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Dom Casmurro · Chapters XLII to LIII

The Oath at the Well and the Departure

Appearance and RealityReligionLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter XLII: Capitu Reflecting

Section summary

On the day after the talk with his mother, Bentinho goes to the neighboring house and finds Capitu downcast, with a handkerchief tied around her head, which her mother attributes to a night of reading by the light of an oil lamp. Alone, he tells her about the interview with his mother and the two- or three-month deadline for the seminary. The two sit on the sofa and look down, and Capitu, after remaining motionless, asks him to tell everything again; he softens his account. She "reflected, reflected, reflected."

Analysis

Capitu holds herself in before what she hears, "as if about to burst with anger," and passes into silence instead of exploding. Bentinho does not know whether she wept and prefers to believe she only dried her eyes, and he softens the account because he fears losing her without hope and because it pains him to see her suffer. He admits that he already regretted having spoken to his mother before any work by José Dias, because he did not want to hear a disappointment he took as certain.

Capitu looked inward into herself, while I, in truth, stared at the floor
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Chapter XLIII: Are You Afraid?

Section summary

Capitu interrupts her reflection, fixes on Bentinho her eyes of undertow, and asks whether he is afraid of being beaten, of being arrested, of fighting, of walking, of working. He does not understand and imagines where beatings and prisons would come from, picturing in his mind the Aljube and the House of Correction. Capitu says she was joking, calls him a coward, slaps his cheek lightly, and claims to be half mad. She places a slice of lime on her temples, and the two sit on the edge of the well, where she speaks of the separation as a settled matter and draws profiles on the ground with a bamboo stick. Bentinho asks for the stick to write, and she does not give it to him.

Analysis

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Chapter XLIV: The First Son

Section summary

Capitu, with the oblique look that José Dias had attributed to her, asks whether Bentinho would choose between her and his mother. He says he would come from the seminary, against his mother's orders, if she were about to die of longing; Capitu smiles pale and writes "liar" on the ground. To take revenge, Bentinho says that a priest's life is not bad, hoping to see her throw herself on him in tears. She answers with irony: she prefers a canon, because of the purple stockings, and wants to hear the new Mass in a bell-skirted dress. He sets one condition: that she confess only to him and that he be the priest who marries her. Capitu refuses the second, because it would mean waiting too long, and promises that he will baptize her first child.

Analysis

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Chapter XLV: Shake Your Head, Reader

Language and Narration

Section summary

The narrator asks the reader to shake his head, make gestures of disbelief, and even put the book down, but assures us that Capitu spoke exactly that way about the first child, as if it were the first doll. Bentinho felt a fluid run through him: Capitu's first child meant her marriage to another, absolute separation. He was left without word or gesture, while she smiled.

Analysis

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Chapter XLVI: The Reconciliation

Section summary

Peace comes quickly, like war, and Bentinho insists that Capitu started it: she lowered her head, looking up to see his eyes, and he let himself stay and put his arm around her waist. Dona Fortunata appears at the house door and vanishes; the narrator asks whether it was ceremony or the certainty his heart gave him. Each wants the blame for himself and asks for forgiveness; Capitu pleads insomnia and "calundus," and Bentinho, a crybaby, feels his eyes grow wet.

Analysis

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Chapter XLVII: "The Lady Went Out"

Section summary

Bentinho asks Capitu why she had asked him whether he was afraid of being beaten. After hesitating, she answers that she heard that in the seminary they give beatings, and she immediately adds that she does not believe it either. The explanation pleases Bentinho; the older narrator thinks Capitu did not tell the truth and compares the lie to the maid who answers "the lady went out" when the lady does not want to receive. The swallows return in the opposite direction, and the two keep adding up illusions, fears, and already longings.

Analysis

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Chapter XLVIII: The Oath at the Well

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

After a few minutes of silence, Bentinho exclaims that it cannot be like this: two or three years pass quickly, and he asks Capitu to swear that she will marry only him. She swears three times, up to the limit of never marrying, even if he marries another, and he swears by God that he will marry only her. Capitu then proposes another formula, stronger, and the two swear that they shall marry each other, come what may. Bentinho thinks of going to the seminary pretending it is an ordinary school, without taking orders, and Capitu agrees, because she would not distress Dona Glória and any resistance would confirm the denunciation of José Dias.

Analysis

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Chapter XLIX: A Candle on Saturdays

Religion

Section summary

Relieved of the oath, the two of them speak of the future. Bentinho promises his "wife" a quiet life far from the city, in a house neither large nor small, with flowers, furniture, a carriage, and a rosewood oratory bearing an image of Our Lady of the Conception, where they would light a candle on Saturdays. He lingers over the oratory partly out of piety, partly to make up for the cassock he would be giving up, and partly, he claims, from a secret intention to win the protection of heaven.

Analysis

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Chapter L: A Middle Way

Religion

Section summary

Months later, Bentinho goes off to the seminary of S. José at fifteen, crying hard. Father Cabral proposes a middle way: two years to test his vocation, and, if it does not appear, another career, because God wants promises fulfilled according to His will. Dona Glória hesitates, José Dias agrees but wants a year, and privately tells Bentinho that without taste the remedy is Europe. Capitu gives the same advice. Meanwhile she is winning over Dona Glória, who gives her a ring and a miniature painted when she was twenty-five; Capitu kisses the portrait with passion.

Analysis

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Chapter LI: Between Light and Dusk

Religion

Section summary

On the eve of his departure, in the moment between daylight and dusk, Bentinho and Capitu say goodbye in her parlor, before lighting the candles. They swear again that they will marry, and this time they seal the contract with a kiss on the mouth. The narrator says he might cut the passage, but decides to keep it because it is their defense: God made the lips clean, and the malice lies in the head of the reader. He enters the seminary pure, and the vocation was Capitu.

Analysis

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Chapter LII: Old Pádua

Section summary

On the morning of his departure, old Pádua comes to Bentinho's house, is sent by Dona Glória to his room, and embraces him. He tells him not to believe in intrigues, reminds him that he too was a victim of them, praises Dona Glória and the uncle, sets himself apart from the parasites, and offers the house for his company, even as a priest. He asks for a keepsake, "a little rag," a waistcoat button. Bentinho had a lock of his own hair, cut the day before, which he meant to take to Capitu, and he gives it to the father for the daughter to keep. The old man receives the lock with thanks and takes his leave with moist eyes, with the look of someone who has spent all his savings of hope on a blank ticket.

Analysis

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Chapter LIII: On the Way!

Section summary

Bentinho sets off for the seminary and spares the reader the goodbyes: Dona Glória clasps him to her breast, Cousin Justina sighs and gives orders, Uncle Cosme tells him to come back "papa," and José Dias, who the evening before had promised him Europe within a year, rejects the idea of studying medicine at the local school because of allopathy. At the moment itself, José Dias says little, offers the aphorism that sharing a son with God is still possessing him, and in the street asks Bentinho to hold on for a year, because by then everything will be arranged. The enslaved servants ask for his blessing.

Analysis

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