Dom Casmurro 3.74 · 3.74

'Estou citando' — I'm just quoting. It is the smallest and slyest of self-defenses: he did not praise the priest-Regent, he merely reported him; the fact is history's, not his. José Dias loves this posture of the neutral witness, the man who only relays what everyone knows, because it lets him steer a conversation while claiming to have no hand on the wheel. It is the same technique he used on Dona Glória — plant the thing, then disown having meant it — reduced here to two words.

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