'Malvina abandons me — so much the better'
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Malvina me abandona!... tanto melhor! em que dependo eu della e de seo amor, se te possuo!
Malvina abandons me! So much the better! What do I depend on her and her love for, if I possess you?
The mask drops in a single verb: 'se te possuo' — if I possess you. All the talk of adoration and goddesshood resolves into ownership, plainly spoken. Malvina's leaving, which should shame him, he greets as a liberation: the wife was the tie of 'interesse', Isaura the object of appetite, and with the first gone he feels only freer to seize the second. 'Possuir' is the word slavery makes literal — to possess a person as property — and Leôncio uses it here for the woman he claims to love, letting the reader see that in his mouth the two have never been different things.
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A Escrava Isaura 9.59 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/9.59/