'Who do you think you are speaking to?'
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Que eu supporte sem irritar-me os teos desdens e repulsas, ainda vá; mas reprehensões!... com quem pensas tu, que fallas?...
That I should bear your disdain and rebuffs without anger, well and good; but reproaches! Who do you think you are speaking to?
What Leôncio can forgive and what he cannot draws the exact map of his pride. Her refusals — 'desdens e repulsas' — he can absorb, because a coveted woman's resistance flatters the pursuit. What he cannot bear is 'reprehensões' — to be judged, corrected, told he is wrong, and by a slave. 'Com quem pensas tu, que fallas?' — who do you think you are speaking to? — is the sentence of every master who has confused being owned with being inferior. Isaura has stepped out of her assigned role not by saying no but by presuming to have a verdict on him.
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