Clarice Lispector - Selected Cronicas

Meanwhile the maid is hanging out the washing on the clothes-line, still humming that tune without words. The melody pervades me. The maid is dark and skinny, and lodged inside her is an ‘I’. A body separate from other bodies, and that is called an ‘I’? It is strange to have a body in which to lodge, a body where liquefied blood flows incessantly, where the mouth can sing, and the eyes must have wept so often. She is an ‘I’.

I shall never forget my dramatic and harrowing contact with eternity.

As a little girl I had never chewed bubble-gum and in Recife it was not easy to find. I simply had no idea what bubble-gum looked like. My pocket-money was meagre and for the price of bubble-gum I could have bought lots of sweets.

My sister managed to save up enough money to buy some. On our way to school, she gave me a piece and warned me: Be careful not to lose it, because you can chew it forever. Bubble-gum lasts for ages.

— What do you mean, it lasts for ages? I stopped in my tracks, completely bewildered.

— It lasts forever and that’s that.

I was easily impressed and felt as if I had been transported to a never-never land inhabited by princes and good fairies. I grabbed that small pink object which promised eternal pleasure and carefully examined it, suspicious of its miraculous powers. Like most children, I would sometimes take a boiled sweet out of my mouth after the first few sucks, to keep it for later. And here I was in possession of this pink object, so innocent in appearance yet capable of realizing this impossible world of which I had just been made aware.

With the utmost delicacy, I finally popped the bubble-gum into my mouth.

— And now what am I supposed to do? — I asked my sister, for fear of spoiling whatever ritual might be expected of me.

— Suck the bubble-gum until you begin to taste the sweetness and then you can start chewing. And after that you can go on chewing for as long as you like. Unless you happen to lose it. I’ve lost mine several times.

Lose eternity? Never.

The bubble-gum had a nice enough taste but nothing out of the ordinary. And I was still puzzled as we made our way to school.

— It doesn’t taste sweet any more. Now what?

— Now you carry on chewing.

For some strange reason I felt nervous. I began chewing and that rubbery gum in my mouth had now turned grey and tasted of nothing. I chewed and chewed but felt sadly disappointed. It would have been a lie to say I was enjoying that bubble-gum. And the fact that it lasted forever filled me with fear, the kind of fear one experiences when confronted with the idea of eternity or the infinite.

I was reluctant to admit that I was not up to eternity. The very idea distressed me. But meanwhile, I obediently carried on chewing without stopping.

Until I could stand it no longer and as I went through the school gates I managed to let it drop on to the ground.

— Oh, look what’s happened! — I said, feigning alarm and disappointment. Now I can’t chew it any more. I’ve lost my bubble-gum!

— How many times do I have to tell you! my sister rebuked me — bubble-gum lasts forever. Unless you’re silly enough to lose it. You can even chew it in bed at night, and then stick it on the head-board before you fall asleep. Never mind, one day I’ll give you another piece if you promise not to lose it next time.

My sister’s generosity filled me with remorse. And I began to regret that I had lied to her by insisting the bubble-gum had dropped by accident. But I felt so relieved. No longer burdened by the weight of eternity.

