Belying the sin
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que desmentia a abominaçáo do meu peccado.
that belied the abomination of my sin.
The smile gives the lie to the notion of sin.
The smile is read as testimony: it belied the abomination of his sin. His own satisfied face gives the lie to the idea that his love is a crime.
The theological vocabulary — 'abominação,' 'peccado' — is borrowed, the seminary's language laid over a boy's ordinary happiness. The irony is quiet but sharp: the smile disproves the sin it is supposed to accompany. What the Church would condemn, the body plainly enjoys, and the narrator lets the contradiction stand unresolved. It is an early note of the novel's long quarrel between the ecclesiastical destiny prepared for Bento and the entirely worldly desire that keeps outrunning it.
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Dom Casmurro 12.21 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/domcasmurro/12.21/