Dom Casmurro 6.38 · 6.38

The uncle finds the argument likeliest to move a mother: not duty but her son's future happiness. 'Florear' — to show off, to cut a dash on horseback — names exactly the boyish vanity Bento will feel when he watches other 'rapazes' display what he cannot. Cosme predicts the sting of exclusion.

It is a shrewd appeal because it trades on desire rather than obligation: the boy will want this, and want will turn to frustration if the skill is missing. The conditional piles up — 'se quizer... e não souber' — sketching a small future scene of humiliation to make the present lesson urgent. In its way it forecasts the grown Bento's temperament exactly: a man acutely aware of what others have and he lacks, measuring himself against rivals, prone to the very comparison that will one day fix on a single rival and never let go.

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