Complete Stories

by Clarice Lispector

  In the morning: agnus dei. Golden calf? Vulture.

  The poor Jew: free me from the pride of being a Jew!

  The journalist called her friend first thing in the morning:

  “Claudia, sorry to call at this hour on a Sunday! But I woke up with a fabulous inspiration: I’m going to write a book about Black Magic! No, I didn’t read that one about the Exorcist, because I heard it’s no good and I don’t want everybody saying I copied it. Have you ever really thought about it? human beings have always tried to communicate with the supernatural, from ancient Egypt with the secret of the Pyramids, to Greece with its gods, to Shakespeare in Hamlet. Well, I’m going to do it too. And, by God, I’m going to do it best!”

  The smell of coffee wafted through many Rio households. It was Sunday. And the boy still in bed, completely lethargic, still half-awake, said to himself: another boring Sunday. What exactly had he dreamed about? Who knows, he answered, if I dreamed, I dreamed about women.

  At last, the air brightens. And the same old day begins. The brutal day. The light was wicked: the haunted daily day was settling in. A religion became a necessity: a religion unafraid of the morning. I want to be envied. I want rape, robbery, infanticide, and my challenge is forceful. I wanted gold and fame, I scorned even sex: I loved fast and I didn’t know what love was. I want bad gold. Profanation. I’m going to my extreme. After the revelry — what revelry? at night? — after the revelry, desolation.

  There was the observer who wrote this in his notebook: “Progress and all the phenomena surrounding it seem to participate intimately in this law of general, cosmic, and centrifugal acceleration that drags civilization toward ‘maximum progress,’ so that thereafter comes the fall. An uninterrupted fall or a quickly contained fall? That is the problem: we cannot know whether this society will destroy itself completely or if it will experience merely a brief interruption and then resume its onward march.” And then: “The Sun’s effects on the Earth would diminish and provoke the start of a new ice age that could last a minimum of ten thousand years.” Ten thousand years was a lot and was frightening. That’s what happens when someone chooses, from fear of the dark night, to live in the superficial light of day. Since the supernatural, divine or demonic, has been a temptation since Egypt, through the Middle Ages up to cheap mystery novels.

  The butcher, who that day was working just from eight till eleven, opened the butcher shop: and halted drunk with pleasure at the smell of meat upon raw meat, raw and bloody. He was the only one who carried the night into day.

  Father Jacinto was in fashion because no one lifted the chalice as limpidly as he and drank with holy unction and purity, saving everyone, the blood of Jesus, who was the Good. Delicately his pale hands in a gesture of offering.

  The baker rose as usual at four o’clock and started kneading dough. At night did he knead the Devil?

  An angel painted by Fra Angelico, fifteenth century, fluttered through the air: he was the annunciating clarinet of morning. The electric street lights had not yet been shut off and were glowing palely. Poles. Speed devours the poles when you’re cruising by in a car.

  The morning masturbator: my only loyal friend is my dog. He didn’t trust anyone, especially women.

  The woman who had been yawning all night and said: “I conjure thee, High Priestess!” started scratching herself and yawning. Oh hell, she said.

  The powerful man — who grew orchids, cattleyas, laelias and oncidiums — rang the bell impatiently to summon the butler who would bring his already-late breakfast. The butler read his mind and knew when to bring the Danish greyhounds to be quickly caressed.

  That woman who at night had screamed, “I’m waiting, waiting, waiting,” in the morning, all disheveled said to the milk in the saucepan on the burner:

  “I’m going to get you, you slob! Let’s just see if you’re going to drag your heels and boil over in my face, I spend my whole life waiting. Everyone knows that if I take my eyes off the milk for a single second, that good-for-nothing will take the chance to boil over. The way death comes when you don’t expect it.”

  She waited, waited and the milk didn’t boil. So, she turned off the gas.

