Dom Casmurro 18.4 · 18.4

Bento speaks, and it is all repetition: 'não quero… não quero.' The doubled refusal is the speech of a boy who feels his will has no weight and hopes that saying a thing twice will make it true. The plural 'seminarios' inflates the single institution into a whole category of dread, an early instance of the exaggeration the narrator elsewhere mocks in José Dias.

The inserted 'acudi logo' matters. To acudir is to rush in, to come to the rescue — and what Bento rushes to rescue is Capitú's face, that waxen pallor. His vehemence is aimed less at his mother's plan than at the girl in front of him, whom he cannot bear to see so struck. He protests for her benefit.

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