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Dom Casmurro · Chapters CI to CXII

The Marriage, the Sea, and the Son

Appearance and RealityJealousyLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter CI: In Heaven

Section summary

Bentinho hurries the narration to get married, before the reader gives up waiting. The wedding takes place in 1865, on a rainy March afternoon; on the heights of Tijuca, where the couple's nest is, the sky stops raining and lights the stars. He recounts the night as a visit to heaven in which Saint Peter recites the first epistle on the submission of wives and the angels sing the Canticle, and he admits it may have been the dream of a former seminarian. Capitu learned a sentence by heart and said the next day that he was the only income and the only ornament she would wear.

Analysis

The narrator marries the couple "at once" so as not to tire the reader, and turns the ceremony into a vision: what the night has of the familiar (Latin, Scripture, opera music) comes from the head of a former seminarian, and he himself admits it may have been a dream. The marriage reaches the book as a heavenly scene, with no record of people or of the notary's office.

Wives, be subject to your husbands... Let not your adornment be the braiding of the hair, or gold jewelry, but the man hidden in the heart... Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them, treating them with honor, as the weaker vessel, and as heirs together with you of the grace of life...
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Chapter CII: As a Married Woman

Section summary

In the week at Tijuca, time seems like a clock without a face: the couple recall the sorrows of sweethearts, the denunciation of the first chapters, and José Dias, who conspired against them and ended up celebrating the marriage. Capitu shows impatience to come down, speaks of her father and mother-in-law, and the two quarrel; they come down on a sunny day. Bentinho understands that she wants the signs of the new state and feels the same: he invents outings so that people will see them, and hears in the street that they are Dr. Santiago and the "grown girl" Dona Capitolina.

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Chapter CIII: Happiness Has a Good Soul

Section summary

José Dias, who found "grown girl" better, is the only person of the lower station who visits the couple at Tijuca, bringing embraces and an image: the two are birds raised in two adjoining roof spaces, who rise together to the sky. Neither of them laughed; they listened moved and forgot everything since the afternoon of 1858.

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Chapter CIV: The Pyramids

Section summary

Two years after the marriage, José Dias divides himself between dinners at Glória and lunches at Matacavalos, and all goes well, except for the sorrow of Bentinho and Capitu at not having children. Bentinho is a lawyer for wealthy houses and owes Escobar his debut in the courts. The couples spend their Sundays at Andaraí; Escobar and Sancha have a little daughter, and the narrator heard of a theatrical adventure of the husband's, without scandal. Escobar tells Bentinho that God will give children when He wishes.

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Chapter CV: The Arms

Jealousy

Section summary

Capitu likes to laugh and to enjoy herself, asks that no expensive jewels be bought for her, learns piano after marriage, sings little for lack of voice, and dances with love; the couple's nights are spent at the window of Glória, looking at the sea, while Bentinho gives her lessons in astronomy, sometimes with her dozing off. Her arms are beautiful, and he swells with vanity when he takes them bare to a ball, but at the second ball, seeing the men brush their black sleeves against them, he is vexed, and at the third he does not go. He confides his boredom to Escobar, who agrees; Capitu gives in and begins to wear a mantilla.

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Chapter CVI: Ten Pounds Sterling

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Capitu keeps used things, like the flat little shoes with black ribbons that she wore before putting on boots. One night of astronomy on the Glória beach, she loses herself gazing at the sea, and when Bentinho says she is not listening, she answers that he was speaking of Sirius, and then of Mars; he perceives that she has caught only the sound. Seeing that he is about to leave the room, she confesses that she was adding up some money and shows him ten pounds sterling, leftovers from her allowance, exchanged for gold through Escobar, who had been there shortly before. The next day, Bentinho laughs at the secret with Escobar, who says he is about to go and tell it, and remarks that Sancha is not spared. Bentinho calls Capitu an angel, and Escobar agrees without enthusiasm.

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Chapter CVII: The Sea's Jealousy

Jealousy

Section summary

Bentinho returns to the astronomy lesson to explain that he was jealous of the sea not out of a teacher's vanity, but because of what might be in the head of Capitu: a distraction can be half guilty, a third, a tenth, because guilt has infinite gradation, and the memory of a pair of eyes is enough. He feels the urge to leave the room, but does not, and calculates that he would return to the lesson ten minutes later; his jealousies are intense and brief. The friendship with Capitu and with Escobar grows closer after the episode.

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Chapter CVIII: A Son

Section summary

The longing for a son persists, and the visit to the daughter of Escobar and Sancha, also named Capitu and therefore called Little Capitu, increases the envy of the two of them. Then a robust, strapping boy is born, and Bentinho lives in a vertigo of joy, watching the boy and Capitu nursing him. Sancha spends the first days with Capitu, and Escobar dines with them and returns at night to Andaraí. Bentinho imagines varied careers for the son; Escobar follows the fantasies and proposes marrying the boy to his daughter, and Bentinho accepts with a handshake. He wanted Escobar as godfather, but Uncle Cosme anticipates him and claims the favor; Escobar is not hurt and offers the farm for the lunch. The boy is baptized Ezequiel, Escobar's name.

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Chapter CIX: An Only Son

Section summary

Ezequiel reaches five years old, a strapping, handsome boy with light and already restless eyes, as if they wanted to court almost all the girls of the neighborhood. The only child, with no other coming, he gives his parents the cares and frights of every child.

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Chapter CX: Glimpses of Childhood

Memory and the Past

Section summary

The narrator warns that the rest still takes many chapters. At five and six years old, Ezequiel shows every vocation, from good-for-nothing to apostle, and reminds his mother of herself when he sulks. He likes music: Bentinho asks Capitu to play the cry of the coconut seller of Matacavalos; she says she does not remember it, and he brings the little paper he has kept since São Paulo. She picks out the sixteen notes on the piano and begins to sing it to the boy. Ezequiel plays doctor, soldier, actor, and dancer, loves the troops and the little soldiers, and asks why the soldier with the raised sword does not let it fall. At Escobar's farm, he watches a cat with a live rat in its mouth and asks for silence; Bentinho claps his hands, the cat runs off, and the boy, downcast, says he wanted to see.

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Chapter CXI: Told Quickly

Section summary

Bentinho says he found the scene of the cat and the rat funny, and still does, and that he loves the rat without ceasing to love the cat. He then tells of the dog, from the time Ezequiel was born: with the mother feverish and three dogs barking all night, he bought poison, had three balls of meat made, put the drug in them, and went out at night; one of the dogs, on seeing him, came slowly, wagging its tail, and the trust bound his will. He kept the balls in his pocket, and the dog was spared.

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Chapter CXII: The Imitations of Ezequiel

Section summary

Bentinho says Ezequiel would not do what he did to the dog: he would go after the dogs with stones, and Capitu is wild about that future fighter. She says the boy does not take after them, who like peace, but after her father as a young man. Bentinho points out the only defect: Ezequiel imitates the others, Cousin Justina, José Dias, and even a way of Escobar's feet and of his eyes. Capitu thinks and says he must be corrected; she recalls that Bentinho himself imitated when he was angry, and he agrees it was a boy's revenge. She says she does not like imitations at home; he asks whether she already liked him, and she answers with a sweet laugh of scorn; the two embrace.

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