'What prestige in a slave'
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De certo elle assim podia proceder, mas não sei que prestigio tem, mesmo em uma escrava,
Certainly he could have proceeded so; but I know not what prestige there is, even in a slave,
The narrator concedes the point — 'de certo elle assim podia proceder' — then turns it: there is a 'prestigio,' an almost magical authority, that dignity carries 'mesmo em uma escrava,' even in a slave. The phrase is quietly radical for 1875: it insists that the moral standing the law denies Isaura is real and felt, even by the man who owns her. Her enslaved status cannot cancel the respect her person compels.
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