'We must study her'
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A dizer-te a verdade, não reparei bem. Vamos, vamos para o salão; é preciso vel-a mais de perto, estudal-a com mais vagar para podermos dar com segurança a nossa opinião.
To tell you the truth, I did not look closely. Come, come to the salon; we must see her nearer, study her more at leisure, so as to be able to give our opinion with assurance.
The ladies resolve to close in — 'vel-a mais de perto, estudal-a com mais vagar', to see her nearer, study her more at leisure — and the verb 'estudar', to study, chills the same way Álvaro's 'de espaço' did. Everyone in the chapter, admirer and detractor alike, wants the same thing: a longer, closer look at Isaura's face. Whether the eyes come in worship or in spite, they converge on her, and the closer they come, the greater the peril that one of them will study her into recognition. The women's motive is only to render a confident verdict on a rival's looks; the effect is another set of eyes pressing toward the very face that must not be examined. Guimarády ends the gossip on this movement inward, the whole ballroom, by two routes of feeling, tightening around the woman at its centre.
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A Escrava Isaura 10.97 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/10.97/