A Escrava Isaura 9.95 · 9.95

The self-justification reaches its peak of monstrous complacency: chaining her against suicide will earn, he imagines, her future gratitude. 'Serás grata... por ter-te impedido de matar-te' — you will thank me for stopping you from killing yourself. He has heard her vow, understood it exactly, and folded even that into his ownership: her death would be his loss, so preventing it is a service he renders himself and calls a kindness to her. The obscenity is that he is not wrong that the shackles will keep her alive; he is only wrong that living so is a gift. Leôncio cannot conceive of a life not worth prolonging, because he has never valued a life for anything but its use.

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