Bohemia

In 1866, after graduating from Coimbra, Eça de Queiroz went to Lisbon, and became an unsuccessful solicitor who was nevertheless receiving some attention from literary circles. His friend Jaime Batalha Reis drew of him an extraordinary likeness:

One evening...I saw an extremely thin figure, lanky, stooping, with a very long neck, a small pointed head that seemed entirely pencilled in intense black on washed-out yellow. The man wore a black morning-coat, buttoned up to the neck, with a high black necktie and black trousers. His face was livid and emaciated, his hair smooth and very black, with a triangular and wavy forelock, standing out on the pale narrow-looking forehead, over the eyes covered with smoked glasses, the rims very thick and very black. Bushy whiskers, also very black, fell on each side of the parted lips encasing shiny white teeth. His long hands, with slender fingers the colour of old ivory, at the end of a pair of thin arms apparently endless, gestured quaintly and obsoletely with a very thin wand and a hat, with a tall pointed crown, made of soft felt as the hats of the XVIth Century portraits of the duke of Alba, of Philip II of Spain or Henry III of France. This was Eça de Queiroz.

This young man was to spend the next few years shedding the trappings of bohemian youth and defining his art. He had already written a few tales and short stories in a decadent and fantastic vein. Then he moved to Evora, in the South, to take charge of an opposition newspaper, which he was to write, edit and publish all by himself. He wrote masses of articles about everything, from local news and society scandals in Lisbon, to national politics, and the Mexican war. He translated a few pieces from the French. He commented intelligently on the Mexican war and the death of Emperor Maximilian. His irony lashed out at everything mediocre. His indignation targetted the French Emperor and the Russian Czar.

This frenzy of journalism lasted a few months. Then he came back to the capital and his friends. With them he invented the character of Fradique Mendes, a somewhat fastidious and pompous phraseur whose imaginary — and delightful — correspondence is dear to the heart of all the Queiroz enthusiasts. He moved with a smart set of young men, and, in 1869, he travelled to the East with Luis de Castro Pamplona, 5th Count Resende, 19th hereditary Grand-Admiral of Portugal, on an invitation from the Khedive to the inauguration of the Suez Canal. The two friends visited Egypt and Palestine-Eça ever observing and taking notes.