Cinco Minutos
By José de Alencar
Cover: Vista da Gamboa (1889), painting by Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (artist died 1944)
Alencar's first novel is a confidence written to a cousin: the narrator tells how a missed omnibus at the Rocio, five minutes late, started a love story he insists is a history and not a novel. Short, ironic and quick, it is an early picture of Rio in the 1850s.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.