The stiff man yields to the supple
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Afinal, o homem tezo rendeu o flexivel, e passou a falar pausado, com superlativos.
At last the stiff man gave way to the supple one, and went on to speak slowly, with superlatives.
At last his composure loosens and he drops into slow, superlative-laden speech.
Machado closes the physical comedy with a neat reversal that echoes the chapter's opening antithesis. The 'homem tezo' — rigid, stiff, the grave public self — surrenders to the 'flexivel,' and the very softening of the body brings on the softening of speech: slow, deliberate, and studded with superlatives. The tell arrives right on cue.
That last word is the trap. 'Superlativos' summons the novel's most famous character-sentence, 'José Dias amava os superlativos,' and here we watch the love in action. When he speaks slowly and grandly, José Dias is about to say something calculated. The reader, and the older Bentinho narrating, know that the superlative is never innocent — it is the wrapping in which this man delivers his most consequential words.
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