Dom Casmurro 3.55 · 3.55

The 'translation' delivers Cosme's verdict flat: 'São imaginações do José Dias' — this is all stuff José Dias imagines. It is the plain man's diagnosis, and it is essentially correct — the danger is being conjured, not observed. But the novel's deep irony is that 'imaginações', imaginings, are exactly what will destroy Bento; not José Dias's, in the end, but his own. Cosme names the disease and misassigns the patient. The imagining that matters has already begun in the boy behind the door, who is even now furnishing his mind with pictures of corners and secrets.

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