Near to the Wild Heart

by Clarice Lispector

  After a moment's hesitation, Joana saw that she had envied her, that half-dead creature who was smiling and had spoken to her in an unfamiliar tone of voice. Above all, she went on thinking, she understands life because she is not sufficiently intelligent not to understand it. But what was the use of trying to reason things out... Were she to reach the point of understanding her, without going mad in the process, she wouldn't be able to preserve knowledge as knowledge but would transform it into an attitude, into an attitude of life, the only way of possessing knowledge and of fully expressing it. And that attitude would not be very different from the one in which the woman with the voice reposed. The paths of action were so impoverished. She made a quick, impatient movement with her head. She grabbed a pencil, and on a piece of paper scribbled decisively in bold letters: 'The personality that ignores itself achieves greater fulfilment.' True or false? But in a sense she had taken her revenge by casting her cold intelligent thought over that woman swollen with life.

  Otávio

  'De Profundis'. Joana waited for the idea to become clearer, for that tenuous and luminous bubble, the germ of a thought, to rise from the mists. 'De Profundis'. She felt it vacillate, almost lose its balance and sink forever into unknown waters. Or at certain moments, push back the clouds and tremulously grow, emerging almost completely... Then silence.

  She closed her eyes, gradually she began to rest. When she opened them again, she received a tiny shock. And during the intense, prolonged moments that followed, she recognized that stretch of life as the combination of what she had lived and what remained to be lived, fused together and eternal. Strange, strange. The amber light on the stroke of nine, that impression of an interval, a distant piano being played with emphasis on the sharp notes, her heart beating furiously as it met the morning heat, and behind everything, the throbbing silence, ferocious and menacing, dense and impalpable. Everything began to fade. The piano interrupted its insistence on those final notes and after a momentary pause gently resumed with some middle notes, producing a vivid straightforward melody. And soon she wouldn't be able to tell whether her impression of the morning had been real or simply an idea. She lingered, attentively trying to place it... A sudden weariness confused her for a moment. Her nerves forgotten, her face relaxed, she felt a gentle gust of tenderness for herself, almost of gratitude, even though she couldn't explain why. For a second, it struck her that she had lived and that her life was coming to an end. And immediately afterwards, that everything had been blank so far, like an empty space, that she could hear, remote and muffled, the clamour of life approaching, dense, torrential and violent, its mighty waves rending the sky, coming closer and closer ... to submerge her, to drown her, suffocating her...

  She went up to the window, stretched her hands outside and waited in vain for a little wind to come and caress them. And there she remained, oblivious of everything, for some considerable time. She blocked her ears by contracting the muscles of her face, her closed eyes barely allowing the light to penetrate, her head leaning forward. Little by little, she managed to isolate herself completely. This semi-conscious state, where she had the impression of plunging deeply into grey, lukewarm air... She stood in front of the mirror and muttered to herself, her eyes burning with hatred:

  — And now what?

  She couldn't fail to notice her own face, small and flushed. This distracted her momentarily, helping her to forget her anger. Some little thing always occurred just in time to divert her from the main torrent. She was so vulnerable. Did she hate herself for this? No, she would hate herself more if she were already an immutable tree-trunk until death, capable only of yielding fruits but not of growing within herself. She craved for even more: to be constantly reborn, to cut away everything she had learned, that she had seen, and to make a fresh start in some new terrain where even the most trifling act might have some meaning, where she might breathe air as if for the very first time. She had the feeling that dense life was flowing slowly inside her, bubbling like a sheet of hot lava. Perhaps if she were to fall in love... And if the thought seemed remote, the piercing blast of a trumpet might suddenly sever that mantle of night and leave the fields empty, green, and vast... And then excitable, white horses rebelliously craning and rearing, almost flying, might cross rivers, mountains, valleys... Thinking about them, she felt the fresh air circulate inside her as if it were escaping from some hidden grotto, damp and fresh in the middle of the desert.

  But she soon returned to her senses, in vertical descent. She examined her arms and legs. There she was. There she was. But she must first distract herself, she thought, with firmness and irony. With urgency. For might she not die? She laughed aloud and took a quick glance at herself in the mirror to observe the effect of that laughter on her face. No, no it didn't make it brighter. She looked like a wild cat, her eyes burning above her red cheeks, covered in dark freckles, her brown hair dishevelled over her eyebrows. She perceived in herself a sombre and triumphant purple. What was she doing that she should glow like this? Weariness ... Yes, despite everything, there was fire beneath her weariness, there was fire even when it represented death. Perhaps this was the taste of living.

  Once more she was overcome by sheer, inexplicable weariness. Ah, perhaps I should go, perhaps... She closed her eyes for a moment, permitting herself the birth of a gesture or of a phrase without logic. She always did this, confident that deep down, beneath the lava, there might be a desire already directed to some goal. Sometimes, when she closed the doors of consciousness through a special mechanism not unlike that of lapsing into sleep, and allowed herself to act or speak, she was surprised to receive — for she only perceived the gesture at the moment of its execution — a slap on her face from her own hand. Sometimes she heard strange gibberish coming from her lips. Even without understanding those words, they brought a sense of relief, and greater freedom.

