Selecione uma frase portuguesa para revelar o apoio em inglês.
Toque numa frase portuguesa para revelar o apoio em inglês; toque novamente ou fora da frase para o fechar.
Com o teclado, coloque o foco numa frase ou ative-a. Prima Escape para fechar o apoio em inglês.
Marta was in her bedroom, where she kept a blackwood oratory with gilded borders. Inside stood an old ivory carving: Christ portrayed with dignity in his human agony. A blessed wax candle burned on either side of the cross. Frei João entered wearing a surplice and stole. Feliciano followed him with a heavy lighted candle, while Simeão carried the small vessel of holy water. Osório was not present at that gathering. Marta stood trembling against the chest of drawers, fear visible in her eyes. The exorcist sat down and summoned the woman he called possessed with an imperious nod. She approached hesitantly and knelt down. Frei João made his expression solemn and gave his voice a mournful tone, following Brognolo's rules. The manual recommended a grave appearance and a terrifying voice. He began with the so-called Testing Precept, meant to establish whether a demon was really present. Then he cried: “In nomine Jesu Christi. Ego Joannes est minister Christi...” He ordered the unclean spirits to give an immediate sign if they were inside that creature's body. The sign might be suffering or a movement of bodily fluids, but only in whatever manner God allowed. Marta did not understand the Latin; she recognised only the words demon and unclean spirits. Until then, nobody had told her that they considered her possessed. Without the strength to challenge her confessor's authority, she was overcome by the sacred terror he created. The narrator adds that, even with a better education, Marta would have succumbed to that violence with the same inert will. Marta could no longer remain on her knees; she sat down, gasping, until a torrent of tears burst from her.
Frei João made a satisfied gesture, as though he already foresaw victory. He applied the Soothing Precept, ordering the supposed demons to end the affliction at once. Immediately afterwards, the Instructive Precept demanded that they cast her down before him if she was possessed. Marta lay face down on the floor, her arms outstretched and her neck and body rigid in a fit.
“There can be no doubt,” the exorcist declared to Marta's husband and father. He told Feliciano and Simeão to carry her away and announced that they would continue later.
When the stupor passed, Marta told her uncle that she could scarcely remember what had happened in the oratory. She also said that she was afraid of Frei João and did not want to confess to him again.
Frei João turned that refusal into fresh proof: he claimed that it was no longer Marta speaking. “It is the Demon who fears me!” he exclaimed with pious vanity. Simeão insisted that his daughter had the Demon because he believed Genoveva had suffered from it too. He said that his late wife had thrown herself into the river because she had never accepted the prayers.
The next day, once Marta's resistance had again been overcome, the exorcist resumed the ritual. He looked even more forbidding and made his voice vibrate frighteningly. He gave her his Brognolo and made her read aloud the precepts intended for the tormented creature. Kneeling before the oratory, Marta read that she was a rational creature of God, redeemed by Christ's blood. The text made Marta command the Demon to obey her in Jesus's name and torment her only lightly. It might make her tremble or fall, but was supposed to leave her conscious.
Marta's body was visibly trembling. She thrust the book back at the exorcist impatiently and murmured through her sobs.
“Leave me alone, leave me alone, by the wounds of Christ!”
Frei João smiled and muttered into Feliciano's ear.
“The accursed one is using Christ's name to drive me away!” “I shall destroy you, Satan!”
He then took up the weapon of the Objurgations, questions addressed to the Devil with a stern face and in Latin. He asked the accursed serpent whether it recognised God's existence and its former condition as a radiant angel. He reminded it that pride had made it lose Paradise and divine grace for ever. After many insults, he demanded that the supposed spirit recognise him as a minister of God.
The Demon had still not answered, the narrator observes ironically. The friar decided to press it harder and ordered everyone to kneel.
With folded arms and his eyes on Christ, Frei João asked the Holy Spirit to fill the faithful. He wanted the fire of divine love to be kindled in their hearts. He ended the invocation with “Dominus vobiscum”.
Simeão, who knew how to serve at Mass, replied with the garbled phrase: “É de co espirituo.”
Several prayers, supplications and the Litany of Our Lady followed. They then gave Marta a long renunciation to address to the supposed Demon. The text began by asking by what authority it tried to possess or harm her body. Marta rejected the book again. She said that she felt dizzy, could neither read nor remain on her knees, and wanted to lie down. The exorcist answered sternly that she would not go to bed and would not escape him. He ordered her to kneel at his feet and sat before her like a judge facing an already convicted prisoner. He covered his head, sprinkled Marta with holy water and howled, “Asperge me, Domine...” He ordered those present to put out two candles and not utter a word. In the near darkness, only the flies could be heard, drawn to the single light and landing on Christ's wounded brow. Marta, shrinking in terror, held her hands together and her fingers to her lips, as though stifling her sighs.
After several minutes, Frei João began to conjure and bind the Demon in the name of the Trinity. He insulted the invisible enemy with names intended to offend even the worst of men. Marta made a distressed movement, as though she meant to flee. The priest restrained her with the stole, obeying Brognolo's rule for anyone who would not remain still. After further conjurations, he rose solemnly and cried: “Exurge, Christe! adjuva nos!” He was asking Christ to rise and help them.
As he continued the invocations, Marta collapsed unconscious.
“Victory! Victory!” the exorcist exclaimed.
He then showed Feliciano a page of the book. According to the manual, the surest sign that the Demon had departed was for the creature to lie on the floor as though dead. Frei João linked that sign to the deaf-mute whom Christ had cured in the ninth chapter of Saint Mark. Rejoicing, he quoted the Latin words: “Et factus est sicut mortuus.” He then wiped away his sweat, still pleased with the result he believed he had achieved.
He told them to carry her to bed and place all the relics beneath her pillow.
Feliciano and Simeão could scarcely lift her, for her rigid body seemed stuck to the floor. Feliciano asked the exorcist to support her by one arm. The friar refused, saying that he was forbidden to touch a possessed woman. He invoked Carlos Baucio, whose Art of the Exorcist warned against the danger of physically touching a woman. The narrator thus exposes the misogynistic rule that not even the sign of the cross should touch women.
Marta spent the night extremely restless, feverish and delirious. She gave high-pitched laughs, spoke of José Alves and shook the bedclothes violently. When she emerged from her stupor, she sat up in bed and stared disturbingly at her uncle. Feliciano did not go to bed and, at dawn, sent his brother to fetch the doctor. He said Marta had a raging fever and consigned the friar and his exorcisms to Hell.
Once daylight came, Feliciano rested for a while in Dona Teresa's bed because he feared catching his wife's fever. At nine o'clock, the governess woke him in great alarm. She reported that Marta had gone out alone at sunrise. A woman had found her near the vicar of Caldelas's house, running like someone who had lost her bearings. Frei João received the news just after celebrating a thanksgiving Mass for the victory he believed he had achieved. The unnamed doctor arrived at the same time and heard an account of the exorcism scenes. He insulted the friar with words harsher than those the friar had addressed to the Devil. He called Feliciano and Simeão a pack of fools. He then set off for Caldelas with Feliciano to look for Marta. Wounded by the insults and Feliciano's abrupt manner, Frei João decided to leave the house. He quoted Jesus, who commanded believers to shake the dust from their sandals at the door of unbelievers. Several devout women followed him along the road, wailing loudly for a long time. When he vanished round the bend, some tore at their lice-ridden hair, others slapped themselves, and still others let out shrill howls.
Joaquim Melro, the innkeeper and Feliciano's friend, saw them pass in tears behind the missioner.
He came out of the inn and hurled a brutally contemptuous insult at them: ‘Ah, what a vile lot!’