Dom Casmurro 5.5 · 5.5

The condition is the sting: 'se era preciso' — if it was necessary. His laughter is not a spilling-over of feeling but a tool deployed on demand. 'Outrosim,' a formal connective meaning 'likewise,' keeps the narrator's tone dry and cataloguing, as if itemizing a man's equipment.

Machado has been assembling a répertoire — the grave walk, the quick step, and now the manufactured laugh — and each item confirms the same thing: José Dias is a set of instruments played for effect. Yet the portrait remains oddly warm, because Bento is describing someone he grew up loving, a fixture of the house. The comedy and the suspicion coexist. This laugh 'if need be' is the social lubricant of the dependent, who must please to survive; his mirth is a currency he spends to keep his place under Dona Glória's roof.

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