  And from the core of herself, after a moment of silence and abandon, there surged, at first pale and hesitant, then increasingly compelling and painful: I summon you from the depths... I summon you from the depths... I summon you from the depths... She remained still for a few more minutes, her expression vacant, listless and weary, as if she had given birth to a child. Little by little, she started to be reborn, she opened her eyes slowly and returned to the light of day. Fragile, breathing quietly, happy as a convalescent enjoying that first moment of fresh air.

  Then she began to think that she had actually prayed. Not her. Something greater than her and of which she was unaware had prayed. But she had no desire to pray because she knew that prayer would be the remedy. But a remedy like morphine that numbs any kind of pain. Like the morphine one needs in ever increasing doses in order to feel any effect. No, no she was not so worn out that she should be cowardly enough to want to pray instead of discovering pain, of suffering and possessing it entirely in order to experience all pain's mysteries. And even if she were to pray... She would end up in a convent because all the morphine in the world would not be enough to satisfy her craving. And this would be the final degradation: addiction. Yet unless she were to seek an external god by some natural cause, she would finish up deifying herself in order to explore her own sorrow, by loving her past, by seeking refuge and warmth in her own thoughts, born initially with a desire for a work of art and later serving as familiar nourishment during periods of sterility. She was in danger of establishing and regimenting herself inside suffering, which would also be an addiction and form of sedation.

  What was to be done then? What was to be done to interrupt that path, to grant herself some respite between her and herself in order to be able to re-encounter herself without danger, renewed and pure?

  What was to be done?

  The piano was deliberately attacked with measured uniform scales. Exercises, she thought. Exercises... Yes, she discovered feeling amused... Why not? Why not try to fall in love? Why not try to live?

  Pure music unfolding in some uninhabited land, Otávio mused. Moments still without adjec
tives. Unconscious like the primitive life that pulsates in the blind, impassive trees, in the tiny insects that are born, fly, perish and are reborn unobserved. Meantime the music gyrates and develops, they live the dawn, the powerful day, the night, with one constant note in the symphony, that of transformation. This is music which is not sustained by things, by space or time, the same colour as life and death. The life and death in ideas, isolated from pleasure and pain. So remote from any human qualities that they might be confused with silence. Silence. Silence, because this music would be the necessary one, the only possible one, the vibrant projection of matter. And in the same way as one doesn't understand matter or perceive it until the senses come up against it, no one hears its melody.

  And then? — he thought. To close my eyes and hear my own music which trickles slow and dark like a muddy river. Cowardice is lukewarm and I'm resigned to it, laying down all the heroic weapons which twenty-seven years of thought have granted me. What am I today, at this moment? A trampled, silent leaf, fallen to the ground. No movement of air to rustle it. Scarcely breathing so as not to awaken. But why not, above all, why not use the appropriate words and entangle and envelop myself in images? Why call myself a withered leaf when I am merely a man with folded arms?

  Once more, amidst futile reasoning, he was overcome by weariness, a feeling of despondency. To pray, to pray. To kneel before God and beg. For what? Absolution. Such a long word, so full of meaning. He was not guilty — or was he? Guilty of what? He knew that he was, however, he clung to the thought — he was not guilty, but how he would love to receive absolution. On his forehead the broad, plump finger of God, blessing him like a good father, a father made from earth and universe, embracing everything, without omitting to possess even a particle that might later say to him: yes, but I have not forgiven you! Then there would be an end to the silent accusation which all things harboured against him.

  What did he think after all? For how long had he been stuck there playing this game with himself? He made some gesture or other.

  Cousin Isabel came into the room. 'Blessed, blessed, blessed', her hasty, short-sighted glance was saying, anxious to withdraw. She only abandoned that air of being a stranger when she sat down at the piano. Otávio flinched as he used to when he was a little boy. She then smiled, became human, lost that piercing look. She became more amiable and relaxed in her manner. Seated at the piano, her cracked lips covered in powder, she played Chopin, Chopin, especially the waltzes.

  My fingers have become stiff, she said, proud of being able to play from memory. As she spoke, she threw her head back, suddenly appearing coquettish as if she were a dancer in a cabaret. Otávio blushed. Whore, he thought, and erased the word at once with a painful movement. But how dare she? He remembered her face leaning over him attentively, concerned about his stomach-ache. That's why I detest her, he thought illogically. And it was always too late: the thought anticipated him. Whore — as if he were thrashing himself with a whip. Yet even though he repented, he would sin again. How often as a child, just before falling asleep, he would suddenly become aware that Aunt Isabel was in the bed, unable to sleep, perhaps sitting up, her grey hair tied into a pigtail, her flannel nightdress buttoned up to the neck like that of a virgin. Remorse like acid pervaded his body. But he detested her more and more because he could not love her.

