A Escrava Isaura 9.16 · 9.16

The tribute has one visible effect: he treats Isaura 'com mais alguma delicadeza do que ás outras,' with somewhat more delicacy than the other slaves. It is a bitter, double-edged distinction — the same regard that spares her the ordinary brutality also singles her out for his obsession. And it explains the whole preamble: the 'subterfugios' of emptying the house are the tribute of a man who, even to force her, will not simply drag her by the hair. His respect is real, and it is no protection at all.

Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.

You are reading a page of the A Escrava Isaura — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.

The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.

Also on our shelves:

• Plato's Phaedrus — complete, ancient Greek
• Heraclitus, the Fragments — complete
• Dante's Inferno — Italian, canto I
• Dom Casmurro — Brazilian Portuguese