Clarice Lispector - Selected Cronicas

— Whenever I ask for anything — another rises from her chair — I can’t stop laughing, so people never take me seriously.

— I like films with a gun fight. (And that was all I could remember about an entire person.)

— Plain, everyday home-cooking, madam. I only know how to cook for the poor.

— When I die, one or two people will miss me. But that’s all.

— My eyes fill with tears when I speak to a lady, it must be all this spiritualism.

— He was such a pretty child that I really felt like giving him a good thrashing.

— Early this morning — the Italian maid told me — when I was coming to work, the leaves started falling along with the first snow. A man on the street said to me: ‘It’s raining gold and silver.’ I pretended I hadn’t heard him because, if I’m not careful, men always get their way with me.

— Here comes Her Ladyship — the oldest of all my former house-maids gets up, the one who only managed to show soured affection and who taught me so early in life how to forgive love’s cruelty. — Did Your Ladyship sleep well? Being a lady means enjoying every luxury. She is full of whims: she wants this, she doesn’t want that. To be a lady means being white.

— I want three days off during the Carnival, madam, for I’m tired of playing Cinderella.

— Food is a question of salt. Food is a question of salt. Food is a question of salt. Here comes Her Ladyship: may you be blessed with what no one can give you, that’s all I ask when I die. Then the man said that the rain was gold, and no one can give you that. Unless you don’t mind standing in the dark, bathed in gold, but it has to be in the dark. Her ladyship has seen better days: leaves or the first snow. To taste the salt in what you are eating, not to give a pretty child a good thrashing, to avoid laughter when you are asking for something, never to pretend that you haven’t heard when someone says: It’s raining, my good woman, it’s raining gold and silver. It really is!

I am an extremely busy person. I keep an eye on the world. Each morning I look down from my terrace at the strip of beach with the sea beyond. Sometimes the spray seems whiter and I can tell that the restless waters have advanced during the night leaving their mark on the sand. I watch the almond trees on the street below. Before falling asleep, and keeping an eye on the world in my dreams, I examine the night sky to see if there are stars twinkling against a blue background, because on certain nights the sky is not black but ultramarine. The world keeps me fully occupied, because I recognize that God is the cosmos, and that is a responsibility I would be prepared to forgo.

I see a little boy who cannot be more than ten, dressed in rags and unbelievably thin. A future case of tuberculosis, if he is not already infected.

When I visit the Botanical Gardens I soon become weary. There I have to keep an eye on thousands of plants and trees, especially the gigantic water-lilies.

Take note that I have said nothing about my emotional reactions: I spoke only of some of the thousands of things and people I keep an eye on. Nor does anyone pay me to do this job. I simply keep the world under observation.

Is it hard work keeping an eye on the world? Most certainly. I can remember the terrifying face of one woman I saw in the street, a face devoid of any expression. I also keep an eye on thousands of slum-dwellers on the nearby slopes. I observe the seasonal changes in myself: I inevitably change with every season.

You must be wondering why I keep an eye on the world. I was born with this mission. And I am responsible for everything in existence, even for those wars and crimes which cause so much physical and spiritual havoc. I am even responsible for this God Who is in a perpetual state of cosmic evolution towards greater perfection.

Since childhood I have kept an eye on a swarm of ants: they crawl in Indian file, carrying a tiny particle of leaf which does not prevent them from pausing to chat whenever they meet another procession of ants coming from the opposite direction.

I once read a standard textbook about bees and I have observed them ever since, especially the queen bee. Bees fly and nourish themselves on flowers: that much I have learned.

But ants have such a neat little waistline. Yet tiny as they are, they embrace a whole world, which eludes me unless I examine them closely: an instinctive sense of organization, a language which goes beyond the supersonic to our ears and probably attuned to instinctive feelings of love-cum-sentiment, for ants can speak. I kept a watchful eye on these insects when I was little and now that I so dearly long to see them again, I cannot find a single ant. I know they have not been exterminated otherwise I should have been told. Keeping an eye on the world also requires a lot of patience: I must wait for the ants to reappear. Patience. While watching the flowers open imperceptibly, little by little.

But I still have not found the person to whom I should report my findings.

He is wearing his spectacles all the time as he goes searching for them throughout the entire house. Now and then he says to himself with satisfaction: How fortunate I am to be able to see everything so clearly today. This should make it easier to find my spectacles. Sometimes, in the middle of searching, he begins to think to himself: I can see so well today that I might not need my spectacles for reading any more. He only realizes that he has been wearing his spectacles all the time when he adjusts them to read before going to sleep. He feels so bitterly disappointed: No wonder I thought I did not need my spectacles any more.

… I caught a sudden glance and the man was so incredibly handsome and virile that I could feel the joy of creation. Not that I wanted him for myself, just as I do not crave the Moon at night when it becomes as delicate and impassive as a pearl. Just as I do not long for that nine-year old boy I saw chasing a ball and whose ringlets reminded me of the Archangel. All I wanted was to be a spectator. The man gave me a passing glance and smiled quietly: he knew he was handsome and clearly recognized that I did not want him for myself. He smiled at me because he did not feel threatened. (Exceptional human beings are more exposed to danger than ordinary people.) I crossed the street and hailed a taxi. The breeze ruffled my hair from behind and, although it was autumn, appeared to herald a new spring as if the tedious summer deserved the freshness of budding flowers. But for the moment it was autumn and the leaves were turning yellow on the almond-trees. I felt such joy that I snuggled apprehensively into a corner of the taxi because happiness, too, can be painful. And all this had been provoked by the vision of a handsome man. I continued not to want him for myself, yet somehow he had given me a great deal with that friendly smile in token of our mutual understanding. The taxi was now approaching the viaduct near the Museum of Modern Art. I no longer felt happy. Autumn had become menacing and hostile. I felt like weeping gently.

Rosa lost her parents when she was small. Her brothers and sisters were dispersed throughout the world and she was sent to an orphanage attached to a convent. There she led an austere and deprived existence with the other inmates. During the winter the great mansion was permanently cold, and the work never ceased. Rosa did the washing, she swept out the rooms, and mended clothes. Meantime, the seasons passed. With her head shaved and wearing a long tunic made of coarse material, she often interrupted her sweeping to gaze out of the window. Autumn was the season she liked best, for she could savour it without going outdoors: through the window-panes she would watch the yellowing leaves fall into the courtyard, and that was autumn.