise le voulait
bien et ne pouvait y aller elle-même.
Elle eut ce soir-là une inspiration de génie.
— Voyez-vous, ma mère, il doit y avoir, dans ces fonds de
province, dans les châteaux où les juifs brocanteurs trouvent les
vieux meubles Louis XIII, des merveilles de maris, gens d’autrefois,
conservés par miracle, comme des bahuts… Si j’en emmenais un à
Paris ? — Elle ajouta : Un comme ça, ça doit être facile à conduire !
C’est donc pour celui-là qu’elle s’était habillée. — Une robe
blanche, en voile, plissée de milliers de plis, et tombant toute droite.
La poitrine serrée dans un corsage qui s’enroulait autour du buste
comme un cornet de simple papier blanc autour d’un bouquet. Pas
un bijou. Point de boucles d’oreilles… Elle n’avait pas les oreilles
percées. Cela disait-elle, est « plus virginal. »
C’était sa plus grande préoccupation, de se donner un air
virginal. Parmi les artistes qui l’entouraient à Paris, un préraphaélite
à demi anglais, admirateur passionné de Rossetti et de Burne-
Jones, lui avait souvent conseillé de se coiffer « comme les femmes
de Rossetti. » Elle l’avait fait déjà, avec succès, en diverses
circonstances ; elle le fit ce soir-là. Elle ramena donc très bas sur
ses joues des bandeaux souples qui, couvrant entièrement l’oreille,
venaient mordre le coin de ses yeux. Cela permettait à l’imagination
d’allonger les paupières qui allaient se perdant, pour ainsi dire, sous
les cheveux.
Pour ramener en avant ces bandeaux et pour les arrondir, elle les
écrasait avec la paume de sa main, d’un mouvement appuyé et
tournant de bas en haut, rappelant d’une manière fâcheuse le geste
classique et peu noble du pâle voyou qui mouille et contourne ses
accroche-cœur. Quand elle avait appris, de son peintre, ce tour de
main, ils en avaient beaucoup ri ensemble. Il leur avait paru comique
de remarquer combien l’effet de cette coiffure angélique faisait
contraste avec le moyen de lui donner toute sa grâce.
Elle était donc coiffée, pour la soirée russe, à la Rossetti. Et,
vraiment, il était impossible de ne pas être frappé par l’émouvante
beauté de cette tête ainsi arrangée. Le visage au profil pur avait une
modestie d’image sacrée, sous les bandeaux cendrés où s’allumait
par instants, aux lumières, une flambée d’or.
Sur ses yeux, dont l’iris bleu pâle était cerclé d’une imperceptible
ligne sombre, plus ténue qu’un fil, lorsque retombaient ses
paupières, unies comme l’ivoire, on voyait les cils très noirs et très
longs, se détacher sur la pâleur dorée, un peu mate, du visage. Ces
paupières baissées, ineffablement expressives, tentatrices comme
tous les voiles, cachaient le mystère de ses regards sous un mystère
de chasteté trop belle et trop désirable, inexorablement défendue. Et
quand elle rouvrait avec lenteur ses yeux pleins d’ignorance et
d’enfantine mais profonde curiosité, l’âme des hommes y entrait
avec de folles convoitises d’inconnu et de découvertes.
Ce soir-là, cette tête de primitif émergeant d’une robe
franchement moderne, prenait une particulière étrangeté. On ne se
rendait pas compte de ce qu’on éprouvait à voir la singulière
personne aller, venir, causer, danser, comme toutes les autres. Elle
avait quelque chose de surnaturel ; elle apparaissait comme la
jeunesse-fantôme d’un passé mort depuis longtemps. Elle
appartenait, en effet, ainsi accommodée, à deux âges, séparés par
des siècles d’intervalle. Cet air un peu fantomatique s’accusait
encore au lieu de s’évanouir, lorsqu’elle prenait tout à coup la parole
avec son accent bien parisien… Et lorsqu’on la regardait s’éloigner,
elle donnait, vue de dos, une autre surprise : on ne voyait plus les
bandeaux mystiques ; mais, sous le chignon noué bas, on apercevait
une nuque ferme, ombrée d’un léger duvet d’or, une nuque qu’on
sentait mutine et même provocante.
Ainsi parée, ni grande, ni petite, svelte et pourtant ferme de

