A Escrava Isaura 9.134 · 9.134

Miguel's answer to 'where?' is the answer of every fugitive: 'para longe daqui, seja para onde fôr' — far from here, anywhere at all. The destination does not matter; only the distance does, and the speed. His urgency is timed to a narrow window — 'emquanto não suspeitão', while no one suspects, before the shackles go on — and the reader feels the clock start. The whole rest of the novel will live inside this window and its closing: the flight begun here, the pursuit it provokes. Guimarães ends the negotiation and starts the chase, the escape hinging on the few unwatched minutes Leôncio himself created by sending everyone to the fields.

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