Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis


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XCVIII - Five Years


He overcame reason; I went to school. I spent the eighteen years, the nineteen, the twenty, the twenty-one; At twenty-two he was a bachelor's degree in law. Everything had changed around me. My mother had grown old; yet the white hairs came grudgingly, little by little, and scattered; the cap, the dresses, the shallow, deaf shoes were the same as in the past. I would not walk so much around. Uncle Cosme was suffering from his heart and going to sleep. Cousin Justina was just older. Jose Dias also, not so much that he did not do me the courtesy of attending my graduation, and descending with me the saw, lepido and luscious, as if the bachelor was him. The mother of Capitú had died, the father had retired in the same position in which it wanted to give resignation of the life. Escobar began to negotiate in coffee after having worked four years in one of the first houses of Rio de Janeiro. It was the opinion of cousin Justina that he had affiliated the idea of ​​inviting my mother to her second nuptials; but if such an idea were to occur, the great difference of age must not be forgotten. Perhaps he did not think of anything more than to associate her with his first commercial attempts, and in fact, at my request, my mother gave him some money, which he gave back to her as soon as she could, not without this removal: "D. Gloria is fearful and has no ambition. "

The separation did not cool us. Elle was the third in the exchange of letters between me and Capitú. Ever since seeing her, she has encouraged me so much in our love. The relations he had with Sancha's father narrowed those he already had with Capitú, and he was happy to serve both of us as a friend. At first, it cost her acceital-o, preferred Jose Dias, but Jose Dias disliked me for a remnant of respect of growth. He defeated Escobar; Capitu gave her the first letter, which was the mother and grandmother of the others. Not even after he married did he suspend the gift ... That he married, -better with whom, -he married the good Sancha, the friend of Capitú, quasi sister della, so much that sometimes, writing me, called this one the " his affair. "Thus affinities and kinships, adventures, and books are formed.

 

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