On her knees
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Ah! meo senhor, por piedade! exclamou Isaura, caindo de joelhos aos pés de Leoncio, e levantando as mãos ao céo em contorções de angustia;
Ah, my lord, for pity's sake! cried Isaura, falling to her knees at Leôncio's feet and lifting her hands to heaven in contortions of anguish;
Isaura, who has stood and reasoned through the whole confrontation, at last goes down — 'caindo de joelhos' — not before the man but at the sight of the iron. The posture is the era's whole grammar of supplication: hands lifted to heaven because there is no help on earth. Note she kneels only now, when the shackles are coming; argument was for a man who might be reasoned with, prayer is for a fate that cannot. Guimarães stages the shift from the vertical of debate to the horizontal of pleading in a single sentence, and it marks the moment Isaura stops appealing to Leôncio's mind and starts appealing over his head.
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