Dom Casmurro 25.89 · 25.89

The concession folds back on the word just used: it was resistance 'por mais acanhada que fosse' — however shy, however cowering it was. The narrator will not let 'resistencia' stand unqualified; he immediately shrinks it to its real dimensions, an 'acanhada' thing, bashful and small. The clause is a study in double vision, granting the act its name and its smallness at once.

'Acanhada' is a favorite Machadian register, the diction of shyness and social shrinking. Applied to the refusal, it keeps Bentinho exactly life-size: not a hero throwing off a yoke but a timid boy who managed, barely, to say no. The honesty of the qualifier is what makes the little victory believable.

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