Dom Casmurro 25.21 · 25.21

The chapter's argument begins in the softest possible key. José Dias does not attack; he concedes. 'When he was younger, in childhood, it was natural' — the 'he' is Pádua, and the sentence grants him an innocent past before it takes anything away. This is the technique the whole novel has taught us to watch in José Dias: he damns by first appearing generous, so that the coming judgment will feel measured rather than malicious.

The temporal frame also does quiet work. By placing the acceptable Pádua in a vanished 'childhood,' José Dias implies that whatever was once tolerable has since curdled. The grammar of concession is really a grammar of setup. Machado lets the reader feel the machinery turning before Bentinho does — the boy hears an old friend musing, while we hear a case being built, one gentle clause at a time.

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