O Crime Do Padre Amaro - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The novel concerns a young priest, Amaro, who serves as diocesan administrator at Leiria. Amaro lacks a vocation, having been pushed into the priesthood by his aristocratic patrons, the Marquesa de Alegros and, later, the Conde de Ribamar, and, owing to the vow of chastity he was obliged to take, is obsessed with women and deeply sexually frustrated. Upon arriving in Leiria, he falls for Amélia, the beautiful daughter of his landlady, a pious widow and the mistress of his superior, Canon Dias. After Amélia's fiancé, João Eduardo, publishes an exposé of the local clergy's venal habits in the town's newspaper under a pseudonym, Amaro and his colleagues and parishioners expose João Eduardo as the author of the piece, pressure Amélia to break off the engagement, and drive João Eduardo out of town. Amaro begins a sexual relationship with Amélia, meeting first in his coal cellar and then in the bell-ringer's house, using charitable visits to his bedridden, mentally disabled daughter as a cover. His love affair with Amélia ends in tragedy when she becomes pregnant, and is forced to seclude herself in the countryside for the duration of the pregnancy in order to prevent a scandal. João Eduardo returns to Leiria, but refuses to marry Amelia in order to render the child legitimate. Amaro and his maid, Dionisia, who also acts as a midwife, find a wet-nurse who, it is implied, kills babies in her care. Amélia gives birth to a healthy boy, who is handed over to the wet-nurse and killed. Amélia suffers complications after the birth and dies of a burst aneurysm. The actual paternity of Amélia's child, while the subject of gossip, never comes to light, and Amaro moves on to another parish. The novel leaves him in Lisbon, discussing the events of the Paris Commune.