A Escrava Isaura 10.14 · 10.14

Álvaro brushes the dangerous questions aside — 'pouco me importo com essas cousas' — and the carelessness is his grace and, unknowingly, Isaura's shelter. He does not want to know her lineage or her money; he values 'uma alma pura, nobre e intelligente', a pure, noble, intelligent soul. This is precisely the currency the book insists on: worth measured by the soul, not by birth or property. Without knowing it, Álvaro judges Isaura by the one standard under which she is not a slave but a queen. His indifference to origin is the abolitionist's instinct in embryo, the refusal to let a person be defined by the accident of their status. Where Geraldo probes for the facts that could condemn her, Álvaro has already, in his heart, acquitted her of needing any.

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