Dom Casmurro 3.46 · 3.46

'São dous creançolas' — they are two overgrown children. The word 'creançolas', with its faintly comic diminutive, is her verdict and her shield: not a boy and a girl on the edge of love, but a pair of babies. It is the same reductive move José Dias made with 'a pequena', but turned to the opposite purpose — he shrinks Capitú to dismiss her mind, she shrinks them both to deny their hearts. Neither adult sees the two young people as they are, which is exactly old enough.

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