Clarice Lispector - Selected Cronicas

Suddenly my heart was pounding with disillusionment. I could not bear it a minute longer — without taking the notebook, I ran out to the park, one hand over my mouth as if someone had smashed my teeth. With my hand over my mouth, horror-stricken, I ran and ran as if I would never stop. The fervent prayer is that which asks for nothing, the most fervent prayer is that which asks for nothing more. Terrified, I ran and ran.

Contaminated, I was relying on grown-ups for my redemption. The need to believe in my future goodness led me to venerate grown-ups whom I had made in my image, but an image of me cleansed at last by the penance of growing, delivered at last from the impure soul of a little girl. And now the teacher was destroying all this, he was destroying my love for him and for me. There could be no salvation for me: for that man was also me. My bitter idol who had ingenuously fallen into the snares of a confused and wilful child, and who had meekly allowed himself to be guided by my diabolical innocence… Pressing my hand to my mouth, I ran through the dust of the park.

When it finally dawned on me that I was well out of the teacher’s reach, I came to an exhausted halt; close to collapsing, I leaned my full weight against a tree trunk, panting furiously. I stood there, gasping for breath with my eyes closed, swallowing the bitter dust from the tree trunk, my fingers mechanically stroking the rough grooves…. forming a heart and arrow. Closing my eyes tightly, I let out a sudden moan, as I began to see things more clearly: was he trying to say that … that I was a hidden treasure? That treasure hidden where one least expects to find it … Oh, no, not at all, poor King of Creation, so much in need … of what? What was he in need of … that even I should have been turned into treasure?

I had enough strength to run even further. Forcing my dry throat to recover its breath, and angrily pushing against the tree trunk, I set off once more in the direction of the world’s end.

But the shadowed edges of the park were still invisible and my steps were growing slower and slower from sheer exhaustion. I could go no further. Perhaps because I was so tired, I finally gave up. My steps became slower and slower and the foliage of the trees swayed slowly. My steps became confused. Hesitantly, I came to a halt, the trees circled overhead. The strangest sweetness left my heart weary. I paused in fear. I was alone on the lawn, unsteady on my feet, and without any support. My hand over my weary breast like some virgin in an annunciation scene. Weary, lowering to that first sweetness a head that was submissive at last, and that from a distance might even suggest the head of a woman. The crest of the trees swayed to and fro. ‘You’re a very funny child, and a foolish little girl’, he had said. It was almost like being in love.

No, I was not funny. Unconsciously, I was most serious. No, I was not a foolish little girl, reality was my destiny, and it was that part of me which offended others. And, by God, I was not a treasure. But if I had already discovered in myself all the vicious poison with which human beings are born and use to destroy life — only at that moment of honey and flowers did I discover how I would cure whoever loved me, whoever suffered on my account. I was dark ignorance with its hunger and laughter, with small deaths nourishing my inevitable life — what was I to do? I already knew that I was inevitable. But if I was worthless, I was all the man possessed at that moment. For once at least, he was being obliged to love, and without loving anyone — to love through someone. And I alone was there. Even if this were his sole advantage: having only me, and being forced to start by loving the wicked, he had started with something few achieve. It would be much too easy to desire the pure; the ugly was beyond love’s reach; to love the impure was man’s deepest longing. Through me, someone difficult to love, he had charitably received the substance of which we are made. Did I understand all this? No. Nor do I know what I understood at the time. But just as for one brief moment I had seen with horrified fascination the world in my teacher — and to this day I do not know what I saw, only that forever and in one brief moment I saw — and so understood both of us, even though I shall never know what I understood. I shall never know what I understand. Whatever I understood in the park was, to my pleasant surprise, understood by my ignorance. An ignorance which stood there — in the same numbed solitude as the surrounding trees — an ignorance which I fully recovered with its incomprehensible truth. There I stood, the girl who was too knowing by far, and behold how all that was unworthy in me served both God and man. All that was unworthy about me was also my treasure.

Yes, just like a virgin in an annunciation scene. In allowing me to make him smile at last, the teacher had brought about this annunciation. He had just transformed me into something more than the King of Creation: he had made me the wife of the King of Creation. For suddenly it had fallen to me, armed with claws and dreams as I was, to pluck the barbed arrow from his heart. Suddenly it became clear why I had been born intransigent, why I had been born without aversion to pain. Why do you have such long nails? All the better to claw you to death and pluck out your fatal thorns, the wolf-man replies. Why do you have such cruel and hungry jaws? All the better to bite you with before blowing on the wound to ease the pain, my beloved. For alas, I must hurt you. I am the inevitable wolf and for this reason I was given life. Why do you have such fiery, menacing claws? So that we may go hand in hand, for my need is so great, so great, so great — the wolves howled, looking nervously at their own claws before snuggling up to one another to make love and sleep.

… Thus it came about that in the large park surrounding my school, I slowly began to learn how to be loved, while enduring the sacrifice of not being worthy, if only to lessen the pain of one who does not love. No, that was only one of the reasons. Others make up different stories. In some, other claws, filled with cruel love, have plucked the barbed arrow from my heart, indifferent to my screams of pain.

The imaginings which frighten me. I imagined a party — without food or drink — a party simply to be looked at. Even the chairs have been hired and transported to an empty third-floor apartment on the Rua da Alfândega, an ideal place for a party. I would invite all my former friends of both sexes, with whom I have now lost touch. Only former friends, excluding any of the mutual friends of friends. Individuals who shared my life and whose life I shared. But how could I climb those dark stairs to a rented room on my own? And how would I get back from the Rua da Alfândega at night? For I knew the pavements would be dry and hard.

I preferred another imagining. It began by mingling affection with gratitude and rage: only afterwards did the two wings of a bat unfold, like something coming from afar and getting closer; but those wings were also shining. Perhaps a tea-party this time — on a Sunday afternoon in the Rua do Lavradio — to which I would invite all the housemaids I had ever employed. Those whom I had forgotten would indicate their absence with an empty chair. just as they exist inside me. The others would be seated, their hands folded on their laps. Silent. Until each of them should open her mouth and, restored to life, a resuscitated corpse, should recite what I can remember of their conversation. Almost like a tea-party for society ladies, except that at — this tea-party there would be no talk about housemaids.

— I wish you every happiness — one of them gets to her feet — May you be blessed with what no one can give you.