Escobar drowns one morning in March 1871, at Flamengo. According to Bentinho's account, he set out to swim, as he was in the habit of doing, ventured a little farther out than usual, despite the rough sea, and was caught by the waves. The canoes that came to help could only bring back the body.
On the night before, at the couple's house, Sancha grips Bentinho's hand and lingers, and he feels "an instant of vertigo and sin." It is the episode in which the narrator confesses desire in front of his friend's wife. Bentinho is called to Flamengo by an enslaved man from the house, sees to the funeral, and writes a speech for the cemetery, fearing that the truth will be guessed.
At the wake, Capitu gazes at the dead man for a few moments, cries little and dries her tears while glancing sideways at the room. Only when writing, years later, does Bentinho compare that gaze to the wave of the sea that wanted to swallow the swimmer, and call it eyes of undertow. In writing it, he makes this gaze the first clue against the two.