Lips like a gardenia
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Os lábios vermelhos e úmidos pareciam uma flor da gardênia dos nossos campos, orvalhada pelo sereno da noite; o hálito doce e ligeiro exalava-se formando um sorriso. Sua tez alva e pura como um froco de algodão, tingia-se nas faces de uns longes cor-derosa, que iam, desmaiando, morrer no colo de linhas suaves e delicadas.
The red, moist lips seemed a gardenia of our fields, bedewed by the night dew; the sweet, light breath breathed out in a smile. Her white, pure complexion, like a tuft of cotton, was tinged on the cheeks with hints of rose-pink that went fading, dying away at the neck in soft, delicate lines.
Chapter V. The scene shifts from the jaguar hunt to the garden of the Paquequer house, where Cecília — 'the lovely girl' — is introduced.
Alencar builds Cecília entirely out of native and domestic images — the gardenia 'of our fields,' cotton, night-dew — so that her fairness reads as Brazilian rather than imported. The colour that 'dies' at her throat is the painter's touch: beauty described as something already fading, tender and mortal.
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