Apostrophe

The speaker addresses someone absent or dead, a thing, a place, or an idea, as if they could hear.

In The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

Living gentlemen, there is nothing as immeasurable as the scorn of the dead.

"Living gentlemen" addresses the speech directly to the readers, as if an audience of the living stood before the dead man and could hear him.

Chapters XVII to XXIV: Coimbra and His Mother's Death, the narrator

Do not tremble so, pale reader; rest easy, for I shall not mark this page with a drop of blood

Chapters L to LXIII: Virgília Married and the "Let's Flee!", the narrator

the greatest defect of this book is you, reader

Chapters LXIV to LXXVI: The Little House, The Whip, and Dona Plácida, the narrator