Dom Casmurro 18.177 · 18.177

The counsel accelerates into a volley of imperatives — 'Ande, peça, mande' — command, ask, order — as though José Dias were rehearsing the boy in the very forwardness Bento lacks. The staccato pushing betrays the agregado's eagerness; he wants the plan set in motion before anyone's resolve can cool.

Then comes the concrete script: offer São Paulo and the law. This is the pivot the whole chapter has been building toward. The alternative to the priesthood is a secular career, and by coaching Bento to volunteer for it, José Dias hands him a way out of the seminary that will keep him near Capitú. The scheme's true aim was never law or vocation; it was the house next door. Everything routes back to keeping the boy from the cassock that would separate him from her.

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