A Escrava Isaura 9.135 · 9.135

Even as she agrees, Isaura counts the cost of failure: 'se nos descobrem, qual será a minha sorte?' A recaptured fugitive slave faced punishments worse than the shackles she is fleeing, and she knows it. Her fear is not weakness but clear sight — the same clear sight that has run through all her defiance. Yet the fear does not stop her; it is spoken and then set aside, the way brave people name a danger precisely so they can walk into it. The question 'qual será a minha sorte' hangs unanswered over the whole coming novel, which is, in a sense, the long working-out of that fate. Her next words will be to go anyway.

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