When alone she formed yet other resolutions. She would see Leopoldina no more; she would attend church regularly; her sickness had given rise within her to a vague feeling of sentimental devotion. When she had the fever she fancied herself at times in some dreadful place, in which, from amidst red flames forms rose, twisting their arms,—black forms that whirled round and round, while groans of agony ascended up to heaven; already the tongues of fire had begun to lick her breast, when suddenly she felt the cool touch of something ineffably sweet; it was the pinions of a luminous angel who caught her in his arms, and she felt herself mounting up, her head resting on the celestial bosom, inundated with a supernatural felicity, and she saw the stars close beside her, and she heard the noise of wings. This left upon her mind a melancholy impression of heaven. She aspired to heaven, and she hoped to gain it by devout attendance at Mass, and by prayers to the Virgin.
One morning she entered the parlor, and for the first time opened the piano. Jorge was standing at the window looking out into the street; she called to him with a smile.
“I have taken a dislike to that sofa,” she said. “We might have it taken away from there, don’t you think so?”
Jorge felt as if a dagger had been thrust into his heart, but he controlled himself, and said,—
“I think so.”
“I should like to have it taken away,” she repeated, as she left the parlor, sweeping the floor with the long train of her morning-gown.
Jorge began to experience a feeling of sombre resignation. When he heard her gayly making plans for the future, and speaking with so contented an air of the happiness in store for her, he almost resolved to destroy the letter and forget everything. There was no doubt but that she had repented of her sin, and she loved him. Why, in cold blood, prepare a life of perpetual unhappiness for them both? But at other times a wave of brutal rage swept over his soul, and he left the room that he might not be tempted to strangle her.
In order to account for his silence and moroseness he began to complain of his health, to say he did not feel well, and her solicitude and the mute questioning of her eyes made him still more unhappy, for he felt that he was loved while he knew he had been betrayed. At last one Sunday Julião gave Luiza permission to sit up a little later than usual, and to do the honors of the house for the evening. It was a happiness to every one to see her once more in the parlor,—a little thin and pale still, but, in the words of the counsellor, “restored to her domestic duties and to the enjoyments of society.” When Julião arrived, at about nine o’clock, he found her “as good as new,” he said. Then, standing in the middle of the parlor, he exclaimed, opening wide his arms,—
“What do you say to the news? Ernesto’s play has achieved a triumphant success.”
He had seen the news in the papers. The “Diario de Noticias” said: “The author was called before the curtain in the midst of the greatest enthusiasm, and received a beautiful laurel-crown.”