A Escrava Isaura 9.51 · 9.51

The speech crests on a line of genuine moral force — spoken, monstrously, by the wrong man: 'Livre és tu, por que Deos não podia formar um ente tão perfeito para votal-o á escravidão' — you are free, for God could not have made a being so perfect to doom it to slavery. It is very nearly the novel's own thesis, that no soul is made for bondage. But in Leôncio's mouth it is corrupted at the root: he pronounces her 'free' not to release her but to claim her as his by a higher right than law. He would take her out of slavery only into his own possession. The nearer his words come to truth, the sharper the perversion, and it is on this false emancipation that the seduction rests before the chapter turns to reveal she is already gone.

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