as religious as this lamp
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porque elle é tão religioso,
because he's as religious
She flatly denies him any faith.
The sentence sets up its own punchline. 'Elle é tão religioso' promises a compliment and the comparison to come will detonate it. Justina builds the little trap of syntax deliberately, letting 'religioso' stand a beat before she yokes it to an object with no soul at all.
The charge beneath the joke is grave: José Dias champions the priesthood while believing none of it. His piety is instrumental, a means of working on a devout mother. Machado loves this species of hypocrisy — the man who deploys religion he does not feel — and Justina exposes it with a countrywoman's bluntness rather than any theological nicety. The wit is hers, but the moral X-ray is the novel's: appearances and interiors do not match, and the gap is where all the mischief lives.
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Dom Casmurro 21.54 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/domcasmurro/21.54/