Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

LI - Between Light and Twinkle

Between light and twinkle, everything must be brief as that moment. Our farewell did not last long, it was as much as it could, at her house, in the parlor, before the candles came; That's where we say goodbye. We swore again that we were to marry one another, and it was not just the handshake that sealed the contract, as in the yard, it was the conjunction of our loving mouths ... Maybe scratch this in the impression, if not there to think of another way; if you think, stay. And from now on, because, in truth, it is our defense. What the divine commandment wants is that we should not swear in vain by the holy name of God. I was not going to lie to the seminary, since I had a contract made in the proper sky office. As for the seal, God, as he made his hands clean, so did his lips clean, and malice is in your perverse head rather than in that pair of teenagers ... Oh! my sweet companion of the boyhood, I was pure, and I was pure, and I entered into the class of St. Joseph, looking for a priestly investiture, and before his vocation. But the vocation was you, the endowment was you.