Money to squander at will
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como a unica carreira, que se lhe offerecia para ter dinheiro a esbanjar a seo bel-prazer.
as the only career that offered itself to him for having money to squander at his own sweet will.
…as the only career that offered itself to him for having money to squander at his own sweet will.
The sentence names the goal with a candour the narrator does not have to comment on: money 'a esbanjar a seo bel-prazer' — to squander at his own sweet will. Not to build, not even to enjoy in any settled way — to fling away, as he flung away the Paris fortune, for the pure pleasure of the flinging. And marriage is called a 'carreira', a career — the very word his father used for the honest calling Leôncio would not take. He has found his profession at last: being married to money. The reader holds the cost the sentence hides — that the fortune he means to marry is Malvina, a person turned into his means, exactly as the household turns Isaura into an asset. In this house, women are the capital men acquire.
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A Escrava Isaura 2.36 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/2.36/