Dom Casmurro 9.111 · 9.111

The explosion and its instant collapse are the whole portrait of the man. 'Graça?' he bellows — the word Bento meant kindly strikes him as an insult to a truth he holds sacred — and then, 'logo,' at once, the fury drains and he is composed again. Machado catches the temperament of the ruined artist: grandiose, thin-skinned about his one idea, and theatrically quick to modulate, as a singer shifts from forte to piano.

The stage direction 'bradou elle com fúria' followed immediately by 'aquietou-se' is comic and a little sad. This is a performer even in private, his emotions a repertoire he runs through on cue. For Bento, recording the scene decades later, the old tenor becomes one more figure whose inner life may be all surface and delivery — a rehearsal, perhaps, for the harder question of whether anyone he loved was ever performing too.

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