Complete Stories

by Clarice Lispector

  I got sick of Consul cigarettes which are menthol and sweet. Whereas Carlton cigarettes are dry, they’re rough, they’re harsh, and do not cooperate with the smoker. Since everything is or isn’t, it doesn’t bother me to give free advertising for Carlton. But, as for Coca-Cola, I don’t excuse it.

  I want to send this report to Senhor magazine and I want them to pay me very well.

  Since you are, why don’t you judge whether my cook, who cooks well and sings all day, is.

  I think I’ll conclude this report that is essential for explaining the energetic phenomena of matter. But I don’t know what to do. Ah, I’ll go get dressed.

  See you never, Sveglia. The deep blue sky is. The waves white with sea foam are, more than the sea. (I have already bid farewell to Sveglia, but will keep speaking about it strictly because I can’t help it, bear with me). The smell of the sea combines male and female and in the air a son is born that is.

  The clock’s owner told me today that it’s the one that owns her. She told me that it has some tiny black holes from which a low sound comes out like an absence of words, the sound of satin. It has an internal gear that is golden. The external gear is silver, nearly colorless — like an aircraft in space, flying metal. Waiting, is it or isn’t it? I don’t know how to answer because I suffer from urgency and am rendered incapable of judging this item without getting emotionally involved. I don’t like waiting.

  A musical quartet is immensely more so than a symphony. The flute is. The harpsichord has an element of terror in it: the sounds come out rustling and brittle. Something from an otherworldly soul.

  Sveglia, when will you finally leave me in peace? You aren’t going to stalk me for the rest of my life transforming it into the brightness of everlasting insomnia, are you? Now I hate you. Now I would like to be able to write a story: a short story or a novel or a transmission. What will be my future step in literature? I suspect I won’t write anymore. But it’s true that at other times I have suspected this yet still wrote. What, however, must I write, my God? Was I contaminated by the mathematics of Sveglia and will I only be able to write reports?

  And now I am going to end this report on the mystery. It so happens that I am very tired. I’ll take a shower before going out and put on a perfume that is my secret. I’ll say just one thing about it: it is rustic and a bit harsh, with hidden sweetness. It is.

  Farewell, Sveglia. Farewell forever never. You already killed a part of me. I died and am rotting. Dying is.

  And now — now farewell.

  Manifesto of the City

  (“O manifesto da cidade”)

  Why not try in this moment, which isn’t grave, to look out the window? This is the bridge. This is the river. Here is the Penitentiary. Here is the clock. And Recife. Here is the canal. Where is the stone that I’m sensing? the stone that crushed the city. In the palpable form of things. For this is a realized city. Its last earthquake is lost in the annals. I reach out my hand and without sadness trace from afar the curves of the stone. Something still escapes the compass rose. Something has hardened in the steel arrow that points toward — Another City.

  This moment isn’t grave. I take advantage of it and look out the window. Here is a house. I feel my way along your stairs, those I climbed in Recife. Then the short column. I am seeing everything extraordinarily well. Nothing eludes me. The city laid out. With such ingenuity. Masons, carpenters, engineers, sculptors of saints, artisans — they bore death in mind. I am seeing ever more clearly: this is the house, mine, the bridge, the river, the Penitentiary, the square blocks of buildings, the steps empty of me, the stone.

  But here comes a Horse. Here is a horse with four legs and hard hooves of stone, a powerful neck, and the head of Horse. Here is a horse.

  If this was a word echoing off the hard ground, what do you mean? How hollow this heart is in the center of the city. I am searching, searching. House, pavement, steps, monument, lamppost, your industry.

  From the highest rampart — I am looking. I am searching. From the highest rampart I receive no signal. From here I cannot see, for your clarity is impenetrable. From here I cannot see but feel that something is written in charcoal on a wall. On a wall of this city.

  The White Rose

  Petal up high: what an extreme surface. Cathedral of glass, surface of the surface, unreachable by voice. Through your stem two voices join a third and a fifth and a ninth — wise children open mouths in the morning and chant spirit, spirit, surface, spirit, untouchable surface of a rose.

