Dom Casmurro 18.179 · 18.179

The plan Capitú devised would send Bento to study law in São Paulo rather than into the seminary, and here he weighs the two futures as barriers. São Paulo is a 'fragil biombo' — a folding screen, a thing of paper and hinges that merely stands between two people and can be drawn back. A separation by distance is a separation that ends.

The pleasure of the shudder in the previous line is explained by this image. What thrilled him is not escape from parting but the kind of parting: a removable one. Machado, who loves to render a state of mind as a piece of furniture, gives Bento's hope a concrete shape he can already picture being folded away 'um dia.' The whole scheme rests on preferring a screen you can move to a wall you cannot.

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