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Dom Casmurro · Chapters CXXXVI to CXLVIII

The Cup, the Separation, and the Rest

Appearance and RealityLanguage and NarrationJealousyLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter CXXXVI: The Cup of Coffee

Section summary

Bentinho decides to kill himself with poison dissolved in his morning coffee, and while waiting, he reads a volume of Plutarch on Cato, who before dying had read and reread a book of Plato's to gain courage. He keeps the book so as to leave no trace, pours the drug into the cup with a trembling hand, and, as he stirs the coffee, sees the photograph of Escobar and takes heart. He postpones the act until his wife and son leave for Mass. Then Ezequiel enters shouting "Papa, papa!" and Bentinho retreats to the bookcase.

Analysis

Bentinho copies Cato the way a reader copies a scene: he seeks out the book to manufacture courage and worries about what the newspapers would say about his trousers. The suicidal gesture arrives already dressed as reading, and the old narrator, who remembers the previous evening's spectacle ("innocent Desdemona," linked to Othello), shows, beneath the tragic gesture, a man rehearsing his own death like a theater scene.

Even so, I found the courage to pour the substance into the cup
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Chapter CXXXVII: Second Impulse

Section summary

If he had not looked at Ezequiel, Bentinho says, he would have drunk the coffee right there. But the boy kisses his hand as usual, and Bentinho, who names the impulse "criminal," asks whether his son has had his coffee yet. The boy says yes and goes to Mass with his mother; the father insists that he drink half a cup more, that he will have another sent for, and holds out the cup to him, trembling, ready to make him swallow it. Something makes him draw back. He sets the cup on the table and finds himself kissing the boy's head with frenzy. "Papa! papa!" exclaims Ezequiel, and Bentinho replies that he is not his father.

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Chapter CXXXVIII: Capitu Comes In

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

When he lifts his head, Bentinho sees Capitu before him, livid, and the two pass through a silence he calls a century. She sends the boy away and asks for an explanation; he says there is nothing to explain and, under her insistence, repeats that Ezequiel is not his son. Capitu shows astonishment and indignation, observes that he never revealed any suspicion, and demands that he tell everything or else asks for separation. Bentinho accepts the separation as decided, says he speaks only what he is able to, and alludes to Escobar's love affairs without giving his name. Capitu laughs and replies that not even the dead escape his jealousy. Then, with disdain, she says that the cause is the chance of resemblance and that the will of God will explain everything.

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Chapter CXXXIX: The Photograph

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Bentinho confesses that he was on the verge of believing a madman's illusion. Ezequiel's entrance, shouting that it is time for Mass, brings him back to reality. He and Capitu, without meaning to, look at the same time at Escobar's photograph and then at each other. Bentinho reads in her confusion a confession, and concludes that there must necessarily be a photograph of Escobar as a boy that would be Ezequiel himself. Capitu confesses nothing: she repeats the last words, takes her son, and leaves for Mass.

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Chapter CXL: Returning from Church

JealousyMemory and the Past

Section summary

Alone, Bentinho decides not to drink the coffee: death was one solution, and he found another, not final, which leaves reparation open, that is, justice. He waits for Capitu, who takes longer than usual. On her return, she says she has handed her bitterness over to God and has heard within herself that separation is indispensable. Bentinho replies that he will think it over, though everything is already decided. He recalls the words of the late Gurgel about inexplicable resemblances, notes Ezequiel's features, gathers old episodes together, and remembers the day of the swallows on the telegraph wire, when Escobar and Capitu looked at each other and quickly looked away.

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Chapter CXLI: The Solution

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

Bentinho and the family go to Europe, without touring, and stop in Switzerland. A schoolteacher from Rio Grande stays with Capitu and teaches Ezequiel his mother tongue, and he will learn the rest in the country's schools. Bentinho returns to Brazil. Months later Capitu begins to write, and he replies briefly and dryly. Her letters are submissive, without hatred, sometimes affectionate and at the end wistful, and they ask him to come see her. He sails a year later and does not seek her out, repeats the trip with the same result and, on his return, gives news of her as if he had just spent time with her. One day, at last...

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Chapter CXLII: A Saint

Religion

Section summary

José Dias does not go to Europe with Bentinho: he stays to keep Uncle Cosme company, nearly an invalid, and the mother, who has aged quickly. He takes his leave aboard ship, handkerchief in hand, and on the last occasion says that he cannot go, that he may not see him again, and that he is going "to the other Europe, the eternal one." Bentinho's mother sets out first, for the other Europe: she dies before José Dias. Bentinho has a nameless grave carved in the São João Batista cemetery, bearing only the words "A Saint." The sculptor is surprised, the administrator consults the vicar, who points out that saints are on the altar, and Bentinho explains that he wants an earthly definition of all her virtues, modesty included, and therefore leaves out the name. The vicar agrees when reminded of the Apostolic Protonotary Cabral, a good backgammon partner. José Dias, who had attended to the arrangements, later says that the vicar was meticulous and that, if they had known her, they would have had "most saintly" carved.

