In the living room Uncle Cosme and José Dias were talking, the one seated, the other walking up and down and stopping from time to time. Seeing José Dias reminded me of what he had said to me at the seminary: “Just waiting to find some local beau to marry her …” Of course it was an allusion to the man on horseback. This recollection worsened the impression I’d had in the street; or was it rather those words, stored in the unconscious, that made me see the cunning in their eyes? I had the desire to grab José Dias by the collar, take him into the corridor and ask him if he had spoken of a reality or only a hypothesis; but José Dias, who had stopped when he saw me come in, went on walking and talking. I was impatient, and wanted to go next door; I imagined that Capitu would come away from the window alarmed and would not be long in appearing, to ask what had happened and explain … And the two went on talking, until Uncle Cosme got up to go and see the invalid, and José Dias came over to me, in the other window recess.
A minute ago I had had the desire to ask him what was going on between Capitu and the local beaux; now, imagining that he might be coming over to tell me just that, I was afraid of what he would say. I wanted to stop his mouth. José Dias saw something different from my habitual expression, and asked me with concern:
“What is it, Bentinho?”
So as not to look him in the face, I let my eyes fall. As they fell, they saw that one of his trouserstraps was unbuttoned, and, as he insisted on knowing what the matter was, I replied by pointing with my finger:
“Look at your trouserstrap, it needs buttoning.”
José Dias bent down, and I ran out.