contour, elle n’eut aucune peine à être la reine de cette fête.
S’il y a partout beaucoup de femmes laides, on en remarque un
plus grand nombre dans ces villes d’hiver où viennent s’échouer
celles qui sont infirmes ou invalides. Quand elle traversait certains
groupes d’Anglaises desséchées, elle avait l’air d’un lis parmi des
ronces, — ou du cygne de la légende, égaré parmi les pauvres
canards.
Un de ses hôtes, le plus âgé des trois Russes, fut avec elle du
dernier galant, et, presque tout de suite, avec une témérité de
Lovelace, il vint lui dire, en excellent français :
— Il serait, mademoiselle, tout à fait de mauvais goût de vous
fatiguer ce soir d’une assiduité qu’on ne manquerait pas de
remarquer. Je m’éloigne donc… Mais prenez bonne note de ma
déclaration, je vous en supplie : La Russie est un beau pays, et
vaste : n’auriez-vous pas la curiosité de le voir ? Je serais charmé de
vous y servir un jour de cicerone…
— Tiens ! pensa-t-elle, il n’a pas l’air de couper dans les Rossetti,
le bon Slave ! C’est un malin. Il la connaît !… Et moi qui prenais la
Russie pour un pays froid !
Le comte Paul, que son isolement aux Bormettes rendait facile
aux émotions devant la femme, fut attiré par celle-ci avant Albert. Il
la lui désigna. Elle avait les attitudes qu’exigeait son costume. Elle
enthousiasmait tout l’élément provincial ; — l’autre aussi du reste.
Les deux amis s’exaltèrent.
— Quel est ce monsieur ? avait-elle interrogé dès l’instant où elle
s’était aperçue qu’elle avait éveillé l’attention du comte Paul.
— C’est le comte d’Aiguebelle, un des plus riches propriétaires
du Var… Il adore sa mère.
— Vous énoncez cela comme si c’était une profession !
— C’est que… c’est à peu près ça. Son père est mort il y a sept
ans.
— Est-elle ici, la mère ?
— Oh, non. La comtesse n’est pas une moderne. Loin de là ! Ni
une cosmopolite. Elle n’admet certainement pas, pour elle du moins,
les invitations comme celle de nos hôtes inconnus. D’ailleurs, elle ne
se déplace pas aisément. Elle ressemble à ces meubles antiques,
qui ne paraissent à leur avantage que dans les vieilles demeures
pour lesquelles ils furent créés. A vrai dire, elle n’a pas tort. On est
un peu camelote, aujourd’hui. Saint Antoine est le grand ébéniste, et
les âmes ressemblent aux meubles…
L’idée de comparer les d’Aiguebelle à de vieux meubles réjouit
fort Mademoiselle Déperrier ; elle avait eu déjà cette idée.
L’homme avec qui elle causait était un vieil ami de la marquise de
Jousseran, un vieux médecin qui avait eu autrefois dans sa clientèle
les plus jolies femmes de Paris. Malade et sans fortune, il était venu
exercer à Hyères. A demi retraité, il y soignait les autres en se
soignant lui-même.
Enchanté d’accaparer un instant la jolie parisienne qui attirait
tous les yeux, il devint bavard.
Marie apprit ainsi toute l’histoire de la comtesse d’Aiguebelle.
La comtesse avait aujourd’hui près de cinquante-sept ans.
Mariée à vingt-un ans, elle fut d’abord très heureuse, mais après
trois ou quatre années de mariage, et comme elle venait d’avoir son
fils Paul, son mari, pris tout à coup de passion folle pour une
créature bizarre, fantasque, mauvaise et inexplicable, une de ces
créatures qui fascinent les hommes par un charme de magicienne,
— avait délaissé sa femme et son fils. Dès lors, il habita Paris tandis
