XLV - Shake Your Head, Reader
Shake your head, reader; make all the gestures of unbelief. Let this book go to bed, if boredom has not compelled it before; everything is possible. But if you have not done it before and only now, let me pick it up again from the book and open it on the same page, without believing in the truth of the author. However, there is nothing more exact. That's what Capitú said, in such words and manners. He spoke of the first child, as if it were the first doll.
As for my astonishment, if it was also great, came mixed with an exquisite feeling. A fluid flowed through me. That threat of a first child, the first son of Capitú, the marriage of her with another, therefore, absolute separation, loss, annihilation, all this produced such an effect, that I found neither word nor gesture; I was stupid Capitú smiled; I saw the first son playing on the floor ...