Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

CXL - Back from the Church

Being alone, it was natural to get coffee and drink it. Well, no, sir; he had lost his taste for death. Death was a solution; I had just found another, so much better that it was not definitive, and left the door open for repair, if I should havel it. I did not say forgiveness, but reparation, that is, justice. Whatever the reason for the act, I rejected death, and awaited the return of Capitú. This was more time consuming than usual; I came to fear that she had gone to my mother's house, but she did not go.

"I entrusted all my bitterness to God," said Capitú, as he returned from the church. I heard within me that our separation is indispensable, and I am at your command.

The eyes with which he told me this were stunned, as if watching for a gesture of refusal or waiting. I counted on my weakness or the uncertainty in which I might be of the other's paternity, but it failed. Was there a new man in me, a man who appeared now, since new and strong impressions have discovered him? In that case he was a man just covered up. I told him I was going to think, and we would do as I thought. Verily I say unto you, All things were thought and done.

In the interval, he had evoked the words of the late Gurgel, when he showed me in his house the portrait of the woman, similar to Capitú. You must remember them; if not, re-read the chapter, whose number I do not put here, because I do not remember what it is, but it is not far. They reduced themselves to saying that there were such inexplicable similarities... On the day before, and on other days, Ezekiel would go with me to the study, and the features of the little one gave a clear idea of ​​the other, or I would give more attention to them. Involved, they reminded me of vague and remote episodes, words, meetings and incidents, all of which my blindness was not malicious, and which my old jealousy lacked. Once I found them alone and silent, a secret that made me laugh, a word like dreaming, all those reminiscences came now, in such an outrage that they stunned me ... And because I did not discount them one day, when I street eyes where two swallows were on the telegraph wire? Inside, my other swallows were up in the air, eyes stuck in their eyes, but so cautious that they were out of control at once, telling me a friendly and cheerful word. I told them the story of the swallows, and found it amusing; Escobar declared that for him it would be better if the swallows, instead of climbing on the wire, were sewed at the dinner table. "I have never eaten their nests," he went on, "but they must be good if the Chinese invented them." And we were dealing with the Chinese and the classics who spoke of them, while Capitú, confessing that we annoyed her, went to other care. Now it reminded me of everything that seemed nothing to me then.