que sa femme demeurait aux Bormettes, où il ne mettait plus les
pieds. Une fois seulement, il exigea, pendant quelques mois, la
présence de sa femme à Paris. Il lui convenait, disait-il, qu’on ne crût
pas qu’elle l’avait abandonné ; il voulut même qu’elle tînt sa place de
maîtresse de maison, un soir où il donna, dans leur hôtel de la rue
Saint-Dominique, une fête demeurée célèbre : il y avait invité sa
maîtresse, qui portait fort mal un grand nom mais qui en fin de
compte le portait légitimement.
La comtesse d’Aiguebelle, depuis la mort de son mari, avait pris
en horreur ce Paris où elle avait tant souffert.
Le plus souvent qu’elle pouvait, c’est-à-dire six mois de l’année,
elle vivait retirée dans son château d’Aiguebelle, — voisin de celui
des Bormettes qui fut la propriété d’Horace Vernet. Et là, elle
s’occupait uniquement de l’éducation de son fils.
Le vieux docteur qui racontait ces choses à Mademoiselle
Déperrier, s’interrompit pour lui faire observer que tout le pays les
savait comme lui, et que, partant, il ne trahissait aucun secret… —
Cependant, ajouta-t-il, je suis allé quelquefois à Aiguebelle, lorsque
le fils de la comtesse était enrhumé ou quand sa petite sœur Annette
avait la coqueluche. J’ai été ainsi le témoin de l’existence admirable
de Madame d’Aiguebelle, et je me plais, en toute occasion, à lui
rendre hommage. La comtesse prétend, non sans raison, que Paris
est devenu, de plus en plus, un lieu de perdition pour les âmes. Les
idées démocratiques, que, pour mon compte, je ne dédaigne pas au
point de vue politique, sont mal comprises au point de vue moral.
— Ce qu’il va devenir rasant, le bonhomme ! songea
Mademoiselle Déperrier.
Le docteur, qui se croyait écouté pour lui-même, poursuivait :
— Voyez-vous, Mademoiselle, il n’y a en France ni éducation
primaire, ni éducation secondaire, ni éducation supérieure. Aucun
enseignement n’a remplacé la morale religieuse déchue. La
comtesse a eu peur de cela, et elle a fait élever son fils chez elle par
un précepteur ecclésiastique. De plus, la conduite du comte son
mari, le spectacle de leur désunion, lui paraissaient à juste titre des
choses qu’il fallait cacher à l’enfant. Elle l’a emmené jalousement ici.
Ce n’est que depuis la mort du père qu’ils vont tous les ans à Paris,
où ils sont attirés aussi par la mère de Monsieur Albert de Barjols,
l’ami intime du comte, autant dire son frère. Madame de Barjols est,
depuis deux ans, paralytique et clouée sur la chaise longue. Elle a,
elle aussi, une fille, Mademoiselle Pauline.
— Pourquoi le comte ne l’épouse-t-il pas ?… Est-elle bien, cette
demoiselle Pauline ? — demanda Mademoiselle Déperrier, déjà
hostile à l’obstacle possible.
— C’est une charmante personne, et la bonté même, dit le
docteur.
— Ils sont tous bons, vos personnages ! fit-elle avec l’ironie d’un
critique qui juge une pièce de théâtre… Et puis, ajouta-t-elle, comme
Monsieur d’Aiguebelle a une sœur de son côté, voilà deux familles
mathématiquement équilibrées ! Deux mères, deux fils, deux filles !
Ils vont danser un quadrille !… Aimez-vous la symétrie en art,
docteur ? Moi pas. C’est pourquoi j’adore les Japonais… La
symétrie, comme disait l’autre, n’est supportable qu’en architecture !
Elle montrait assez souvent ce genre d’esprit critique, qui
examine et juge les choses de la vie comme des créations
