Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

XXXII - Hangover Eyes

It was all part of Capitú's curiosities. If there was, however, in which I do not know if he apprehended or taught, or if he did both things, as I did. That's what I'll tell you in the next chapter. This is not to say that after a few days of adjustment with the guest, I went to see my friend; it was ten o'clock in the morning. D. Fortunata, who was in the yard, did not even expect me to ask about his daughter.

"He's in the room combing his hair," he told me; go slowly to scare him.

I went slowly, but either the foot or the mirror betrayed me. This could be that it was not; it was a little pataca mirror (pardon the cheapness), bought from an Italian pedlar, a rough frame, a brass ring, hanging from the wall between the two windows. If it was not him, it was the foot. One or the other, the truth is that I just entered the room, comb, hair, and all flew through the air, and I only heard him this question:

"Anything?"

"Nothing," I replied; I came to see you before Father Cabral arrives for the license. How was your night?

-I well. José Dias has not spoken yet?

"It does not seem so."

"But then when do you speak?"

"He told me that today or tomorrow he intends to touch the subject; do not go banging, it will speak loudly and by far, a touch. Then it will come into matter. First you want to see if Mom has the resolution made ...

"What's the matter," interrupted Capt. And if it did not take somebody to win already, and at all, you would not be told. I do not even know if Jose Dias can influence so much; I think it will do everything, if you feel that you really do not want to be a priest, but can you reach ...? He is attended to; but if ... It's a hell of a thing! You get on with it, Bentinho.

-Time; today he must speak.

-You swear?

-Swear! Let your eyes see, Capitú.

He had reminded me of the definition that Joseph had given them, "eyes of gypsy obliqued and disguised." I did not know what was obliquely but concealed knew, and wanted to see if you could call it that. Capitú stood and looked. I only wondered what it was if I had never seen them; I found nothing extraordinary; the color and the sweetness were mine. The delay of contemplation I believe gave another idea of ​​my intent; he imagined that it was a pretext to look at them more closely, with my long, constant eyes, stuck in them, and this meant that they would become grown, grown and somber, with such an expression that ...

Rhetorica dos namorados, give me an exact and poetic comparison to say what those eyes of Capitú were. There is no image capable of saying, without breaking the dignity of the stall, what they were and did to me. Hangover eyes? Come on, you hangover. That's what gives me the idea of ​​that new feature. They did not know what a mysterious and energetic fluid, a force that dragged in, like the wave that leaves the beach on the days of hangover. In order not to be dragged, I clung to the other small parts, to the ears, to the arms, to the hair scattered about the shoulders; but as soon as I searched for the pupils, the wave that came out of them was growing, dark and dark, threatening to envelop me, to pull me and to swallow me. How many minutes did we spend on that game? Only the watches of the sky will have marked this infinite and brief time. Eternity has its pendulums nor for not ending never ceases to want to know the duration of happiness and suppliments. The joy of the blessed of heaven must be doubled to know the depths of the torments which their enemies have already suffered in hell; so too will the quantity of delights enjoyed by the disaffected in heaven increase the pains of the condemned of hell. This other suppliment escaped the divine Dante; but I'm not here to mend poets. I'm about to tell you that, after an unmarked time, I finally grabbed hold of Capitú's hair, but then with my hands, and told him-to say something-that I could do them if I wanted to.

-You?

-Myself.

"It will embarrass my whole hair, that, yes."

"Get embarrassed, you get it off later."

-We will see.