Dom Casmurro 3.65 · 3.65

'De o fazer padre' — of making him a priest. The phrase names, plainly and for the first time in the chapter, the exact shape of the future being arranged for Bento: not merely 'the seminary' but the whole life beyond it, a vocation chosen for him before he can choose anything. The novel's central ache is here — a boy's entire existence disposed of in a drawing-room conversation as 'the idea', an item of family business. That the boy hearing it loves a girl next door is the fact everyone in the room has just agreed to set aside.

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