artificielles. Elle avait beaucoup lu, et trop couru les théâtres. Toutes
ses sensations lui en rappelaient d’autres que lui avait fait éprouver
un livre — ou un acteur.
— Oui, poursuivait paisiblement le vieux médecin, on est très bon
dans ces deux familles… symétriques ! On y est chrétien, au sens
profond du mot. Ceux qui ont cessé de l’être religieusement, comme
le comte Paul — qui est, en secret, un pur matérialiste, raisonnant,
scientifique, transcendant, — sont demeurés des chrétiens
philosophiques… Son ami Albert est dans ce goût-là ; seulement, lui,
c’est un positiviste. L’autre a gardé du mystique.
— C’est très intéressant, docteur.
— Vous vous moquez, mademoiselle !… C’est vrai, j’entre là
dans des détails.
— Croyez-vous donc que je n’aie pas compris ?
— Je ne dis pas cela… Pour vous donner une idée de la bonté
du comte Paul, j’ajouterai que, sur le conseil de sa mère, il a étudié
la médecine, uniquement pour pouvoir soigner les pauvres gratis, ici
et ailleurs. Pour elle, c’est de la charité ; pour lui, c’est de l’altruisme.
— Il est docteur ?
— Tout à fait.
— C’est très beau, cela ! et dites-moi, docteur, s’il est fils unique,
le comte Paul votre confrère… il sera follement riche un jour ?
— Follement, non !… deux cents mille livres de rente, tout au
plus… D’ailleurs, il y a sa sœur, la petite Annette… Encore un ange !
— C’est donc le paradis, votre pays d’Hyères ?
— Peu s’en faut ! Ah ! çà, vous faites donc des romans,
mademoiselle ?
Elle pensa qu’on lui offrait une excuse valable à son insistante
curiosité.
— Chut ! fit-elle… Ne le dites pas. J’essaie… Mais ce n’est pas
très bien porté, pour une jeune fille.
— Eh bien, répliqua le docteur, ravi d’être le confident d’une si
belle personne, — vous auriez là de touchants sujets d’étude… Et
même quelques scènes remarquables, ajouta-t-il naïvement. La
méchante femme, la maîtresse, trompait, bien entendu, le comte
Louis d’Aiguebelle. Il a fini par s’en apercevoir. Désespoir. Il était
ensorcelé, le malheureux… Il vint se réfugier ici… Seul, rongé de
chagrins, de remords peut-être, il a demandé le pardon de sa
femme… Il lui a fallu le conquérir.
— De là sans doute la naissance de la petite fille… qui
m’étonnait ! prononça Mademoiselle Déperrier.
Le vieux médecin la regarda avec un peu de surprise.
— J’ai oublié mon Paris, dit-il… Vous avez un esprit du diable !
— Oh ! j’ai vingt-deux ans, docteur, se dépêcha-t-elle de répondre
un peu inquiète d’elle-même, ne sachant pas au juste en quelle
mesure elle avait dépassé la note… Et je me destine… à la
littérature.
Il le crut.
— C’est juste, dit-il… C’est votre anatomie. Eh bien, écoutez
ceci. La comtesse est tourmentée par la crainte de voir revivre tôt ou
tard dans son fils les passions du père. Il y a aujourd’hui des mots
qui courent le monde, comme une monnaie, emportant avec eux des
soucis nouveaux, inconnus à nos pères. Un de ces mots est
atavisme, un autre est hérédité. Des ignorants les connaissent et ils
ont des terreurs toutes modernes. La comtesse a peur du mot et de
la chose pour son fils, des deux mots même, car l’aïeul de Paul
d’Aiguebelle fut un luron. Profondément religieuse, un peu
superstitieuse, elle croit aussi que le châtiment des pères est
souvent dans le malheur des fils innocents — et elle tremble. Tout
