Dom Casmurro 2.10 · 2.10

Now the plan itself: 'Um dia, ha bastantes annos, lembrou-me reproduzir no Engenho Novo a casa…' — one day, many years ago, it occurred to me to reproduce, at Engenho Novo, the house… The governing verb is 'reproduzir', to reproduce, and it is the most important word in the chapter. Bento's project is reproduction — the exact copying of a lost original — and the whole of chapter two is an inquiry into what reproduction can and cannot restore. He can reproduce the house: the walls, the windows, the very paint. He cannot reproduce the years, the people, or the boy who lived there. Note too 'lembrou-me', it occurred to me: even the idea is described as arriving unbidden, memory volunteering the scheme, so that the most deliberate act of his life ('de proposito') is framed as something that simply came to him. Engenho Novo, the new suburb, becomes the stage for an old man's attempt to rebuild the past on unfamiliar ground — new place, old house, vanished life.

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