That is the Great Apostle with her, for see how passing people kneel to him." People did in fact kneel before him, but Vinicius did not look at them.
He did not lose Lygia from his eyes for a moment; he thought only of bearing her away and, accustomed as he had been in wars to stratagems of all sorts, he arranged in his head the whole plan of seizure with soldierly precision.

He felt that the step on which he had decided was bold, but he knew well that bold attacks give success generally.
The way was long; hence at moments he thought too of the gulf which that wonderful religion had dug between him and Lygia.

Now he understood everything that had happened in the past, and why it had happened.

He was sufficiently penetrating for that.

Lygia he had not known hitherto.
He had seen in her a maiden wonderful beyond others, a maiden toward whom his feelings were inflamed: he knew now that her religion made her different from other women, and his hope that feeling, desire, wealth, luxury, would attract her he knew now to be a vain illusion.