A Escrava Isaura 9.67 · 9.67

For one half-line Leôncio nearly pleads — 'se te mostrasses mais branda commigo' — and then his pride yanks him back: to beg a slave for tenderness would 'aviltar', debase, him. The verb is the mirror image of everything he has done to Isaura; the man who has spent the chapter degrading her recoils from the faintest self-degradation. He would rather command what he could have asked for, because asking concedes that she has something to give freely, and a thing that can be given freely is not a thing owned. His vanity forbids the only path that might have worked.

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