Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

XCV - The Pope

Escobar's friendship became great and fruitful; Jose Dias did not want to be behind him. The first week he told me this at home:

"Now you're going to leave the seminary."

-As?

"Wait until tomorrow." I will play with them who called me; tomorrow, in the bedroom, in the yard, or on the street, going to mass, I tell you what you have. The idea is so holy that it is not bad in the sanctuary. Tomorrow, Bentinho.

"But is it right?"

-Right!

The next day he revealed the mysterium to me. To the first aspect, I confess that I was dazzled. It carried a note of greatness and spirituality that spoke in my eyes as a seminarian. It was no less than this. My mother, in her opinion, was sorry for what she had done, and wished to see me here, but she understood that the moral bond of promise bound her indissolubly. He fulfilled Rompel-o, and for that was worth the Scripture, with the power to disconnect given to the apostolos. So that he and I would go to Rome to ask the absolution of the Pope ... What did I think?

"Sounds good to me," I said after a few seconds of reflection. Could be a good remedy.

"He's the only one, Bentinho, he's the only one!" I'm going to talk to Don Gloria today, I'll tell you everything, and we can leave here in two months, or before ...

"It's best to talk next Sunday; let me think first ...

-Oh! Bentinho! interrupted the aggregate. Think about what? You what you want ... I mean? do not you mate with your old man? You just want to consult a person.

Strictly, there were two people, Capitú and Escobar, but I denied my feet together that I would consult anyone. And what person, the dean? It was not natural for him to trust her with such a thing. No, no rector, no teacher, no one; it was only the time to reflect, a week, on Sunday I would give the answer, and from now on I said that the idea did not seem bad to me.

-No?

-No.

-Let's decide today.

"You're not going to Rome joking."

-Who has bocca goes to Rome, and bocca in our case is the currency. Well, you could very well spend with yourself ... Commigo, no; a pair of trousers, three shirts and the daily bread, I do not need more. I will be like St. Paul, who lived officio while he was preaching the divine word. For I go, do not preach it, but seek it. We will take letters from the internuncio and the bishop, letters to our minister, letters from the Capuchins ... I know the objection that one could oppose this idea; they will say that it is permissible to ask for dispensation from afar; but, besides what I do not say, it is enough to reflect that it is much more solemn and beautiful to see entering the Vatican, and prostrate at the feet of the pope the very object of the favor, the promissed Levite, who is going to ask his mother very tender and sweet the dispensation of God. Consider the picture, you kissing the foot of the prince of the apostles; His Holiness, with the evangelical smile, bows, interrogates, listens, absolves and blesses. The angels contemplate him, the Virgin commends the holy son that all his desires, Bentinho, be satisfied, and that what you love on earth be loved in heaven ...

I do not say anymore, because we have to finish the chapter, and he did not finish the speech. He spoke to all my feelings as a Catholic and a boyfriend. I saw the soul of my mother, I saw the happy soul of Capitú, both at home, and I with them, and he with us, all through a short trip to Rome, which I only geographically knew where it was; spiritually, too, but the distance from Capitú's will is not. This is the essential point. If Capitú found it far, he would not; but it was necessary to hear it, and so also to Escobar, who would give me good advice.