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Dom Casmurro · Chapters CXXV to CXXXV

The Resemblance and Othello

Appearance and RealityLanguage and NarrationJealousyLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter CXXV: A Comparison

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

The narrator compares his situation to that of Priam in the Iliad, who kisses the hand of the man who killed his son. Bentinho had just praised the man who had received, dead, "those eyes." Homers are lacking, he says, because the Priams of today seek the shade and dry their tears behind the door.

Analysis

By placing himself in Priam's position, old Bentinho treats the funeral eulogy for Escobar as the father's kissed hand of his son's killer: the man praised, who "received, dead, those eyes," is already the one who wounded him. It can be read as the clarity of someone who already suffered at the funeral what he later writes, or as a projection from years later. Priam kisses the hand of the man who actually killed Hector, and the text gives Bentinho no equivalent fact.

Priam considers himself the most unhappy of men, for kissing the hand of the one who killed his son
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Chapter CXXVI: Brooding

Jealousy

Section summary

Leaving the cemetery, Bentinho tears up the speech and throws the pieces out through the carriage window, despite José Dias. He continues on foot along the Catete, to brood. He compares Sancha's gesture the day before with the despair of that day, sees that they do not agree, and rids himself of the illusion of his own vanity. He makes the same examination of Capitu's eyes and concludes that his old passion blinded him. He reaches the door, turns back, and walks until he calms down.

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Chapter CXXVII: The Barber

Section summary

Near home, Bentinho stops on the sidewalk to listen to a barber playing the fiddle. The barber sees him, keeps playing, and loses two customers. Behind a curtain appears his wife, who thanks him with her eyes. Bentinho leaves and climbs the stairs without a sound. From this he draws a maxim about good deeds and imagines the barber playing desperately if the passerby had stayed to court his wife.

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Chapter CXXVIII: A Handful of Successes

Section summary

Bentinho finds Cousin Justina and José Dias playing cards. Capitu comes to him with a serene face, reproaches the imprudence of Escobar, and tells him that Sancha did not want her to stay, nor agreed to spend a few days with them. She goes to see whether the boy is asleep, lingers at the mirror, and returns with red eyes. She embraces her husband in front of the visitors and tells him, in the words he reports, that if he wanted to think of her, he would first have to think of his own life. The next day he regrets having torn up the speech. The will names him second executor, and Sancha leaves for Paraná.

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Chapter CXXIX: Dona Sancha

Language and Narration

Section summary

The narrator asks Dona Sancha not to read the rest of the book: it is enough to close it, it would be better to burn it. What he has already caused her by recounting the gestures of that Saturday has ended, because events disproved his illusion, but what is about to reach her will be indelible. He advises her to grow old, without husband or daughter, until they meet again, renewed, at the gate of heaven, and he quotes Dante.

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Chapter CXXX: One Day...

Section summary

Capitu wants to know why Bentinho is silent and annoyed, and proposes Europe, Petrópolis, balls. He refuses and claims that business is going badly. She smiles: they would sell the jewels and go live in an alley. He replies curtly that there is no need to sell anything. Capitu proposes playing cards or checkers, a walk on foot, a visit to Matacavalos; he accepts nothing, and she goes to play the piano. Bentinho takes his hat and leaves. The narrator warns that an earlier chapter is missing, which he will write next.

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Chapter CXXXI: Before the Before

Section summary

The year 1872 was beginning, and Bentinho's life was sweet. After dinner, Capitu asks whether he noticed that Ezequiel has a strange expression in his eyes, one she had seen only in a friend of her father's and in the late Escobar. Bentinho thinks she is right, but says there are only half a dozen expressions in the world. On saying that the boy's eyes take after his mother's, he sees Capitu smile and shake her head, and he covers her with kisses.

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Chapter CXXXII: The Drawing and the Color

Jealousy

Section summary

The features of Ezequiel grow clearer like a drawing the artist fills in little by little, and Bentinho reads the letter of resemblance first poorly, then better. He sees Escobar rise from the grave to sit at the table and ask for his blessing, and swears to kill mother and son, but is disarmed on seeing the boy at the top of the stairs. The storms with Capitu are constant. She proposes putting the boy in a boarding school, and Bentinho takes him there on foot, swearing to visit him. Absence worsens the evil, and he begins to avoid his son.

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Chapter CXXXIII: An Idea

Section summary

One Friday, Bentinho can bear it no longer: an idea that had been darkening within him spreads its wings, like those that want to get out. He hesitates over whether the day was chance or purpose, because he was raised in the terror of Friday, and concludes that the idea only beat its wings out of the need to come into life. He tells the reader that he already understands him and tells him to read the next chapter.

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Chapter CXXXIV: Saturday

Section summary

The idea leaves the mind of Bentinho, who does not sleep and, at dawn, leaves the house carrying it with him. He writes some letters and buys a substance he does not name, and death in his pocket gives him the joy of winning the grand prize. He goes to his mother's house, Dona Glória, as a visit and a farewell, and finds everything better. He spends an hour in peace and even gives up the plan.

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Chapter CXXXV: Othello

Jealousy

Section summary

After dining out, Bentinho goes to the theater: they are playing Othello, which he had never seen or read. He is astonished that a handkerchief should suffice for the Moor's jealousy, while Iago distills the slander. The last act shows him that not he, but Capitu must die. Down the street, he asks what the audience would do if Desdemona were as guilty as Capitu. He wanders all night long, returns home near six, and writes Capitu a letter that speaks only of Escobar and of the need to die.

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