Tears down her faded cheeks
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Com os olhos arrasados em lagrimas, que em fio lhe escorregavão pelas faces desbotadas, entreaberta a boca melancolica, que lhe tremia ao passar da prece murmurada entre soluços,
With her eyes brimming with tears that ran in threads down her faded cheeks, her melancholy mouth half-open and trembling as the prayer passed murmured among sobs,
The description turns painterly, cataloguing the face feature by feature the way a canvas is composed — brimming eyes, tears 'em fio', in threads, the 'faces desbotadas', cheeks gone pale, the mouth 'entreaberta', half-open on a prayer. The detail that saves it from mere prettiness is 'desbotadas' — faded, washed-out; this is not the bloom of health but the pallor of a woman worn by grief and fear. Guimarães is assembling the raw material of a religious painting, and doing it deliberately, so that the next passage can name the painting. Every element here — the upturned wet eyes, the trembling lips, the murmured prayer — is a stroke toward the image of the Sorrowful Mother.
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