Clarice Lispector - Selected Cronicas

I know it sounds rather fatuous to say in the middle of spring that I know what spring is like. But sometimes I am so reticent that friends get annoyed. My reticence stems from gratitude and is probably excessive. That childish I is uttered with a child’s fear. But this time, when I saw that I was being much too reticent in expressing my happiness as spring arrived bringing showers, this time I embraced what belongs to me and to others.

I know what spring is like because I can smell the pollen in the atmosphere as if it were mine, I can feel myself tremble when a little bird sings, and feel that I am unconsciously renewing my life. Because I am alive.

Transparent and mortal, let that agonizing spring speak for me, that spring I impatiently await year after year. I know it brings turmoil to the senses, but why resist its dizzying spell? I accept this head of mine beneath the glistening showers of spring, I accept my existence and that of others because that is their privilege and without them I should die, I accept the possibility of the existence of the great Beyond despite my having prayed for so little, only to be denied.

I feel that to live is inevitable. In springtime I can sit smoking for hours, simply existing. But existing can sometimes cost blood, and there is no way of avoiding this because it is in my blood that I feel spring. And it hurts. Spring gives me things. It gives me the wherewithal to live. And I feel that I shall die on a spring day. Die of wounding love and a broken heart.

This is the ideal newspaper for classified advertisements and, as I scan the items under Wanted or For Sale, my eye catches the following advertisement printed in bold type:

‘Man or woman wanted to help someone to remain contented. I am so contented that I cannot keep all this happiness to myself and must share it with others. Exceptional wages offered: the right person will be repaid minute by minute with happiness. Apply at once because my happiness is as fleeting as those falling stars one only sees after they have fallen; I need this man or woman before dusk because once night falls no one can help me and it will be much too late. Applicants must not expect any free time until the horrors and dangers of Sunday have passed. Anyone who is sad may also apply because the happiness promised is so great that it must be shared before disaster strikes. I implore readers to apply, I implore them with all the humility of inexplicable happiness. There is also a house on offer, all lit up as if a ball were being held. The successful applicant will be allowed full use of the pantry, the kitchen and sitting-room.

P.S. No previous experience required. And my apologies for troubling you with this advertisement. But I swear to you that there is a divine happiness on this solemn face of mine to be shared with others.’

Z.M. felt that life was slipping away between her fingers. In her humility, she was forgetting that she herself was the source of life and creation. So she rarely left the house and refused all invitations. She was not the type of woman to notice if a man was interested in her unless he declared himself — whereupon she would express surprise and accept the fact.

In the afternoon — it was Spring, the first day of Spring — she went to visit a woman friend who spoke to her bluntly. How could a grown woman like her be so humble? How could she fail to notice that several men were interested in her? Surely she realized that there was nothing like a love affair for satisfying one’s vanity? She also told her that she had watched her enter a room where everyone knew each other. And, as it happened, there was no one present who could be considered her equal. Yet she entered the room looking nervous and distracted, like a timid doe with its head lowered. ‘You must keep your head up and be prepared to suffer because you are different, so totally different from others. You must accept that you cannot live a bourgeois existence, so when you walk into a room you must hold your head high.’ ‘Even when I enter a room full of people on my own?’ ‘Precisely. You don’t need anyone to accompany you. You should be self-reliant.’

She remembered that later that afternoon there was to be some sort of cocktail party for the primary school-teachers who were on holiday. She remembered the new attitude she wished to adopt and deliberately avoided making any arrangement to go with another teacher, male or female. She would face the ordeal alone. She put on a dress she had scarcely worn, but could not summon her courage. Then — as she realized later — she applied far too much mascara and put on so much lipstick that her face looked just like a mask. She had transformed herself into someone else. And that someone else was incredibly flamboyant, vain and self-assured. That someone else was everything she was not. But when the moment arrived to leave, she began to weaken. Could she be asking too much of herself? All dolled up and with this painted mask covering her face — ah, persona, how am I to abandon you in order to be myself at last! Lacking courage, she sat in the arm-chair in that sitting-room she knew so well, her heart pleading with her to stay at home. As if her heart could foresee that she would be badly hurt, she who was no masochist. In the end she extinguished the cigarette-of-courage, got up and left.

It struck her that the torture endured by people who are timid has never been fully described. Travelling in that speeding taxi, she died a little.

And then she suddenly found herself confronted by an enormous room where there were probably lots of people but who were themselves somehow lost in that vast space where the cocktail party was in full swing like some modern ritual.

For how long would she be able to hold her head high? The mask was uncomfortable and she knew she looked much prettier without make-up. But without make-up her soul would be exposed. And she could not take that risk or permit herself such luxury.

Smiling, she greeted this one and that one. But, as with all cocktail parties, conversation was impossible and when she came to her senses, she was all alone once more.

She saw a man who had once been her lover. And she thought to herself: no matter how much love he may have received since, I was the one who gave him my whole body and soul. The two of them looked at each other, scrutinized each other, he no doubt startled by that painted mask. She could think of nothing to say except to ask him if he was still her friend. He replied yes, for always.

Until she felt she could no longer stand there holding her head high. But how was she to cross that enormous room and reach the door? All on her own, like some fugitive? She mumbled her plight to one of the women teachers, who escorted her across that vast expanse to the door.

And in the shadows of that spring evening she was an unhappy woman. Yes, she was different. Of course, she was shy. She was certainly hypersensitive. And yes, she had seen a former lover. The shadows and perfume of spring. The world’s heart was beating in her breast. She had always known how to inhale the smell of nature. Having finally found a taxi, she got in almost crying with relief, remembering how the same thing had happened to her in Paris, only worse. She travelled home as if fleeing from the world. But it was useless hiding: the truth is that she did not know how to live. At home she felt safe. She looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands and saw that persona attached to her face. That persona had the fixed smile of a clown. After washing her face, she discovered to her relief that her soul was once more laid bare. After taking a sleeping pill, she lay wide awake, waiting for sleep to come and promising herself that she would face no more risks without taking some precautions. The sleeping pill had a calming effect. And the endless night of dreams began.