only he knows
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que só elle conhece,
that only he knows,
His diction is uniquely, affectedly his own.
'Que só elle conhece' completes the jab: words only he knows, a vocabulary so idiosyncratic it belongs to no one else. The phrase is affectionate-adjacent mockery, the kind of thing said about a relative whose verbal tics the whole family can imitate.
Machado is quietly characterizing José Dias as a self-invented man. His borrowed grand words, his pretensions to learning and medicine, his flourishes — all of it is a persona assembled out of language nobody else uses quite that way. Justina isolates the diction because the diction is the man: cut off the fancy words and little remains but a dependent hoping to stay useful. Her small line is a whole portrait, and it prepares the reader to weigh every future speech of his as performance rather than truth.
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Dom Casmurro 21.51 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/domcasmurro/21.51/