Dom Casmurro 18.178 · 18.178

The plan has just been laid out, and Bento's body answers first: 'Estremeci de prazer.' Before he has judged the scheme or measured its odds, the flesh leaps at the mere prospect Capitú has opened. It is the pleasure of hope, and Machado marks it as a shudder — involuntary, physical, faster than thought.

The reaction also tells us how completely Capitú has already won him. She has not persuaded him with argument; she has produced in him a reflex. Throughout the novel Bento is the one who trembles and Capitú the one who plans, and here that division is set in a single verb. His whole part in the enterprise begins as a body reacting to her design.

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