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Chapter CXLIII: The Last Superlative

Section summary

The narrator says that was not José Dias's last superlative: others came, down to the last, "the one that made death a piece of life for him." José Dias comes to live with Bentinho, despite the legacy left by his mother, and corresponds with Capitu, asking for Ezequiel's portrait, which she keeps postponing from mail to mail. When he falls ill, he refuses the homeopath, accepts an allopath, and says that "allopathy is the Catholicism of medicine." Shortly before dying, he hears that the sky is lovely and asks for the window to be opened. Bentinho first refuses, then gives in. José Dias looks outside and murmurs "Most lovely!", his last word. Bentinho says he wept for him.

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Chapter CXLIV: A Belated Question

Memory and the Past

Section summary

Bentinho says it is unlikely that anyone will weep for him, because he has let himself be forgotten, lives far away, and goes out little. The house at Engenho Novo copies that of Matacavalos, but recalls it only by comparison and reflection, not by feeling. He answers, belatedly, why he let the old house be demolished instead of preserving it: when his mother died, he made a long inspection visit, and the house did not recognize him. In the yard, the aroeira tree, the pitanga tree, the well, the well bucket and the laundry trough did not know him, and the casuarina had its trunk bent like a question mark. The foliage murmured the song of new mornings, and the pigs grunted like philosophical mockery. Everything seemed strange and hostile to him, and he let them tear it down.

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Chapter CXLV: The Return

Section summary

At the Engenho Novo house, Bentinho receives a calling card with the name Ezequiel A. de Santiago. He makes the visitor wait ten or fifteen minutes and only then remembers that he ought to have shown eagerness. Capitu, he reports, died and is buried in Switzerland. On entering the parlor, he sees a young man with his back turned, looking at the bust of Massinissa, and when the young man turns around, he recognizes Escobar from the seminary, "the very one, the exact one, the true one." Ezequiel calls him "Papa," tells of life in Europe, his archaeology studies, and the memory of the day he was taken to boarding school. At lunch Bentinho notices that he eats like Escobar, with his face in the plate. He keeps him close and becomes a father in truth, keeps Cousin Justina from seeing him, and later gives money for a scientific expedition. He thinks that he would rather have paid him for the leprosy, and, ashamed of his cruelty, wants to clasp him to his heart, but draws back and looks at him as at a true son.

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Chapter CXLVI: There Was No Leprosy

Appearance and Reality

Section summary

There was no leprosy, but there was fever: eleven months later, Ezequiel dies of typhoid fever and is buried near Jerusalem, where two university friends raise a tomb with an inscription from the prophet Ezekiel, in Greek. They send Bentinho the texts in Greek and in Latin, the drawing of the tomb, the account of expenses, and the remainder of the money. Bentinho consults the Vulgate and sees that the sentence has a complement, "from the day of thy creation," and silently asks what the day of Ezekiel's creation would have been. No one answers, and he calls the matter a mystery among the mysteries of this world. Then he dines well and goes to the theater.

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Chapter CXLVII: The Retrospective Account

Section summary

Bentinho says that his soul did not remain "like a livid and solitary flower": he lived as well as he could, with women friends who consoled him for the first. They were whims of short duration, which left him like visitors who tire of a retrospective exhibition, or like those to whom the light of a room fades. Only one of them had a carriage and a liveried coachman; for the others he would call a hackney cab when it rained, and he would send them off with a question about the catalogue. They did not come back, and he would stand at the door, waiting, until another visitor appeared.

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Chapter CXLVIII: Well, and the Rest?

Language and NarrationLoyalty and BetrayalMemory and the Past

Section summary

Bentinho asks why none of the capricious women made him forget his first love, and answers that perhaps none had eyes of undertow, nor those of an oblique and dissembling gypsy. He says the rest of the book is about knowing whether the Capitu of Glória beach was already inside the one of Matacavalos, or was changed by the incident. He quotes Jesus, son of Sirach, who advises against jealousy of one's wife, but asserts that the girl and the young woman were one, "as the fruit inside the peel." He concludes that his first female friend and his greatest friend ended up joining together and deceiving him, wishes that the earth may rest lightly on them, and moves on to the History of the Suburbs.

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