  She was no longer capable of achieving as before that smooth transition from one note to another, that sensation of trance. One sound stuck to the other, harsh, syncopated, and the waltzes exploded, feeble, spasmodic and flawed. From time to time, the slow, hollow chimes of the old clock rang out, dividing the music into asymmetrical bars. Otávio remained there waiting for the next stroke, his heart in his mouth. As if those chimes were precipitating all things in a silent dance of sweet insanity. Those implacable chimes interrupting the music with the same cold and smiling tone, threw him back on himself as if into a void without any support. He watched his aunt's firm shoulders, her hands — two swarthy creatures leaping over the piano's yellow keys. She turned round and said to him, conceding the phrase out of sheer euphoria, graciously, like someone throwing flowers:

  — What's ailing you? I'm now going to play you something more cheerful...

  She broke into one of those ballroom waltzes, spontaneous and jumpy, which he couldn't recall having heard before but which were mysteriously connected with fragmented memories of the past.

  — Not that one, Auntie, not that one...

  It was too absurd by far. He was afraid. To beg forgiveness because he didn't feel ecstatic about her playing, to beg forgiveness because he had found her unbearable even as a little boy, with that smell of musty clothes, of jewellery ingrained with dust, as he watched her prepare him 'a nice little cup of tea to settle his tummy', when she promised to play him something pretty if he finished his homework. He could see her once more leaving the house. Her grey skin floured in talcum powder, her low, curved neckline exposing her neck where the veins stood out dramatically. Her low-heeled pumps like those worn by teenage girls, her umbrella brandished with disarming vigour, as if it were a walking stick. To beg forgiveness for wishing — no, no! — that she might finally die. -He shuddered, began to sweat. But I am not to blame! Oh! To go away, to plan his book on civil law, to get away from that horrible world, so repugnantly intimate and human.

  — Now I'm going to play 'Birdsong in Spring' — Cousin Isabel informed him.

  Yes, yes. I long for spring...Help me. I'm suffocating. Ridiculous spring had never been more spring-like and joyful.

  — This melody reminds me of a blue rose, she said, half turning in his direction and smiling with a hint of perversity. Suddenly on that dry, wrinkled face, like a vein of water in the desert, the two little diamonds trembled on her withered ears, two tiny moist drops that sparkled. Ah, how exceedingly fresh and voluptuous... The old woman had possessions. But if she wore those drop earrings it was for a reason he never discovered: she herself had bought the diamonds and arranged to have them mounted as earrings, she carried them like two phantoms under her grey bristly hair.

  This music reminds me of a blue rose, she had said, well aware that only she could understand what she meant. From experience, he knew that he should ask her to explain that expression and patiently give her the pleasure of answering him, biting her lower lip:

  — Ah, that's my little secret.

  This time, however, the exciting little game they'd played so often, did not take place. He simply avoided looking at the old woman and confronting her disappointment. He got up and went to knock at his fiancée's door.

  She was sewing near the window. He closed the door, locked it and knelt down beside her. He rested his head on her bosom and once more inhaled that tepid, cloying scent of old roses. She continued to smile, absent, almost mysterious, as if she were listening attentively to the gentle current of a river flowing within her breast.

  — Otávio, Otávio, she said in a hushed and distant voice. None of the inhabitants in that household, neither his unmarried cousin, nor Lídia, nor the servants, was alive -Otávio thought. Not true — he corrected himself: only he was dead. But he continued: ghosts, ghosts. Those remote voices, no expectations, happiness.

  — Lídia, he said, forgive me.

  — For what? — she felt a little apprehensive.

  — For everything.

  She vaguely believed she should agree and remained silent. Otávio, Otávio. It was so much easier to speak to other human beings. Were she not so deeply in love with him, how difficult she would find it to put up with all the misunderstandings on his part. They only understood each other when they kissed, when Otávio rested his head like this, on her bosom. But life was much more drawn-out, she thought with dismay. There would be moments when she would look straight at him without being able to extend her hand to touch him. And then — that oppressive silence. He would always be detached from her and they would only be able to communicate during special moments -moments of intense life threatened by dea
th. But this was not enough... Their life together was essential precisely in order to live those other moments, she thought in terror, struggling to reason. She would only be able to utter the essential words to Otávio, as if he were some deity anxious to be off. If she embarked on one of those leisurely aimless conversations, which she so thoroughly enjoyed, she could see him grow impatient or observe his expression become exceedingly forbearing and heroic. Otávio, Otávio... What could she do? His approach worked like magic, transformed her into someone who was truly alive, the blood pulsing through her veins. Or else it failed to rouse her. It lulled her as if he were simply approaching by stealth to perfect her.

  She knew that it was useless to take any decisions regarding her own destiny. She had loved Otávio from the moment he had loved her, ever since they were children, under the contented eye of his cousin. And she would always love him. It was useless to follow other paths, when her steps were guiding her along only one. Even when he wounded her, she took refuge in him against him. She was so weak. Instead of suffering upon recognizing her weakness, she rejoiced: she somehow knew, without being able to explain it, that from this weakness came her support for Otávio. She sensed that he was suffering, that he was hiding something alive and distressed in his soul and that she could only help him by explaining all the passiveness that lay dormant in her being.