Students down from old Olinda
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Alguns estudantes dos mais ricos e elegantes, tambem costumão descer da velha Olinda em noites determinadas, para ali virem se espanejar entre os esplendores e harmonias, entre as sedas e perfumes do salão do baile;
Some of the richest and most elegant students are also wont to come down from old Olinda on certain nights, to preen here amid the splendours and harmonies, amid the silks and perfumes of the ballroom;
The detail is precise local colour: Olinda, the old colonial town on the hill above Recife, housed the famous law faculty (the Faculdade de Direito), so 'estudantes' descending 'da velha Olinda' are law students — the future magistrates and statesmen of the Empire, coming down to dance. Álvaro, whom we are about to meet, is one of this class. The verb 'espanejar', to preen or ruffle one's feathers like a bird, gently mocks their vanity even as it admires them. Guimarães, himself a law graduate of these northern academies, writes the scene from the inside, and the ironic warmth prepares us for Álvaro: a young man of exactly this privileged, idealistic student world, whose abolitionist ideals will make him the moral opposite of Leôncio.
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