Dom Casmurro 4.20 · 4.20

The syllogism completes itself: 'a consequencia antes da conclusão' — the consequence before the conclusion. The walk, like the argument it mimics, arrives in due course at its inevitable end, every step in its ordained place. Machado lets the sentence enact its own subject, the clauses stepping forward one after another in measured sequence, premise, consequence, conclusion, so that the prose walks as slowly and logically as the man. It is a small marvel of form matching content, and it brings the José Dias portrait to a poised, faintly absurd rest — just before the chapter's one-line final blow.

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