cela vous a je ne sais quelle couleur de pressentiment funeste. Elle
s’imagine à tout instant qu’une mauvaise femme va paraître, qui lui
prendra son fils comme une mauvaise femme lui a pris son mari.
Cette crainte est devenue une sorte d’obsession morbide. Elle est
véritablement malade d’ailleurs. Le cœur est atteint, et elle y pense.
Elle le dit à qui veut l’entendre. Elle souhaiterait voir son fils marié,
et, en même temps, elle redoute pour lui le mariage comme une
aventure ! S’il allait se tromper ! se lier horriblement à une femme
toute pareille à la sorcière qui a fait le malheur de son mari !… Et
voici qui est plus terrible encore : la cruelle expérience du mariage
qu’a faite la comtesse a empoisonné le cœur du fils, comme celui de
la mère ! — Ne trouvez-vous pas tout cela tragique, mademoiselle le
futur romancier ? Je vous donne le sujet. Démarquez-le avec soin, et
le développez. Il en vaut la peine. Ce jeune homme, élevé dans la
solitude, aux côtés d’une mère désespérée, a quelque chose de
sombre parfois. C’est une nature croyante et une volonté sceptique.
Il se livre et se méfie, en des entraînements successifs, également
violents… En voilà un qui est curieux à observer ! Mais ce qui est
beau, chez cet homme de trente ans, c’est la vénération attendrie
qu’il a pour sa mère ! Pour la voir vivre et mourir heureuse, il
sacrifierait, il a peut-être sacrifié tous les bonheurs. Elle a tant
souffert par le père !… Il ne voudrait pas la voir souffrir par sa faute à
lui !…
— Est-ce qu’elle n’est pas un peu jalouse ?
— Jalouse ?… peut-être. Mais surtout, si elle n’était pas aimée
tendrement de la femme de son fils, — si elle-même n’avait pas pour
la femme de son fils une tendre affection — le malheureux enfant ne
saurait plus vivre. Voilà de quoi il a peur, et il ne se mariera pas, je le
crains… Que dites-vous de ce sujet de roman ?…
— Gardez-moi le secret, docteur. Je n’ai jamais montré de mon
style à personne !
— Un médecin, c’est un tombeau ! dit-il en riant, et persuadé qu’il
avait eu de l’esprit… Maintenant, venez au buffet et puis je vous
laisserai toute à la danse, mademoiselle…
Ils se levèrent et gagnèrent le buffet. Le docteur ne remarquait
pas qu’ils étaient suivis de près par le comte Paul, fasciné.
L’observateur expérimenté, c’était elle…
Il y en avait un autre : c’était l’aimable Russe, qui vint, presque
aussitôt, lui réclamer une valse.
Un peu énigmatique, comme ses compagnons, les deux autres
maîtres du logis, et comme bien d’autres Slaves, le prince Tcherniloff
était de haute taille, et portait une barbe longue, d’un beau châtain
luisant, imperceptiblement parfumée. Entre cette barbe épaisse et
l’épaisse moustache (très cosaque, la moustache !) ses lèvres
apparaissaient rouges de sang, et s’ouvraient sur des dents
terribles, les dents d’un loup de la steppe.
Avec cela, cet homme admirable, visiblement de force à
soulever, sur ses épaules, une troïka toute attelée, vous regardait
d’un œil à la fois transparent et trouble comme une eau où tremble
une flamme.
Il faut croire qu’amateur d’esclaves blanches, ce policé subtil,
plein de sauvages violences, avait observé et interprété les regards,
tout le manège, les moindres mouvements de la jeune fille. Tandis
qu’elle interrogeait le docteur, — en jetant de temps à autre un
regard imprudent quoique furtif sur le comte Paul dont elle était
