A Escrava Isaura 9.107 · 9.107

The narrator frames the prayer with a reverence that raises the register: 'á Rainha dos anjos' — to the Queen of Angels, the Virgin — a prayer 'exalada... do mais intimo de sua alma', breathed from the soul's deepest place. The verb 'exalar', to exhale, makes the prayer literally Isaura's breath, the life going out of her turned toward heaven. After a chapter of speech aimed at a man who would not hear, this speech is aimed where it can be heard. Guimarães, a Catholic writing for a Catholic public, gives his heroine the one court of appeal the enslaved were never denied: the ear of the Mother of God, before whom mistress and slave stand level.

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