  In the sky the faintest of rainbows: it was the announcement. The morning like a white sheep. A white dove was the prophecy. Manger. Secret. The preordained morning. Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictum frutus ventri tui Jesus. Sancta Maria Mater Dei ora pro nobis pecatoribus. Nunca et ora nostrae morte Amen.

  Father Jacinto used both hands to lift the crystal chalice that holds the scarlet blood of Christ. Wow, good wine. And a flower bloomed. A light, rosy flower, with the fragrance of God. He-she had long since vanished into thin air. The morning was clear like some freshly washed thing.

  AMEN

  The absentminded faithful made the sign of the Cross.

  AMEN

  GOD

  THE END

  Epilogue

  All I have written is true and exists. A universal mind exists that guided me. Where were you at night? No one knows. Don’t try to answer — for the love of God. I don’t want to know the answer. Adieu. A-Dieu.

  * * *

  * “Hey you” or “Psst.”

  Report on the Thing

  (“O relatório da coisa”)

  This thing is the most difficult for a person to understand. Keep trying. Don’t get discouraged. It will seem obvious. But it is extremely difficult to know about. For it involves time.

  We divide time when in reality it is not divisible. It is always immutable. But we need to divide it. And to that end a monstrous thing was created: the clock.

  I am not going to speak of clocks. But of one particular clock. I’m showing my cards: I’ll say up front what I have to say and without literature. This report is the antiliterature of the thing.

  The clock of which I speak is electronic and has an alarm. The brand is Sveglia, which means “wake up.” Wake up to what, my God? To time. To the hour. To the instant. This clock is not mine. But I took possession of its infernal tranquil soul.

  It is not a wristwatch: therefore it is freestanding. It is less than an inch tall and stands on the surface of the table. I would like its actual name to be Sveglia. But the clock’s owner wants its name to be Horácio. No matter. Because the main thing is that it is time.

  Its mechanism is very simple. It does not have the complexity of a person but it is more people than people. Is it a superman? No, it comes straight from the planet Mars, so it seems. If that’s where it is from then that’s where it will one day return. It is silly to state that it does not need to be wound, since this is the case with other timepieces, as with mine that’s a wristwatch, that’s shock resistant, that can get wet as you like. Those are even more than people. But at least they are from Earth. The Sveglia is from God. Divine human brains were used to capture what this watch should be. I am writing about it but have yet to see it. It will be the Encounter. Sveglia: wake up, woman, wake up to see what must be seen. It is important to be awake in order to see. But it is also important to sleep in order to dream about the lack of time. Sveglia is the Object, it is the Thing, with a capital letter. I wonder, does the Sveglia see me? Yes, it does, as if I were another object. It recognizes that sometimes we too come from Mars.

  Things have been happening to me, after I found out about the Sveglia, that seem like a dream. Wake me up, Sveglia, I want to see reality. But then, reality resembles a dream. I am melancholy because I am happy. It is not a paradox. After the act of love don’t you feel a certain melancholy? That of plenitude. I feel like crying. Sveglia does not cry. Besides, it has no way to. Does its energy have any weight? Sleep, Sveglia, sleep a little, I can’t stand your constant vigil. You never stop being. You never dream. It cannot be said that you “function”: you are not the act of functioning, you just are.

  You are just so thin.
And nothing happens to you. But you are the one who makes things happen. Happen to me, Sveglia, happen to me. I am in need of a certain event of which I cannot speak. And bring back desire to me, which is the coil spring behind animal life. I do not want you for myself. I do not like being watched. And you are the only eye always open like an eye floating in space. You wish me no harm but neither do you wish me good. Could I be getting that way too, without the feeling of love? Am I a thing? I know that I have little capacity to love. My capacity to love has been trampled too much, my God. All I have left is a flicker of desire. I need this to be strengthened. Because it is not as you think, that only death matters. To live, something you don’t know about because it is susceptible to rot — to live while rotting matters quite a bit. A harsh way to live: a way to live the essential.

