I - About the Title

by Machado de Assis

　　One of these nights, coming from the city to Engenho Novo, I found on the Central train a young man from the neighborhood, whom I know by sight and hat. He filled me, sat down beside me, spoke of the moon and the ministers, and ended up reciting verses to me. The journey was short, and the verses might not be entirely evil. It happened, however, that since I was tired, I closed my eyes three or four times; all it took was for him to stop reading and put the verses in his pocket."Go on," I said, nodding."I've finished," he murmured.-They're very pretty.I saw him make a gesture to pull them out of his pocket again, but it was not the gesture; he was pouting. The next day he came and said ugly names to me, and Dom Casmurro eventually came up to me. The neighbors, who do not like my quiet and quiet habits, gave way to the nickname, which they finally took. That's not why I got angry. I counted the anecdote to the friends of the city, and they, by grace, call me like this, some in tickets: "Dom Casmurro, Sunday I'm going to have dinner with you." "I'm going to Petropolis, Don Casmurro; the house is the same as Rhenania; see if you leave this cave of the Engenho Novo, and go there for a fortnight with me. "" My dear Dom Casmurro, do not worry that the dispensation of the theater tomorrow; come and sleep here in the city; I give him a cabin, I give him tea, I give him a bed; I just do not give you a girl. "Do not consult dictionaries. Casmurro is not here in the sense that they give him, but in what the common man of a man is silent and met with. Dom came by ironically, to grant me fumes of a gentleman. All for being dozing! I also did not find a better title for my narration; if you do not have another one here until the end of the book, go this one. My poet on the train will know that I do not resent him. And with a little effort, being the title yours, you can take care that the work is yours. There are books that will only have this of their authors; some not so much.