Dom Casmurro 26.3 · 26.3

Now the reflection is given a temperature: it made him glad, and not a little — 'extraordinariamente.' The adverb is a José Dias word, the very sort of superlative excess the earlier chapter pinned on him, and here Bento borrows it to size the man's private joy. The pleasure is disproportionate to a boy's simple request about studying law.

That disproportion is the quiet alarm. Something Bento has said has handed José Dias an opening he did not have a moment ago, and the agregado's delight is the delight of a man who has just seen how to be useful — how to convert the boy's wish into currency with Dona Glória. The reader who remembers José Dias's role in steering Bento toward the seminary feels the irony: his gladness is never quite for the person in front of him.

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