Not in one leap
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não de salto, mas aos saltinhos.
not in one leap, but in little hops.
A neat image for how Capitú advanced — never a single bound, but small steps.
Machado gives the method a physical picture. Capitú does not vault to her aim in a single 'salto'; she gets there 'aos saltinhos,' by little hops. The diminutive is doing all the work — each step so small it looks harmless, the arrival achieved before anyone notices motion at all.
The undercurrent is gradualism as concealment. The little-hop strategy is the perfect emblem of a boldness that stays hidden: no dramatic bound to alarm an onlooker, only an accumulation of tiny, deniable movements. This is exactly how the whole chapter's plan will unfold, and it is also, the narrator implies, how a life can be steered without ever seeming to be steered. The charm of 'saltinhos' and the dread beneath it are, as so often in Machado, the same thing seen twice.
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