Dom Casmurro 23.13 · 23.13

Here is the superlative made literal. In José Dias's reading the castles and parks 'came out bigger' than Scott wrote them — his mouth is a magnifying instrument. Machado gives us a portrait of exaggeration as a physical act: language passing through this man swells on the way out.

The image is affectionate and pointed at once. It recalls the novel's foundational verdict — 'José Dias amava os superlativos' — and shows it in operation. Whatever he touches grows. The reader is meant to file the tendency, because in a few pages this same enlarging mouth will be turned on Bento's cause, and a boy's ordinary wish to leave the seminary may come out of it 'bigger' too — dramatized, heightened, made into a household event. The gift and the danger of José Dias are the same gift: he cannot leave anything its true size.

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