Dom Casmurro 7.19 · 7.19

After the flat prohibition 'sem adornos,' one ornament is permitted, and it earns its place by being pinned exactly over the heart: a cameo at the breast. The cameo is a carved portrait in miniature, an image of a face — a quietly resonant object in a novel that will turn on the reading and keeping of faces. Whatever it depicts, it is the one image she wears next to herself.

The detail closes the costume with a note of restrained sentiment. A woman who forbids herself color and jewels still keeps this single carved token, probably a memorial of the dead husband whose mourning she never leaves. Machado lets the object speak: her denials are not coldness but a love turned wholly inward, toward the dead and toward God. The whole portrait has been building this — a heart fastened shut, with one small remembrance held over it.

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