  If it breaks, do they think it died? No, it simply departed from itself. But you have weaknesses, Sveglia. I learned from your owner that you need a leather case to protect you from humidity. I also learned, in secret, that you once stopped. Your owner didn’t panic. She fiddled with it a little and you never stopped again. I understand you, I forgive you: you came from Europe and you need a little time to get acclimated, don’t you? Does that mean that you die too, Sveglia? Are you the time that stops?

  I once heard, over the phone, the Sveglia’s alarm go off. It’s like how it is inside us: we wake up from the inside out. It seems its electronic-God communicates with our electronic-God brain: the sound is low, not the least bit shrill. Sveglia ambles like a white horse roaming free and saddleless.

  I learned of a man who owned a Sveglia and to whom Sveglia happened. He was walking with his ten-year-old son, at night, and the son said: watch out, Father, there’s voodoo out there. The father recoiled — but wouldn’t you know he stepped right on a burning candle, snuffing it out? Nothing seemed to have happened, which is also very Sveglia. The man went to bed. When he awoke he saw that one of his feet was swollen and black. He called some doctor friends who saw no sign of injury: the foot was intact — only black and very swollen, the kind of swelling that stretches the skin completely taut. The doctors called more colleagues. And nine doctors decided it was gangrene. They had to amputate the foot. They made an appointment for the next day and an exact time. The man fell asleep.

  And he had a terrible dream. A white horse was trying to attack him and he was fleeing like a madman. This all took place in the Campo de Santana. The white horse was beautiful and adorned with silver. But there was no escape. The horse got him right on the foot, trampling it. That’s when the man awoke screaming. They thought it was nerves, explained that these things happened right before an operation, gave him a sedative, he went back to sleep. When he awoke, he immediately looked at his foot. Surprise: the foot was white and its normal size. The nine doctors came and couldn’t explain it. They didn’t know about the enigma of the Sveglia against which only a white horse can fight. There was no longer any reason to operate. Only, he can’t put any weight on that foot: it was weakened. It was the sign of the horse harnessed with silver, of the snuffed candle, of the Sveglia. But Sveglia wanted to be victorious and something happened. That man’s wife, in perfect health, at the dinner table, started feeling sharp pains in her intestines. She cut dinner short and went to lie down. The husband, worried sick, went to check on her. She was white, drained of blood. He took her pulse: there was none. The only sign of life was that her forehead was pearled with sweat. He called the doctor who said it might be a case of catalepsy. The husband didn’t agree. He uncovered her stomach and made simple movements over her — the same he himself made when Sveglia had stopped — movements he couldn’t explain.

  The wife opened her eyes. She was in perfect health. And she’s alive, may God keep her.

  This has to do with Sveglia. I don’t know how. But that it does, no question. And what about the white horse of the Campo de Santana, which is a plaza full of little birds, pigeons and coatis? In full regalia, trimmed in silver, with a lofty and bristling mane. Running rhythmically in counterpoint to Sveglia’s rhythm. Running without haste.

  I am in perfect physical and mental health. But one night I was sleeping soundly and could be heard saying in a loud voice: I want to have a baby with Sveglia!

  I believe in the Sveglia. It doesn’t believe in me. It thinks I lie a lot. And I do. On Earth we lie a lot.

  I went five years without catching the flu: that is Sveglia. And when I did it lasted three days. Afterward a dry cough lingered. But the doctor prescribed antibiotics and I got better. Antibiotics are Sveglia.

  This is a report. Sveglia does not allow short stories or novels no matter what. It only permits transmission. It hardly allows me to call this a report. I call it a report on the mystery. And I do my best to write a report dry as extra-dry champagne. But sometimes — forgive me — it gets wet. A dry thing is sterling silver. Whereas gold is wet. May I speak of diamonds in relation to Sveglia?

  No, it just is. And in fact Sveglia has no intimate name: it preserves its anonymity. Besides, God has no name: he preserves perfect anonymity: there is no language that utters his true name.

