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380 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
“You can’t imagine, meu bom, how much I’ve collected in that whorehouse, just from the prostitutes alone. For your information, camarado, a philosopher couldn’t find a better place to live than a whorehouse.”
“You really are a philosopher, Master Archanjo, the best one I ever knew. There’s nobody like you for making the best of what you’ve got.”
When the lights were put out there remained only the matte brightness of the oil lamp shining on the black backcloth, which projected the enlarged shadows of the crude and ingenuous characters onto the whitewashed wall. It was all very simple and simple-minded, and it cost two pennies to see. The show attracted young and old, rich and poor, sailors, day laborers, salesclerks, and shop owners. Some women even came surreptitiously.
Archanjo died in Salvador in 1943 at the age of seventy-five, admired by the learned and respected by all. Public notables, university professors, writers, and poets attended his funeral.
The glory of Bahia and all Brazil, whose name he exalted in other lands, Pedro Archanjo teaches us through his example how a man born into poverty and an environment hostile to any sort of culture can rise to the pinnacles of learning and occupy a distinguished position in society.
"That's an idiotic question and only a fool would venture an opinion on Marcuse's work or discuss present-day Marxism in the framework of a press conference. If I had time to give a speech or a class about it that would be something else again; but I haven't got time and I didn't come to Bahia to talk about Marcuse. I came here to see the place where a remarkable man lived and worked, a man of profound and generous ideals, one of the founders of modern humanism — your fellow citizen Pedro Archanjo. That, and only that, is what brings me to Bahia."