At about two in the afternoon, one of the three children, who were praying beside the oak, made a sign, and the whole mob knelt down at once. Then the sun, breaking through the clouds, blazed up with a brighter glow and girded itself with a dark ring. It soon took on a moon-like pallor, and then became stained with a fluid blue, a sickly yellow and other faded hues. Finally it was shaken by irregular, jerky movements: it trembled, trembled, and then lay still and silent. With the sudden changes of colour the landscape altered and lost its sharpness, and its harsher outlines softened into a vague haze.
Cerca das duas horas da tarde uma das tres creanças, que oravam junto da carvalheira, acenou e a turba-multa ajoelhou a um tempo. Então o sol, rompendo das nuvens acendeu-se num fulgor mais vivo, cingiu-se de um circulo escuro, ganhou logo uma palidez de lua, que em seguida se manchou dum azul fluido, dum amarelo doente, de outras tonalidades esmaiadas. Sacudiram-n'o por fim movimentos irregulares, descompassados — tremeu, tremeu, e quedou silencioso. Com as bruscas mudanças de côr a paizagem modificou-se, perdeu a sua nitidez, suavisaram-se numa bruma vaga os seus contornos mais duros.
The women clenched their hands together, white with amazement, fixed their imploring eyes on the sky and struck poses dishevelled with fervour and ecstasy. "Lovely sun! What a lovely thing! There she comes!" were the exclamations that rose in a volley of ohs and ahs. And that was that. The miracle had been confined to magical changes of scenery, singular gymnastics of the sun, dazzling pyrotechnics in the clouds and the most outlandish decompositions of light: an all-too-ethereal miracle, hovering at a certain height, to be looked at from afar, the way one sees Braga*, and one that did not deign to come down as far as the tops of the hills and the oaks. But all my informants swear that they saw extraordinary things in the sun, which in no way disturbs my own critical judgement.
As mulheres enclavinhavam as mãos, brancas de assombro, pregavam no ceu os olhos implorativos, e tinham atitudes desmanchadas de fervor e extasi: "Lindo sol! Que linda coisa! Ali vem ela!" eram as exclamações que subiam numa esfusiada de ohs e ahs. E pronto. O milagre restringira-se a mutações feericas de scenario, a ginasticas singulares do sol, a pirotecnias relumbrantes feitas nas nuvens, ás mais estramboticas decomposições de luz — um milagre etereo demais, pairante a um certo nivel, para vêr de longe como se vê Braga e que não se dignou descer até aos cocurutos dos montes e das carvalheiras. Mas todos os meus informadores juram que viram no sol extraordinarias coisas — o que nada perturba a minha critica pessoal.