Dom Casmurro

by Machado de Assis

XXXVIII - What a Scare, My God!

When Padova, coming from the interior, entered the drawing room, Capitú, standing with his back to me, bending over the seam, as he collected it, he asked aloud: "But, Bentinho, what an apostolic protonotary?" -Well, live! exclaimed the father. "What a scare, my God!" Now the bid is the same; but if I tell you here, so the two sets of forty years ago, is to show that Capitú was not dominated only in the presence of his mother; the father did not fear him anymore. In the midst of a situation that bound me to the language, I used the word with the greatest naivety of this world. My persuasion was that his heart did not beat him any more. He scrambled to his feet, and his face was half-drawn; but I, who knew everything, saw that it was a lie and I was envious. He went to speak to the father, who shook my hand, and wondered why his daughter spoke in apostolic protonotary. Capit6 repelled him what he had heard from me, and soon thought that the father should go and refresh the priest in his house; She would go to mine. And, sticking up the sewing gear, he stumbled down the corridor, shouting childishly: "Mom, dinner, Papa's here!"