Brasilia is built on the line of the horizon. — Brasilia is artificial. As artificial as the world must have been when it was created. When the world was created, it was necessary to create a human being especially for that world. We are all deformed through adapting to God’s freedom. We cannot say how we might have turned out if we had been created first, and the world deformed afterwards to meet our needs. Brasilia has no inhabitants as yet who are typical of Brasilia. — If I were to say that Brasilia is pleasant, you would realize immediately that I like the city. But if I were to say that Brasilia is the image of my insomnia, you would see this as a criticism: but my insomnia is neither pleasant nor awful — my insomnia is me, it is lived, it is my terror. The two architects who planned Brasilia were not interested in creating something beautiful. That would be too simple; they created their own terror, and left that terror unexplained. Creation is not an understanding, it is a new mystery. — When I died, I opened my eyes one day and there was Brasilia. I found myself alone in the world. There was a taxi standing there. No sign of the driver. — Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer are two solitary men. — I look at Brasilia the way I look at Rome: Brasilia began with the starkest of ruins. The ivy had not yet grown. — Besides the wind there is another thing that blows. It can only be recognized in the supernatural rippling of the lake. — Wherever you stand, you have the impression of being on the edge of a dangerous precipice. Brasilia stands on the margin. — Were I to live here, I should let my hair grow down to my feet. — Brasilia belongs to a glorious past which no longer exists. That type of civilization disappeared thousands of years ago. In the 4th century BC, Brasilia was inhabited by men and women who were fair and very tall, who were neither American nor Scandinavian, and who shone brightly in the sun. They were all blind. That explains why there is nothing to collide with in Brasilia. The inhabitants of Brasilia used to dress in white gold. The race became extinct because few children were born. The more beautiful the natives of Brasilia, the blinder, purer, and more radiant they became, and the fewer children they produced. The natives of Brasilia lived for nearly three hundred years. There was no one in whose name they could die. Thousands of years later, the location was discovered by a band of fugitives who would not be accepted in any other place; they had nothing to lose. There they lit a bonfire, set up their tents, and gradually began excavating the sands which buried the city. Those men and women were short and dark-skinned, with shifty, restless eyes, and because they were fugitives and desperate, they had something to live and die for. They occupied the houses, which were in ruins, and multiplied, thus forming a human race which was much given to contemplation. — I waited for night, like someone waiting for shadows in order to steal away unobserved. When night came, I perceived with horror that it was hopeless: wherever I went, I would be seen. The thought terrified me: seen by whom? — The city was built without any escape route for rats. A whole part of myself, the worst part, and precisely that part of me which has a horror of rats, has not been provided for in Brasilia. Its founders tried to ignore the importance of human beings. The dimensions of the city’s buildings were calculated for the heavens. Hell has a better understanding of me. But the rats, all of them enormous, are invading the city. That is a newspaper headline. — This place frightens me. — The construction of Brasilia: that of a totalitarian state. This great visual silence which I adore. Even my insomnia might have created this peace of never-never-land. Like those two hermits, Costa and Niemeyer, I would also meditate in the desert where there are no opportunities for temptation. But I see black vultures flying high overhead. What is perishing, dear God? — I did not shed a single tear in Brasilia. — There was no place for tears. — It is a shore without any sea. In Brasilia there is no place where one may enter, no place where one may leave. — Mummy, it’s nice to see you standing there with your white cape fluttering in the breeze. (The truth is that I have perished, my son.) — A prison in the open air. In any case, there would be nowhere to escape to. For anyone escaping would probably find himself heading for Brasilia. They captured me in freedom. But freedom is simply what one achieves. When they beat me, they are ordering me to be free. — The human indifference which lurks in my nature is something I discover here in Brasília, and it flowers cold and potent, the frozen strength of Nature. Here is the place where my crimes (not the worst of them, but those I would not understand), where my crimes would not be crimes of love. I am off to commit those other crimes which God and I understand. But I know that I shall return. I am drawn here by all that is terrifying in my nature. — I have never seen anything like it in the world. But I recognize this city in the depths of my dream. In those depths there is lucidity. — For as I was saying, Flash Gordon… — If they were to photograph me standing in Brasilia, when they came to develop the film only the landscape would appear. — Where are the giraffes of Brasília? — A certain twitching on my part, certain moments of silence, cause my son to exclaim: ‘Really, grown-ups are the limit!’ — It is urgent. Were Brasilia not populated, or rather, over-populated, it would be inhabited in some other way. And should that happen, it would be much too late: there would be no place for people. They would sense they were being quietly expelled. — Here the soul casts no shadow on the ground. — During the first two days I had no appetite. Everything had the appearance of the food they serve on board aeroplanes. — At night, I confronted silence. I know that there is a secret hour when manna falls and moistens the lands of Brasilia. — However close one may be, everything here is seen from afar. I could find no way of touching. But at least there is one thing in my favour: before arriving here, I already knew how to touch things from afar. I never became too desperate: from afar, I was able to touch things. I possessed a great deal, and not even what I have touched knows of this. A rich woman is like this. It is pure Brasilia. — The city of Brasilia is situated outside the city. — ‘Boys, boys come here, will you. Look who’s coming on the street, all dressed up in modernistic style. It ain’t nobody but…’ (Aunt Hagar’s Blues, played by Ted Lewis and his Band, with Jimmy Dorsey on the clarinet.) — Such astonishing beauty, this city traced out in mid-air. — Meantime, no samba is likely to be born in Brasilia. — Brasilia does not permit me to feel weary. It almost hounds me. I feel fine. I feel fine. I feel fine. I feel just fine. Besides, I have always cultivated my weariness as my most precious passiveness. — All this is but today. Only God knows what will happen to Brasilia. Here the fortuitous takes one by surprise — Brasilia is haunted. It is the motionless outline of something. — Unable to sleep, I look out of my hotel window at three o’clock in the morning. Brasilia is a landscape of insomnia. It never sleeps. — Here the organic being does not deteriorate. It becomes petrified. — I should like to see five hundred eagles of the blackest onyx scattered throughout Brasilia. — Brasilia is asexual. — The first instant you set eyes on the city you feel inebriated: your feet do not touch the ground. — How deeply one breathes in Brasilia. As you breathe here you begin to experience desire. And that is out of the question. Desire does not exist here. Will it ever exist? I cannot see how. — It would not surprise me to encounter Arabs on the street. Arabs of another age and long since dead. — Here my passion dies. And I gain a lucidity which makes me feel grandiose for no good reason. I am wonderful and futile, I am of the purest gold. And almost endowed with the spiritualistic powers of a medium. — If there is some crime which humanity has still to commit, that new crime will be initiated here. It is so very open, so well suited to the plateau, that no one will ever know. — This is the place where space most closely resembles time. — I am certain that this is the right place for me. But I have become much too corrupted on earth. I have acquired all of life’s bad habits. — Erosion will strip Brasilia to the bone. — The religious atmosphere which I sensed from the outset, and denied. This city was achieved through prayer. Two men beatified by solitude created me here, on foot, restless, exposed to the wind. How I should love to set white horses free here in Brasilia. At night, they would become green under the light of the moon — I know what those two men wanted: that slowness and silence which are also my idea of eternity. Those two men created the image of an eternal city. — There is something here which frightens me. When I discover what it is, I shall also discover what I like about this place. Fear has always guided me to the things I love; and because I love, I become afraid. It was often fear which took me by the hand and led me. Fear leads me to danger. And everything I love has an element of risk. — In Brasilia you find the craters of the Moon. — And the beauty of Brasilia is to be found in those invisible statues.