Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

XCVII - The Exit

Everything has been done in this way. My mother hesitated a little, but she gave in, after Father Cabral, having consulted the bishop, again said to him, "Yes, it could be. I left the seminary at the end of the year. It was just over seventeen ... Here must be the middle of the book, but the inexperience made me go beyond the penna, and I reach almost to the end of the paper, with the best of the narration to say. Now she no longer has to take her to big strides, chapter on chapter, little amendment, little reflection, all in summary. Already this page is worth for months, others will be worth for years, and thus we will arrive at the end. One of the sacrifices I make to this harsh necessity is to analyze my emotions of the seventeen years. I do not know if you've ever been seventeen years. If so, you must know that it is the age in which half of the man and half of the boy form a curious one. I was a curiosissimo, would say my added Jose Dias, and would not say bad. What this superlative quality gave me could never say it here, without falling into the error I have just condemned; the analysis of my emotions of that time was that it was in my plan. As a son of the seminary and of my mother, I already felt, under the chaste recollection, a certain amount of petulance and daring; were of the blood, but they were also of the girls who in the street or of the window did not let me live socegado. They thought me beautiful, and they said to me; some wanted to take a closer look at my beauty, and vanity is a principle of corruption.