Dom Casmurro 18.34 · 18.34

More evidence of Capitú's piety, and of Dona Glória's love for her: she had given the girl a rosary. The gift is small, devout, maternal.

Bento is still building his defense, but the details now cut two ways. Each token of the older woman's tenderness deepens the strangeness of Capitú's scorn. Machado lets the objects accumulate — rosary, cross, prayer book — so that the reader feels both the warmth of the giving and the ingratitude the insults imply. The boy means to exonerate Capitú; the inventory quietly complicates her.

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