Dom Casmurro 15.49 · 15.49

Now comes the true passion. The gaturamo — a euphonia, a small brilliant songbird — is Pádua's pride, and he cannot help pointing the boy toward it: 'it's there at the back.' The invitation is the friendliest thing in the world and, at this moment, the most obstructive; every warm word draws Bentinho a step further from Capitú.

Machado is dramatising delay as tenderness. The father means only kindness, wants only to show a boy he likes a beautiful bird, and precisely that kindness becomes the wall between Bentinho and the girl next door. The birds, caged and admired, quietly rhyme with the human situation of the chapter: a boy in love who is about to be shut away in a seminary, another creature to be kept. Pádua sees none of this. He sees only his euphonia, singing at the back of the house.

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