At the end of time, he was satisfied, but downcast. As I found myself stretched out on the bed with my eyes on the ceiling, he reminded me of my mother's recommendation that I should not lie down after dinner to avoid any congestion. I got up suddenly, but did not leave the room. Capitú now laughed less and spoke lower; I would be afflicted with my seclusion, but it did not shake me.
I did not sleep and slept badly. The next morning was no better, it was different. My pain was now complicated by the fear of having gone beyond what was appropriate, failing to examine the business. Since my head ached a little, I simulated more trouble, in order not to go to the seminary and speak to Capitú. She could be angry with me, she might not want me now and prefer the gentleman. To solve everything, listen to it and judge it; it could be defense and explanation.
He had both. When he learned the cause of my seclusion from the evening, he told me that it was a great injury to him; she could not believe that after our exchange of oaths, so thoughtless she thought she could believe .... And here tears broke her, and she made a gesture of separation; but I came quickly, I took her hands and kissed them with such soul and warmth that I felt them tremble. I wiped my eyes with my fingers, I kissed them again, for them and for the tears; then he sighed, then shook his head. He confessed to me that he did not know the boy, except the others who passed by in the afternoons, on horseback or on foot. If she had looked at him, it was proof that there was nothing between them; if there was one, it was natural to dissemble.
"And what could there be, if he's going to get married?" he concluded.
Is going to marry?
He was going to get married, he told me with whom, with a girl from the Barbonos street. This reason framed me more than anything, and she felt it in my gesture; nor did he fail to say that, in order to avoid a new mistake, he would no longer go to the window.
-No! no! no! I do not ask you this!
He consented to withdraw the promise, but made another, and it was at my first suspicion that everything would be dissolved between us. I accepted the threat, and swore I would never do it: it was the first suspicion and the last.
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