Dom Casmurro 3.81 · 3.81

The image Cosme lands on is vivid and a little absurd: 'dizer missa atraz das portas' — saying Mass behind the doors, a priest performing the rite furtively, half-ashamed, in some back room. It is his warning against a reluctant vocation, and it carries a private irony the uncle cannot know: this whole scene of a life being decided is itself happening 'atraz da porta', behind a door, with the boy in question hidden there listening. Machado quietly rhymes the two doors — the priest's furtive threshold and the eavesdropper's — and lets the echo sound for anyone who catches it.

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