Dom Casmurro 6.34 · 6.34

The mother's reply is three words and entirely characteristic: 'Não está acostumado.' It is a defence, but a soft one — she does not deny the fear, only accounts for it as inexperience, something no one's fault and nothing to press. She deflects the sting of her brother's joke without quite arguing back.

The brevity is Machado's economy again. In one small clause we hear a mother's instinct to shield without confronting, to smooth the moment over rather than escalate it. She will not have her boy shamed, but neither will she scold her brother; she simply files the failure under 'not accustomed' and hopes the subject will pass. It is the same yielding temperament that runs through her whole handling of Bento — protective, conciliatory, and, in the long run, unable to hold a line against pressure.

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