A medical student on holiday
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Era estudante de medicina, e como estava-se em ferias, Leoncio o convidara a vir visitar a irmã e passar alguns dias em sua fazenda.
He was a medical student, and since it was the holidays, Leôncio had invited him to come visit his sister and spend a few days at his plantation.
He was a medical student, and since it was the holidays, Leôncio had invited him to come visit his sister and spend a few days at his plantation.
The last domestic details drop into place: Henrique is 'estudante de medicina', a medical student — placing him among the educated young elite of the Empire, at one of the two medical schools (Rio or Bahia) that trained the sons of the propertied — and he is here on holiday, at Leôncio's own invitation, to see his sister Malvina. The innocence of the setup is the point. This is a family visit: a brother come to spend a few pleasant days with his newly-married sister on her husband's estate. Nothing about it forecasts trouble. And that is exactly how the danger to Isaura works in this novel — it does not arrive as an invasion but walks in through the front door as a houseguest, welcomed, related, ordinary. The predator here is the situation itself: a beautiful enslaved woman in a house full of idle young men who regard her as part of the furnishings.
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