Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

CVII - Jealous of the Sea

If it were not for astronomy, I would not have discovered the ten pounds of Capitul so soon; but that is not why I return to it, so that you do not think that the vanity of a teacher is what made me suffer with the disregard of Capitú and be jealous of the sea. No my friend. I came to explain to you that I had such jealousy for what might have been on my wife's head, not above or above it. It is well known that the distractions of a person can be guilty, half guilty, a third, a fifth, a tenth of guilty, because in matters of guilt the graduation is infinite. The memory of simple eyes is enough to fix others who remember them and delight in their imaginations. It is not an effective and mortal sin, nor a changed paper, a simple word, a nod, a sigh, or an even lighter and milder signal. Anonymo or anonyma that passes the corner of the street causes us to put Sirius inside Mars, and you know, reader, the difference they have from one to another in distance and size, but astronomy has these confusions. This is what made me pallid, silent, and want to run away from the room to return. God knows when; probably ten minutes later. Ten minutes later, I would either be in the room again, at the piano or at the window, continuing the interruption:

-Marte is at a distance from ...

So little time? Yes, so little time, ten minutes. My jealousy was intense, but short; with little he would overthrow everything, but with the same little or less he would rebuild the sky, the earth and the stars. The truth is that I was more friends with Capitú, if it was possible, she was even gentler, the air more subdued, the nights lighter, and God, God. And it was not really the ten pounds that did this, nor the sense of economy they revealed and that I knew, but the cautions that Capitú employed to discover my day-to-day care. Escobar also got closer to my heart. Our visits have become closer, and our conversations more intimate.