Good below, docile above
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O mimo, com que era tratada, em nada lhe alterava a natural bondade e candura do coração. Era sempre alegre e boa com os escravos, docil e submissa com os senhores.
The pampering with which she was treated in no way altered the natural goodness and candour of her heart. She was always cheerful and kind with the slaves, docile and submissive with the masters.
The pampering with which she was treated in no way altered the natural goodness and candour of her heart. She was always cheerful and kind with the slaves, docile and submissive with the masters.
The last line draws, without a flicker of comment, the exact double posture that survival under slavery required: 'sempre alegre e boa com os escravos, docil e submissa com os senhores' — cheerful and kind with the slaves, docile and submissive with the masters. Her warmth flows downward, freely, to her equals; upward, to the owning class, she offers 'docil e submissa', the yielding a slave must show to stay safe. Guimarães sets it down as praise, and it is — she is good — but the reader feels the training in it, the two faces every enslaved person had to keep. And there is a quiet dread coiled in 'submissa com os senhores': the girl schooled from the cradle to be submissive to her masters will soon have a new master, Leôncio, whose demand will be one no submission should ever meet. The virtue that keeps her safe now is the very habit he will try to exploit.
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