In the shade of patronage
Read the full text in our reader
cujos exames todavia sempre salvára á sombra do patronato. Os mestres não se atrevião a dar ao nobre e munifico commendador o desgosto de ver seo filho reprovado.
whose exams he nonetheless always scraped through in the shade of patronage. The teachers did not dare give the noble and munificent Commander the displeasure of seeing his son failed.
…whose exams he nonetheless always scraped through in the shade of patronage. The teachers did not dare give the noble and munificent Commander the displeasure of seeing his son failed.
Here the portrait widens from one spoiled boy to the machine that spoils him. He passes 'á sombra do patronato' — in the shade of patronage — a lovely, damning phrase that makes influence a kind of shelter the powerful stand their children under, out of the weather of consequence. And the reason is named without flinching: the masters 'não se atrevião' — did not dare — to fail the son of a rich, generous, titled man. Guimarães is describing the same social fact from the other side of the house: the patronage that guarantees Leôncio never faces a 'no' is the twin of the ownership that guarantees Isaura never hears a 'yes'. One system, two children, and it is training the one who will rule the other to believe the world removes every obstacle for him.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open A Escrava Isaura 2.8 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the A Escrava Isaura — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
A Escrava Isaura 2.8 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/2.8/