A Escrava Isaura 10.72 · 10.72

The first of the men's exclamations vindicates Álvaro at once: 'de uma belleza deslumbrante', of a dazzling beauty. The word 'deslumbrante' means literally blinding, a light too strong to look at — and there is a grim aptness in it, for Isaura's beauty is exactly the thing that blinds these men to what she is, and that could, in the wrong eyes, reveal her. The sceptics are conquered on sight, as Álvaro predicted; but their surrender is the danger sprung. A woman whose beauty stops a ballroom cannot stay hidden, and each dazzled exclamation is another voice that will carry word of her through the city. Guimarády lets the compliments fall like small alarms.

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