A Escrava Isaura 9.64 · 9.64

The turn from suitor to master takes one line. A moment ago he was offering her a goddess's throne; now she is 'escrava insolente' — insolent slave — and the word 'insolente' does the ugly work, for her insolence was only the truth spoken plainly. Guimarães lets the two vocabularies sit side by side, the honeyed and the brutal, so the reader sees they were never separable: the man who worships is the man who owns, and the worship lasts exactly as long as the obedience.

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