Dom Casmurro 19.4 · 19.4

'Formulei o pedido de cabeça' — he composes the whole appeal silently first, editing before he ever performs. The verb 'formular' is almost legal, as if Bento were drafting a document rather than preparing to speak to a family retainer. The gap between the enormity of what hangs on it — his future, his life with Capitú — and the fussy care of the drafting is the source of the chapter's quiet comedy.

'Escolhendo as palavras' points forward: word-choice is the labour of the next several sentences, and word-choice is also the labour of the entire memoir. The old Dom Casmurro, we know, will pick over his sentences with the same anxious deliberation. Machado plants the habit early, in a boy rehearsing on a garden path. What Capitú gave him as a simple instruction, Bento turns into an elaborate private rehearsal, unable to let a phrase pass unweighed.

Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.

You are reading a page of the Dom Casmurro — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.

The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.

Also on our shelves:

• Plato's Phaedrus — complete, ancient Greek
• Heraclitus, the Fragments — complete
• Dante's Inferno — Italian, canto I