The house is empty
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Os escravos estão na roça; o feitor levou para o cafesal tuas companheiras, teo senhor sahio a cavallo com o André; não ha talvez em toda a casa senão alguma negra lá pelos cantos da cosinha.
The slaves are in the fields; the overseer has taken your companions to the coffee-grove, your master has ridden off with André; there is perhaps no one in the whole house but some black woman off in the corners of the kitchen.
The escape's chance is an irony Leôncio himself created. To be alone with Isaura, he cleared the estate — sent the women to the coffee-grove, rode off with André to fetch nothing that mattered — and in emptying the house of witnesses to his cruelty he emptied it of guards against her flight. The very solitude he engineered for a seduction becomes the corridor of her escape. Miguel's inventory of the absent — slaves in the 'roça', companions in the 'cafesal', master gone 'a cavallo' — is a map of an unwatched house. Only 'alguma negra' remains, off in the kitchen, and Guimarães lets the whole plantation's machinery, tuned to control, fall for one hour into the escapee's favour.
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A Escrava Isaura 9.137 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/9.137/