Dom Casmurro 12.25 · 12.25

The heaviest fragment closes the loop once more: 'Se elles pegam de namoro.' The chapter ends where the obsession keeps ending — on the very word that named the thing.

By giving the last echo to 'namoro,' Machado leaves the accusation ringing in the air after the scene is over. The conditional 'se' still pretends it is only a possibility, but the whole verandah scene — the shivers, the smile, the balm — has just shown the reader that the possibility is already a fact. The boy walks off the page with José Dias's word lodged in him for good, and it will not leave for the rest of his life.

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