'That resource too will be denied me'
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Meo pae, não posso resistir a tanto soffrimento!... restava-me um recurso extremo; esse mesmo vai-me ser negado. Presa, algemada, amarrada de pés e mãos!... oh!... meo pae! meo pae!... isto é horrível!...
My father, I cannot bear so much suffering!... one extreme resource was left me; that too is to be denied me. Imprisoned, shackled, bound hand and foot!... oh!... my father! my father!... this is horrible!
The 'recurso extremo' — extreme resource — she means is death, the exit she vowed to Leôncio, and now she grasps its final cruelty: shackled hand and foot, she will not even be able to take her own life. 'Esse mesmo vai-me ser negado' — even that is to be denied me. It is the darkest logic of the shackles, which Leôncio designed for exactly this, to keep his 'vessel' from breaking itself. The mounting words — 'presa, algemada, amarrada' — chain themselves like the irons they name, and the doubled cry 'meo pae! meo pae!' collapses the reasoning heroine back into a terrified child calling for her father. It is the lowest point of the chapter, and it is precisely here that Miguel reveals he has not come empty-handed.
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