A boat under full sail
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Passeando eu uma tarde de carro no bairro de Santo Antonio, pelas margens do Beberibe, passeio que se tornára para mim uma devoção, avistei um homem e uma mulher navegando a todo panno em um pequeno bote.
Driving one afternoon in a carriage through the Santo Antônio district, along the banks of the Beberibe — a drive that had become a devotion for me — I caught sight of a man and a woman sailing under full canvas in a little boat.
The daily drive along the Beberibe, the river winding through Santo Antônio, has become for Álvaro 'uma devoção', a devotion — the pilgrim's word again, his courtship framed as worship. The scene he stumbles on is the second time water carries Isaura into the plot: as a canoe on the Paraíba bore her out of bondage in Cap IX, a little boat on the Beberibe now bears her, unwitting, into Álvaro's life. The rivers of the north keep moving her, each time toward a different fate. The image of the small boat 'a todo panno', under full sail, is buoyant and free — a rare glimpse of Isaura and Miguel at ease, momentarily out on the open water — just before, as the next line reveals, it runs aground.
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A Escrava Isaura 10.38 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/10.38/