desta vez não foi o padeiro

O padeiro é uma figura que recorrentemente vem à baila quando no meio de uma conversa alguém quer insinuar que determinada mulher anda a enganar o marido. Neste poema de Raymond Carver, porém, o padeiro não engana ninguém. O padeiro é o marido, e é ele “o enganado”. Pior, já que tudo é feito às claras.

The Baker

Then Pancho Villa came to town,
hunged the mayor
and summoned the old and infirm
Count Vronsky to supper.
Pancho introduced his new girl friend,
along with her husband in his white apron,
showed Vronsky his pistol,
then asked the Count to tell him
about his unhappy exile in Mexico.
Later, the talk was of women and horses.
Both were experts.
The girl friend giggled
and fussed with the pearl buttons
on Pancho's shirt until,
promptly at midnight, Pancho went to sleep
with his head on the table.
The husband crossed himself
and left the house holding his boots
without so much as a sign
to his wife or Vronsky.
That anonymous husband, barefooted,
humiliated, trying to save his life, he
is the hero of this poem.

[Raymond Carver, Fires - Essays, Poems, Stories, Harvill, London, 1994]