A Escrava Isaura 3.87 · 3.87

Her patience gives out in a single exclamation. 'Ah! senhor Henrique!' — the flattery has run long enough, and she cuts across it with the man's own name and title, which here work as a rebuke rather than deference. The narrator marks her tone exactly: she speaks 'com enfado', with vexation, annoyance — not fear, not tears, but the plain irritation of a person being pestered. It matters that Guimarães lets her be annoyed. A heroine who could only weep would be a victim; one who can be openly put out with a free man flirting at her is, for a moment, simply his equal in the exchange, and she uses that moment.

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