Reason won out, and I went off to my studies. I passed my eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first birthdays; at twenty-two I was a Bachelor of Law.
Everything around me had changed. My mother had decided to grow old; even then her white hairs came reluctantly, little by little, only here and there; her bonnet, clothes, and flat, muffled shoes were the same as in days gone by. Perhaps she no longer went around the house so much. Uncle Cosme was suffering from his heart and had to rest. Cousin Justina merely got older. So did José Dias, though not enough to prevent him doing me the courtesy of coming to my graduation, coming down the mountains with me as sprightly and exuberant as if it were he who had just graduated. Capitu’s mother had died, and her father had retired from the same post in which he had wanted to make his exit from life itself.
Escobar was beginning to trade in coffee, after having worked for four years in one of the leading firms in Rio de Janeiro. It was cousin Justina’s opinion that he had cherished the notion of inviting my mother to marry again; but, if such an idea did exist, one should not forget the great difference in age. Perhaps he intended nothing more than to link her to his first commercial undertakings, and in fact, at my request, my mother did advance him some sums of money, which he gave her back, as soon as he could, not without this dig: “Dona Glória is timid, and has no ambition.”
The separation did not cool our friendship. He was the go-between in the exchange of letters between Capitu and me. As soon as he met her he encouraged me in my love for her. The business relationship he entered with Sancha’s father brought him still closer to Capitu, and made him serve both of us, as a friend. At first, she was reluctant to accept him, preferring José Dias, but José Dias didn’t suit me, because of a residue of the respect I had for him as a child. Escobar won; though she was embarrassed, Capitu handed him her first letter, which was the mother and grandmother of the others. Even when he was married, he did not withdraw his favors … For he married—guess who—he married the good Sancha, Capitu’s friend, almost her sister, so much so that he, when he wrote to me, sometimes called her his “little sister-in-law.” That’s the way that friends and relations, adventures and books are made.