Dom Casmurro 21.45 · 21.45

The word finally names the destination of all this pressure: 'o seminario.' Until now the talk has been of promise and forgetting; here the concrete institution appears, the place that would swallow Bento's youth and separate him from Capitú.

Machado has held the seminary back through the whole exchange, letting it arrive only at the end of Justina's mounting sentence, as the object toward which every clause has been driving. The gerund 'falando' keeps it in the present continuous — José Dias is not merely talking but going on and on, still, now. For Bento, listening with his performed frown, the noun is a wall taking shape ahead of him. The seminary chapters that follow will make this room's abstract danger brick-and-mortar real; here it is first spoken into the air.

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