Our one plank of salvation
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A empreza é arriscada, não posso negar-te; mas animo, Isaura; é nossa unica taboa de salvação; agarremo-nos a ella com fé, e encommendemo-nos á divina providencia.
The undertaking is risky, I cannot deny it to you; but take heart, Isaura; it is our only plank of salvation; let us cling to it with faith, and commend ourselves to divine providence.
Miguel does not sweeten the danger — 'a empreza é arriscada' — and the honesty is itself a kind of courage; he asks his daughter to gamble her life with her eyes open. His image, 'unica taboa de salvação', the one plank of salvation, is the shipwreck survivor's spar, the single floating board a drowning person clings to; and it prepares, almost, the boat that is literally waiting. He binds the escape to faith, 'com fé', and to 'divina providencia', so that flight and prayer become one motion. Isaura prayed to be delivered; her father comes as the answer and still hands the outcome back to heaven. The plank is real, and so, he insists, is the hand that set it in the water.
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A Escrava Isaura 9.136 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/9.136/