Now, why is it that none of these capricious creatures made me forget the first love of my heart? Perhaps because none had her undertow eyes, nor her sly, oblique, gypsy look. But this is not really what remains of this book. What remains is to know if the Capitu of Glória beach was already in the girl of Matacavalos, or if the latter had been changed into the former because of some intervening incident. Jesus, son of Sirach, had he known of my first fits of jealousy, would have said to me, as in his Chapter IX, verse I: “Be not jealous of thy wife, lest she deceive thee with arts she learned of thee.”* But I think not, and that you will agree with me; if you remember Capitu as a girl, you will recognize that the one was in the other, like the fruit inside its rind.
And anyway, whatever the solution, one thing is left, and is the sum total, or the total residue, to wit, that my first love and my best friend, both so affectionate and so beloved—destiny willed it that they ended up joining together and deceiving me … May the earth rest lightly on them! On to the History of the Suburbs!