occupée, — sans doute le prince, de son côté, avait interrogé
quelqu’un des invités et tiré ses conclusions.
Quoi qu’il en soit : « Mademoiselle, lui dit-il, tout en la ramenant
du buffet vers le bal, — Mademoiselle, pardonnez-moi la hardiesse
de mon langage, ou plutôt permettez-moi d’être hardi… » Il
l’observait et vit très bien qu’elle ne sourcillait pas. Elle laissa au
contraire échapper de ses yeux tranquilles une courte flamme.
Elle aimait follement tout ce qui avait « de l’allure. » La seule idée
que cet homme était Russe, l’emplissait de joie ! Elle en éprouvait
quelque chose comme la sensation de voyager sur place… Il y a,
comme cela, des cosmopolites sédentaires. Ils aiment voir l’univers
chez eux.
Elle répondit vivement : « Hardi ? Soyez-le… prince !… Je suis si
sûre que votre hardiesse sera charmante… et honnête. »
Elle ajoutait mentalement : « Et puis il y a tant de monde ! »
— Honnête, comment l’entendez-vous ? — dit-il.
Elle eut peur de ne pas apprendre ce qu’il désirait tant lui dire.
— Allez toujours, fit-elle.
— Que ce soit honnête ou non ?
Elle se mit à rire aux éclats. Ce rire parut déplacé et bizarre à
plusieurs personnes qui la dévisagèrent. Des dames la lorgnaient.
Pour son interlocuteur expérimenté, il était impudent, vicieux
même, ce rire !
— Allons dans la salle à côté, dit-il.
— A quoi bon ? répondit-elle. Je ne connais personne, ici.
Le comte Paul, pour l’instant, n’osant la suivre, était resté dans
une salle voisine. Elle était libre de flirter un moment avec son
Russe.
Il le comprit, et il se sentait excusé d’avance de toutes les
audaces qu’il voulait avoir. La musique commençait. Les valseurs
s’élançaient. Ils les imitèrent.
Et le prince murmurait, en la serrant contre lui d’une façon
insinuante : — En deux mots, mademoiselle, je me suis permis de
vous regarder avec attention et j’ai cru, sur de certains signes,
reconnaître une personne destinée… à de grandes… à de très
grandes choses.
— Quelles choses ?
— Mystérieuses…
— Ah ! et sur quels signes, prince ?
— C’est mon affaire.
— Vous êtes bohémien ?
— Un peu…
— C’est un horoscope, alors ?
— Peut-être… de ceux qui ne se trompent guère, parce qu’ils
font naître et dirigent la destinée qu’ils annoncent…
— Oh ! oh !
Elle s’amusait étrangement. — Des propos semblables, elle
n’avait jamais entendu que cela. Quelque chose en elle, — pour qui
savait voir, en se dégageant des troubles qu’elle inspirait, —
provoquait ce genre d’impertinences, les sollicitait même.
Seulement, à l’ordinaire, c’étaient des journalistes, des peintres ou
des gommeux parisiens qui les murmuraient à son oreille, — enfin
des gens comme on en voit tous les jours, des êtres sans mystère,
sans prestige… des compatriotes… Oh ! les steppes, la Russie, les
troïkas, Pouchkine, et Lermontoff, l’auteur tourmenté de Un héros du
siècle, le Musset, le don Juan du Caucase !…
— Eh bien, prince ?
Chaque fois qu’elle disait : prince, elle éprouvait une émotion ; ça
la flattait.
— Eh bien, si je ne me trompe (ne m’interrompez pas, de grâce)
si je ne me trompe, vous avez choisi ce soir, ici-même, un fiancé…
Chut ! silence !
Il imposait silence d’un air impérieux, sans réplique… Elle
pensait : « A la bonne heure ! En voilà un qui sait voir au fond ! —
Très fort, le cosaque ! et sans doute un vrai prince… Ça vous a
