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Dom Casmurro · Chapters XCIII to C

The Substitute and the Bachelor

Appearance and RealityLanguage and NarrationReligionLoyalty and Betrayal

Chapter XCIII: A Friend in Place of a Dead Man

Section summary

After Manduca's death, Escobar appears at Matacavalos on Sunday, before noon, and stays about five minutes with Bentinho's hand between his own. He dines with the family and pleases everyone: José Dias gives him two superlatives and Uncle Cosme two cloaks, and only Cousin Justina, weeks later, finds him meddlesome. Escobar asks about the age and widowhood of Dona Glória, about the farm and the enslaved people who came from it, and is surprised that she got used to the cramped house in the city. This leads Bentinho to list the houses she rents, and he concludes that they will not lack roofs.

Analysis

Escobar asks questions about the mother, the dead father, the farm, and the enslaved people, comments on the cramped house in the city, and praises Bentinho's mother more than once. The scene can be read as the warm curiosity of a new friend, or as the survey of someone who already knows how to count what the family has; the text does not decide, and Bentinho, content, only notes that his friend listened attentively.

A friend thus stood in for a dead man
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Chapter XCIV: Arithmetical Ideas

Section summary

Escobar adds and multiplies in his head with speed, and argues that numerals are worth more than the letters of the alphabet, because none repeats the office of another, and zero, which alone is worth nothing, makes much worth. To prove it, he proposes the wager that Bentinho accepts: with the list of Dona Glória's houses and their rents, he sums it all in half a minute and gets it right, 1:070$000 a month. Bentinho embraces him in the seminary courtyard; a priest censures the gesture, Escobar speaks of envy and proposes they live apart, and Bentinho refuses and asks that they become even closer friends.

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Chapter XCV: The Pope

Religion

Section summary

In the first week after Escobar's visit, José Dias tells Bentinho that he is going to leave the seminary, and the next day reveals the plan: Dona Glória would be repentant but bound by the moral tie of the promise, and he understands that the pope, with the power to loose given to the apostles, can release her, so that the two would go to Rome to ask for absolution, with letters from the internuncio and the bishop. José Dias says he would spend on himself no more than a pair of trousers, three shirts, and bread. Bentinho, dazzled, asks for a week to think and denies that he wants to consult anyone.

Analysis

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Chapter XCVI: A Substitute

ReligionLoyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

Bentinho lays out the journey to Capitu, who grows sad, fears he will forget her in Italy, and asks for the oath that he will return in six months. She also asks what he will do if the pope does not release him: "And if you lie?" She does not agree at once and promises to look for another way. At the seminary, Escobar listens with equal sadness and suddenly has an idea: his mother would fulfill the promise by giving a priest to the Church who was not her son, an orphan ordained at her expense. Bentinho accepts at once, Escobar cites the sum of the rents, and announces that he too will leave.

Analysis

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Chapter XCVII: The Exit

Language and NarrationReligion

Section summary

Dona Glória hesitates, but gives in after Father Cabral, having consulted the bishop, says the exchange is valid, and Bentinho leaves the seminary at the end of the year. The narrator confesses that the book should be halfway through and is already nearing the end of the paper, and goes on to tell in summary, without analyzing what he felt at seventeen, the age at which girls found him handsome and he felt a cheekiness beneath his reserve.

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Chapter XCVIII: Five Years

Loyalty and Betrayal

Section summary

Bentinho studies and, at twenty-two, is a bachelor of law. All around him things have changed: Dona Glória has resolved to grow old slowly, Uncle Cosme suffers from his heart, Capitu's mother has died, and her father has retired. Escobar begins to trade in coffee, receives from Dona Glória, at Bentinho's request, some advance sums, returns them with a jibe about her caution, and serves as go-between in the exchange of letters between Bentinho and Capitu; he marries Sancha, her friend.

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Chapter XCIX: The Son Is the Spitting Image of His Father

Section summary

When Bentinho returns a bachelor, Dona Glória weeps with happiness, and José Dias quotes the Gospel: "Woman, behold your son!" She asks her brother whether the young man is not the spitting image of his father, and Uncle Cosme agrees with reservations and jokes that it is the father, only more modern. Bentinho asks after the substitute, who is to be ordained the following year; Dona Glória insists on the resemblance, which only the moustache spoils, and everyone calls him doctor.

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Chapter C: "You Will Be Happy, Bentinho!"

Section summary

In his room, unpacking his trunk, Bentinho thinks about marriage and career and hears a voice saying he will be happy; José Dias, who heard nothing, replies that it is he himself who speaks. The narrator swears it was a fairy, cousin of the witches who tell Macbeth that he will be king. José Dias praises the diploma and reveals that he knows of the courtship with Capitu, which Dona Glória approves and has already consulted him about: a good housekeeper, who has managed the accounts since her mother's death. He also recounts the rumor that Cousin Justina and Dr. João da Costa, a widower, may marry. Bentinho only hears the voice, and afterward he hears it from Capitu, from Escobar, and from his mother.

Analysis

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