  I reach out my left hand which is the weaker, dark hand that I quickly withdraw smiling demurely. I cannot touch you. My crude thinking wants to sing your new understanding of ice and glory.

  I try to recall the memory, to understand you as one sees the dawn, a chair, another flower. Have no fear, I do not wish to possess you. I rise toward your surface that now is perfume.

  I rise until I reach my own appearance. I pale in that frightened and fragile region, I nearly reach your divine surface . . .

  In the ridiculous fall I’ve broken the wings of an angel. I do not hang my head snarling: I want at least to suffer your victory with the angelic suffering of your harmony, of your joy. But my coarse heart aches as with love for a man.

  And from such large hands emerges the embarrassed word.

  The Conjurings of Dona Frozina

  (“As maniganças de Dona Frozina”)

  “Even on this pocket change . . .”

  That’s what the widow Dona Frozina says about her monthly pension. But it’s enough for her to afford Leite de Rosas and take real baths with the milky liquid. People say her skin is spectacular. She’s been using the same product since she was a girl and she smells like a mother.

  She is very Catholic and practically lives in churches. Smelling like Leite de Rosas the whole time. Like a little girl. She was widowed at twenty-nine. And from then on — not a man in sight. A widow in the old-fashioned way. Severe. Nothing low-cut and always in long sleeves.

  “Dona Frozina, how did you get by without a man?” I want to ask her.

  The answer would be:

  “Conjurings, my girl, conjurings.”

  They say of her: plenty of young people don’t have her spirit. She’s in her seventies, the finest of ladies, Dona Frozina. She’s a good mother-in-law and a fantastic grandmother. She was a good breeder. And kept on bearing fruit. I’d like to have a serious conversation with Dona Frozina.

  “Dona Frozina, do you have anything to do with Dona Flor and her three husbands?”

  “Good gracious, my dear, what a terrible sin! I’m a virgin widow, my child.”

  Her husband was named Epaminondas, nicknamed Buddy.

  Look, Dona Frozina, there are worse names than yours. There’s a woman named Flor de Lis — and since people thought it was an awful name, they gave her an even worse nickname: Minhora. It’s almost minhoca, worm. And what about parents who name their kids Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium and France? You did escape being a country, ma’am. You and your conjurings. “Not much money in it,” she says, “but it’s amusing.”

  Amusing how, ma’am? So you haven’t experienced pain? Have you been finding a way around pain all your life? Yes, ma’am, thanks to my conjurings I kept escaping.

  Dona Frozina doesn’t drink Coca-Cola. She thinks it’s too modern.

  “But everyone drinks it!”

  “Not me, Heaven forbid! it even tastes like tapeworm medicine, God bless me and keep me!”

  But if she thinks it tastes like medicine that means she’s tried it.

  Dona Frozina invokes the name of God more than she should. One shouldn’t take God’s name in vain. But with her this rule doesn’t hold.

  And she clings to the saints. The saints are already sick of her, she’s pestered them so much. Not to mention “Our Lady”; the mother of Jesus gets no peace. And, since she’s from the
north, she’s always saying: “Holy Mary!” whenever something astonishes her. And there’s a lot to astonish an innocent widow.

  Dona Frozina would pray every night. She’d say a prayer to every saint. Then disaster struck: she fell asleep halfway through.

  “Dona Frozina, how awful, dozing off halfway through your prayers and leaving the saints on their own!”

  She answered with a dismissive wave:

  “Ah, my child, it’s every man for himself.”

  She had the oddest dream: she dreamed she saw the Christ on Corcovado — and where were his outstretched arms? They were tightly crossed, and Christ looked fed up as if to say: deal with it yourselves, I’ve had it. It was a sin, that dream.

  Dona Frozina, enough of conjurings. Keep your Leite de Rosas and “io me ne vado.” (Is that how you say it in Italian when you want to leave?)

