A Escrava Isaura 9.32 · 9.32

Isaura draws the one line of her whole ordeal: 'em tudo está prompta para lhe obedecer, menos nisso' — ready to obey in everything, save in this. She grants him the total obedience slavery exacts of her body's labour, and refuses him only her body itself. It is the precise moral boundary the book is built on: obedience is owed to the master, but her person is not his to command. On that single 'menos' — save this — she stakes her life.

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