Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

LXXXIX - The Refusal

My mother was puzzled when I asked her to go to the funeral.

- Missing a day of seminary ...

I pointed out to him the friendship Manduca had for me, and then he was poor people ... All he reminded me to say, he said. Prima Justina opined in the negative.

"Do not you think you should go?" asked my mother.

-I think not. What friendship is this that I have never seen?

Prima Justina won. When I referred the case to the addressee, he smiled, and told me that his cousin's hidden motive was probably not to give burial "the chandelier of my person." Whatever it was, I was sulky; The next day, thinking about the reason, I did not dislike it; I found a particular flavor later on.