  Dona Frozina, finest of ladies, I’m the one who’s had it with you. Farewell, then. I dozed off halfway through the prayer.

  P. S. Look up conjurings in the dictionary. But I’ll do you the favor: manigança, conjuring — sleight of hand; mysterious trick, art of hocus-pocus. (From the Shorter Brazilian Dictionary of the Portuguese Language).

  One detail before I’m done:

  Dona Frozina, when she was a child, up in Sergipe, used to eat squatting behind the kitchen door. Nobody knows why.

  That’s Where I’m Going

  (“É para lá que eu vou”)

  Beyond the ear there is a sound, at the far end of sight a view, at the tips of the fingers an object — that’s where I’m going.

  At the tip of the pencil the line.

  Where a thought expires is an idea, at the final breath of joy another joy, at the point of the sword magic — that’s where I’m going.

  At the tips of the toes the leap.

  It’s like the story of someone who went and didn’t return — that’s where I’m going.

  Or am I? Yes, I’m going. And I’ll return to see how things are. Whether they’re still magic. Reality? I await you all. That’s where I’m going.

  At the tip of the word is the word. I want to use the word “soirée” and don’t know where and when. At the edge of the soirée is the family. At the edge of the family am I. At the edge of I is me. To me is where I’m going. And from me I go out to see. See what? to see what exists. After I am dead to reality is where I’m going. For now it is a dream. A fateful dream. But later — later all is real. And the free soul seeks a place to settle into. Me is an I that I proclaim. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the nothing. I am nothing. Once dead I shall expand and disperse, and someone will say my name with love.

  To my poor name is where I’m going.

  And from there I’ll return to call the names of my beloved and my sons. They will answer me. At last I shall have an answer. What answer? that of love. Love: I love you all so much. I love love. Love is red. Jealousy is green. My eyes are green. But they’re so dark a green that in photographs they look black. My secret is having green eyes and nobody knows it.

  At the far end of me is I. I, imploring, I the one who needs, who begs, who cries, who laments. Yet who sings. Who speaks words. Words on the wind? who cares, the winds bring them back and I possess them.

  I at the edge of the wind. The wuthering heights call to me. I go, witch that I am. And I am transmuted.

  Oh, dog, where is your soul? is it at the edge of your body? I am at the edge of my body. And I waste away slowly.

  What am I saying? I am saying love. And at the edge of love are we.

  Dead Man in the Sea at Urca

  (“O morto no mar da Urca”)

  I was at the apartment of Dona Lourdes, the seamstress, trying on my dress painted by Olly — and Dona Lourdes said: a man died in the sea, look at all the lifeguards. I looked and all I saw was the sea that must have been very salty, blue sea, white houses. What about the dead man?

  The dead man in brine. I don’t want to die! I screamed mutely inside my dress. The dress is yellow and blue. What about me? dying of heat, not dead from the blue sea.

  I’m going to tell a secret: my dress is lovely and I don’t want to die. On Friday the dress will be at my house, and on Saturday I’ll wear it. No death, just blue sea. Are there yellow clouds? There are golden ones. I don’t have a story. Does the dead man? He does: he went to swim in the sea at Urca, the fool, and died, who gave the order? I swim in the sea with caution, I’m not an idiot, and I only go to Urca to try on dresses. And three blouses. S. came along. She’s meticulous when it comes to fittings. What about the dead man? meticulously dead?

  I’m going to tell a story: once upon a time there was a still-young man who enjoyed swimming in the sea. And then, one Wednesday morning he went to Urca. In Urca, on the rocks of Urca, I don’t go because it’s full of rats. But the young man didn’t care about the rats. Nor did the rats care about him. The white row houses in Urca. He cared about those. Then there was a woman trying on a dress and who got there too late: the young man was already dead. Salty. Were there piranhas in the sea? I pretended not to understand. I really don’t understand death. A young man dead?

