Dom Casmurro 5.30 · 5.30

The single word 'escravatura' — the body of enslaved people the family owns — falls into the sentence without emphasis, and its very casualness is the record. The Santiagos hold slaves; when they fall ill, one sends the resident amateur doctor to look them over, the way one might send someone to check a fence. Machado does not moralize; he lets the possessive 'nossa' carry the whole fact.

For readers of Dom Casmurro this is one of the novel's quiet reminders of the world Bento narrates from — a genteel Rio household whose comfort rests on enslaved labor. The request also sets the trap for José Dias's confession: asked to practice on the slaves, the false doctor must at last own that he is no doctor at all.

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