A Escrava Isaura 10.76 · 10.76

The admiration slides, with the last exclamation, toward the frankly appraising: 'o collo', the neck and bosom, the most sensual item in the blazon, urged on the others with 'não reparaste?', didn't you notice? The gaze has become a shared inventory of her body, the men pointing out her charms to one another. There is a faint, uncomfortable echo of the auction here — the assessing of a woman's physical points — that the reader, knowing Isaura is legally a slave, cannot fail to hear. What the ballroom does in the idiom of gallantry, the market did in the idiom of price. Guimarády does not press the parallel, but he lets it hang: to be looked over feature by feature, and prized for one's body, is the condition Isaura fled, following her even into the temple of Terpsichore where she came to be safe.

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