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Dom Casmurro · Chapters LXVI to LXXVII

The Visit of Escobar and the Horseman

Language and NarrationReligionJealousyMemory and the Past

Chapter LXVI: Intimacy

Section summary

Capitu begins to spend most of her time with Dona Glória, sewing in the mornings and sometimes staying for dinner. Cousin Justina does not like her, but tolerates her. When Dona Glória falls ill with a fever that brings her to death's door and asks for Capitu as her nurse, Justina stops disguising her feelings and flings an epigram at her.

Analysis

Capitu wins Dona Glória through her presence: sewing, staying for dinner, caring for the sick woman. Bentinho attributes to her "a certain captivating magic," and that is already his judgment, written later. What the scene shows is that Capitu seeks out Justina even when Justina flees, and that Justina, who lives on sufferance, swallows her resentment in front of the mistress of the house and pours it onto the girl.

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Chapter LXVII: A Sin

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

At the end of five days, Dona Glória wakes so distraught that she sends for Bentinho from the seminary, against Uncle Cosme, who thinks the alarm groundless; she insists that her soul will not be saved if her son is not at her side. José Dias carries the message, and the two walk in silence through Barbonos Street and Matacavalos Street, Bentinho fearing his mother has died. Near home, Hope whispers to him that with his mother dead the seminary ends. He feels remorse, and reading in José Dias's pity the news of the death, he weeps; José Dias says her condition is very grave, but not one of death. At home he kneels beside the bed under the gaze of Capitu, who was in the alcove. Afterward, in his room, he thinks of telling his mother everything when she recovers, gives up, and promises God two thousand Paternosters for her life.

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Chapter LXVIII: Let Us Postpone Virtue

Language and Narration

Section summary

Bentinho says few would confess the thought of Matacavalos Street, and that he will confess everything that matters to his story: quoting Montaigne, one writes one's essence only by telling all of it, good and evil. He promises a fine deed for later and sets out the theory that each person is born with sins and virtues wedded to one another, with the example of the train he wished to see explode and the cane he gave a blind man.

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Chapter LXIX: The Mass

Religion

Section summary

On the following Sunday, Bentinho goes alone to Mass at St. Anthony of the Poor, refusing the company of José Dias, who is slow with his suspenders, in order to be reconciled with God. He wants to ask forgiveness for the sin, give thanks for his mother's recovery, and rid himself of the promise of the Paternosters. He hears Mass and receives the blessing as an act of reconciliation; he thinks of confessing, but his shyness closes that door.

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Chapter LXX: After Mass

Section summary

Leaving the church, Bentinho is noticed in the churchyard by Miss Sancha, a schoolmate of Capitu, who asks her father for news of his mother. The father, Gurgel, a widower and obliging, comes to speak with him, shows him the house, and insists on lunch. Bentinho declines and ends up staying a few minutes: Gurgel asks his age, his studies, and his faith, gives him advice in case he becomes a priest, and gives the number of the shop on Quitanda Street.

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Chapter LXXI: Escobar's Visit

Section summary

At home they had lied to his mother, saying Bentinho had already returned, and his arrival calms her. That Sunday Escobar visits him for the first time, to ask after Dona Glória's health, and breathes easy when Bentinho says the danger has passed. Bentinho asks whether the others at the seminary heard, and Escobar answers that some did. Uncle Cosme invites him to dinner; Escobar hesitates because of his father's business correspondent, accepts when Bentinho repeats Gurgel's phrase, and dines. Before the portrait of Bentinho's father, he says that one can see it was a pure heart. José Dias finds his eyes most sweet, and Cousin Justina approves with an "apesar..." that never finishes. Bentinho walks him to the door; Escobar leaves by omnibus without looking back, and Capitu, from the window, asks who that friend of such a size is.

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Chapter LXXII: A Dramatic Reform

Language and NarrationJealousy

Section summary

Bentinho says that destiny, like playwrights, announces neither reversals nor outcome, and proposes a reform of the theater: plays should begin with the end. Othello would kill himself and Desdemona in the first act, three acts would be given to jealousy, and the last only to the opening scenes, with Iago's advice, "Put money in your purse," and the spectator would go to bed with an impression of tenderness and love.

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Chapter LXXIII: The Stagehand

Jealousy

Section summary

Bentinho says that destiny is also his stage manager, and recounts the drama in which the actor Ahasuerus cried "I hear the trumpet of the archangel!" with no trumpet sounding; he had to ask the wings for "The cornet!", and the audience laughed until a wag shouted: "it's the archangel's cornet." Next he explains why he was under the window of Capitu: a dandy went by on horseback, as was the custom of the time to court on horseback, and this one did not pass like the others; he turned his head toward Capitu, and she toward him. This is the second tooth of jealousy. Bentinho says nothing to Capitu and hurries to the parlor.

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Chapter LXXIV: The Clasp

Section summary

In the parlor, Uncle Cosme and José Dias are talking. Bentinho recalls the dependent's remark in the seminary about the neighborhood rascal who would marry Capitu, wants to ask what there is between her and the rascals of the neighborhood, and when José Dias comes to him, he fears hearing the answer. José Dias asks him what is wrong. So as not to meet his eyes, Bentinho notices an unfastened clasp on the dependent's trousers, points to it, and runs off.

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Chapter LXXV: Despair

Section summary

Bentinho escapes José Dias and his mother, runs to his room, throws himself on the bed, weeps, and muffles his sobs in the sheet. He swears not to see Capitu that afternoon, or ever again, and to become a priest once and for all. He imagines himself ordained, cold and serene before her when she is repentant, and calls her wicked. From the bed he hears her voice, laughing and speaking loudly; he feels the urge to dig his nails into her neck, and he remains deaf, alone with his contempt.

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Chapter LXXVI: Explanation

Appearance and RealityJealousy

Section summary

Once the crisis has passed, Bentinho sleeps poorly and, in the morning, feigns illness so as not to go to the seminary and to be able to speak with Capitu, fearing she prefers the horseman. Capitu says it is a great insult for him to judge her so fickle after their oaths, and she weeps; he kisses her hands. She affirms that she does not know the young man, that looking at him proves nothing is between them, since there would be dissimulation otherwise, and that the horseman is going to marry a girl from Barbonos Street. She promises to stop going to the window; Bentinho asks her not to, and she withdraws the promise and makes another: at the first suspicion on his part, everything between them would be dissolved.

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Chapter LXXVII: The Pleasure of Old Pains

Memory and the Past

Section summary

Old Bentinho confesses that the pains of that stage of adolescent love have become spiritualized over time, to the point of dissolving into pleasure, and that he takes a particular taste in recounting them, though they recall other annoyances he would not wish to remember for anything.

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