A violet among the leaves
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Nessa chacara, escondida entre moitas de coqueiros e arvoredos, vive ella como a violeta entre a folhagem, ou como fada mysteriosa em uma gruta encantada.
In that chácara, hidden among clumps of coconut palms and groves, she lives like the violet among the foliage, or like a mysterious fairy in an enchanted grotto.
Álvaro's imagery is lovely and unwittingly exact: 'escondida', hidden, 'como a violeta entre a folhagem', like the violet among the leaves — the violet being, by long convention, the flower of modesty, blooming unseen. He means it as a compliment to her retiring nature; the reader hears the literal truth that she is a woman in hiding, who must not be seen. The 'gruta encantada', the enchanted grotto of fairy-tale, romanticizes what is really a bolt-hole. This is Guimarães's method throughout the chapter: the language of Romantic worship laid over the hard facts of flight, each metaphor of enchantment shadowing a fact of danger. Álvaro loves a fairy in a grotto; Isaura lives as a fugitive in a rented garden, and the gap between his poetry and her peril is the ache at the centre of their romance.
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