From school to school
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Máo alumno e creança incorrigivel, turbulento e insubordinado, andou de collegio em collegio, e passou como gato por brasas por cima de todos os preparatorios,
A bad pupil and an incorrigible child, turbulent and insubordinate, he went from school to school, and passed like a cat over hot coals over all the prep courses,
A bad pupil and an incorrigible child, turbulent and insubordinate, he went from school to school, and skimmed like a cat over hot coals across all the prep courses.
The catalogue of failure is affectionate in its scorn: 'máo alumno, creança incorrigivel, turbulento e insubordinado', school to school. And then the perfect idiom — 'passou como gato por brasas' — he went over his studies like a cat over live coals, touching down as little and as fast as possible, never once mastering anything. Guimarães is building the man who will hold Isaura's life in his hands, and he wants us to see that there is nothing behind the elegance: no discipline, no learning, no self-restraint ever asked of him. The gato-por-brasas is exactly how, we will see, Leôncio treats every serious thing, up to and including another person's freedom.
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