  Sveglia is dumb: it acts covertly without premeditation. I am now going to say a very serious thing that will seem like heresy: God is dumb. Because he does not understand, he does not think, he just is. It is true that it’s a kind of dumbness that executes itself. But He commits many errors. And knows it. Just look at us who are a grave error. Just look how we organize ourselves into society and intrinsically, from one to another. But there is one error He does not commit: He does not die.

  Sveglia does not die either. I have still not seen the Sveglia, as I have mentioned. Perhaps seeing it is wet. I know everything about it. But its owner does not want me to see it. She is jealous. Jealousy eventually drips from being so wet. Anyhow, our Earth risks becoming wet with feelings. The rooster is Sveglia. The egg is pure Sveglia. But the egg only when whole, complete, white, its shell dry, completely oval. Inside it is life; wet life. But eating raw yolk is Sveglia.

  Do you want to see who Sveglia is? A football match. Whereas Pelé is not. Why? Impossible to explain. Perhaps he didn’t respect anonymity.

  Fights are Sveglia. I just had one with the clock’s owner. I said: since you don’t want to let me see Sveglia, describe its gears to me. Then she lost her temper — and that is Sveglia — and said she had a lot of problems — having problems is not Sveglia. So I tried to calm her down and it was fine. I won’t call her tomorrow. I’ll let her rest.

  It seems to me that I will write about the electronic thing without ever seeing it. It seems it will have to be that way. It is fated.

  I am sleepy. Could that be permitted? I know that dreaming is not Sveglia. Numbers are permitted. Though six is not. Very few poems are permitted. Novels, then, forget it. I had a maid for seven days, named Severina, who had gone hungry as a child. I asked if she was sad. She said she was neither happy nor sad: she was just that way. She was Sveglia. But I was not and couldn’t stand the absence of feeling.

  Sweden is Sveglia.

  But now I am going to sleep though I shouldn’t dream.

  Water, despite being wet par excellence, is. Writing is. But style is not. Having breasts is. The male organ is too much. Kindness is not. But not-kindness, giving oneself, is. Kindness is not the opposite of meanness.

  Will my writing be wet? I think so. My last name is. Whereas my first name is too sweet, it is meant for love. Not having any secrets — and yet maintaining the enigma — is Sveglia. In terms of punctuation ellipses are not. If someone understands this undisclosed and precise report of mine, that someone is. It seems that I am not I, because I am so much I. The Sun is, not the Moon. My face is. Probably yours is too. Whiskey is. And, as incredible as it might seem, Coca-Cola is, while Pepsi never was. Am I giving free advertising? That’s wrong, you hear, Coca-Cola?

  Being faithful is. The act of love contains in itself a desperati
on that is.

  Now I am going to tell a story. But first I would like to say that the person who told me this story was someone who, despite being incredibly kind, is Sveglia.

  Now I am nearly dying of exhaustion. Sveglia — if we aren’t careful — kills.

  The story goes like this:

  It takes place in a locale called Coelho Neto, in the State of Guanabara. The woman in the story was very unhappy because her leg was wounded and the wound wouldn’t heal. She worked very hard and her husband was a postman. Being a postman is Sveglia. They had many children. Almost nothing to eat. But that postman had been instilled with the responsibility of making his wife happy. Being happy is Sveglia. So the postman resolved the situation. He pointed out a neighbor who was barren and suffered greatly from this. She just couldn’t get pregnant. He pointed out to his wife how happy she was because she had children. And she became happy, even with so little food. The postman also pointed out how another neighbor had children but her husband drank a lot and beat her and the children. Whereas he didn’t drink and had never hit his wife or the children. Which made her happy.

  Every night they felt sorry for their barren neighbor and for the one whose husband beat her. Every night they were very happy. And being happy is Sveglia. Every night.

  I was hoping to reach page 9 on the typewriter. The number nine is nearly unattainable. The number 13 is God. The typewriter is. The danger of its no longer being Sveglia comes when it gets a little mixed up with the feelings of the person who’s writing.