Dom Casmurro 3.87 · 3.87

'Creio que, bem pensado…' — I think that, on reflection… — and again the thought expires before it forms. Cosme is trying to say that a promise, examined coolly, might not bind so absolutely; but he is not a man built for such examinations, and the phrase 'bem pensado', well thought through, dies precisely because he is not going to think it through. His whole nature runs to backgammon and ease, not to the hard reconsideration of vows. And so the one voice that might have rescued Bento gives up mid-sentence and turns, for relief, to someone else.

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