Dom Casmurro, chapter 1: Do titulo

One of these evenings, coming from the city to Engenho Novo, I met a young man from this neighborhood on the Central train. I know him by sight and by exchanging hat greetings. He greeted me, sat down beside me, talked about the moon and the ministers, and ended by reciting verses to me. The journey was short, and the verses may not have been entirely bad. But I was tired and closed my eyes three or four times; that was enough for him to stop reading and put the verses in his pocket.

'Go on,' I said, waking up.

'I've finished,' he muttered.

'They are very beautiful.'

I saw him make a movement to take them out of his pocket again, but he did no more than that; he was sulking. The next day he began calling me unpleasant names and finally nicknamed me Dom Casmurro. The neighbors, who dislike my withdrawn, quiet habits, spread the nickname, and it eventually stuck. I did not get angry over it. I told the anecdote to my friends in the city, and they jokingly call me that too, some in notes: 'Dom Casmurro, I'm coming to dinner with you on Sunday.'—'I'm going to Petrópolis, Dom Casmurro; the house is the same one in Renânia. See if you can leave that cave of yours in Engenho Novo and spend a fortnight with me.'—'My dear Dom Casmurro, don't imagine I'm excusing you from the theater tomorrow. Come and sleep here in the city; I'll give you a box at the theater, tea, and a bed; only a young lady I won't give you.'

Do not consult dictionaries. Casmurro is not used here in the sense they give it, but in the popular sense of a quiet man who keeps to himself. Dom was added ironically, to give me airs of a nobleman. All because I was dozing! Nor did I find a better title for my narrative; if I find no other before the end of the book, this one will do. My poet from the train will discover that I bear him no grudge. And with little effort, since the title is his, he may imagine the work is his. Some books have scarcely more than that from their authors; some have even less.