Dom Casmurro 3.60 · 3.60

'Oxalá tenham razão' — may you be right. The pious little wish is a masterpiece of insinuation: to hope aloud that someone is right is to suggest, unmistakably, that they may well not be. He hands the family their reassurance wrapped around a doubt, so that the very form of his agreement keeps the alarm alive. And the appeal to heaven — 'oxalá', would to God — lends his private suspicion the borrowed solemnity of a prayer. He surrenders the field and salts it as he goes.

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