Water would spoil it
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e a segunda viria tirar-nos o gosto do sacrificio.
and the second would rob us of the sacrifice's savor.
Even water was refused, to keep the sacrifice sweet.
The joke completes itself with a delicious flourish. They refused even water, 'a segunda', the second, because it 'viria tirar-nos o gosto do sacrificio', would come and take away the taste of the sacrifice. The mock-theological phrasing is deadpan perfection: the 'sacrifice' of the mass is here quite literally a matter of taste, and water would only dilute the sweetness.
Machado puns on 'gosto', which means both savor and pleasure, and on 'sacrificio', the mass being the sacrifice of the altar. The children keep their communion pure of water so as not to spoil the sugar — a sacred rite reduced, with impeccable logic, to the preservation of a flavor. It is one of the chapter's warmest strokes of wit, the seminarian's Latin and doctrine turned entirely to the service of a sweet tooth. Beneath the comedy lies the chapter's real argument: whatever the vow intended, what actually took root in the boy was pleasure, and the pleasure had Capitú's name.
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