FIVE YEARS
Reason won the day, and I devoted myself to my studies. I reached my eighteenth year, my nineteenth, my twentieth, my twenty-first, and at twenty-two I graduated in law. Everything around me changed. My mother decided to grow old, but even so her white hair made its appearance unwillingly, little by little and unevenly. Her bonnet, her dresses, her soft, flat shoes were all the same as before. She did not bustle about so much. Uncle Cosme’s heart gave trouble and he had to rest. Cousin Justina merely grew older. So did José Dias, though not so much as to prevent him doing me the honour of coming to my graduation and returning with me from São Paulo as lively and excited as if it had been his own. Capitu’s mother died, and her father retired, occupying the same position as he had held when he wanted to take his own life.