l’habitude du commandement… Enfin, je n’en ai que pour cinq
minutes… Un peu de patience : ça sera si drôle à raconter ! »
— Et, poursuivait le prince, ce fiancé que vous avez choisi ce soir
n’est pas l’homme qu’il vous faut… (Vous parlerez après !) C’est un
gentilhomme terrien, comme on dit en France, — un villageois, pour
mieux dire, — confiné dans ses vignes, et incapable de vous mettre
à votre rang… Vous êtes née pour la grande vie, mademoiselle. Un
connaisseur n’a pas besoin de vous regarder longtemps pour le
deviner.
— On dirait, pensa-t-elle, qu’il estime un cheval !
Pourtant elle continuait à être flattée. C’est égal, il lui faisait un
peu peur — pas trop — mais tout de même…
— Enfin, voyons la suite.
— Il vous faut Paris…
— Oh ! oui, dit-elle.
— Ou Pétersbourg, acheva-t-il… Bref, Mademoiselle, quand vous
serez désabusée sur le compte de l’homme que vous avez
rencontré ici, ce soir, — et que cela vous arrive dans trois jours ou
dans trois ans…
— Alors ? interrogea-t-elle.
— Alors, quels qu’aient été vos bonheurs ou vos malheurs, peut-
être même vos fautes, — et que je sois, moi, Tcherniloff, marié ou
non, — alors, rappelez-vous notre conversation de ce soir… Vous
trouverez un gentilhomme russe — qui n’a qu’une parole — toujours
prêt à vous obliger.
Comme il la reconduisait, il tira de sa poche un étui d’ivoire
sculpté, mince et plat comme un carnet ; il l’ouvrit, y glissa sa carte
de visite et, sans prendre la peine de se cacher, il le lui offrit en
disant :
— Faites-moi l’honneur de garder ce petit souvenir,
mademoiselle. Ce n’est que l’enveloppe de mon adresse à
Pétersbourg… L’une vous empêchera, j’espère, de perdre l’autre.
Avec votre autorisation, je ne vous parlerai plus de la soirée, pour ne
rien compromettre de vos projets… que, dans votre intérêt, je
n’approuve pas !
Ils se quittèrent avec un grand salut. Que faire ? un esclandre ?
Elle fourra prestement l’étui dans sa poche.
— C’est raide, au fond, pensait-elle, — mais si bien exécuté, si
amusant ! En voilà, du vrai roman ! C’est égal, j’aime mieux les
d’Aiguebelle… Ce n’est que du trois pour cent, mais c’est du solide !
Ça doit durer autant que la France ! Sur ces valeurs étrangères, on
manque par trop de renseignements !
Quand elle voulut se retirer, la voiture commandée par la
marquise n’étant pas arrivée à l’heure dite, le comte Paul, aux
aguets, (il avait dansé deux fois avec elle) offrit son coupé et la
reconduisit, flanqué de Madame Déperrier.
En route, Marie Déperrier ne manqua pas de déplorer les progrès
du cosmopolitisme, et la facilité, déplorable en effet, avec laquelle on
accepte aujourd’hui d’assister à des soirées « pareilles à celle-ci. »
La curiosité seule l’y avait poussée, une ardente curiosité qu’elle
reconnaissait digne de blâme.
Dès qu’il eut laissé ces deux dames à la porte de leur hôtel, Paul
revint prendre Albert, qu’il emmena coucher à Aiguebelles, et ils ne
cessèrent pas, en une heure de route, de détailler et d’exalter le
charme virginal de la belle inconnue… « Un rêve, c’est vrai, une
apparition ! »
Paul, dès le surlendemain, se fit présenter à la marquise de
Jousseran et, pendant les deux mois qui suivirent, il parvint d’ailleurs
sans peine à revoir plus de dix fois Mademoiselle Déperrier. Comme
il vivait avec Albert, il arriva qu’Albert la vit trop souvent, lui aussi.

