Dom Casmurro 7.45 · 7.45

Here the myth turns tender. The box is forgiven because, when all the evils flew out, hope stayed behind at the bottom — the single detail that redeems Pandora and, by the analogy, the lottery. Bento offers it as the reason no one damns either one: the promise of a next draw, a next chance, is what keeps the whole apparatus lovable.

But hope, in this narrator, is a double thing. It is what kept him buying tickets and, long ago, what kept him believing in the girl next door. The old Casmurro who writes this knows how that hope resolved, or thinks he does, and the sweetness of the image carries a faint chill. The thing left at the bottom of the box is exactly what he can no longer feel, which is why he has to reach back into a Greek myth to name it.

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