Dom Casmurro 22.28 · 22.28

The turn sharpens: 'até lhe fez algumas criticas.' Not merely cooler praise but actual faultfinding — the eulogist has become, mildly, a critic. The 'até,' even, marks how far the pendulum swung from the earlier refusal to speak ill. Justina's feeling toward Capitú is revealed as unstable, capable of warmth and coldness in the same evening.

Machado keeps this precise because the instability is itself the clue. A steady jealousy would only ever disparage; a steady affection would only praise. Justina does both, and the oscillation resists the simple label Bento first reached for. The critiques are the second face of an attention that is neither love nor envy but something more restless. The narrator, still weighing, lets the contradictory evidence accumulate: praise, then reservations, then criticism. He is building, in his patient way, toward a diagnosis subtler than jealousy — the very subtlety he will deny his own suspicions when their object is Capitú herself.

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