as if I knew nothing
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como se não soubesse nada.
as if I knew nothing.
He completes the pretense of innocence.
The clause names the pretense outright: 'como se não soubesse nada.' The counterfactual 'como se' admits that he did know, that the furrowed brow was a mask over knowledge already held.
Small as it is, the moment belongs to the novel's deepest theme. Bento is a boy who learns early to manage his face, to show one thing and hold another, and the grown Casmurro who narrates is the same man magnified — endlessly interpreting appearances, never sure whose face is honest. That he practices concealment so young, on a cousin, over a matter of no great weight, is quietly ominous. The habit of the arranged expression will outlast the occasion and become the lens through which he ruins his marriage.
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Dom Casmurro 21.34 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/domcasmurro/21.34/