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Dom Casmurro · Chapters XIII to XXII

Capitu, the Wall, and the Plan

Appearance and RealityLanguage and NarrationReligion

Chapter XIII: Capitu

Section summary

A voice calls Capitu from the neighboring house, and the legs of Bentinho carry him to the yard through the door that Dona Glória had opened when they were small. Capitu, fourteen, a brunette with light eyes, scratches the wall with a nail and leans against it when she sees him. He says he has news, thinks of telling her about the seminary to see whether it dismays her, and cannot. When he looks at the wall, Capitu runs and erases the writing, and he wants to read it.

Analysis

Bentinho wants to measure her love by the effect of the news: if it dismayed her, she loved him; if not, she did not. The narrator lets us see that he cannot run the test, because his sight blurs before any word. Capitu hides and then erases what she had scratched, which can be read as the modesty of someone who does not want to be surprised, or as the gesture of someone who knows that a hidden secret draws the other.

That legs are also persons, only inferior to arms, and have value in themselves, when the head does not govern them through ideas.
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Chapter XIV: The Inscription

Language and Narration

Section summary

Bentinho leaps up and, before Capitu scrapes the wall, reads two names cut with a nail, fused into one. She lowers and raises her eyes, and their hands reach out, clasp, and merge without a word. A future priest, he sees himself before her as before an altar.

Analysis

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Chapter XV: Another Sudden Voice

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Capitu's father, Pádua, appears at the back door and asks whether they are playing siso. The two let go of each other's hands, and Capitu erases the names, draws a profile that she says is her father's portrait, and answers for both of them that they were playing siso and that Bentinho laughs at once. She invites him to laugh, but he, frightened, cannot. Pádua, short and stout, nicknamed Tartaruga by José Dias, invites the boy to see the gaturamo, while the boy wanted to go after Capitu.

Analysis

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Chapter XVI: The Acting Administrator

Section summary

Pádua, a clerk in an office linked to the War Ministry, bought the house with a ten-conto lottery prize, on the advice of his wife, Dona Fortunata, and of Dona Glória. He stood in for the absent administrator with the fees, spent beyond his means, and lived twenty-two months in the belief that the interim would last forever. When the titular administrator returned, he threatened to kill himself, and Dona Glória found him at the edge of the well and made him promise that he would live. He recovered and began to speak of his administration with pride. José Dias sees surviving vanity, and Father Cabral quotes Eliphaz to Job: "He wounds, and he heals."

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Chapter XVII: The Worms

Section summary

Later, on learning that Achilles' spear also healed a wound it had made, Bentinho wanted to write a dissertation on the common origin of the pagan oracle and Israelite thought, and went to ask the worms of old books what the texts said. A fat worm answered that they gnaw without knowing, choose, love, or detest what they gnaw.

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Chapter XVIII: A Plan

Section summary

In the parlor, Capitu wants to know what news troubles Bentinho. When he tells her about the seminary and swears he will not go, she turns pale and silent, and then explodes: "Sanctimonious! Holy Joe! Mass-hound!" against Dona Glória, who had treated her well. Once the fury passes, she asks what he heard in the conversation and what interest José Dias could have, and Bentinho threatens to put him out on the street once he is master of the house. Capitu reflects, fixes on Dona Glória's tears, and concludes that the cause is the old promise. Bentinho buys two cocadas and eats them alone, and she, hearing the vendor's cry "Cry, girl, cry," says that if she were rich he would flee to Europe. She reviews the allies: Uncle Cosme is a good-time man, Cousin Justina is better, and Father Cabral would be the best but would not work against the Church. She chooses José Dias, who likes to be praised and, serving Bentinho, will speak with more warmth. She has him tell José Dias that she is ready to study law in São Paulo, and Bentinho promises to speak in the terms she rehearses.

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Chapter XIX: Without Fail

Section summary

Bentinho returns home at night rehearsing his request to José Dias: "I need to speak with you, without fail, tomorrow; choose the place and tell me." He finds his own tone dry, then almost pleading, and concludes that a middle path suits him, remembering that the house is his and José Dias a mere dependent.

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Chapter XX: A Thousand Paternosters and a Thousand Hail Marys

Religion

Section summary

Still in the orchard, Bentinho promises heaven a thousand Paternosters and a thousand Hail Marys if José Dias arranges that he not go to the seminary. The sum is huge because he is loaded with unfulfilled promises, such as the one of two hundred prayers for a rainless afternoon in Santa Teresa. He thinks of a hundred Masses, of climbing the Ladeira da Glória on his knees, of going to the Holy Land, and nothing satisfies him.

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Chapter XXI: Cousin Justina

Section summary

On the veranda, Cousin Justina, a woman in her forties with curious eyes, who lives in the house by her cousin's favor, says she told Dona Glória that Bentinho had already arrived, a lie she confesses. She asks whether he would like to be a priest, and he replies that he likes whatever his mother wants. She says there is someone in the house who puts that into his head, José Dias, about whom she says all manner of ill, and that he reminded Dona Glória of the promise just this afternoon. She refuses to speak in his favor to her cousin without being consulted.

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Chapter XXII: Other People's Sensations

Section summary

Cousin Justina keeps Bentinho talking about Capitu, who she says may yet become pretty. He, who finds her gorgeous, ends up praising her too, and only in bed does he realize he confirmed José Dias's denunciation. Cousin Justina then begins to criticize her as flighty, and he concludes that she was reliving her own sensations in his.

Analysis

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