Wanderlino
Arruda
Father
Aderbal
Murta
tells
that
the
dean
of
the
Louvain
University,
in
Belgium,
wasn’t
at
all
pleased
when
the
brazilian
seminarists
that
were
arriving
there
started
asking
for
a
bathroom,
no
matter
how
small,
among
the
immense
group
of
buildings,
something
that
they
considered
to
be
of
the
maximum
importance.
That’s
right,
a
place
where
they
could
wash
from
head
to
toe,
a
shower
from
high,
use
soap,
rinse
their
bodies
and
then
dry
off
with
a
fluffy
towel.
They
insisted
that
they
didn’t
want
to
do
it
in
a
basin,
splashing
water
all
over
and
not
getting
the
job
done
as
my
friend
Nó
Barrão.
A
real
bath,
at
least
a
humble
little
shower.
With
warm
water,
not
scalding
and
not
freezing,
either,
because
no
one
is
made
of
stone.
This
demand,
said
the
administrators,
was
a
trait
of
third
world
students,
this
had
to
have
come
from
Brazilians,
crazy
kids.
Baths,
in
Belgium,
until
the
present
age,
were
crudely
effectuated
with
a
sponge
or
cloth,
and
nothing
else.
Just
scrubbing,
no
running
water,
no
wetting
the
floor.
Great!
Now,
I
read
in
the
Brazilian
Rotary
magazine
an
interesting
commentary
of
Derli
Antônio
Bernardi,
de
Maringá,
telling
about
the
time
when
taking
a
bath
was
a
sin,
and
one
could
even
go
to
jail
because
of
it.
How
curious!
They
had
somehow
lost
the
Arabian
knowledge,
where
it
was
known
that
“water
is
the
most
efficient
of
all
medicines
and
the
best
of
all
cosmetics.”
They
had
lost
the
Egyptian
experience
of
when
you
used
to
take
a
bath
in
a
golden
basin
and
of
Greece
when
the
palace
of
King
Minos
possessed
the
most
spectacular
bathtub
in
ancient
history,
decorated
with
marble
and
precious
stones.
They
had
forgotten
the
Roman
tradition
of
taking
baths,
when
the
bathrooms
were
so
important
to
the
influential
Romans
that
there
were
twenty
five
different
ways
of
taking
a
simple
bath
-
with
oils,
vapors,
herbs,
essences,
etc,
-
And
there
were,
at
their
sides,
art
galleries,
theaters
and
temples
dedicated
to
the
Gods.
The
barbarians,
when
they
invaded
Europe,
poor
creatures,
blamed
the
collective
baths
as
the
origin
of
the
decadence
and
fall
of
Rome.
They
took
advantage
of
war
and
destroyed
all
of
the
baths,
public
and
private
as
well,
sweeping
for
a
period
of
one
thousand
years
this
pleasant
and
hygienic
custom,
practically
erasing
from
the
vocabulary
the
word
bath.
Time
goes
on,
never
stopping,
and
in
the
middle
age
Europe,
the
books
of
etiquette
recommended
the
washing
of
hands
only
before
meals,
which
really
isn’t
suprising,
because
at
that
time,
spoons
and
forks
had
not
been
invented
yet,
the
food,
as
in
some
countries
today,
was
passed
from
hand
to
mouth.
Something
strange,
to
be
sure,
The
queen
Elizabeth
of
Castella,
made
no
secret
of
how
many
baths
she
had
taked
during
her
entire
life:
only
two,
one,
when
she
was
born,
and
the
other,
when
she
was
married,
to
be
sweet-smelling
for
the
royal
consort
on
the
first
day
of
their
honeymoon.
As
strange
as
it
seems,
religion
also
greatly
contributed
to
the
decline
of
little
popular
habit
of
bath-taking.
Pope
Gregory
prohibited
bath-taking
on
Saturdays,
principally
if
the
object
of
the
bath
was
simple
hygiene.
A
law
was
even
passed
prohibiting
baths
on
any
other
day
except
Tuesday.
To
take
a
bath
was
considered
to
be
sinful,
luxuriously
evil
materially
absolutely
mundane,
exaggerated
zeal
wasted
on
the
body.
It
was
around
the
year
1800
that
in
England
appeared
a
Turkish
bathhouse
with
frequency
permitted
only
men
and
courtesans
.
It
was
hermetically
closed
to
women
of
family
because
it
was
not
dignified
for
serious
ladies
of
the
fair
sex.
In
France,
at
the
time
of
Napolean,
there
was
more
liberty
for
bath
taking.
It
even
constituted
a
new
profession,
the
bath
givers,
that
would
go
door
to
door,
carrying
basins
and
everything
else
necessary
to
wash
away
the
aristocratic
sweat
and
grime.
In
colonial
America,
the
puritans
considered
baths
and
bathsoap
to
be
impure
things.
Getting
to
the
point
in
Filedelphia
who
takes
more
than
one
bath
a
month
had
to
be
condemned
to
prison
for
disrespect
of
the
hallowed
customs.
The
first
public
bath-house
of
New
York
City
only
appeared
around
1852,
only
allowed
through
a
special
commission
in
1913.
An
extensive
bath,
daily,
more
than
once
a
day,
is
really
a
Brazilian
habit
and
it’s
not
because
of
the
Portuguese
and
African
who
weren’t
really
that
fond
of
immersing
themselves
in
water.
We
owe
our
tradition
of
taking
daily
bath
to
our
Tupi
and
Guarani
Indian
ancestry,
who
greatly
appreciated
playing
in
it
in
the
abundant
rivers
and
beaches,
principally
on
days
of
intense
heat,
more
fun
couldn’t
be
found
elsewhere.
That
is
why
I
believe
that
daily
bath
taking
is
a
purely
Brazilian
invention.
