Dom Casmurro 3.37 · 3.37

The sentence deliberately breaks: 'tomara elle que as cousas corressem de maneira, que…' — he'd be only too glad if things ran in such a way that… — and then nothing, an ellipsis where the accusation should be. José Dias has learned that the unsaid is stronger than the said; he hands Dona Glória the frame and lets her own imagination supply the sordid picture. It is the most insidious moment of the denunciation: he makes her complete the thought, so that the suspicion, when it forms, will feel like hers.

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