From Itinerant Trade To Moneylending in The Era of Financial Inclusion Households Debts and Masculinity Among Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil 1St Ed Edition Martin Fotta Full Chapter

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From Itinerant Trade To Moneylending in The Era of Financial Inclusion Households Debts and Masculinity Among Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil 1St Ed Edition Martin Fotta Full Chapter

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From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending

in the Era of Financial Inclusion:

From Itinerant Trade

ISBN 978-3-319-96408-9 ISBN 978-3-319-96409-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952363

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: Zoonar GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo

Dantas, Helena Dolabela, Aderino Dourado, Florencia Ferrari, Mirriam

Part I Settlements, Personhood, and the Centrality of

Chapter 1 ‘There Are Ciganos in the Town’ 35

Chapter 2 Household Fixity As a Process 65

Chapter 3 Makers of Their Futures 91

Part II Calon Assimilation of the Local Economic

Chapter 4 Deferred Payments and the Expanding Moment

Chapter 5 Lending Money to Jurons 151

Chapter 6 Moneylending Niche As Householding 179

Epilogue: The Crisis, the Stranger, and the State 209

Introduction: Consolidation of the Cigano Moneylending Niche in the

Image 1.1 A Calon camp in a small town in a coastal region of Bahia;

The Teacher and the Moneylender

© The Author(s) 2018 1

‘Caloninity’, so to speak. Here, specific dynamics of debt and repayment

From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending

Rio de Janeiro, such moneymaking activities were also connected with

2003 and 2016—including an increased minimum wage, the expansion

‘Gypsies Are Not the Only Moneylenders’

second-­biggest moneylender in Santaluz, using Gilson’s cheque as col-

visions of gains, often preferring the personalised nature of loans from

 xpansion of Credit Under Social

ment. One of the earliest and most influential of Lula’s financial

consumption was one of the main drivers of Brazilian economic growth,

F inancialisation of Daily Life in Small-Town

O fiado me da penas Credit brings me worry

and sold animals in the past—stabilises ties between parties involved,

Cigano Moneylending Niche

especially those of social debt and reciprocities—defined by dynamics such

often referred to as a negócio (business, deal)—an orientation similar to

Mapping the Terminology

From a strictly semantic point of view, the distinction Roma/Gaĝe [non-­

The authors distinguish between the idea of an ethnic group (a non-­

Broadly speaking, for any Calon individual there is a context-related

 apping the Network, or Chronicles

does it denote dependency, hierarchy, or abuse? When does a man fail to

Organisation of the Book

account links to other settlements. People readily (and sometimes fre-

Two Decades in the Life of a Calon Family

© The Author(s) 2018 35

The newlyweds lived in a neighbouring town alongside Claudio’s fam-

Paul d’Aiguebelle et Albert de Barjols s’aimaient dès l’enfance.

Ainsi parée, ni grande, ni petite, svelte et pourtant ferme de

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Part I Settlements, Personhood, and the Centrality of

Chapter 1 ‘There Are Ciganos in the Town’ 35

Chapter 2 Household Fixity As a Process 65

Chapter 3 Makers of Their Futures 91

Part II Calon Assimilation of the Local Economic

Chapter 5 Lending Money to Jurons 151

Chapter 6 Moneylending Niche As Householding 179

Epilogue: The Crisis, the Stranger, and the State 209

The Teacher and the Moneylender

From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending

‘Gypsies Are Not the Only Moneylenders’

second-biggest moneylender in Santaluz, using Gilson’s cheque as col-

xpansion of Credit Under Social

F inancialisation of Daily Life in Small-Town

Cigano Moneylending Niche

Mapping the Terminology

From a strictly semantic point of view, the distinction Roma/Gaĝe [non-

The authors distinguish between the idea of an ethnic group (a non-

apping the Network, or Chronicles

Organisation of the Book

Two Decades in the Life of a Calon Family