Read Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth) in English — and understand every line.
Read “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” by Eça de Queirós in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
Start for free · no card, no signup wall
DICTIONARY
TRANSLATION
apreciar, atesorar
to feel warm affection for; to hold something dear.
Tap a word for its translation and part of speech — then save it to your list.
The opening
How “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” begins
THE cuckoo-clock in the dining-room had just struck eleven.
Jorge, reclining in an antique easy-chair covered with dark leather, closed the volume of Louis Figuier that he had been listlessly turning over, stretched himself, yawned, and said,--
The person who thus answered was still seated at the breakfast-table reading the “Diario de Noticias.” She was clad in a dark-colored morning-gown adorned with large pearl buttons. Her blond hair was in some disorder; her head was small, her profile charming. Her elbow rested on the table, while her fingers with a slow and graceful movement mechanically caressed the tip of her rosy ear.
Public domain — the whole book is yours to read in the app.
Vocabulary
Words to know before you start
The 30 words you will meet most often in “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” at level B2 and above, with how many times each one appears.
- counselor
- exclaim
- mistress
- glance
- countenance
- seat
- carriage
- accent
- tear
- afterwards
- strike
- tone
- terror
- lean
- heaven
- glance
- thus
- oblige
- gesture
- melancholy
- accompany
- interrupt
- creature
- desire
- silk
- soul
- shrug
- master
- pause
- sigh
The meanings here are the everyday ones. In the reader, tap a word to see the sense this sentence uses.
Grammar
Grammar you will meet in “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)”
How much of each kind of grammar “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” uses, counted in the sentences the Reader marks: per 10,000 words, compared with the other books in the library.
- Perfect tenses
- -ing forms and to-infinitives
- Relative clauses
- Phrasal verbs
- Passive voice
- Reported speech
- Modal verbs
- Conditionals
Constructions to look for
- -ing clause as adverbial (Feeling tired, …) She bought elegant boots, gratifying in this manner her puerile vanity.
- At/on/in (time) How unseemly for two women to go out alone at night in a hired carriage!
- Phrasal verb with 'down' Bazilio put down his hat on the piano, nervously biting his mustache.
Counted the way the Reader shows it: one card per construction in a sentence. Open the book in the Reader and tap a highlighted phrase to see the rule.
Library
What you get while you read
-
Tap to translate
Tap any word to see what it means in this exact sentence — with pronunciation and a clear example.
-
Save what matters
Add a word and it comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule timed to how memory actually works.
-
Grammar in context
Notable structures light up in the text, with a short explanation tied to the sentence you're reading.
About the book
Why Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth) is a great book to read in English
A bored Lisbon wife drifts into an affair with her worldly cousin — and her own maid turns the discovery into blackmail. Eça de Queirós's 1878 masterpiece of Portuguese realism pairs domestic detail with quiet menace, and reads beautifully as a parallel text with the original Portuguese.
On LangOrbit you read “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” with a safety net: the translation is one tap away when a sentence runs long, every word opens its meaning in context and can be saved for spaced-repetition review, and the grammar behind the trickier lines is explained right where you meet it.
Keep reading
More books to read in English
Every title opens with the same dictionary, grammar help, and translation — start reading for free.
Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)
Read “Cousin Bazilio (Dragon's Teeth)” by Eça de Queirós in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
Read in the ReaderStart for free · no card, no signup wall