  Dead from being the fool he was. You should only go to Urca to try on cheerful dresses. The woman, that’s me, wants only cheerfulness. But I bow before death. Which shall come, shall come, shall come. When? that’s the thing, it can come at any moment. But I, who was trying on the dress in the morning heat, asked for a proof of God. And I smelled the most intense thing, an overwhelmingly intense fragrance of roses. So I had fitting proof, the fitting and the proof; of the dress and of God.

  One should only die of natural causes, never from disaster, never from drowning in the sea. I beg protection for my loved ones, who are many. And this protection, I am sure, shall come.

  But what about the young man? and his story? He might have been a student. I’ll never know. I just stood looking at the sea and the houses. Dona Lourdes unflappable, asking whether to take it in at the waist. I said yes, that waistlines are supposed to look tight. But I was stunned. Stunned in my lovely dress.

  Silence

  (“Silêncio”)

  The silence of the night in the mountains is so vast. It is so desolate. You try in vain to work not to hear it, to think quickly to cover it up. Or to invent some plans, a fragile stitch that barely links us to the suddenly improbable day of tomorrow. How to surmount this peace that spies us. A silence so great that despair is ashamed. Mountains so high that despair is ashamed. The ears prick, the head tilts, the whole body listens: not a murmur. Not a rooster. How to come within reach of this deep meditation on the silence. On that silence without memory of words. If thou art death, how to reach thee.

  It is a silence that does not sleep: it is insomniac: motionless but insomniac; and without ghosts. It is terrible — not a single ghost. It’s no use wanting to people it with the possibility of a door that creaks while opening, of a curtain that opens and says something. It is empty and without promise. If only there were the wind. Wind is fury, fury is life. Or snow. Which is silent but leaves tracks — everything turns white, children laugh, footsteps crunch and leave a mark. There is a continuity that is life. But this silence leaves no trace. You cannot speak of silence as you do of snow. You cannot say to anyone as you say about snow: did you feel the silence last night? Those who did don’t say.

  Night descends with its little joys for those who light the lamps with the weariness that so justifies the day. The children of Bern drop off to sleep, the last doors are shut. The streets shine in the cobblestones and shine empty now. And finally the most distant lights go out.

  But this first silence is still not the silence. Wait, for the leaves in the trees will settle down better, some belated step on the stairs may be heard with hope.

  But there’s a moment when from the rested body the spirit rises alert, and from the earth the moon up high.
Then it, the silence, appears.

  The heart beats upon recognizing it.

  You could quickly think about the day that has passed. Or about friends who have passed and are forever lost. But there’s no use avoiding it: there is the silence. Even the worst suffering, that of lost friendship, is just an escape. For if at first the silence seems to await an answer — how much do we burn to be called to answer — early on you discover that it demands nothing of you, perhaps only your silence. How many hours are wasted in the dark supposing that the silence is judging you — as we wait in vain to be judged by God. Justifications arise, tragic, forced justifications, excuses humble to the point of indignity. How pleasant it is for the human being to reveal at last his indignity and be forgiven on the argument that he is a human being brought low by birth.

  Until you discover — it doesn’t even want your indignity. It is the silence.

  You can also try to fool it. You can drop, as if by accident, a book from your nightstand. But, the horror — the book falls into the silence and gets lost in its mute and frozen vortex. And if a deranged bird began to sing? A useless hope. The song would merely graze the silence like a faint flute.

  So, if you are brave, you won’t fight it. You enter it, go along with it, we the only ghosts on a night in Bern. You must enter. You mustn’t wait for the remaining darkness while faced with it, only it alone. It will be as if we were on a ship so uncommonly enormous that we didn’t realize we were on a ship. And it sailed so far and wide that we didn’t realize we were moving. A man cannot do more than that. Living on the shores of death and of the stars is a tenser vibration than the veins can take. There is not even the child of a celestial body and a woman to act as a pious intermediary. The heart must appear before the nothing alone and alone beat high in the darkness. The only thing sounding in your ears is your own heart. When it appears completely naked, it is not even communication, it is submission. For we were made for nothing but the small silence.