Maria Muñoz Bráulia thought settling down with a well-off husband in a house of her own would inaugurate a life of freedom and contentment, but she soon discovered married life to be a series of tiresome formalities. And little happened with her husband, a much older judge, once the lights went out. Now the widowed Maria lives alone in her apartment in S?o Paulo, her only companions the scheming nephew of her deceased husband, Juli?o, and a loyal maid. Family Heirlooms, a searingly brilliant novella from one of Brazil's modern masters, follows the journey of Maria Bráulia and her rubies through the disappearing world of bourgeois respectability.